Noted.

TOBIN TAX ON THE TABLE: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown surprised just about everyone when he encouraged G-20 finance ministers to consider establishing a global financial transaction tax--sometimes referred to as a "Tobin Tax" out of respect for pioneering proposals advanced by Nobel Prize-winning economist James Tobin--as a means of reducing speculation in global markets and raising resources for social spending. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner immediately rejected the idea of taxing speculators, but Oxfam policy adviser Max Lawson said, "The fact you've got Gordon Brown coming out and saying this is a real turning point. It puts the issue on the political map."

Working to keep it on the map, despite what Geithner says, is Oregon Democratic Congressman Peter DeFazio, long an advocate for transaction taxes. DeFazio has found twenty-nine co-sponsors for legislation that would tax speculation in crude oil futures. He's also attracted thirteen co-sponsors for a more ambitious proposal to tax securities transactions to the extent required to recoup the net cost of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which is delightfully titled the Let Wall Street Pay for Wall Street's Bailout Act of 2009.   JOHN NICHOLS

IMPASSE IN PALESTINE: With his decision not to run for re-election in January as pres- ident of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas may be marking the end of an era. The PA, established fifteen years ago after the Oslo Accords, was conceived as a temporary authority, pending a negotiated solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. But ever since the failure of the 2000 Camp David summit and the eruption of the second intifada, the "peace process" has been on life support. Recent events seem to call for last rites.

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