The mayor of Biritiba Mirim, which as you know is about 50 miles east of Sao Paulo, Brazil, has submitted a bill to the town counsel that would forbid residents from dying.
The bill does not include a penalty provision. This is one case where I would support imposing the death penalty.
The proposal is apparently a response to a federal decree that barred new or expanded cemeteries in certain environmentally sensitive areas. That is a problem for Biritiba Mirim, which is near an important water table and is also in or near a protected forest. The decree left the town with no available room for cemeteries and cremation is also against the law. The mayor says the existing cemetery is already chock full o' dead, with more than 50,000 people already interred in 3,500 crypts. "It is packed to capacity," he said. "We have even buried people under the walkways used by the living to go around and through the cemetery." The cemetery officially ran out of space last month, so that the most recent 20 residents have had to share the same crypt.
There's nothing worse than having 19 other jerks horning in on your crypt for, like, forever.
An aide to the mayor described the bill as "laughable, unconstitutional," and a great "marketing strategy," which reminds me that the USA PATRIOT Act was renewed today, but that's another story.
