If Israel's stranglehold over U.S. foreign policy is to be broken, Americans will need to be informed about the harm that Washington's unconditional support for the Jewish state is doing to American interests, say leading analysts of US-Israeli relations.

The US says it is "disappointed" by Israel's decision not to extend a ban on West Bank settlement building.

US Middle East envoy George Mitchell has been sent to the region in an attempt to salvage direct peace talks that were restarted earlier this month.

The 10-month moratorium came to an end at midnight (2200 GMT on Sunday).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11422065

I can't understand the thinking behind the ''personal view'' of the NSW Liberal leader, Barry O'Farrell, opposing ethics classes as a complement to special religious education classes. Mr O'Farrell, please tell us how you came to this position.

Yes, ethics is already embedded in school curriculums, policies and other programs. However ethics classes for the 100,000 children who do not take part in scripture classes each week is a matter of fair play. It offers those children an opportunity to formally and explicitly explore concepts of the self, respect for others, justice, intention, problem solving and consequences for actions - just as their peers are doing in their religious education classes.

Just after Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor decided to back Labor, a relieved minister observed that, throughout the election campaign, Tony Abbott had reminded him of the Terminator, the Hollywood-created cyborg that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a star.

The seemingly indestructible cyborg assassin travelled back in time from 2029 to 1984 Los Angeles, programmed to kill its target, Sarah Connor.

In the kill-or-be-killed game of politics, the minister was paying Abbott a compliment with the analogy to the cold-blooded and emotionless killing machine.

US President Barack Obama has slammed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's September 11 conspiracy theory comments at the United Nations as ''offensive'' and ''hateful''.

In his first comments on the Iranian leader's statement that the 2001 terrorist attacks on America may have been orchestrated to bolster the US economy and ''save the Zionist regime'', Mr Obama told BBC Persian that ''for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable''.

US and European diplomats walked out of the UN General Assembly hall on Friday when Mr Ahmadinejad delivered his remarks about the September 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

from Crikey .....

The Usher of the Black Rod is displeased

Andrew Crook writes:

Downhill With the G.O.P.

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Once upon a time, a Latin American political party promised to help motorists save money on gasoline. How? By building highways that ran only downhill.

From letters at the SMH (25/09/10)

Section 40 of the Australian constitution states that the speaker of the House of Representatives shall not have a vote on matters before it, only a casting vote in the event of a tie.

The pairing of MPs (''Gillard tries to lure Coalition defector'', September 24) in a disciplined two-party system is a practice designed to preserve the value of someone's vote when they are unavoidably absent from the House.

Pairing of the speaker has never been part of this practice because there is no deliberative vote to preserve. Indeed, if the speaker's vote was to be paired, then the speaker could effectively end up having two votes in the event of a tie.

from Crikey .....

Bolt in court: freedom of speech v the prohibition of race hate

Margaret Simons writes:

Mural in Newtown, Sydney, now vanished as townhouses have been built in front of it. Picture by Gus, 2005.

from Crikey .....

Two detainee deaths 10 years apart ... what have we learned?

Crikey intern Inga Ting writes:

Celebrations have taken place in Israel to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary organisation which paved the way for the establishment of the state of Israel and the Israeli Defence Forces. A headline in the Jewish Chronicle refers to "the generation that established Israel" above a photograph of some elderly veterans rather sadly wearing military uniforms.