{"id":5891,"date":"2014-08-27T11:59:53","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T18:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=5891"},"modified":"2014-09-01T12:03:43","modified_gmt":"2014-09-01T19:03:43","slug":"the-400-gnomes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2014\/08\/27\/the-400-gnomes\/","title":{"rendered":"The 400 Gnomes"},"content":{"rendered":"

from The Washington Post<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

400 gnomes disappeared in Austria, and it\u2019s causing a political scandal<\/h1>\n

By\u00a0Rick Noack<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"Gnomes used by the Social Democrats in Austria. (Social Democratic Party)<\/em><\/p>\n

Last\u00a0weekend in the mountainous Austrian state of Vorarlberg, 400 gnomes disappeared.\u00a0Nobody knows where they have gone. But everyone knows it’s down to politics.<\/p>\n

With regional elections set for Sept. 21, the left-wing Social Democratic Party ordered 20,000 gnomes called “Coolmen” earlier this year. The gnomes, toting sunglasses and campaign signs, were the party’s last-ditch effort to prevent an electoral\u00a0defeat in\u00a0Vorarlberg. About\u00a0400 of the gnomes were attached to lampposts on Saturday as alternatives to traditional posters, but their mass disappearance by Sunday morning\u00a0was conspicuous.<\/p>\n

“I suspect our rival party OeVP [the Austrian\u00a0People’s Party]<\/span>\u00a0to have removed the\u00a0gnomes,” local Social Democratic Party leader Michael Ritsch told The Washington Post on Tuesday. Ritsch has filed a complaint, and the state’s police forces have launched an investigation.<\/p>\n

Speaking to\u00a0Austrian public broadcaster ORF<\/a>, the local leadership of the OeVP party denied the allegations. The party’s local general manager told ORF\u00a0that\u00a0people who leveled such unfounded accusations were no better than the actual gnome thieves.<\/p>\n

But Ritsch persists with his accusations. “All of our gnomes are 40 centimeters tall. The thieves must have needed\u00a0more than just one truck to steal them,” he said.<\/p>\n

[ click to continue reading at WaPo<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from The Washington Post 400 gnomes disappeared in Austria, and it\u2019s causing a political scandal By\u00a0Rick Noack Gnomes used by the Social Democrats in Austria. (Social Democratic Party) Last\u00a0weekend in the mountainous Austrian state of Vorarlberg, 400 gnomes disappeared.\u00a0Nobody knows where they have gone. But everyone knows it’s down to politics. With regional elections set […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mirth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}