Animal Logic, a digital production company, is re-animating the expressions on Nicole Kidman’s face for the movie Australia.

There is something big underway at the West Australian Department of Planning and Infrastructure which will require the restructuring of the West Australian Planning Commission. On Wednesday the DPI is withdrawing the “sustainability” function of the WAPC. Apparently this function will not be taken up in a formal way within the DPI. This could have a major adverse impact for statutory planning in WA and reduce environmental scrutiny of development projects.

Malcolm Turnbull in question time yesterday compared Wayne Swan with Kim Jong-il… Except he called him Kim Il-Jong. You’d think as an aspiring Opposition Leader, he could at least get an evil foreign dictator’s name right (clearly Turnbull hasn’t watched Team America).

And on the bamboo knoll: The Chinese are saying that there have been no nuclear leaks from their weapons research facilities in earthquake-ravaged regions. Nonetheless, a friend who works for the UN in Beijing tells me they have suddenly been asking to borrow large quantities of those radiation detector thingys that dental lab technicians wear on their white coats. He wonders why…