from Crikey ......

Laugh until you cry -- can we put a levy on political stupidity?

Crikey Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

The fact that this story appears in Australia's leading Murdoch broadsheet is encouraging. Anything from Israel must be clearly marked as such. Why shouldn't it be? Consumers should know that Israeli products face a global boycott campaign.

When you fly over the earth's oldest land mass, Australia, the view can be shocking.

Scars as long as European countries are the result of erosion. Salt pans shimmer where native vegetation once grew. This change is almost impossible to reverse. The first species to die are those that are most vulnerable.

The protests rocking the Arab world this week have one thread uniting them: Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite channel whose aggressive coverage has helped propel insurgent emotions from one capital to the next.

There is some anger at the "Saxon" economists in Davos, from the "Europeans"... The Saxons are defined as the English and the American economists who have been credited with the gloom and doom of 2007-09 (they basically caught the clap and gave it to the rest of the world) and who predicted a greater doom for 2010, which did not eventuate (they had a 50/50 chance). They are now "predicting" the demise of the Euro... which they hope will happen. But China and the Europeans are not going to let it happen...

After watching President Obama's state of the union, plus the first Republican response to it by Rep Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, and the second response by Rep Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota, chair of the Tea Party caucus in Congress, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that if nations survive and prosper by realistic assessment of their problems, America really is finished.

Obama surely instructed his speech writers to capitalise on his successful outing to the memorial in Tucson, where he gave a speech that essentially reprised the campaign rhetoric of 2008 that got him elected in the first place. The result in Congress last night was the quintessence of gasbaggery.

The worst of the global economic crisis may be over, but it's a weary world converging on Davos, the sleepy town in the Swiss mountains hosting the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

It's a world suffering from "global burnout syndrome", too weak to tackle another global shock, says Professor Klaus Schwab, the man who invented the annual meeting of the world's top business leaders and politicians 41 years ago.

A key resolution on the Israel-Palestine conflict is now before the UN Security Council. Largely echoing stated US policy, the resolution embraces negotiations, endorses the creation of a Palestinian state and demands an immediate halt to Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

But even though the resolution echoes US policy, President Obama is under pressure to veto the UN resolution from forces in Washington who want to protect the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

The Federal Opposition is intensifying its campaign against a flood levy to pay for the Queensland flood crisis.

The Government is still working out how to pay for its share of the rebuilding cost, while sticking to its commitment to return the budget to surplus in 18 months' time.

It is considering the idea of a flood levy and Prime Minister Julia Gillard is promising a decision "soon".

But Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey is urging the Government to focus on budget cuts, and his argument is two-fold.

The political fallout from the News of the World phone-hacking scandal has intensified amid claims of a Scotland Yard cover-up and friendly dinners between Downing Street and the Murdoch family.

Despite the resignation of Andy Coulson as Downing Street's director of communications, the links between the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, and Rupert Murdoch's empire have once again been thrown into the spotlight just days before the media tycoon is due to fly to London.

Just two text-ready words may have punctured the delusion of cyberspace 'connectedness' that has gripped a twittering new world: 'Alone Together'. They are the title of a book from a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has finally plucked up the courage to tell us something we all secretly know: we are losing our minds to a mania for the social media of Twitter, Facebook and instant messaging.

We are in danger of relinquishing our humanity to "social robotics" and a "new social confusion." We are swapping real life for vicarious life.

This is a rare election in that we already know the result. No one on either side of the political fence believes Labor can win. There are increasingly few who believe it will be anything but a Liberal landslide of historical proportions.

It would seem natural in those circumstances for debate to centre only on what a new coalition government will do to solve problems like roads and transport.

Instead, Barry O'Farrell has managed to keep the spotlight on the death throes of the government, with the electricity sell-off inquiry providing the stage for the final act.

Former British prime minister Tony Blair has acknowledged that he ignored the warning of his then-Attorney General that attacking Iraq was illegal without United Nations approval.

Mr Blair, who was summoned on Friday for a second time by the official inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq war, said he believed the warning was provisional.

During a four hour appearance, he said he thought the Attorney General would change his mind on whether a second UN resolution was necessary when he knew the full details of negotiations that had been taking place.