So the very unknown Belgian PM Herman van Rompuy, has been elected as EU President- taking up a position that could be instrumental in the future of the region and global international relations in general.

Only a day later, on the opposite and non-EU side of Europe, Russian and Ukrainian officials met, with Putin announcing that he would be easing gas supply terms to a neighbour that is crucial for Russia's European pipelines. 

Is it too cynical to think this isn't it a coincidence? 

Is it unreasonable to think that as Putin spins a tighter trade web with Former Soviet Republics that this could be his attempt to stand tall and unthreatened by a stronger EU?

For worried farmers, Rudd's announcement that agriculture would permanently be outside the ETS must have brought some relief. The announcement was also sweetened when the possibility was raised that farmers may be able to buy carbon credits with good land management and a reduction of carbon emissions.

While admiring the large Paddy Bedford painting which resides on the wall of our living room, a painting that has more than tripled in value since the death of Bedford in 2007, I ponder: has the commercialisation of indigenous culture missed the point completely?

Amid a drink with a fellow HPD comrade, we speculated about the reality of this type of art and the unlikelihood of it being found in a housing commission in Redfern or being exhibited in the townships of rural N.T.

There is an irony in the fact that, in Australia, indigenous art on canvas has become affordable only to non indigenous Australians and further more that painting on canvas is also a western-made form of painting.

(I am waiting for aged hippies to inform me that I "haven't travelled enough")  

So Obama is on a whirlwind tour through Asia, espousing the message of 'Pacific' solidarity. On his trip he's been preaching that "the rise of a strong, prosperous China can be a source of strength for the community of nations" and that the US "does not seek to contain" China's rise as a big player on the world stage. 

Yet what other choice does the US and Obama have?

The political realities of today tell us that the world and its international institutions will soon be distorted as another lumbering giant enters the fray. It's also a reality that for any successful tomorrow China will have to feature prominently; something that due to inherent cultural and governmental differences will cause friction with the established Western/Free Market model so deeply ingrained in today's thinking.

So how seriously can we believe Obama? Well really we'll just have to wait and see, but if history tells us anything, the rise of China will be anything but 'pacific'. 

Lance Kavanaugh, Senior Product Counsel for YouTube, explained at a meeting in Sydney, that every minute of every day, YouTube uploads 20 hours of videos. So for you to review just one day’s content will take you three years!

Uploads are limited to 10 minutes. YouTube is, thus, doing for video media what tabloids did for news media. Little bits of stuff. Lots of them. Not too taxing on the brain cells and who cares about what’s missing!

It strikes me that Tweets present a similar dynamic. Max 140 characters – including spaces. Frame on.

It’s small wonder cigarettes, McDonalds and iTunes are so popular.

Another day, another shambling trip home hung-over. The day, like every other post-drunk night was a blur; like cotton-wool had covered my brain, sounds were softer and every movement was an exercise in pain and regret.

And it was all the worse that it was a Thursday afternoon.

School kids were on excursions, young mums pushed prams, and bright happy people looked bright happy and healthy. I though walked through them like I was walking through mud and to cap it off I looked like something that had crawled out from under a slimy rock. 

If it was a Saturday or Sunday then this feeling would be oddly exhilarating. I would know that everybody tut-tutting me was really just jealous and that they were looking back wistfully to a time where a couple of days a week could be written off to doing nothing.

A Thursday though is different, nobody looked at me with envy, nobody really even looked at me at all. I was a solid shadow that people tried to look through and it made me feel all the worse for it. 

Take all the power stations in the United States. Together, they produce almost 1000 gigawatts of electricity - enough to boil several billion kettles simultaneously.

Now imagine building another five power stations for every one that already exists in the United States. That is about the amount of electricity generation that the world is on track to add over the next 20 years.

And three-quarters of the new stations will use fossil fuels. These startling figures were released today by the International Energy Agency. The agency predicts that between a quarter and a third of the new capacity will be built in China, which generates over 40 per cent of its electricity from coal. This will lead to huge increases in carbon dioxide emissions.

The agency has previously said that the current recession has helped rein in emissions, but that effect will not last. The report predicts that 40 billion tonnes of CO2 will be emitted worldwide in 2030, around twice the figure for 1990.

That would put us on a path towards a future in which atmospheric carbon dioxide levels top 1000 parts per million and average global temperature rise by up to 6 °C. Many scientists think that that our goal should be a maximum rise of 2 °C and that 4 °C would cause severe flooding and drought.

The agency describes our current trajectory as almost certain to cause "irreparable" damage to the planet. We are not, of course, locked into this future. The agency's calculation come from a modelling exercise in which we continue on the path we are on now, rather than switch to low-carbon technologies like solar power.

Many governments have already committed to changes, albeit limited ones, so the most dire aspects of the agency's predictions will not come to pass. But they are a useful reminder of just how wrong things will go if we do not take action.

Originally published at New Scientist, click view for more information

The viral 'Rickrolling' campaign, that inadvertently tricked people into playing Rick Astley's 1987 hit "Never Going to Give you Up" has recently hit Australian iPhones, leaving users in a panic as so far, there is no antidote. Researchers are saying this attack is the world's first iPhone worm, which targets jail broken iPhones (which for the layman are phones that have been unlocked from the service provider).

For the layman as well,  when a user jailbreaks an iPhone they are able to access the thousands of applications that didn't conform to the apple guidelines (i.e porn), however it makes the iPhone vulnerable as the terms of the warranty are automatically void. 

The worm, aware of this fact, operates by showing a picture of Rick Astley, with the wall paper displaying the message "ikee is never going to give you up". Users who tried to delete the image, found they were unsuccessful when they rebooted their phone.

So far the worm is only in Australia, however now that the idea has surfaced I feel there will be a lot of copycat hackers. So, if you do jailbreak your iPhone make sure to change the root password to avoid these nasty complications.

Nathan Rees recently implemented harsh new laws regarding graffiti and street art. The disgruntled Premier of NSW believes the possession of a can of spray-paint is worth a maximum of six months imprisonment for youth, provided they can’t justify themselves. Along with the introduction of these laws, Rees has announced his plans for an annual graffiti clean-up day, an event that doesn’t share the same promise (but certainly the same scaffolding) as Clean up Australia Day.

Six months is substantial amount of time for the possession of a can of paint, especially considering the leniency of the police and courts regarding drug possession charges. When did spray-paint overtake smack in the great race of illegal possessions? Not to mention these laws are directed mainly at minors; is it really worth locking kids up over something as trivial as this?

What we are lacking is street-art with class. The Premier does live in Western Sydney, and it’s no secret that things are done a little differently out that way, so maybe he’s getting the wrong impression of DIY urban decoration. But how is it graffiti manages to look so fucking cool all over the world, except in the glorious City of Sydney? Riddle me that.

Go Banksy, go!

The $300+ million bale out of James Hardie Industries asbestosis fund by the Australian State and Federal Governments is another disgraceful chapter in the history of this apology for a company.

The deal struck in 2007 gave the directors a get out clause if its cash flows fall. And they have seen to hide behind this feature so as not to put any money into the fund for the last two years despite their moral obligation to meet the needs of asbestos victims.

So now these corporate vipers are being supported by the taxpayers of Australia and NSW with loans that do not have to be repaid until 2020.

Presumably by then the snakes will have shed their corporate skins to resurface in a new jurisdiction (Australia, Holland, Ireland – ummm!-let’s try Russia) which will insulate them from meeting their obligations.

Matt Peacock has got it right. James Hardie is a killer company and its directors are criminals.

http://mattpeacock.net/killercompany.html