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- Far-Right Flyer Causes Furor in Germany
- A Mysterious Rodent Turns Up
- Look! Up There! It's a Bugnado!
| Far-Right Flyer Causes Furor in Germany Posted: 17 Aug 2011 02:41 PM PDT by Claudine Zap Passionate motorcyclist or scary neo-Nazi? Debate erupted in Germany over a controversial campaign poster that shows Udo Voigt, the candidate for the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), on a motorcycle, accompanied by a slogan that translates to "step on the gas." Some opposition party leaders are calling for the NPD, which has ties to the neo-Nazi movement, to put the brakes on a slogan that they say takes on a very different meaning given the source. The Green Party leader Volker Ratzmann called the campaign an "intentional provocation." Andreas Gram, a member of the conservative Christian Democratic Union party in the Berlin city government, denounced the poster's "association with gas chambers" that killed millions of Jews in Nazi death camps. The 22,000 posters that have been distributed around Berlin, where Voight is running for city parliament, have caused an uproar just a month before elections. But Voigt says the accusations are baseless. He told Spiegel magazine, "I am a passionate motorcyclist and want to power my way into the (parliament) with gas." He added, "After 66 years, people need to stop bringing up things from the past." The NPD didn't have a problem with bringing up the past in a party pamphlet crossword puzzle that included this clue: five-letter German name that has "fallen somewhat out of fashion". Answer: "Adolf." Or another that focuses on a "freedom flyer" of the 20th century. Answer: (Rudolph) Hess, Hitler's deputy. The NPD, which runs on an anti-immigration platform, is hoping to win 5 percent of the vote, the required minimum to gain seats in the local parliament. Meanwhile, a regional public radio station in Berlin refused to air an NPD ad that blames foreigners for all of Germany's problems, saying the racist language is illegal. Provocation does seem to be the point. A past campaign flyer from the party shows immigrants riding a flying carpet with the headline "good flight home." To get a sense of how the politics differs in Germany from the U.S., Michael St. Clair, who specializes in Germany linguistics at University of California at Berkely, explained it's all in the meaning of the message. "What's problematic to German politicians is whether or not the poster promotes the Nazi past or Nazi era." St. Clair emphasized, "That would definitely be illegal under the law." However, the scholar is not convinced that for this is the case with the flyer, saying that the phrase in colloquial German is more a phrase that means "to accelerate" or "hurry up" -- and not to gas people. Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, agrees. He said in a statement to Yahoo! News, "One may take issue with Udo Voigt's political views and associations, or those of his party, but to draw a connection between this poster and Nazi gas chambers is ridiculous." At the very least, the party is guilty of bad taste. Notes Devin Pendas, history professor at Boston College, "Whether the reference to the Nazi gas chambers was intentional, or whether, as seems more likely, the NDP intended to refer to getting the German economy moving again, phrasing it in the way they did shows poor political judgment and a lack of sensitivity to the character of German history." Enough said.
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| Posted: 17 Aug 2011 02:15 PM PDT by Mike Krumboltz Yoo-hoo! Anybody missing a jumbo rodent? In Paso Robles, California, a giant South American rodent was spotted lurking around a wastewater-treatment facility before disappearing back into the surrounding area. The news unleashed a flurry of searches on the furry creature. Witnesses estimate the creature, called a capybara, weighs at least 100 pounds. According to an article from Reuters, the capybara has the dubious honor of being the world's largest rodent. This is the third sighting in three years. Experts believe its the same creature. California is a long way from South America, so how did this king-size creature get to the Golden State? The most likely explanation, according to Todd Tognazzini of the Califronia Department of Fish and Game, is that the big beast is an escaped pet. The capybara, which resembles a huge guinea pig, eats vegetation and, despite its intimidating size, is not considered dangerous. It's also kind of cute News of the odd animal's appearance sparked a flurry of searches on the Web. Over the past 24 hours, online interest in the animal surged an astounding 9,553%. Related lookups on "capybara pets" also spiked. According to Tognazzini, people have been known to keep the rodents as pets. "The Internet is fraught with examples of people scratching them on the belly and thinking they're cute and making pets of them," he said. But don't go thinking these things are easy to care for. You need a special permit to have one in California. We imagine it's also a good idea to buy a collar with a nametag. You know, just in case the creature wanders over to a wastewater facility, freaks people out, and causes an online uproar.
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| Look! Up There! It's a Bugnado! Posted: 17 Aug 2011 12:57 PM PDT by Mike Krumboltz Tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and now... bugnadoes! In the great state of Iowa, a swirling vortex of insects was spotted (and videotaped) above a cornfield. This is not a drill, people. A buzzy article from LiveScience helps to explain the phenomenon, which, thankfully, isn't all that common. Professional storm chaser and photographer Mike Hollingshead caught the bugnado on video on July 4. He uploaded the clip to the Web, and, not surprisingly, the video has since gone viral. What was it like to see in person? Hollinghshead told Life's Little Mysteries that the air "looked like it was smoking." So, what's going on in layman's turns? The LiveScience piece explains that the bugs in this clip are near the end of their lives and the flight is actually a mating ritual. Joe Kieper, entomologist and executive director of the Virginia Museum of Natural History, spoke with LiveScience. "This is a mating flight," Kieper said. "The males are trying to impress the females, and the females select a mate." Different pairs hook up in the vortex, which is kind of a dance for bugs looking to score. After the male and female mate, the male dies, and the female lays eggs. She too then dies. What's amazing is the level of synchronization among the insects. Like a large flock of seagulls, the insects seem to be moving as one. According to an article from WJLA.com, "a bugnado is spawned when heavy rain or floods and optimal temperatures cause insects to hatch en masse, conjuring dense colonies of buglife that ascend into sky-darkening breeding frenzies." If you're worried about this being a trend, don't. They don't appear often and they aren't dangerous like a real tornado, but they can lead to big-time bug bites and a serious case of the heebie-jeebies.
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