Washington DC metro police are about to launch random bag checks on the DC metro system. A prominent DC blogger, who serves on the Riders' Advisory Council, calls it "security theatre" that wastes money without stopping terrorists.

Australian politicians seem to go weak at the knees over US power.

The WikiLeaks cables and Julia Gillard's initial supine response - agreeing with American politicians who claimed without evidence that Julian Assange had acted illegally, and by implication that the Australian government would not stand in the way of his rendition to the US for punishment - was, to say the least, cringe-making.

After his appointment as chairman of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, California's representative Howard Berman told The Forward: "Even before I was a Democrat, I was a Zionist." This is the man, one of the Zionist lobby's most influential stooges in Congress, who introduced House Resolution 1734 which gives President Obama his new orders.

Israel's instructions to Obama

Thoroughly disingenuous, the resolution, which was drafted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and in my view is an indication of panic on its part, was approved unanimously by the House of Representatives on 15 December. It

The NSW Parliament will not discipline or even identify staff members or MPs who used the parliamentary computer system to access websites that contained ''sexually explicit images of young people''.

The Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Richard Torbay, and the President of the Legislative Council, Amanda Fazio, have declared the matter closed despite confirmation that nine inappropriate websites were accessed.

In a statement yesterday, they confirmed that advice from the Crown Solicitor was that there was ''no legal obligation to refer the information in the report to the NSW Police Force''.

In all the excitement about Julian Assange, Oprah and Hugh Jackman our foreign minister has been flying under the radar more than somewhat. He has gone rogue and is daily presenting PM Gillard with a problem.

First he became a champion of Julian Assange saying he alone had the right to suspend passports, then dipping into the schools' laptop allocation to send one to Julian in prison. He also gave the US a kicking saying it was its fault all the stuff leaked out and maybe it should be more careful.

"History will be the judge of what has happened in Cancun." These are the last lines of the Bolivian Government's press release yesterday about the outcome of the climate negotiations here in Cancun. The talks ended here today after two weeks of negotiations by a 192 governments. It is a deal that will be remembered by our future generations as one that killed the climate treaty, unless we radically change course.

We need a more coherent and confident sense of ourselves. We don't have to choose between America and China, but America needs to understand that on several issues Australia's national objectives will not coincide with hers. This has been so in the past but over the past 15 to 20 years we have become too compliant, too subservient in the false belief that that would create security for Australia.

from Crikey .....

Doug Cameron joins Labor Left rally to support Julian Assange

Crikey senior journalist Andrew Crook writes: