2008 in pictures

(photo AP Photo/Xinhua/Fan Changguo)

These posts are worth checking out for some interesting pictures from over the last 12 months. Just try to ignore the political rantings that people feel the need to divulge in every time images from a certain ongoing conflict in the middle east pop up.
I love the above photo just because the concept of anti-terror police deploying on Segways is pretty amusing in itself. Less amusing is the fact that in the caption for the photo below was the following (for those who claim this image has been digitally altered, here is a larger detail of the photo - the halo is from backlighting, not photoshop). It's worrying to say the least that people will see a photo like this below and immediately assume it's been manipulated. I guess it's good that people are willing to question images and not believe everything they see - but at the same time it's kind of heartbreaking. One of the many grey areas of digital imaging.

(copyright REUTERS/Alessandro Garofalo)