So they say, anyway, at Bild.

A video and song extolling the virtue of “Big Underpants“, aka China Central Television’s physics defying headquarters in downtown Beijing. (H/T to Kelani Chan for the link and translation.)

…be someplace else.
In related news:

This is the kind of story a reporter would die for:
A MAN caught near Nobbys Beach with his penis in a pasta sauce jar led police on a 20 kmh car chase, Newcastle Local Court heard yesterday.
Police drew their weapons when they suspected Keith Roy Weatherley, 46, was armed.
Instead, they found him partially clothed with [...]

Larison asks why Evangelicals are being blamed for the GOP’s failures. They have been the least influential segment of the party in recent years, despite being numerous and reliable (or perhaps because of it, no?). He suggests it was because:
they were too wedded to the Bush administration and its failed record, and they were too [...]

I’ve been wondering whether the whole Hillary for Secretary of State thing might just be a feint — floating her name to pay her back for services rendered — but after speaking to people in the know, I now think there’s a very real possibility she’ll be the pick.
It’s hard to deny that naming Clinton [...]

Over at our front page, Cindy Cerquitella reports from Tbilisi where, when the government isn’t getting reckless with Russia, it’s passing remarkably far-reaching market reforms. Check it out:
TBILISI, GEORGIA–Back in August I could barely tear myself away from my inbox: every few minutes I’d get an update from friends here telling me of new horrors, and fresh [...]

Go here, and scroll back and look at older posts. I’m hooked. I am powerless before it.

Or so CCTV’s Beijing headquarters is called by the locals. I guess CCTV should consider themselves lucky it wasn’t called “Depends.” (h/t China Blog)

From the China Rises blog, more evidence of the PRC’s ever-widening diplomatic push—this time in the Maldives, under India’s nose, so to speak.
While the worldwide diplomatic efforts are indeed impressive, we can still count our lucky stars that China is probably the only major country on earth that does public diplomacy worse than we do. [...]

My sister’s got a nice roundup of Berlusconi gaffes, in light of his latest:
ROME — Italians never quite know whether to laugh or cry at Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. But many reacted with incredulity and outrage after the prime minister, visiting Moscow on Thursday, amiably called the first African-American president-elect in United States history “young, [...]

The notion of Obama as the physician who could lance the wound of anti-Americanism in the world began to gain traction during the election cycle, and now with his victory it is really in motion.
Let me be blunt: I think this idea wrong-headed, and possibly even dangerous, in the way that all things that raise [...]

Let it never be said that our newspapers have become frivolous.

The L is just a veritable cornucopia of unfortunate advertisements. Just today I witnessed one for adult education — certainly a noble pursuit, and hardly one worthy of mockery. Yet, I couldn’t help wincing at the redundant tagline:
A thoughtful place for thinking people.
Because unthinking people would feel so out of place there.

Reuters reports that Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has extended an unusual (for anyone but him) welcome to President-elect Barack Obama:
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi gave an enthusiastic, if unconventional, welcome on Thursday to the election of Barack Obama, citing among his attributes youth, good looks and a “suntan.”
Speaking at a joint [...]

CNN reports:
Randy Scheunemann, a senior foreign policy adviser to John McCain, was fired from the Arizona senator’s campaign last week for what one aide called “trashing” the campaign staff, three senior McCain advisers tell CNN.
One of the aides tells CNN that campaign manager Rick Davis fired Scheunemann after determining that he had been in direct [...]

Now accepting applications.
There I was, Googling around to fact-check something on the Tribune Company, and, wow, the CEO has quite a bedside manner…
In preparation for your interview, study this carefully. (Language NSFW).

Kalsoom Lakhani has written up the terrible earthquake in Baluchistan.  It’s no laughing matter, of course, but I reluctantly confess, this part had me laughing:
Today, yet another tragedy has occurred, this time on the brink of a harsh winter. Mohammed Hashim, a resident in Wam, one of the hardest hit villages, told the AFP, “We [...]

The Times’ site is now fronting a story on supernatural cleaning methods. It’s probably an interesting read, but who has the time to find out?

Over on our front page, John Agresto, the former Coalition Provisional Authority education czar and self-described “neoconservative who’s been mugged by reality,” writes about a blossoming liberal arts school in Iraq.
And the first of Doublethink Print’s fall articles is up, too: Nicole Trafton profiles David All, a would-be conservative answer to Joe Trippi. Unless you [...]