Klingon running for Finnish Parliament

[Dumbass 0]

From Trek Today:

 

A Finnish Green Party candidate has made his web site available for readers of Klingon, despite translation difficulties because he was unable to find a Klingon word for "green."

 

MP Jyrki Kasvi, who describes himself as a passionate Star Trek fan, told Reuters that a Klingon version of his web site is part of his re-election campaign (via Yahoo). "Some have thought it is blasphemy to mix politics and Klingon," he said, but "Others say it is good if politicians can laugh at themselves."

 

The 43-year-old Kasvi represents the Greens from the constituency Uusimaa. A research scientist with a Ph.D. in engineering from the Helsinki University of Technology, Kasvi was elected to the Finnish Parliament in 2003.

 

"I am a hopeless romantic," Kasvi wrote on his English language web site. "I want to make the world a better place, to question the obvious, to bring new thoughts into political debate...my particular areas of interest include information society, quality of work life, university policies, entrepreneurship and equality and tolerance."

 

The much shorter Klingon version of the site is here and has a photo of the candidate standing on what appears to be a starship bridge. One reason for the site's brevity is that Klingons do not have simple phrases for tolerance and other Green ideals.

 

National elections in Finland will be held on March 18th.

[Dumbass 0]

Here is more:

 

HELSINKI (Reuters) - A Finnish member of parliament is aiming for re-election by campaigning with a translation of his Web site into Klingon, used in the TV series Star Trek.

 

"Some have thought it is blasphemy to mix politics and Klingon," said Jyrki Kasvi, an ardent Trekkie. "Others say it is good if politicians can laugh at themselves."

 

He said his politics posed some translation difficulties, since Klingon does not have words for matters such as tolerance, or for many colours, including green -- the party under whose banner he is running in the national elections on March 18.

 

Non-warriors can also access the site, www.kasvi.org, in English, Swedish and Finnish.