While not really a friend of German ‘Karneval’, I noticed that our Brazilian PhD student has been missing these days in our department. Well, I suppose, he was celebrating Carnival in the Arctic.

In Germany, Rose Monday parades and Mardi Gras are very special, in particular in the Rhineland. An especially well-done carnival float had been the “Achsel des Bösen” (or, armpit of evil) in the Düsseldorf parade of 2007, featuring the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad bothering former president Bush with his offensive “nuclear” smell.

I suppose the current one is more or less bothered as well.