Like all great geniuses, Paul the psychic octopus who predicts the outcomes of Germany's soccer matches is tortured: Argentinian soccer fans who blame their team's loss on him have threatened to cook and eat him.

In this awesome commercial for Li Ning—aka the low-budget version of Nike—Argentina's 2004 Olympic Gold Medal winning basketball team maneuvers the court as a cascade of killer plants (Triffids?) tries to stop the men from scoring. Video inside.

An Argentine couple today became the first gay couple in all of Latin America to be legally married. Thanks to a constitutional loophole, the two were able to get hitched even though gay marriage is technically outlawed. Congrats! [BBC]

In his press conference today South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford stated that he paid fully for his recent sex-trek to Argentina. But it appears as though Sanford may have a fondness for attending political junkets in that country.

Updated: Fighting back tears, Mark Sanford explained that his mysterious disappearance was really a visit to "a dear dear friend in Argentina," a mistress he met eight years ago and fell in love with a year ago over e-mail.

Not-missing-anymore Gov. Mark Sanford said he was driving along the Buenos Aires coastline. The beautiful brown water, the urban sprawl and industrial decay... who wouldn't want to spend a week here? He's scheduled to deliver an ode at 2pm.

Bill Clinton has this foundation that he does a lot of traveling and fundraising for. Recently, he went to Argentina to dine with the president. Then he had a "noche de soltero" with a "morocha" known for being very "pulposa."

Astoundingly, even more Olympians have been photographed in the "Slanty-eyed Asian" pose that caused an international uproar when the Spanish Olympic Basketball team did it just last week. Spain argued that hey, just because their basketball team and their national tennis team did the slit-eye, it didn't mean everyone should pick on them. And maybe they were right! Because now some of Argentina's female Olympic soccer players have been photographed in the same pose. Can there be a memo issued about this or something (Text: "Don't do.")? Full photo below:

Fox Television has noticed that there is a wide, wide world out there that hasn't yet been the recipient of Fox's unique brand of entertaining and educational TV programming. So they're going to bring it to them, and if they make a little money in the process, all the better! In the meantime, Conde Nast is launching a version of Wired magazine in the UK, and they've already launched some of their premium titles in India (Vogue India! GQ India!). What's going on here? The world is flat. And it's a great place to set a television, magazine, and big pile of money.

South America is crazy about "The Simpsons," Fox's funny cartoon for grown-ups. Who knew? And the countries down there are apparently very sensitive to any perceived historical inaccuracies in the satirical show, no matter how obvious the joke. Citizens of Argentina are outraged over an episode in which Lenny and Carl—two fictional cartoon characters—call Argentina's former president Juan Peron a dictator, and joke that he was married to Madonna (who played Eva Peron in a movie) [WP]. Why, it's as if some foreign cartoon insulted Ronald Reagan! Venezuela recently declared "The Simpsons" to be unfit for children to watch, so who knows what official action will come out of this. The offending clip is below.

Back in the early aughts, moving to Buenos Aires was the totally hip thing to do. But now everyone's doing it. God, it's like you can't drop "independent studies at Brown" without 12 people turning around. And it's just like that in the media, too. First the Times plagiarizes, and worse exaggerates the coke situation in Argentina, and now the paper is lifting articles from Newsweek about the artist scene. Well, maybe. The Times ran a travel piece on Buenos Aires by Denny Lee two weeks ago that featured similar passages as the January Newsweek story. Lee quotes many of the same people, but seriously, those 12 Brown kids represent the entirety of the ex-pat scene there. Most egregiously, one of the people Lee quotes had moved to the U.K. in Spetember and claims that Lee never interviewed her. Ugh, Argentina is so tired anyway. Let's all move to Santiago, Chile and start news scandals from there. [via Mediabistro]

If you're worth $20 billion, I guess you can't just go on a vacation. Even if you just got married. Larry Page and new bride Lucy Southworth headed down to Argentina after their Necker Island wedding last weekend — and Larry promptly met with Argentina's recently elected president Cristina Kirchner. Kirchner bragged about her country's software industry and Larry thumped his chest about alternative energy. Muy romantico. At least Larry continued to rock the urban mullet. Now go on your frigging honeymoon, okay? (Photo by Infobae.com)