I was in Donzdorf near the Swabian Jura on Saturday and Sunday and saw this insect I have never seen before. It looks like a humming bird, hovering in front of this catmint plant. The orange blur is the wings.

It is called a humming-bird hawk moth in English and Taubenschwänzchen in German. It comes from the south every year – Donzdorf is further south than here and it has been really hot in Germany for weeks now – it overwinters as an adult but few survive north of the Alps. It’s a moth, but diurnal. There are better pictures amd more information in English on this site. And here are pictures and text on a German site.
A Finnish site shows a distribution map.

Jeremy Smith, whose log I mentioned earlier, has got some way with his multilingual blogging glossary (I am reminded by Blogalization). Languages are English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Galician and German.

Blogalization also mentions Armin Grewe, a German living in England who maintains a list of ex-pat bloggers. Armin was interviewed by Stuart Mudie here.

Jeremy Smith, whose log I mentioned earlier, has got some way with his multilingual blogging glossary (I am reminded by Blogalization). Languages are English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Galician and German.

Blogalization also mentions Armin Grewe, a German living in England who maintains a list of ex-pat bloggers. Armin was interviewed by Stuart Mudie here.

This topic has been taken up on Blogalization. They also quote Martin Roell (email?) and Shockwave Rider in machine translation. I will offer a human translation (sometimes known in translation theory here as humane Übersetzung). Continue reading →

This topic has been taken up on Blogalization. They also quote Martin Roell (email?) and Shockwave Rider in machine translation. I will offer a human translation (sometimes known in translation theory here as humane Übersetzung). Continue reading →

Eugene Volokh has ‘discovered’ some lost maxims of equity:

bq. Equity abhors a nudnik.
Equity delights in a good practical joke.
He who seeks equity must do so with full pockets.
Equity is not for the squeamish.
Equity, schmequity.
Equity can be grumpy before its first cup of coffee.
Equity is crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside.
Equity is a mean drunk.
Equity, like all of us, prefers the rich and good-looking.

There must be more of these. They sound a bit American. I think ‘like all of us’ is stylistically weak. Again, ‘He who seeks equity must do so with full pockets’ is funny, but it has no depth. Continue reading →