But now the public openly embraces circular thinking like, “Any country that squawks when we threaten to bomb it is a threat that needs to be wiped out.” Maybe I’m mistaken, but I have to believe that there was a time when ideas like that sounded weird to the American ear. Now they seem to make sense to almost everyone here at home, and that to me is just as a scary as Achmedinejad.

“Our students are outperformed in math and science by their peers in Singapore, Japan, England, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, and Korea, among others. Another assessment shows American 15-year-olds ranked 25th in math and 21st in science when compared to nations around the world,” Mr. Obama said.

At least in China, such rankings are not necessarily cause for celebration. Many Chinese see the country’s education system, in particular its failure to foster innovation, as one weakness preventing it moving further along the path to superpower status. The country’s students have increasingly flocked to the West for college, and even high school, in an effort to escape the rote memorization prevalent in Chinese schools and cultivate the sort of creativity seen as producing figures like late Apple founder Steve Jobs.

Santorum’s growing wealth after leaving Congress could complicate his attempt to focus on his history as the grandson of a hardscrabble coal miner, particularly as the GOP nomination race narrows to a contest between him and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, a former private-equity manager.

All Party members should be fully aware of the importance and urgency of the "maintaining purity" initiative and take concrete measures to promote the Party's traditions, said He Guoqiang, a Standing Committee member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.

大陸各大微博在春節後都接到成立黨組織的相關規定。消息稱，未來黨組織將負責各大微博的政策引導和決策，在政策、措施上，堅絕執行中宣部和國務院及省市網路管理辦公室的命令。..
權威人士透露，微博不僅要審查上傳的消息內容，刪除「不良訊息」，及可能影響社會觀感的「敏感訊息」外，未來網路公安部門會對微博後台進行直接管理，並與微博系統對接。

在進一步全面掌控微博的措施方面，一旦面臨社會重大事件，除了設立「字串」，大量進行刪帖，最嚴重的就直接斷網。例如，春節後藏區發生幾起自焚事件，西藏就曾短暫斷網；新疆在「七五事件」後網路也曾被封鎖一年多。

外國社交網站「推特」為進入大陸市場，曾表示會做必要「讓步」。消息稱，這不太可能滿足大陸對微博等社交網站的要求。因外國網站不可能開放製作後台，提供給中共公安部門直接管理並讓系統對接。

The whole purpose of a settlement is that a party pays damages to rid themselves of liability, and the amount they pay (and “pay” can include the cost of reforming their conduct) is less than what they expect to suffer if they were sued and lost the case (otherwise, it would make more sense for them to fight).

But in the topsy-turvy world of cream for the banks, crumbs for the rest of us, we have, in the words of Scott Simon, head of the mortgage business at bond fund manager Pimco, in an interview with MoneyNews, lots of victims paying for banks’ misdeeds:

“A lot of the principal reductions would have happened on their loans anyway, and they’re using other people’s money to pay for a ton of this. Pension funds, 401(k)s and mutual funds are going to pick up a lot of the load…

“Think about this, you tell your kid, ‘You did something bad, I’m going to fine you $10, but if you can steal $22 from your mom, you can pay me with that.’”

So not only is the settlement designed to shift the costs of the banks’ misdeeds onto already victimized investors, but taxpayers will also be picking up some of the widely touted $25 billion tab. Shahien Nasiripour tells us in the Financial Times that banks will be able to count future mods made under HAMP towards the total:

Plunging deeper into the farce-hole, the FT reports tonight that Obama's foreclosure settlement with the banks over their improper seizure of tax-paying US citizens' homes will in fact be subsidized by those very same US taxpayers. It is a hidden clause (that has not been made public yet) that allows the banks to count future loan modifications under the $30bn (taxpayer funded) HAMP initiative towards their $35bn agreement to restructure obligations under the new settlement. As the FT goes on to note, BofA will be able to use future mods made under HAMP towards the $7.6bn in borrower assistance it is committed to provide – which means, in a (as TARP inspector general Neil Barofsky describes) 'scandalous' turn of events the bank will receive payments for averting a borrower default and be reimbursed by the taxpayer for the principal write-down. We have much stronger words for how we are feeling about this but Barofsky sums it up calmly "It turns the notion that this is about justice and accountability on its head". Are the Big Five banks truly beyond the law?

Hung Huang, an outspoken writer and publisher with 3.9 million followers and the nickname “China’s Oprah,” puts it simply: “Freedom of speech was repressed for so long, Weibo is an outburst. People want to express themselves and before social media, they had no way to do it.”

It also has implications for American politics. Despite denials from Washington, American diplomats and Chinese sources with ties to security services say that one of the chief figures in Chongqing sought asylum at a United States Consulate but was rebuffed partly because the United States did not want to create a diplomatic crisis ahead of Mr. Xi’s trip.

To be blunt, this China policy reads like it was composed by the Hulk.  Maybe this will work in the GOP primary, but Romney and his China advisors should know better.