The In-Sect - politics

So, World Cup 2006 kicks off in Germany today, and the whole country has been preparing enthusiastically for it. Or in some cases, perhaps even overenthusiastically.

Bavarian Police, for example, have even comissioned a special logo for the occasion, which, however, immediately reminded me of a certain scene from a 1940 Charlie Chaplin movie…

They also have a couple of special informational pages for international visitors on their website, in a language that, in some places, is closer to Engrish than to English.

Anyway, let’s hope the guys ‘keep on the ball’, and that everyone enjoys a safe World Cup.

It seems like a Mr. Malinauska opened a special theme park in Lithuania. Its design is based on socialist prison camps and some 87 staues are exhibited, recovered throughtout the country. The park is now a top tourist destination with over 200,000 visitors per year. Wouldn’t Marx, Lenin or Dzerzhinsky be proud generating about 2.500.000 dollars revenue a year? (via)
Gruto Parkas Homepage
A similar theme park in Hungary, Szoborpark
Soviet Union propaganda and advertisement posters on Flickr.
German socialist product design: Groceries
German socialist product design: Housewares

And if you really don’t know what we are talking about here, back to start: The Communist Manifesto

The Authentic History Center describes itself as contibutor of ‘Primary Sources from American Popular Culture’. It is owned and operated by Michael S. Barnes, who is a teacher at the Byron Center High School. It is not as extensive as you would expect of a site with this name, but if you take into account that the ‘Center’ consists of Mr. Barnes and his students, their work is impressive. I especially like The Music of the Roaring Twenties and the ‘Godless Communism’ story from the ‘Treasure Chest’ a monthly comic book, that was published by the Catholic Guild from 1946 to 1972. The scans are well-sized to be easily read, though the compression is sometimes a little rude.
This Godless Communism, chapter Lenin

Jeff Swenson over at freethunk has collected some Mohammed-Clipart. ‘Unfortunately, because Mohammed’s visage is taboo to show we don’t have a real good idea of what he looks like or what the popular conception of him is. So here’s a variety of looks, each with its own appeal.’ Mikhaela B. Reid from ‘Boiling Point’ and Matt Bors ‘Idiot Point’ contributed drawings too. Funny. Not racist or blasphemic. Whereas, this t-shirt...
Mohammed Clipart

We presented you the Christoper Walken-campaign as one of the first blogs. And we smelled the satire dripping through the site-design and told you so. Now, take my word for it: This is another hoax. But as things are growing more and more bizarre in this world of modern media, as some people believe, who knows? I still believe that human history is full of bizarroes and weirdness wears off a little century by century. But we get informed about the surving looniness much faster.
Oops, almost forgot the link: Mel Gibson for Governor!

In January 2005 the MIT Media Lab founded a non-profit association, the OLPC “One Laptop per Child”. Today Nicholas Negroponte and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan will unveil the $100 Laptop Prototype. And you can watch this live in the Internets! Link