China's Premier today urged the country's men's basketball team to "win honor for the motherland." But mostly we just wanted an excuse to run this photo of 65-year-old Wen's proper form — and, yes, we are talking about his decision to don dark socks with black dress shoes. Photo from huanqiu.com.......

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Is_Chinese_search_engine_Baidu_endorsing_Barack_Obama'; Or is Barack just fishing for the Asian American vote? (Get it? He's throwing a net? Nets are sometimes used in fishing? Ah, f*ck it. It's late.) Anyway, when we first saw this, just minutes ago (thanks, Sage) we went, "Huh?" Odd, no? Check Baidu out for yourself. Pacific Epoch tries to explain: Baidu has chosen US presidential candidate Barack Obama as the sixth face to grace its homepage logo. Following......

"There are many people studying Chinese now. I hope that all of you reporters, and the other ladies and gentlemen in attendance, can take up the study of Chinese. I believe that Chinese is one of the easiest languages in the world to learn. Otherwise, how can you explain why 1.3 billion people have chosen it as their mother tongue?" — Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi (杨洁篪) in a press conference yesterday morning [h/t......