The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.

Bottom Stories of the Fortnight

  • “Unknown Person Steals Two Bicycles in Sunnyvale”–headline, Sun (Sunnyvale, Calif.), Nov. 11
  • “Anger at Israel Flares in Jordan Election Campaign”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 7
  • “Toronto Yawning Over Bills Games”–headline, FanNation.com, Nov. 7
  • “Potential 2012 Candidates Logging Time on Fox”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 18

I Know Why the Caged Bird Tweets
A Chinese woman has been “sentenced to a year in labor camp for re-posting a message on Twitter,” The Wall Street Journal reports:

Cheng [Jianping] disappeared on the evening of her wedding on Oct. 27, 2010, ten days after re-posting a sardonic message to Twitter suggesting that Chinese citizens attack the Japanese Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo as a response to the territorial dispute over contested islands that was ongoing at the time.

Earlier this week, it was revealed that Cheng was taken into custody on the 27th and has since been sentenced to one year of “re-education through labor” for “disturbing social order,” [Amnesty International] said.

To quote [New York Times’ columnist] Thomas Friedman: “I have fantasized-don’t get me wrong-but that what if we could just be China for a day? I mean, just, just, just one day. You know, I mean, where we could actually, you know, authorize the right solutions.”

That would be one way of dealing with those pesky Tea Party protesters. But in fairness to Friedman, jailing dissenters (or committing them to mental hospitals) isn’t really what he has in mind. He’s more interested in “green energy”–in imitating China’s exemplary environmental record. As National Public Radio reports:

Pollution in Beijing was so bad Friday the U.S. Embassy, which has been independently monitoring air quality, ran out of conventional adjectives to describe it, at one point saying it was “crazy bad.”

The embassy later deleted the phrase, saying it was an “incorrect” description and it would revise the language to use when the air quality index goes above 500, its highest point and a level considered hazardous for all people by U.S. standards.

The hazardous haze has forced schools to stop outdoor exercises, and health experts asked residents, especially those with respiratory problems, the elderly and children, to stay indoors.

And staying indoors is a great way of reducing your carbon footprint.

For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”