Ah, video mash-ups, how we love you. Today's video of the day is a fabricated conversation between President Obama (taken from his town hall in Shanghai) and Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang (from a press conference) where Qin demands Obama answer the question "do you have children?" Of course, we all know about Sasha and Malia, but that's not the point: what follows is a brief conversation about censorship between two ideological ships passing in the night. Obama talks about the worlds opened to his daughters by the internet while Qin waxes on how censoring the internet is one of the most important things we can do to protect our kids (or the ones we'll have someday). Will "do you have children?" become the new Chinese internet meme? more ›

Now that we've had a good night's rest, we can sit back and reflect on the general meaning and importance, both literal and symbolic, of President Obama's town hall in Shanghai yesterday. We've come to a sort of peace with the entire affair: yes, it was scripted, but could you expect more from such an unprecedented meeting between citizens and the populist president of a staunchly democratic country in a Communist state? No, Obama didn't seem to have a substantive, overarching message for a meeting that his administration fought tooth and nail to arrange: but in his first appearance in China, having yet to even meet with President Hu Jintao, were we really expecting something earth shattering? more ›

Since our live blogging of Obama's town hall meeting with Chinese students earlier today, a few interesting things have come to light. more ›

Obama's short time in our city might be cut a little shorter. The American President has been hoping to make a town hall styled forum with Chinese students a focal point of the trip. However, the government's desire to censor the event has caused problems: the event has been cut from 1,000-1,500 students to a mere 600, media may be banned (excluding CCTV, of course), and the event may not be broadcast live. The event seems close to cancellation: depriving the American President the chance to directly speak with the Chinese people, and making Beijing seem like it wants to keep him under wraps, would make a poor start to Obama's first trip to China. more ›

We here in the Ist-A-Verse know that we're sensational, but it's very rare that we get a chance to be sensationalistic. This week, we've decided to have ourselves a little fun and try our hand at tacky tabloid headlines, using nothing more than our favorite posts from this week. more ›

Texas is thawing, the Northeast is freezing, and a sort of natural order seems almost restored to the Ist-A-Verse. Almost. more ›