Are you tired of those clowns in Congress? They’re nothing. One of the most popular candidates in the upcoming congressional election in Brazil is a real life clown. Thanks to campaign slogans like “It can’t get any worse,” Tiririca, whose name means “grumpy” in colloquial Portuguese, is expected to get over a million votes, three times as many as his nearest competitor. The problem is he may not be able to stay in office if he wins. According to the Brazilian Constitution, members of Congress must be literate, and Tiririca reportedly can’t read or write. Honk your rubber nose once if you think he should be allowed to serve, twice for throwing him out.

According to Sky News, in 2004 an aide to Queen Elizabeth II wrote the government complaining that the cost of heating Buckingham Palace had doubled to $1.58 million a year and asked if the Queen might be eligible for a Community Energy Funding anti-poverty grant to help heat her palaces. Plural. The request was turned down. Hopefully so were the palaces’ thermostats.

Mattel has released Barbie News Anchor, a perfectly coifed doll dressed in a “powerful pink and black ensemble” and holding a camera, folder, and microphone. A spokesperson for Fox News says they won’t be hiring Barbie as they have a policy of not hiring anyone who’s overqualified.

Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission has found evidence of fraud in the country’s parliamentary elections, including a district in Paktika province that reported a 626% voter turnout. “We pretended we were in Chicago and followed the advice of Mullah Al Capone,” one voter said. “Go Cubbies!”

Unilever, the conglomerate behind Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Hellmann’s mayonnaise, and Dove soap, has teamed up with Ampere Life Science to develop products that contain anti-aging antioxidants. It may not be long before a double scoop of Blueberry Botox and Lemon FaceLift will take years off your face. Of course it won’t do to not age but be fat, so it’s a good thing they also make Slim-Fast. Strawberry Eyelift N’ Creamy Complexion shake, anyone?

The National Bureau of Economic Research, the private company that for some reason is the official arbiter of when recessions begin and end, has announced that the “Great Recession” has ended. They say that the longest recession since World War II began in December 2007 and was over in June 2009, over a year ago. So please, no more whining about money and jobs, start using the past tense when referring to the recession, and remember, life is good again.

Later this month, Guernsey’s in New York will be auctioning some iconic Americana, including a baseball signed by six U.S. presidents, Frank Sinatra’s cigarette lighter, the first issue of The Amazing Spiderman comic book, an original script for the Three Stooges’ Low Afternoon, and the original tablets Charlton Heston held in The Ten Commandments. The Fiberglas tablets are expected to go for $30,000 to $40,000, in spite of the fact that, according to a company that makes true stone reproductions of the tablets for $8,500 a shot, the Third Commandment is missing. You’ve been warned. So please, don’t take the Lord’s name in vain if you buy it and discover you’ve been shorted 10 percent of the commandments.

A study by the Pew Research Center found that while 35% of adults in the U.S. have apps on their cellphones, only 24% actually use them. Meanwhile, 11% of cell phone owners say they aren’t sure if their phone has apps on it or not. Sounds like what’s needed is an app to remind people they have apps and to play an alarm so they use them from time to time. 

Meg Whitman, the Republican candidate for governor of California, has beat out New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg for the record of having put the most personal money into an American campaign by bringing her personal contribution to a whopping $119 million. Bloomberg won a third term as mayor last year by spending a pitiful $109 million of his own money, which came out to about $186 per vote. With luck, Whitman will end up spending $119 million per vote.

A new opera debuted Friday in The Hague, Netherlands. “U” is about Kahless the Unforgettable, who unified the Klingon people and became the first Klingon emperor. In classic opera style drama, he’s betrayed by his brother, witnesses his father’s murder, and travels to the underworld to reunite with his true love, Lukara, before having a showdown with his arch-enemy, Molor. Oh yeah, it’s all in Klingon. U, it turns out is the Klingon word for “universe.” Can a Tribble ballet be far behind?

According to a survey done by the Center for Academic Integrity, only 29% of college students think copying from a website constitutes “serious cheating.” The rest consider it retweeting homework.

According to an employee at Twitter, at any moment Justin Bieber uses 3% of their servers. The other 97% is busy disseminating fluff.

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that money can indeed buy you happiness, though unfortunately there’s a limit. The researchers discovered that people’s happiness increases as their income increases, but only until they earn $75,000. At that point they don’t get any happier, most likely because they discover that money isn’t everything, money can’t buy me love, and there really is no free lunch, though at that income level most people are okay with buying their own.

A homeless man called 911 from his cell phone saying he’d been sitting in a hot tub behind a house in Beaverton, Oregon, for 10 hours and his towels had gotten wet. He asked if someone would bring him dry towels and told the dispatcher, “I just need a hug and a warm cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows in it.” He didn’t get his hug or hot chocolate but instead was arrested and charged with trespassing and the improper use of 911. Maybe he should have asked for Chardonnay.

James Lee, the armed and bomb-laden man who took hostages in the Discovery Channel building yesterday before being shot to death by police, apparently did it because, according to NPR, “he hated the company’s shows.” A spokesperson for CBS says everyone at the network is saddened but thankful Lee never watched any of their shows.