A tour company in Rio de Janeiro is in trouble because along with taking people on tours of the city’s notorious slums, it has been arranging for tourists to meet with genuine armed drug traffickers, and even have pictures taken with them. Who knew there was a market for that?

But here’s the best part. Instead of denying it, the guy from the tour firm in question said yeah, he does have tours like that, but “I’m not the only one.” Ah, good to know there’s competition.

“Mr. Soprano! Can I call you Tony? Sorry to barge into your Bada Bing! office here. Can you just stand between me and the little woman for a snapshot? Yeah, keep that real mean look! Say, can you kind of point that gun at me, Tony?”

James Gandolfini: REUTERS/Phil McCarten

Brazilian police recover body of alleged drug trafficker in Rocinha shantytown of Rio de Janeiro in a 2004 file photo. REUTERS/Bruno Domingos

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Life a struggle? Help us smuggle!

Let’s say your business requires you to transport certain items quietly, without much attention. I believe the technical word for it is smuggling. Where do you get guys to do that for you? The local pool hall?

If you’re in Guatemala, it turns out you just advertise on radio, as if you were selling Buicks or something. The ads, aimed at recruiting elite Kaibil ex-soldiers, offer work “securing vehicles transporting merchandise to Mexico,” and then, naturally, they give a contact phone number!

Our story says officials are “investigating” the ads, but that’s a tough one. Gosh, where would you even begin?

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Kaibils cross a river during an exhibition in the Special Forces Brigade, known as “Kaibil`s Hell”, in Guagemala, in a 2006 file photo. REUTERS/Carlos Duarte

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This is another in the popular series we call “Things Maybe we Should Have Explained in the Caption, but Didn’t.” Here we have a photo of a dude we’re told is a new police graduate in Iraq, demonstrating his skills by playing dead.

Huh? I don’t think they teach that class to police cadets here, and frankly I’m a little surprised there is a need for it in Iraq.  From what you read, you’d think the police over there would have other stuff to occupy their time.

“Yo Ron! The new duty roster is posted. Yep, you and I are both playing dead all week. Sweet deal, dude! We lie down for four hours, sit up and eat lunch, then lie down for another four, and then it’s off to the doughnut shop! Is this a great place, or what?”

Related post: Like they don’t have enough problems?

A new police graduate lies on the ground and plays dead during a demonstration of skills by new police graduates in Najaf, Iraq, April 24, 2008. Some 425 police cadets graduated on Thursday after three months of training at a police academy in Najaf. REUTERS/Ali Abu Shish

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Once upon a time, Grandma sent her three grandchildren into the woods to gather blackberries, so she could make a fine dessert for dinner.

The first child returned with a pail of plump blackberries. The second came back with red holly berries, which happen to be poisonous. The third went into the city, pulled the Big Con Switcheroo on a bunch of dimwit business guys, and brought grandma a bucket of BlackBerry handhelds with high resale value.

Grandma tossed the plump blackberries out for the robins. She baked the holly berries into a festive pie which she sent to the IRS along with her tax check. Then she pawned the handhelds for a bundle, and tonight she’s eating at Cheesecake Factory. The children get their fine dessert, and granny is knocking back Tanqueray martinis like there’s no tomorrow.

And they all lived happily ever-after.

Trashed Blackberry phones in a bucket during the NBC Today Show in New York, April 21, 2008. REUTERS/ Lucas Jackson

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 I’ve been planning this heist for months, but now that we’re going in, I feel like maybe I overlooked some detail. I guess that’s natural.

Let’s see. I know for sure that $14 million worth of  flawless diamonds are in the mansion. I know this is the one day a year when they leave that titanium  vault open and the back door ajar so the appraiser can get in. This is the day they take their killer dobermans on a picnic and  leave two friendly, well-fed golden retrievers to guard the whole  shebang…

And for sure, this is the one day they leave that big iron gate unlocked, and turn off the lethal electrical charge that always surges through it… Wait! DID I check on that darned electricity thing, or not?  I’m not sure…

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A member of the Street Show PK Club shows parkour skills at a park in Hangzhou, China, April 9, 2008. Parkour is “the art of moving,” involving moving from one point to another as efficiently and quickly as possible. REUTERS/ Steven Shi

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This photo from Afghanistan stopped me cold. Is the guy in the white cap wearing a Burberry scarf? Have they opened a little shop in downtown Kabul to compete with Louis Vuitton and others?

Okay, another possibility. Say the scarf is counterfeit, an occasional problem with this distinctive plaid. This still means designer stuff has made it to Afghanistan!

So, if he is ever captured, Osama bin Laden may be wearing the double breasted belted trench coat with epaulettes and, ironically, what Burberry calls a “gunflap.” He may be sporting their $240 cargo shorts, and a slathering of Burberry men’s aftershave, described as a “refined and elegant woody ambery fragrance…”  It makes you think.

More Burberry news: Smuggling melons in a stocking cap?

Afghans travel in a bus as it rains in Kabul April 9, 2008. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood

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It turns out a “take-your-guns-to-work” law was just passed by the Florida senate, letting workers keep guns in their cars for self-protection, so road rage doesn’t need to be just an empty outburst, and then lock those guns in their cars while they go into work.

It does exempt some workplaces, like nuclear power plants, prisons and schools, so obviously it’s been carefully thought through. But what about those Cape Canaveral astronauts? Can they take guns up to the shuttle? And you have to think about the heat, which can top a sizzling 100 degrees there. When your coworkers leave guns and ammo on the dashboard in the sun, will there be surprises?

One of the law’s backers says this was dear in the hearts of the founding fathers. Well, sure. Anybody who is watching that John Adams series on HBO will remember the debate between Adams and Jefferson, about having flintlocks in their Pontiacs…

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Guns on display at a National Rifle Association Meeting in in Orlando, Florida in a 2003 file photo. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

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Blog Guy, Where can I buy used underpants belonging to a major drug trafficker?

Boy, I wish you had asked me that yesterday! Down in Brazil they had a huge sale of stuff confiscated from the mansions of a Colombian guy named Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia.

You mean Lollipop?

Yes. I can see you really know your drug traffickers. Anyway, thousands of people clamored to buy his stuff. I’m not sure how smart that was, though. Sure, Lollipop is spending 30 years in prison, but what do you think he’ll do if he breaks out, which can happen in Brazil?

Uh, track down his underwear and the filthy pond scum who bought it?

Bingo. That’s what I’d do.

More underwear postings and Lollipop sale slideshow

(U.S. State Department handout)

Underwear that belonged to Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, alias Lollipop, for sale among  confiscated  items. April 8, 2008.  REUTERS/Rickey Rogers

It seems from our video clip that this robber used hypnosis to make a grocery cashier empty a cash register and hand him the money. The good stuff never happens in my lane!

“How ya doin’? Ballpark Franks are buy one, get one free today.”

“Your eyelids are getting heavy…”

“The Del Monte fancy creamed corn is on special all week.”

“Heavy, they are getting so very heavy…”

“Here’s your coupon for a free Starbucks beverage.”

“Don’t forget my $2,000 cash-back…”

“You have a good one! Need any help getting all that cash out to the car?”

“No, I can manage it. When I’m out the door, cluck like a chicken!”

Sonia Legg’s video report

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I’m ruined. The Feds have busted a ring of crooks they say were selling fake art on eBay, which of course is where my entire collection came from. It seemed so safe! Most great art changes hands over the Internet. Where do you think the Louvre gets its stuff, anyway?

It’s not as if I acted foolishly. I’m a blogger, a profession known for caution. The art I got was SIGNED, which it wouldn’t have been if it was fake, now would it? I also got a CERTIFICATE with each piece, so even if someone forged the art and cleverly faked names like Picasso and Dali, where would they come up with certificates?

This is just awful. If I ran the Louvre, I’d be taking a VERY close look at that Mona Lisa about now.

Related post: “Don’t forget your shards, buddy”

Painting of Marc Chagall is seen on the ceiling of the Palais Garnier, Paris’ opera, February 19, 2008. REUTERS/Charles Platiau

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