More than 70 elected leaders of the state's peak farming body have called on the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to ditch its draft plan aimed at rescuing the rivers and to recalculate the irrigation water cuts it says are needed in every valley.

''This is not a case of negotiation,'' said the president of the NSW Farmers' Association, Charles Armstrong, after the unanimous vote at a Sydney meeting of representatives from across the state.

The authority had done nothing to justify the 37 per cent average water cuts to agriculture across the state and its draft plan was ''a huge black cloud'' hanging over farmers and their communities, he said.

When John Howard sat down to write his memoirs he could have focused on his achievements, given generous acknowledgement to his colleagues, conceded a few failures - including the loss of the 2007 election - and made some observations on the long-term policy challenges for the nation.

It would have been the book of an elder statesman. He could have shown a spirit of generosity. And it would have enhanced his reputation. But it is not the nature of the man.

from Crikey .....

Finally, we have John Howard's own version of why he remained Liberal leader through to the 2007 election -- and then went down, ignominiously and unnecessarily, with the ship.

And a tacky version it is, confirming in his own calibrated words how selfishness, hubris and the wishes of his wife (who elected her again?) prevented an orderly transfer of leadership to Peter Costello, and created the conditions for a humiliating defeat for the political party whose fortunes Howard was supposed to protect.

As usual, the Arabs knew. They knew all about the mass torture, the promiscuous shooting of civilians, the outrageous use of air power against family homes, the vicious American and British mercenaries, the cemeteries of the innocent dead. All of Iraq knew. Because they were the victims.

By FRANK RICH

PRESIDENT Obama, the Rodney Dangerfield of 2010, gets no respect for averting another Great Depression, for saving 3.3 million jobs with stimulus spending, or for salvaging GM and Chrysler from the junkyard. And none of these good deeds, no matter how substantial, will go unpunished if the projected Democratic bloodbath materializes on Election Day. Some are even going unremembered. For Obama, the ultimate indignity is the Times/CBS News poll in September showing that only 8 percent of Americans know that he gave 95 percent of American taxpayers a tax cut.

Democratic candidate Chris Coons, who is vying to defeat Republican rival Christine O'Donnell in Delaware's U.S. Senate race, is out with a new attack ad targeting the conservative hopeful on a host of controversies that have rocked her campaign.

Running with the theme music of the 1960's television show "The Twilight Zone," the 30-second seeks to highlight some of the Tea Party favorite's most infamous lines.

Even before the British Defense Ministry this week elected to scrap the Royal Navy's only fixed-wing-aircraft carrier, nobody imagined that Britannia still ruled the waves - or had any of the power that characterized its empire before the two world wars of the past century.

From Robert Fisk...

Mr O'Farrell said he inadvertently saved in his ''favourites'' a link titled ''watch two boys break the record for longest kiss''.

The user, who cannot be named for legal reasons, also posted a picture of a youth with his shirt off titled ''an early teen boy completely and utterly adorable. That body is excellent.''

The Sun-Herald inquired about the graphic content at 11.22am on Friday. By 11.46am, Liberal staff had removed the link from Mr O'Farrell's favourites. The other user's Twitter account has since been removed.

Julia Gillard will meet the most powerful woman in US politics when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits Australia next month as part of a two-week tour of the Asia-Pacific region.

The visit will be her first to Australia in the role given to her by President Barack Obama in 2008.

Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd and Defence Minister Stephen Smith will also meet Mrs Clinton for discussions on regional and global security.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates will also be here for the 25th annual Australia-US ministerial consultation in Melbourne.

Gillard talking tougher than Americans, says Oakeshott

The independent MP Robert Oakeshott has joined the ranks of the dissenters over the war in Afghanistan, saying Australia should be working on a withdrawal.

Speaking in the parliamentary debate on the war yesterday, Mr Oakeshott disagreed with Julia Gillard's assertion that Australia would stay engaged in the country for another decade.

''The US is not even saying that and nor should we,'' he said.

This will be a a messy and complex withdrawal, whether it happens now or in 10 years' time. This work should, therefore, be on in earnest now.

US officials have confirmed they intend to sell $60bn (£38bn) of arms to Saudi Arabia, including helicopters and jets.

The state department said details of the deal had been sent to Congress, which now has 30 days to object.

If completed, it could be the most lucrative single arms deal in US history and could support 75,000 jobs.

The state department said Israel, traditionally wary of arms deals involving Arab states, was not expected to raise objections.

'Strong message'

Joe Hockey has spent the week dispensing wisdom from the Book of Hock-onomics, which is an unconventional text of mysterious provenance. It is part economics, part philosophy and, as the government would have it, mostly ''ill-considered rubbish''.

But the latter is too harsh a characterisation. It's simply that, like the Tao or a cup of tea-leaves, the Book requires divination rather than straight reading.

Under the laws of Hock-onomics, governments have levers that they can pull, much like crane drivers.

It is difficult to say what those levers are, or where they are located, but Hock-onomists are working on that as we speak.