1. CHICAGO GETS A FRESH-FACED NEW MAYOR. No wait, it’s Rahm Emmanuel. Clinton’s former chief of staff beat out his contenders by an astounding margin. And now Emmanuel has the dangerous task of dealing with that Batman menace. Don’t you know he’s not the real villain! Anyway, the city’s on the brink of bankruptcy, so they’ve got bigger problems than keeping Scarecrow locked up. (Chicago Sun-Times)
2. COPYRIGHT LAW IN ACTION! Want to know what happens when CSI:NY steals your work of online fiction and turns it a highly profitable hour of television? Nothing, because you’re a freelance writer and a bankrupt company holds the copyright. And they don’t care. And neither does CBS!
3. A MAJORITY FOR HARPER? PROBABLY NOT, IF ELECTIONS WERE HELD TODAY. A poll conducted by Nanos Research has found that Canadians are lukewarm about the prospect of a majority Conservative government. Only 26% of respondents thought that would be a good idea. But it was hard to hear those respondents over the noise of their fleets of private jets, I’m imagining.
4. WHO NEEDS PEAK OIL WHEN YOU’VE GOT EXPLOSIVE UPRISINGS IN NORTH AFRICA? The unrest in Libya is cutting down on oil production, which, predictably, is sending worldwide crude prices through the proverbial roof. Can’t we just agree to replace that proverbial roof with a proverbial retractable dome?
5. NEWS SERVICE GETS HEADLINE WRONG. In today’s leaderpost.com feed: “Canadians more likely to believe in global warming than Americans: study,” as if global warming were a useful fiction or article of faith. More helpful: “Canadians more likely to understand climate change than Americans”. Or even better, “Canadians understand that science is not actually sinister gobbledygook”.
6. THE LOCKERBIE BOMBING HAS AN UNSURPRISING NEW SUSPECT. ALSO, PAN AM? Former Libyan justice minister Mustapha Abdeljalil has alleged that Moammar Gadhafi personally ordered the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, was released on compassionate grounds by Scottish authorities in August 2009, after doctors diagnosed him with terminal cancer and gave him three months to live. He’s still alive. This may make things interesting for Gadhafi if he ends up having to flee the country.
BONUS EXCELLENCE: