China's indignant reaction to the announcement of U.S. plans to sell weapons to Taiwan appears to be in keeping with a new triumphalist attitude from Beijing that is worrying governments and analysts across the globe. 

In the final analysis, this test appears to be an important milestone in Chinese defense capabilities and demonstrates the growing maturation of its missile defense system. It is also apparent that the test has clear implications for the military modernization of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) which may challenge U.S. strategic posture in the Asia-Pacific region (See "Advances in PLA Air Defense Capabilities Challenge Strategic Balance in Asia," China Brief, October 23, 2008; China Times, January 12). 

My advice for the Republicans during the President's SOTU address: laugh at him! Don't shout him down. Don't sit with angry smirks. Laugh at him. Remember what Herb Brooks did with his "Miracle" 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team? He got them to laugh at the big, bad Russians. It minimized the mystique. The same must be done to President Obama. He's a joke, a court jester, and the American public is beginning to see it now. Please reflect that sentiment by laughing at the clown when he makes ridiculous claims on Wed night. 

It seems like a pretty simple question. Who made the decision to charge Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the accused terrorist arrested for trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet on Christmas Day, as an everyday criminal, as opposed to an enemy combatant?

After all, Abdulmutallab was trained by al Qaeda, equipped with an al Qaeda-made bomb, and dispatched by al Qaeda to bring down the airliner and its 278 passengers. Even though the Obama administration has mostly abandoned the term "war on terror," the president himself has said clearly that the United States is at war with al Qaeda. So who decided to treat Abdulmutallab as a civilian, read him the Miranda warning, and provide him with a government-paid lawyer — giving him the right to remain silent and denying the United States potentially valuable intelligence that might have been gained by a military-style interrogation?

This week that simple question — Who? — became more complicated after several of the administration's top anti-terrorism officials testified on Capitol Hill. The director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter, said he wasn't consulted before the decision was made. The director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, said he wasn't consulted, either. The secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, said she wasn't consulted. And the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, said he wasn't consulted.

U.S. intelligence agencies now suspect that Iran never halted work on its nuclear arms program in 2003, as stated in a national intelligence estimate made public three years ago, U.S. officials said.

According to the Pentagon's report on China's military, Chinese military forces have been developing an array of advanced weaponry, including new nuclear ballistic and cruise missiles, anti-satellite weaponry and cyber-attack capabilities, in addition to new more conventional ships, aircraft and ground-warfare capabilities.

"First, let's ask the question that economists often ask but is all but ignored in the media: Can China's data be trusted? Many economists believe the answer is no. In fact, no one knows for sure what China's GDP is. The communist government simply announces it — there is virtually no transparency. [...]

This is not to say China's economy is not growing. It is. It's just not growing as fast as its officials say.

But the real question is — how well do individuals do in China in terms of output? Even using questionable current data and despite decades of rapid growth, the results aren't so impressive.

Per-capita GDP in China isn't even $2,500 a year, in real dollars (see chart). In the U.S., it's $42,000 a year. In short, it'll be decades, if ever, before China closes that gap.

Iran ran circles around United Nations sanctions last week, using the good offices of China to procure nuclear equipment from Taiwan. It's about par for Iran, but spotlights China's double game on security.

For a while, China was selling the international community the line that there should be no sanctions on Tehran without the "consensus" of the global community. All for one and everybody a good team player — except that China never intended to be on the team. It merely wanted to veto attempts to stop Iran's wildcat nuclear program.

On Wednesday, Beijing followed with the notice that there would be no sanctions, because "China always believes that the Iranian nuclear issue should be resolved properly through diplomatic channels," as a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said Friday.

"Sanctions have never been a fundamental solution," he intoned, suggesting that China was being the adult here. After years of Iran breaking its word to the United Nations and defying sanctions, all of a sudden talking is the solution.

But the mask is off now: It turns out China has been helping the other side all along, not just by roadblocking U.N. efforts to stop Iran from destabilizing its region, but doing so at a profit.

The calculus of long-term committment is just different when your country guarantees the basic necessities of an advanced civilization. When your government provides you, as they do in Canada and in Europe, with health care that is unlinked to a job or "productivity," subsidized prescription drugs, child care, free education through graduate school, and, finally, old-age pensions with visiting nurses if you need them to retain your health and a modicum of dignity. Marriage, ultimately, is about family, however you shape it. I sometimes don't blame men here for being lame or commitment-phobic. They're probably terrified of failing as providers or co-providers.

Too many American students simply lack the basics. In 2002, a National Geographic-Roper survey found that most 18- to 24-year-olds could not find Afghanistan, Iraq, or Japan on a map, ranking them behind counterparts in Sweden, Great Britain, Canada, Italy, Japan, France, and Germany. And in 2007 the American Institutes for Research reported that eighth graders in even our best-performing states - like Massachusetts - scored below peers in Singapore, South Korea, and Japan, while students in our worst-performing states - like Mississippi - were on par with eighth graders in Slovakia, Romania, and Russia.

With his wealth, privilege and education at one of Britain's leading universities, Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab had the world at his feet – able to choose from a range of futures in which to make his mark on the world.

President Obama: I think that we have inherited the biggest set of challenges of any president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We stabilized the economy; prevented the possibilities of a Great Depression, or a significant financial meltdown; the economy is growing again; we are on our way out of Iraq; I think we've got the best possible plan for Afghanistan; we have reset our image around the world; we are...we have achieved an international consensus around the need for Iran and North Korea to disable their nuclear weapons; and, I think we're going to pass the most significant piece of social legislation since [uh]...since Social Security, and that's health insurance for every American.

Gibbs today said the move, in closing Guantanamo Bay, will make the country safer, and suggested if Boehner – or anybody – is confused by that, they should go to the members of the previous administration such as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and ask “why they support closing Guantanamo Bay and support today's decision.”

Zinn and company have launched a nationwide education project in conjunction with the documentary. “A people’s history requires a people’s pedagogy to match,” Zinn preaches. The project is a collaboration between two “social justice” activist groups, Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change. Rethinking Schools recently boasted of killing a social studies textbook series in the Milwaukee school system because it “failed to teach social responsibility.” A Rethinking Schools guide on the September 11 jihadi attacks instructs teachers to “nurture student empathy” for our enemies and dissuade students from identifying as Americans. “It’s our job to reach beyond this chauvinism.” And a Rethinking Schools guide to early childhood education written by Ann Pelo disparages “a too-heavy focus on academic skills” in favor of “social justice and ecological teaching” for preschoolers.