“And he sailed off through night and day

and in and out of weeks

“We’re not a team, we’re a time bomb,” says thoughtful Dr. Bruce Banner, whose rage sometimes unfortunately turns him into a green, killing monster called the Hulk. Marvel’s ‘The Avengers,’ based on the comic books, is breaking box office records across the country. It is great escapism.

The report, “Beyond Need and Merit,” comes from the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution. Ostensibly, it recommends that states eliminate the distinction between need-based aid and merit aid and instead award all grant aid by a simple formula that considers both.

By John H. Jackson and Pedro Noguera

By Marion Brady

Exxon-Mobil is airing education-reform television ads. In the one I’ve seen most often, implicit and explicit messages are simple and clear: (a) We live in a dangerous, technologically complex world. (b) Our lives, liberties, and happiness hinge on our ability to cope with that world. (c) Coping requires mastery of math. (d) On standardized math tests, America ranks 25th in the world. (e) Be ashamed and afraid. (f) Get behind corporate education reform efforts.

The company, much like Facebook, has led to a number of innovations, some of which have resulted in the creation of whole companies. In fact, as Co.Design’s Mark Wilson reported, one designer is working to create a camera called Socialmatic solely for Instagram. The camera merely exists in 3D renderings and, as Wilson points out, seems a bit like a move backwards on photography’s evolutionary timeline. But the continued innovation around Instagram, whether backwards or forwards, highlights the value of the app outside of merely online photo sharing.

When news first broke Thursday that JPMorgan's credit derivatives portfolio had sustained a loss of $2 billion, and potentially as much as $5 billion, on trades gone awry, there was an immediate call for greater regulatory oversight over banks’ high-risk trading activities. The message was clear: "If you're going to be a bank, then you can't play at the casino,” as the Post’s Ezra Klein writes. At the same time that the market was lopping off billions of dollars in shareholder value, JPMorgan was purging top executives responsible for the bungled trades and facing awkward questions about its public stance in favor self-regulation. If banks can’t regulate themselves, though, who can?

The chatter surrounding Facebook’s roadshow this week has reached a fever, er, pitch, right down to what CEO Mark Zuckerberg was wearing. Though he was absent on the second day of the company’s pitches to investors in advance of the company’s pending IPO, Zuckerberg was criticized on Tuesday for wearing a hoodie to meet with Wall Street bankers. “He’s actually showing investors he doesn’t care that much; he’s going to be him,” Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter, who issued the first “buy” rating on Facebook, told Bloomberg. “I think that’s a mark of immaturity.”

It’s an enviable list, really.

They’re among the many who’ve joined Sellers at the Most Powerful Women summit. This year, from a slightly raised stage, she looks out once more across table upon table of some of the world’s most prominent female executives, artists and philanthropists. It’s the opening dinner of Fortune magazine’s annual summit on a surprisingly chilly October evening on the Southern California coastline. The 400-plus guests sit under a big, white tent on a cliff perched over the gray, choppy Pacific. Inside, the Ritz-Carlton has pulled off something that looks a lot like prom: purple sequined tablecloths and settings of pink roses illuminated by purple and pink floodlights.

It is Cyber Friday and — ho-ho-ho — Santa is making his rounds.

You may know all about Cyber Monday, which comes right after Thanksgiving weekend, when online hawkers try to sell a lot of stuff by offering free shipping. Cyber Friday comes four days later. That’s when a billion and one packages begin getting delivered.

For the 35th year, the United States is mounting its annual campaign to gather space rocks from the wind-hammered icefields of Antarctica.