Portugal – On the slow road to recovery

All of the recent focus has been on Greece as Europe lurches towards in inevitable crisis but there have been several other European countries who have been really suffering in the past two to three years, Spain, Italy, Ireland and Portugal. I was asked a few days ago by one of my regular readers Rick to have a look at Portugal and today I am pleased to do so. The only problem with Portugal is to know which chart to use since the country has a long colourful history. Because we are looking at modern financial problems, I decided to look at the 1974 Carnation revolution chart, the one formed after the breakdown of Portugal’s overseas empire.

Sacha Baron Cohen – A law unto himself

Like most comedians, Sacha Baron Cohen polarizes opinions. Some love his irreverent comic style laced with more than a drop of irony and others just don’t get it. On the Oscar red carpet last night in a very pre-rehearsed publicity stunt, Cohen dressed at “The Dictator” a character from his upcoming film and tipped the ashes of “Kim Jong Il” all over E! Entertainment’s TV host Ryan Seacrest. The funniest thing about the whole incident were the burly security men dragging Baron Cohen away. The incident however had had it’s desired effect.

Julia Gillard & Kevin Rudd – Could political war seriously undermine both of them?

Australian politics is seeing an almighty punch up right now as Kevin Rudd, the Australian foreign minister resigned his position to openly challenge Prime Minister Julia Gillard. She in turn did not hang around and promptly called a leadership election of the Aussie Labor party with winner takes all as the prize.  There is serious bad blood between the two, as Gillard staged a coup in 2010 to oust Rudd from the Prime Minister’s job. In a swipe at the former Foreign Secretary she said  he was  “running a dysfunctional and chaotic government when he was Prime Minister”. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?

San Francisco 1906 Earthquake – Is the San Andreas fault ready to shift again?

If you live in California, the risk of earthquake damage is ever present as the San Andreas Fault runs right along the spine of the state. The most notorious of all the earthquakes in living memory was the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 which hit at around 7.9 on the Richter scale and claimed around 3000 lives. People have said that a repeat is now overdue. Looking at the astrology, in my opinion we are definitely now in the danger zone for a new rupture along the fault line.