It's been a while

Ok, as some of you may have noticed, I haven't been updating this blog in a while. As some of you also know, I generally don't update this blog on a daily basis. I usually wait until there is something that is really gnawing at me to the point where I just HAVE to put it here.

However, since I really don't have anything of real importance to talk about, I decided to take a handful of current events here in Portugal to comment on.

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1) Madeline McCann

This topic has been talked about for the past few months, and it's getting absolutely annoying. I mean, for starters, I'd like to know how both Portuguese and English authorities have been taking this damn long in trying to find out if she's missing, dead and who's behind it.

Now, it seems that the Portuguese Judiciary Police have listed the mother as a suspect. Well gee, no kidding? I mean, about a week after this girl is missing, her and her husband decide to hold press conferences in England, Germany, France and even go to the Vatican City to meet the Pope. Let me repeat: They decided to go TRAVELLING a week after their daughter went missing. Oh yeah, that's not going to draw any suspicions. And OJ Simpson is still looking for the real killer.

To top it off, aside from leaving her and their 2 other daughters in the hotel room while they decide to go to a restaurant, she was sleeping BETWEEN the other 2 girls, and yet, the 2 other girls are still there and there was no signs of breaking an entry nor any real signs of a struggle. So yeah, Mrs. McCann, this isn't looking too good for you.

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2. Luís Felipe Scolari, José Mourinho and the Tuga follies

Ok, this one is pretty comical. UEFA, after this particular incident:

decided to suspend the coach of the Portuguese national team, Luis Felipe Scolari, for 4 games, which happens to be how many games they have left in the qualifying round for the 2008 European Cup.

Now, fast forward to a couple fo days later, Chelsea supercoach, Jose Mourinho, out of the blue, decided to have an "amicable seperation" with said club. News that was so important, that one of the local Portuguese networks, SIC, decided to cut away from an interview with a local political figure, Pedro Santana Lopes, who was talking about the current social and political situation in Portugal, to go to an update of Mourinho's departure from Chelsea, complete with an "on location" reporter at the Lisbon airport, awaiting Mourinho's arrival (a decision that left Santana Lopes furious once they went back to the interview, causing him to end the interview early).

NOTE: Sorry, this is solely in Portuguese, though I hope some may understand the mannerisms from this video.

I will say one thing about this video, Santana Lopes was right. It's pretty sad that they would cut away from this particular interview just to talk about a sports-related issue. Imagine CNN interviewing George W. Bush and cutting away in the middle of said interview to give an update on Bill Belichick. Pretty sad indeed.

But I digress.

Anywho, a few days after Mourinho's departure, the head of the Portuguese Soccer Federation, Jose Madail, said that he is putting his full trust in Scolari. Essentially, what happened was that Madail was worried that the "Tugas", currently in 3rd place in their qualifying group, which would keep them out of Euro2008, decided to call Mourinho, who wanted to take over. But Madail didn't want to fire Scolari right now so, rather than offer the job outright to Mourinho, he asked him that, if Scolari couldn't qualify the Tugas to Euro2008 and was fired, if he would like to take over then. Mourinho, a man who hates to live in uncertanty, said no, forcing Madail to have to support Scolari from here on out.

So, we have a slap, a termination of employment, a political interview being cut due to sports-related news and a bunch of double-talk.

That's Portuguese soccer for ya.

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3. We sure have some interesting billboards

Well, this one is a little old, but for those who don't live here, I'll fill you in.

In this ocuntry, our constitution forbids the formation of fascist parties (mainly due to the 1974 revolution), however, this is one party that managed to go around this law by claiming to be "highly conservative, but not fascist" called the National Renovation Party (Partido Nacional Renovador or PNR). This party bases itself on a platform of anti-immigration and a very racist-oriented agenda. Thankfully, said party gets the least amount of votes in each election.

However, earlier this year, they managed to get a license to put up a giant billboard in one of Lisbon's busiest rotary, the Marquês de Pombal rotary, which translated reads "No more immigration" and in smaller letters "Nationalism is the solution" with a plane taking off on the left with "have a nice trip" written next to it and a picture of their leader, José Pinto-Coelho,pictured on the right and "Portugal for the Portuguese" written on the bottom.

This billboard, since then, has been the target of vandalism and defacement, which has led to PNR to keep replacing it. However, one particular group, deicided to have some fun with it.

A comedy group known as Gato Fedorento (translated means "smelly cat") decided to put, right next to this billboard, a billboard of their own, which was pretty much a bizarro version of the original. In their version, they had written "More immigration!" with "The best way to annoy foreigners is to force them to live in Portugal" below it, a plane landing with "Welcome" written next it, the Gato Fedorento crew to the right with the same goatees the leader of PNR has and "With Portuguese alone, we're going nowhere" in the red square and "Nationalism is stupid" in the black square.

Now, why did I mention the last billboard in past tense? Because tthe Nationalists filed a complaint and won due to the fact that the Gato Fedorento crew didn't aquire a license before putting up the billboard, meaning that, while GF's billboard is no longer there, PNR's billboard is still there.

Yup, this is the country I love folks.

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And that's pretty much it for now. I'll have another post up as soon as I can come up with enough stuff to talk about :)