Marcelo’s Discipline Problem
Qualification for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil starts today with a perhaps-not-too-enticing matchup between Montserrat and Belize. The Road to Brazil begins.
In Brazil national side news, coach Mano Menezes was under scrutiny for leaving Real Madrid full-back Marcelo off of the roster. But after Marcelo pulled out of a friendly against Scotland in March, Menezes said he had some doubts about the player.
“For me and every Brazilian, the most important thing in football is the national team. I want all my players to feel exactly that. We went through a period where we tolerated, unofficially, refusing call-ups, sending their apologies. If I start to let things like that go at the start of my work, it is not going to finish well,” he told SporTV.
BBC News - Brazil launches scheme to lift millions out of poverty
via bomdiaeboanoite:
Courtesy of econblues2011:
Brazil has launched a welfare scheme to lift millions out of extreme poverty by 2014, which President Dilma Rousseff calls her government’s key priority.
The project aims to build on current programmes, which are credited with raising 20 million Brazilians out of poverty over the past decade.
Brazil’s economic growth has led to an overall increase in living standards.
But some 16 million people still live in extreme poverty, defined as having 70 reais ($44; £27) or less a month.
“A country that has grown like Brazil can’t be content with just having a big social programme like the Family Grant,” Social Development Minister Tereza Campello told BBC Brasil.
This refers to the cash transfer scheme that pays up to 242 reais a month, usually to mothers, depending on their income and number of children.
In return, they must ensure their children attend school and are vaccinated.
Courtesy of fuckyeabrasil:
Quilombo São José by Luiz Baltar.
An unidentified man got caught up during a police raid at a Jilin brothel and escaped by jumping over the side of the building and climbing down…naked!
Well, if he was unidentified, I guess that means he won. Congrats, ZhiZhu Man!
i’m not this talented.
Today, in things I never thought I would ever read ever:
Even metalhead stars Sepultura are concearned about the possible loss of brazilwood and performed last month in São Paulo with the Experimental Repertory Orchestra in a concert to raise awareness on the issue.
I missed Kickstarter’s two year birthday this week. Well, not so much missed as was ridiculously preoccupied.
Techcrunch, er, crunches some KS numbers:
Over the past two years, $53 million has been pledged for 20,371 projects. Of that money, $40 million has been collected, going towards 7,496 successful projects (meaning they raised enough money to get off the ground). Over the same time period, 9,700 projects were unsuccessful and 3,175 are still live.
That means Kickstarter projects overall have a 43 percent success rate, and 85 percent of money that is pledged ends up being collected. The money pledged on Kickstarter is growing steeply (see chart). In March, $7 million was pledged, up from about $5 million in February, and $4 million in January. April will be even bigger.
Fresh off the production of a novel way to view the 2010 World Cup, some of the soccer-obsessed folks at Hyperakt, a New York-based design firm, have come up with a similar representation for the European Champions League semifinals, which began Tuesday in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, with the match between Schalke 04 and Manchester United.
