I think that the Sydney Harbor fireworks display takes the cake as being the world's best. What is interesting is that they manage to maintain the title year after year and leave the competition in the dust - when you would think that at some point somebody would start to catch up. Apparently the way to stay on top is to double the amount of explosives every year. Last night's display was totally awesome. 

What you would think of as an awesome grand finale anywhere else in the world is just the background display here. What's more, that's what's happening on just one barge in the bay. Now imagine taking your most awesome spectacle, and having it happen simultaneously on five or six barges in a line down the harbor, all of them completely synchronized - to each other and to the background music. 

Then if that weren't enough, you've got the display on the harbor bridge itself - the centerpiece. The spectacle here is completely over the top.  Some of us were surprised to still see the bridge standing at the end. Wave after wave of synchronized streams of light shooting into the sky along the length of the bridge.   

part 1

part2

...One has to wonder if the U.S./Baghdad campaign might have turned out differently had the Sydney pyros been put in charge of the 'shock-and-awe' part.