A new version of the yellow peril. Once they were going to come down and invade us. Now the Liberal-National would be Treasurer is just going to make us more like them. Reduce the spending on Australian pensions first with the wage reductions no doubt to come next.

Joe Hockey the macho-man, with his comments from Europe overnight, has just given me my first doubt about the inevitability of Labor losing the next election.

The reality of separation. From the team that brought us Big Brother comes the next reality TV special where in episode one the parents explain to the kiddies that Daddy has packed his stuff and is off to live with Astrid.

Yes. Divorce has hit the screens in Holland albeit not without some controversy.

Political parties like the Christian Democrats and the Christian Union are outraged.

“You should not want to harm children. This is a bizarre entertainment program on child distress. Did the parents ever the importance of their children think?” said the irate Christian Democrats MP Hanke Bruins Slot.

Over a million people watched episode one.

Out of this world. A picture like this surely makes you feel somewhat insignificant in the whole scheme of things.

The image of 30 Doradus, a star-forming complex located in the heart of the Tarantula nebula, comprises one of the largest mosaics ever assembled from Hubble photos and includes observations taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys. Hubble made the observations in October 2011. NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute are releasing the image to celebrate Hubble’s 22nd anniversary.

The cost of fraud. The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that a total of 1.2 million Australians aged 15 years and over were a victim of at least one incident of personal fraud in the 12 months prior to interview in 2010-11. This equates to a national victimisation rate for personal fraud of 6.7% of the population aged 15 years and over, an increase from the 806,000 victims of personal fraud in 2007 (5.0%).

Australians lost $1.4 billion in 2010-11 due to personal fraud. Three in five victims of personal fraud (60% or 713,600 persons) lost money, an average of $2,000 per victim who incurred a financial loss. The median loss for personal fraud was $300. This means that half the number of people who lost money due to personal fraud lost less than $300 and half lost more than $300.

Some news and views noted along the way.