Unusual candidates in US midterms

FLOODS IN THAILAND

Thailand is under water, for the past two weeks the country has been hit by the worst flooding in decades with heavy consequences. Dozens of people have been killed and several million others have been affected by this disaster.

This video, filmed by a tourist in the North-east of the country bears witness to the extent of the flooding that forced the army to evacuate thousands of people from this heavily affected region. 13

And to help try and cope with this situation, a web portal has been especially created to coordinate aid efforts: an online information centre that is also asking web users to support the work being carried out at the scene by making donations on the site or via SMS.

Many citizens have volunteered to help the victims, like these four by four enthusiasts. They are using their cross country vehicles to reach the most affected areas and distribute items of prime necessity to flood victims.

On this interactive map you can follow the rise in water levels. Half of the country’s provinces have already been flooded and now Bangkok is also under threat.

This blogger says the capital’s residents are in a state of alert and are preparing themselves for flooding from the Chao Praya River. He says that sand bags are already in place, but there do not appear to be nearly enough to handle the expected levels.

MIDTERM ELECTIONS AND WACKY CANDIDATES

As the 2nd of November U.S. midterm elections draw nearer, the battle between Republicans and Democrats continues to rage online. But certain candidates have so far been noticed more for their gaffes and their sometimes offbeat personalities than for their actual programs. We take a look at these politicians that stand out from the crowd.

The Tea Party candidate for the Delaware senate, Christine O’Donnell has felt the wrath of many web users who feel she is incompetent. The latest incident took place last week during a debate with her democrat rival Chris Coons: O’Donnell claimed that separation of church and state was not in the US constitution. Coons corrected her immediately and reminded her that this principle was in fact written in the First Amendment to the Constitution. Online daily The Huffington Post explains that O’Donnell confuses masturbation with adultery and the paper is even organizing a competition to find the candidate’s strangest quotes.

Another particularly unusual candidate is democrat Alvin Greene who is running for the South Carolina senate. Many consider him to be something else. This blogger says that Greene is unemployed and has no political experience, yet he won the democrat primary. The person who wrote this post wonders if he might be a republican mole whose mission is to make the democrats lose.

Finally, ever since his intervention in a debate organized in the race for Governor of the state of New York, Jimmy McMillan has been enjoying huge success online. The candidate for “The Rent Is Too Damn High Party” has won over a section of the electorate with his long white beard and his rather astonishing way of addressing the crowds.

ERR PROJECT

This site catalogues 20 000 works of art stolen from Jews by the Nazis, half of which have never been returned. The site was created by the organization “Claims conference” and is accessible to all. The digitization work of records belonging to the ERR began in 2005. The ERR was a German agency engaged in the plunder of artworks between 1940 and 1944. Most of the works featured in the catalogue belonged to mostly French but also Belgian Jewish families; the works were gathered by the Nazis and brought to the Jeu de Paume museum in Paris to be processed.

GLOBE GENIE

It’s now possible to travel to random spots in the world, without actually leaving home. A student from the famous MIT School in Boston has created the Globe Genie application. The principle is simple: a random Google Street View image appears and with every click, web users are taken somewhere else in the world: country roads, trees, residential neighbourhoods, parts of the desert. This is an addictive way to travel.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

In summer, YouTube and the Guggenheim foundation launched an online competition called « YouTube Play » to reward the world’s most creative videos. And the sharing site has just published the 25 shortlisted videos on its blog, including this musical video made by a South African man using objects found in his garden. 21