US 08: Who said what

* Click image to enlarge

Word cloud graphic came from the stables of The New York Times.

It is interesting to note that during the Democratic Convention speech Obama used his opponent's name 78 times and spoke about God 22 times.

While during the Republican Convention speech McCain used his opponent's name 25 times and mentioned God 43 times.

The word cloud also gives lie to a recent Obama statement, supported by Biden, that McCain and Palin failed to mention issues affecting middle class Americans.

Amazing Grace...........

With 21 candidates standing at the Clarence Valley local government election, one would think that there would be an embarrassment of talent to choose from.
Sadly this is not the case when one looks at those standing for the first time or standing again after an initial unsuccessful attempt.

However, along with Janet Purcell, Grace Clague is an exception to this dismal field of wannabes.

Grace, an indigenous mother of three from Brushgrove, shone with quiet sincerity when she made a commitment to protect the cultural and economic values of the Clarence River.

She also impressed with her understanding of the financial realities of local government and the need to develop federal and state relationships which can facilitate funding outcomes.

Grace acknowledged that Clarence Valley Council's current differential rating system needed to remain in place and be fine tuned according to changing circumstances.

Reported in The Daily Examiner last Saturday she stated:
I support borrowing strictly controlled levels of finance to spread the cost of very expensive infrastructure, such as water supply, between current and future residents.

Grace Clague gets an 8 out of 10 on my ballot meter.

Frank Sartor can't understand why he's lost out - should we tell him?

Frank Sartor thinks that the current situation, which finds him without his title of planning minister and off the new NSW Rees Government front bench entirely, is all a big mistake.

He told The Age yesterday:

Mr Sartor said in nearly 17 years of elected office, he had made many contributions to the City of Sydney, of which he was former lord mayor, and the state of NSW.

He pointed to his "transformation" of Sydney, the establishment of the Cancer Institute of NSW, the Water and Energy Savings Fund - now the Climate Change Fund, the smoking ban in pubs and clubs and difficult planning reforms.

What Frank Sartor doesn't understand is how the average voter thinks.

While everyone either approves or disapproves of state policy initiatives across a broad range of community concerns, it is the politics of their own streetscapes that brings individual passions to the fore.

When Crankie Frankie stripped away the rights of residents and ratepayers to have any effective say in most local development decisions, he crossed a bridge to far.
One which is likely to cost Labor at the next election.

Premier Rees is obviously hoping that with Sartor gone, NSW voters will forget about those draconian planning reforms.

He is perhaps being overly optimistic, especially in coastal electorates where development pressure is fast stripping local identity away and leaving behind a generic 'retirement and tourism zone'.

Brendan Nelson stuns this mullet

Federal Leader of the Opposition Brendan Nelson was on the ABC TV The Insiders program yesterday morning.

A minute or two into the interview he left me looking like a stunned mullet accidentally beached on the living room carpet, when I heard him calmly suggest interfering in state politics to the extent of finding the means to call an early election in New South Wales three years ahead of the end of this government's term.

Here is what he said:
"Federal Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson says he will examine the constitutional arrangements in New South Wales to see if there is any chance of an early election."

Brendan, that strange hairstyle you sport must be eating through to your brain.
It is not up to any federal pollie to look for ways to wreck a state government or to assist others to do so, no matter how deeply concerned that political lowlife allegedly feels.

21 Economic Models explained with Cows - 2008 update

Clarrie Rivers admits this is not his original work.

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away.

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.
You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows.
No balance sheet provided with the release.
The public then buys your bull.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you
want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
You then create a clever cow cartoon image called 'Cowkimon' and market it worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the **** out of you and invade your country.
You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of a
Democracy.

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive.

Official Lyne & Mayo federal by-election results and WA state election results

For those who like to know the exact details, here are the current numbers for the Lyne federal by-election on the NSW Mid-North Coast and Mayo federal by-election in South Australia, as well as the current figures for the West Australian state election 2008.

• Mayo [Updated: 6/09/2008 9:16:08 PM]
• Lyne [Updated: 6/09/2008 8:09:44 PM]

WA State Electoral Commission updated results here.

The ABC's Antony Green breakdown of polling results here.

Newly independent former Nationals Rob Oakshott romps home in Lyne, Liberals look like winning Mayo and Labor is being trounced in WA but the final outcome still a cliffhanger at this point.

WARNING, WARNING! Digital world domination attempt underway??

Gizmodo sounds a bell about Google's new Chrome browser:

Here are the juicy bits in question:

11. Content license from you

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this license shall permit Google to take these actions.

11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license...............

Why in the hell would Google want ownership of every single blog post or email written in its browser? It's so unreasonable that it borders on the insane. [my emphasis]

Is Google Inc. is developing the same delusions of grandeur as US multinational Monsanto or is this just a sensible commercial decision.

You decide.

Update:

Thanks to an alert reader I now know that Google has backtracked on these license conditions.

Section 11 now reads simply: "11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services."

CNet alerts us to the fact that we still may need to be careful using this new browser as in certain configurations it will transmit and store a user's keystrokes (even before the send key is hit):

All this is separate from the issue of what information Google plans to store on its servers. Provided that users leave on the auto-suggest feature in Chrome and have Google as their default search provider, Google has the right to store any information typed into Chrome's Ominibox, which serves as both search bar and address bar. The software maker told CNET News it plans to store about 2 percent of all such data, along with the IP address of the computer that entered the information.

Given the fact that Google Inc. will cooperate with security and intelligence services when required to by law, this level of information gathering may be of some concern to private individuals and political bloggers.