“Brazil” on The Daily Caller

Last month American reporters expressed concern at a recent study published by the Conference Board which claimed that the US economy would be overtaken by China in two short years.  This alarming news came just weeks after a ranking of the world’s most powerful people put President Barack Obama at number two — beaten into second place by Chinese premier Hu Jintao. (more)

RIO DE JANEIRO — Soldiers and police crouching behind armored vehicles trained their rifles on dozens of entrances to a sprawling slum Saturday, apparently preparing to invade and try to push drug gangs out an area long considered the most dangerous in Rio de Janeiro, a city set to host the 2016 Olympics. (more)

President Obama on Monday defended the U.S. Federal Reserve’s recent move to buy $600 billion more in U.S. Treasuries, which has been criticized by top officials in foreign governments as a move to devalue the U.S. dollar. (more)

THIS is how an angel earns her wings. First, she is born, in someplace like Belarus or Florianópolis, the spot in southern Brazil where an awful lot of folks with German names fetched up over the centuries, or, well, Saskatchewan. (more)

SAO PAULO (AP) — A man accused of raping 40 women turned himself in, only to be let go because Brazilian law prohibits voters from being arrested five days before elections unless they are caught red-handed, authorities said Wednesday. (more)

NEW YORK (AP) — Wal-Mart, known for its giant stores and global omnipresence, is shifting gears to think small: focusing on small and medium-size stores that it plans to open in small towns and urban markets as it seeks to jump-start sluggish U.S. sales. (more)

The House Ways and Means Committee has just approved a bill that would attempt, albeit modestly, to crack down on Chinese currency manipulation, a key cause of America’s trade deficit.  The Ryan-Murphy currency bill (HR 2378) would allow the Commerce Department to treat currency manipulation as an illegal subsidy for the purpose of calculating countervailing duties intended as retaliation.  This bill has to be passed by the full House of Representatives and then the Senate before becoming law, but already the prophets of doom are squealing about the dangers of starting a trade war with China. They are wrong. (more)

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A retired circus chimpanzee is the Cezanne of simians, drawing crowds to a Brazilian zoo to watch him paint. (more)

James Cameron doesn’t mince words when talking about people who are skeptical that humans are causing global warming. (more)

A woman has been killed in a shoot-out after armed men burst into a tourist hotel in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, police say. (more)

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice has been on the job for 18 months now, but she doesn’t have much to show for it.  Her record of accomplishments and performance on behalf of the American people is embarrassing.  While Rice has been active in the social scene of Washington and The White House, a study released by the uber-serious non-profit group Security Council Report suggests that the past year has been the most inactive Security Council since 1991.  Rice missed crucial negotiations on Iran’s continued enrichment of uranium, she failed to speak out when Iran was elected to the Commission on the Status of Women and three other UN Committees, she failed to call-out Libya when they were elected to the UN’s Human Rights Council, she recently delivered an Iran sanctions resolution with the least support Iran resolutions have ever had and she called her one and only press conference with the UN Secretary General on the issue of texting while driving.  For an administration that promised to utilize the UN and improve our reputation around the world, its dinner party circuit strategy isn’t making America more secure. (more)

Townhall, the conservative online and print magazine, just came out with The 100 Americans the Left Hates the Most. Glenn Beck, #1 on that list, has never doubted that the liberal-progressives loathed him, but a recent poll shows that may only represent about 20% of Americans. (more)

An Air France jet flying on a route which claimed hundreds of lives last summer was forced into an emerged landing today following a bomb scare. (more)

China has at least $2.5 trillion in foreign exchange and must, due to its own balance of payments rules, invest it all overseas. Most unavoidably goes into American bonds, the only market big enough to absorb it.[1] However, since the beginning of 2005, the PRC has invested almost $200 billion in foreign assets outside bonds. Official Chinese data are unhelpful, but The Heritage Foundation’s China Global Investment Tracker sorts non-bond spending by country and sector. The tracker is current through June 30, 2010. (more)

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Dunga is out as coach of Brazil’s national soccer team. (more)

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — No trash talking needed. Germany was just too good for Argentina. (more)

PORT ELIZABETH, South Africa — Soccer’s perennial World Cup underachievers from the Netherlands knocked off mighty Brazil on Friday, stamping the Dutch as a strong contender to finally win that elusive title. (more)

Most Americans accept, grudgingly, their government’s heavy subsidy of American farmers. But few know that the U.S. government may soon subsidize Brazilian farmers as well. On June 17, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office formally agreed to pay Brazil almost $150 million a year in “technical assistance” to compensate for the damage our cotton subsidy program has done to Brazilian agriculture. (more)

After recently reading about an artist who created multi-colored bacon in the New York Daily News, I made a discovery that changed my life: There’s a website called  BaconToday.com, which offers “Daily Updates on the World of Sweet, Sweet Bacon.” There you can find sweet treats, like maple bacon ice cream, or read about a bacon marriage proposal. Think no one’s dumb enough to get a bacon tattoo? You’re wrong, and BaconToday.com has the photo. Or buy the Bacon Freak cookbook (subtitle: “Bacon is Meat Candy”). And when the rest of the media is stuck on the goings on at BP and in Afghanistan, only BaconToday.com will give you the story that San Francisco is trying to make Mondays meatless. Oh, the horror. (more)

JOHANNESBURG — Ryan Appell stood on an isolated stretch of highway on the outskirts of an old South African mining town dressed like Betsy Ross’ worst nightmare. (more)