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Introducing Obamao - Beijing's answer to presidential souvenirs

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Is it Chairman Mao? Is it President Obama? No, it’s ObaMao – a magical merging of the two appearing on t-shirts in China in the wake of Obama’s Beijing visit.

Or, at least, it was until Chinese authorities banned them.

Comment Central readers will be familiar with our fondness for weird Obama merchandise. No surprise, then, that we having been waiting for its expansion into the East with bated breath. 

The result has CC bemused. Has China slightly missed the mark or elevated the art form to new heights?

Take, for example, the Obama statue in the video above. At the click of a button, the president’s effigy burns into flames.

According to the artist, this is a compliment. “It represents his popularity… he’s hot.”

How Carla Bruni sees the Obamas...

Carla Bruni: model, musician, first lady, god awful art critic.

Also: almost certaintly slightly less good friends with Barack and Michelle after commissioning this portrait of the Obamas and posting it on her website.

Other victims include Sarah Brown...

Is President Obama really a robot?

Think back to how you felt during the last family photo. Then imagine holding that smile through 130 snaps with foreign dignitaries. Would it waver? Crumble? Disappear altogether?

Not if you're Barack Obama. Our thanks go to Eric Spiegelman who invested what must have been a significant amount of effort in proving that the US President really is an automaton.

Watch this.

Obama - not important enough for Arizona State

Everybody wants Obama on their team – except Arizona State University, which, despite his speaking engagement there today, won’t be giving him an honorary degree, having explained that becoming Leader of the Free World does not constitute a great enough achievement. “His body of work is yet to come. It’s inappropriate to recognize him at this time.”

The Daily Show investigates…

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Arizona State Snubs Obama
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Biden insults Obama's dog

“It as an idyllic setting. Nobody saw it coming,” says Jimmy Orr on the vote blog.

And then it happened. Biden insulted the one thing Americans won’t stand for the insulting of. The first dog Bo.

Watch the video footage here.

Your 100 days reader

• John Dickerson in Slate: Inventory Day
• Jonathan Martin in Politico: 10 decisions for Obama's next 100 days
• Editorial in The New York Times: One Hundred
• 100 Days Blog
• Dan Balz in The Washington Post: Obama's first 100 days
• Arianna Huffington in The Times: Has it really been only 100 days?
• Joe Klein in Time: The President's impressive performance thus far
• Symposium in The National Review: 100 Days later
• Mike Allen in Politico: At 100 days, Obama still stumps GOP
• Andrew Sullivan in The Atlantic: Steady in tough times
• Marc Champion and Peter Fritsch in The Wall Street Journal: A new era abroad - but a still-war world
• Panel in The Daily Beast:  100 Days Report Card

How Obama rebranded the war on terror

You may have noticed that the Obama administration - using language you would be hard pressed to make up - has decided to rebrand the war on terror. According to a piece three weeks back in the Washington Post:

In a memo e-mailed this week to Pentagon staff members, the Defense Department's office of security review noted that "this administration prefers to avoid using the term 'Long War' or 'Global War on Terror' [GWOT.] Please use 'Overseas Contingency Operation.' "

Now Joe Queenan has responded with a brilliantly witty column in the Wall Street Journal:

If the intention of the Obama administration is to tone down the confrontational rhetoric being used by our enemies, the effort is already reaping results.

This week, in a pronounced shift from its usual theatrical style, the Taliban announced that it will no longer refer to its favorite method of murder as "beheadings," but will henceforth employ the expression "cephalic attrition." "Flayings" -- a barbarously exotic style of execution that has been popular in this part of the world since before the time of Alexander -- will now be described as "unsolicited epidermal reconfigurations."

In a similar vein, lopping off captives' arms will now be referred to as "appendage furloughing," while public floggings of teenaged girls will from here on out be spoken of as "metajudicial interfacing."

Barack the Barbarian v. Nemesis Palin

There really are no adequate words to describe the new series of Obama comics. So we'll let the pictures speak for themselves and just pick out a few salient plot points.

In a nutshell...in one Barack the Barbarian hails from Kickassistan.  In another, he must grapple with his nemesis, the bikini clad Sarah Palin, in a battle for the Treasure of Stimuli.

Throw in Sorceress Hilaria and you've got quite a story. After this, 2012 is guaranteed to be a letdown.

Obama answers your questions

The 44th administration burnishes its online credentials once again.

As I type, Obama is answering questions put to him in an online town hall. You can watch the stream live at the White House website.

Obama's teleprompter speaks

Question. What finishes Obama's sentences, helps him gather his thoughts and has been known to land him in a spot of hot water?

No, it's not Rahm Emanuel. It's the 44th teleprompter. And now it's blogging as well.

Some enterprising individual has liberated the omnipresent screen's voice.

Tune in for meditations on news conferences, twittered updates and precisely what happened in the Obama-Cowen St Patrick's Day mix up.

(Hat Tip: Chris Ayres)