Many of you have jobs in which you are required to regularly attend "meetings." Meetings about budgets, or staffing, or strategy, or one million other arcane workplace topics. I would like to point out, to your boss: "meetings," as a practice, are an enormous waste of time.

President Barack Obama is currently taking his yearly sojourn in Martha's Vineyard, but has announced he will be returning to Washington Sunday evening to have meetings with Vice President Joe Biden and other advisers.

The global business and economic leaders (and the media) who attend meetings of the World Economic Forum are used to five-star hotels, world-class dining, and understated luxury. And for their current meeting, the WEF has brought them all to... Naypyitaw, Myanmar. What is this shit?

But soft! What light through yonder White House window breaks? It is the Oval Office, and Brangelina is meeting with President Obama, New York Times photographer Doug Mills tweets. This rare alignment of stars can only mean one thing: Tense negotiations between the American government and NAFTA, the Notables Adopting Foreign Toddlers Association. For all the babies in the Mariana Islands, Brad Pitt will solve the recession by gazing deeply into its eyes and whispering something sexy.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is going to meet Barack Obama in San Francisco next week, along with other "business leaders in technology and business." Would love to be a fly on the wall in that room. Obama has a sort of complicated relationship with Facebook! On the one hand, college students clicking "like" got him elected in 2008. And Zuckerberg is running a successful business, which Obama likes, even if Facebook probably creates a net-loss in GDP due to hours wasted on Farmville.

Here's a picture of Tea Party queen Michele Bachmann and perennial "Rent Is 2 Damn High" candidate Jimmy McMillan at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington today. The photo appeared in a Bachmann staffer's Facebook feed today. Details of what the two discussed did not. Alas.

The only released prisoner of three Americans detained in Iran since last year, Sarah Shourd, met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday in New York "in order to clear up any misunderstanding that led to our detention."

President Obama met with Billy Graham for the first time ever on Sunday, kicking it with the legendary pastor in his log cabin for a half hour in a special top secret Jesus meeting. What did they talk about?

The Washington Post is having a big important meeting where editor Len Downie will probably announce his acceptance of a buy-out and his retirement. Or maybe he'll fire everyone else! That would be funny. Anyway—if you have the resulting Downie memo, send it our way. [FishbowlDC]

At 11:15 this morning, Wall Street Journal managing editor Marcus Brauchli, Dow Jones CEO Rich Zannino, WSJ publisher Gordon Crovitz and a couple other bigwigs gathered the Journal employees for a 45-minute sit-down. Each of them gave assurances that Rupert Murdoch would not meddle in the paper. Zannino, says a source who was at the meeting, was particularly insistent that there were no down sides to the deal, invoking a quote by former DJ CEO Peter Kann: "News Corp. wouldn't tarnish the trophy they've been coveting for years." That's awfully libertarian of them! But just in case it turns out Murdoch doesn't, in fact, have the paper's best interests at heart, there are a bunch of safeguards in place (like this editorial agreement!) to make sure he doesn't stick his vengeful little paws into the Journal's editorial integrity. Not that the reporters were buying it.

PAUL BOUTIN — Butt-numbing meetings happen everywhere, but Valley culture gives you extra tools — to dig your own grave. Let's put down the BlackBerry, then, and pick up SVUG's action items before your next two-hour status review.

It's been almost half a year since Google bought the stat service Measure Map and hired its creator Jeffrey Veen. Looks like he's taken charge at his new home, thus ruining all our planned "It's not easy being Veen" jokes. In a chat with design firm 37signals, he shares his emergency meeting strategy.