The world is a busy place.
You don’t have time to read a million different things in a million different places. What are you, some kind of loser who reads? Hell no! This is a condensed version of everything important in the world, with as few words as possible. Here’s the Briefing for May 1, 2012.
1. Occupy Wall Street resumes with global protests planned for today
If you thought winter would kill the Occupy Wall Street movement, think again. Protesters have been planning a spring awakening for months. In New York, the Occupiers are calling for a “general strike” to fight inequality, although the chances of a general strike actually happening outside of France seem slim. Seriously, those people will general strike at the drop of a hat.
If you’re worried about the unwashed masses disrupting the glorious machinery of capitalism, rest easy. The NYPD are on the ball. Yesterday, they raided the homes of several known protesters on rather flimsy pretenses just to get the message across: “We’re watching you.”
The May Day protests are not restricted to the Big Apple. Events are also taking place in hundreds of other cities including London, Barcelona and Sydney.
New York Magazine
2. Osama bin Laden might have planned to assassinate Obama
A year after Osama bin Laden’s death, the U.S. government says the al-Queda leader had assassination plots for president Barack Obama and other senior officials. In documents found at the compound, bin Laden also allegedly said his terrorist group was a shadow of its former self following “disaster after disaster.”
This is all very convenient for the Obama administration as it seeks to capitalize on bin Laden’s death in this election year to burnish the president’s image as a tough guy who can kill people, unlike that lily-livered Mitt Romney who probably wouldn’t have killed bin Laden as much as Obama killed bin Laden.
Republicans, meanwhile, are accusing the president of tarnishing the memory of bin Laden’s death that brought all Americans together as a nation to share in the catharsis of having vanquished an enemy and then thrown him into the sea. Seriously, America. Y’all need some better national moments.
Associated Press
3. Bill C-38, the omnibus budget bill, is an omnibus disaster
At over 400 pages in length, the Conservative government’s budget bill includes sweeping changes to a whole host of completely non-budgetary parts of government. The bill’s name seems to acknowledge the scope of what it addresses, as it is poetically called “An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures.”
In particular, Bill C-38 seems to gut a whole bunch of environmental regulations and gives the government the power to override the decisions of its own independent oil and gas regulator, the National Energy Board. Throwing dozens of new laws and regulations into an “omnibus” bill used to be rare and Stephen Harper even threatened to bring down the Liberal government over it in 2006, but he has evidently learned to like them.
Also in the omnibus budget bill: your mom.
Andrew Coyne/National Post
4. Globe and Mail columnist essentially gloats about having a job
Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente tells Quebec students to stop whining about tuition costs. Also, all those arts degrees are worthless, according to her, and she predicts careers as baristas for many of the students protesting. Wente, an English grad, says the world demands “hard skills” not gained from the sort of education she herself undoubtedly received.
Globe and Mail
5. Obama chooses “Forward” as his 2012 campaign slogan
After trying all sorts of stupid slogans like “win the future” the Obama campaign has finally found a one-word slogan to replace “hope” and “change.” The new word is “forward” and it might just be simple enough even for the simplest of Americans to remember.
So let’s hear it. What do we want? Forward. When do we want it? Forward!
YouTube
6. British politicians chew out media baron Rupert Murdoch
British MPs have issued a report saying News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch “is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company” following the phone-hacking scandal in which journalists at Murdoch’s newspapers got into the voicemails of celebrities, politicians and members of the Royal Family. Oh, and they also hacked the phone of a dead schoolgirl.
Murdoch has been on the defensive for months and this report, although not endorsed by the Conservatives, still passed with support from both Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs. Murdoch has claimed ignorance throughout the scandal but MPs said he exercised “wilful blindness.”
Although News Corp. is still the third-largest media conglomerate in the world, it looks unlikely to grow any further in Britain following the revelations and Murdoch’s son James will almost certainly not succeed his father as head of the company. So in addition to forcing Rupert Murdoch to grovel and apologize a bunch, this has also destroyed the Murdoch dynasty. Score 1 for the good guys. (There are no good guys in this story.)
BBC News
7. Hugo Chavez still has cancer
Venezuela’s cancer-ridden president Hugo Chavez, who announced last year that he had cancer, still has cancer. He is still attending to government business between trips to Cuba for treatment of his unspecified cancer, and he’s still running for re-election in the October presidential election. His runningmate will probably be cancer.
Reuters
8. Now you can advertise that you’re an organ donor on Facebook
Are you an organ donor? Are you sick of people not knowing about your act of unbelievable selflessness and altruism? Facebook has added a feature whereby users can identify as donors by adding a “life event” to their timelines.
Facebook added the feature today in an effort to raise awareness about organ donation and, in the process, get more people to sign up to give away their precious innards. Bonus: If you’re an organ donor on Facebook, you can donate your profile pictures to your closest friends when you die.
The feature is not currently available in Canada, it seems, but the U.S. and U.K. are already plugged in.
Techcrunch