Moe Lane

In fact, I’d like to just be able to show up under my own power, and not hungry for brains:

A 59-year-old Brazilian man has surprised his family by turning up at his own funeral, local media report.

Relatives of Ademir Jorge Goncalves, a bricklayer, had identified him as the victim of a car crash in southern Parana state the previous day.

[snip]

It emerged that Mr Goncalves had spent the night drinking a rum-like liquor called “pinga” with his friends.

‘Rum-like.’ Amazing how much information you can back into two syllables and eight characters, isn’t it? It’s like I know everything about that evening, now. There are vistas of strange and terrifying truths lurking behind the deceptively-innocent phrase ‘rum-like;’ and about the only thing that you can say about a drink named ‘pinga’ is that at least it’s not Australian booze.

Probably.

Via @jaketapper, the story that you always knew that you’d read some day.

SAO PAULO, Brazil – In one murder after another, the “Canal Livre” crime TV show had an uncanny knack for being first on the scene, gathering graphic footage of the victim.

Do I really need to keep going?

Too uncanny, say police, who are investigating the show’s host, state legislator Wallace Souza, on suspicion of commissioning at least five of the murders to boost his ratings and prove his claim that Brazil’s Amazon region is awash in violent crime. Police also have accused Souza of drug trafficking.

The ironic bit is, of course, that you could throw a script around this concept and sell it to any number of crime drama television shows in a heartbeat*.  Hell, take away the murders and the drugs and you’ve got a Scooby-Doo episode.

Well, maybe just take away the murders.

Moe Lane

*Except Law & Order: Infinite Regress. Too much work adding the three plot twists and twp places where they complain about New York judges.

[UPDATE] Crisis averted. Whew!

By two points or dots, or whatever the terminology would be. This is unfortunate, not to mention a violation of the secret provisions of several international treaties: the sport of soccer exists of course for the sole purpose of giving the rest of the world something to feel superior to when it comes to the United States. Beating Brazil at the Worl…

What do you mean, the “Confederation Cup”? They have other competitions besides the World Cup? And we’re stuck with going to them? Who ordered that?

…anyway, obviously this is dangerously close to being a problem at the level of ‘diplomatic incident’ – so I apologize in advance if we win.

Moe Lane

Or, if you’re a Jerry Pournelle fan – and why aren’t you? – a “Welfare Island.” Via AoSHQ:

Brazil builds walls around Rio de Janeiro slums

RIO DE JANEIRO, March 28 (Reuters) – The government of Rio de Janeiro is building concrete walls to prevent sprawling slums from spreading farther into the picturesque hills of this world-famous tourist destination, an official said on Saturday.

This should end well.

Moe Lane

PS: Not that the President of Brazil’s planning to listen to a white guy with blue eyes. Didn’t you hear? I’m one of the people responsible for the current economic crisis.

Um… sorry about that?

Crossposted to RedState.