Friday, September 14, 2012

Arithmetic

Here's an emailed blurb about campaign finance that I found quite insightful and to the point (kind of scary too!). Full disclosure - it came from the Obama campaign.

Sheldon Adelson, the conservative billionaire Las Vegas casino owner, has pledged to give up to $100 million -- whatever it takes -- to defeat Barack Obama.

We know it's not out of love for Mitt Romney, so why part with so much money? As President Clinton reminded us last week, sometimes the answer is as simple as arithmetic.

So let's do the math: According to a new report from the Center for American Progress Action Fund, Adelson could see up to $2 billion in savings under Mitt Romney's tax plan versus the President's plan. That's how much Romney's policies would favor millionaires and billionaires.

If Mitt Romney wins -- $2 billion more for Adelson. If Barack Obama wins, millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share.

It's a highly cynical but straightforward calculation

Monday, September 10, 2012

Deep Patriotism


"Deep patriots don't just sing the song, 'America the Beautiful' and then go home. We actually stick around to defend America’s beauty -- from the oil spillers, the clear-cutters and the mountaintop removers. Deep patriots don't just visit the Statue of Liberty and send a postcard home to grandma. We defend the principles upon which that great monument was founded -- 'give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.'"
-Van Jones
A Thought provoking quote for today. Excellent in reclaiming patriotic symbols in service of valuing the collective investment required to sustain both "America the Beautiful" and "America the melting pot".
Also made me think about "Slow Patriotism" (a la Slow Food, Slow Money . . .) - that the investment required is a long-term investment not a quick-fix.
Interesting in reading more from Rebuild the Dream . . . click here
Deep Patriot t-shirt

Friday, February 10, 2012

Here's a great list and review of Ten WordCloud Generators from Tech & Learning Advisors Blog http://www.techlearning.com/
(Michael Gorman) Welcome to a post that covers those other ten Word Cloud Generators and some are pretty amazing! While Wordle is the king of Word Cloud Generators here are some other word cloud tools that have some outstanding capabilities that are worth investigation. Each tool provides a unique way that can be used in the classroom to facilitate the creation and study of word clouds. I especially was impressed with a few tools that actually helped students analyze a group of text using more than just the generated cloud, another that allows the user to be creative with the cloud shape, and still another that connects words in the cloud to web pages! Thanks for the visit, and as always please feel free to follow me on Twitter (mjgormans), I will follow back and we can learn from each other. Also, be sure to visit my 21centuryedtech Blog and check out all of the free resources at my 21centuryedtech Wiki! – Have a great week and enjoy the read! – Mike
Wordle – (http://www.wordle.net) The king of word cloud generators ...

Tagxedo - (http://www.tagxedo.com/) ... The website proclaims, “Tag Clouds with Style”, a mission I feel was accomplished. ...

ABC Ya - (http://www.abcya.com/word_clouds.htm) This application may be the most Wordle like and, in fact, operates much like Wordle. ..

Tagul - (http://tagul.com/) – Tagul has some features that Wordle doesn’t, like custom shapes selection and multiple fonts usage in one cloud. ...

Word It Out (http://worditout.com/) –...This application allows the word cloud to be customized by size, font, and color scheme.

Tag Crowd (http://tagcrowd.com/) – While it does not give the color,unique style, or layout variation of of Wordle, it does allow one to see frequency of words. ...

Wordsift - (http://www.wordsift.com/) – This hidden gem from Stanford University does not give the pretty effects of Wordle, but does give several awesome features that allow students to really analyze a word cloud. ...

Make Word Mosiac – (http://www.imagechef.com/ic/word_mosaic/) – A creative tool put out by Image Chef. This is one tool in their suite of tools to be used for people who like to create. It allows for different shapes, colors, and fonts. ...

VocabGrabber – (http://www.visualthesaurus.com/vocabgrabber/) – Another creative tool that allows students to analyze a group of words. ...

TagCloudGenerator – (http://www.tag-cloud.de/) – This is a service that does not allow pasting in of text, but instead goes to a website that is entered by the user. ...

TagCloud - (http://www.tagcloud.com) – A word cloud generator since 2005 and is currently offline getting an overhaul. It is listed here so that it can be reviewed when it is back on-line.
http://www.techlearning.com/default.aspx?tabid=67&entryid=364