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https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/world-first_geneva-airport-tests-revolutionary-3-d-baggage-scanners/44244006/

Bleeding cash, and in some areas having to stop UberPop since people have (finally) realized they can't make money doing it.

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/b...

I don't believe the BS from the boss recently that they could somehow magically "tweak the knobs" and turn an annual cash burn of billions into profit. Launching another "even lower cost" service; how's that gonna help?

Note to boss: stop throwing away cash on self-driving cars that Google & others will do certainly do better, and strip your costs to a bare minimum. How many people does it take to run the cloud service?

2: Storing ammunition for the weapon at the same location is illegal during peacetime. What this means is that while people have assault rifles at home legally, they're usable as clubs until wartime (in which case there's much bigger fish to fry) and offer no "home protection" apart from against Americans who try to use them to justify being able to buy assault rifles from wallmart.

That is a mis-reading (or mis-translation) of : http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/so... You no longer get government issued ammo at home; however, the sturmgeweher uses commonly available ammo that many (most?) keep some at home. Now an argument:

1: As you said, the people who have those weapons are army trained reservists so they've been trained in the safe operation and storage of the weapon (rather than just being some random person who bought an assault rifle at wallmart)

So, you would support general ownership by people that have demonstrated safe operation and storage? Like military veterans? or accomplished competitive shooters?

Finland isn't the only such country. Switzerland does it too; this forum post explains the system pretty well.

https://www.englishforum.ch/tr...

But in any case, I laugh at your paltry 100k fine. Try 1 million dollars on for size: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/d...

I was about to start throwing my weight around in here, moderating up/down, but then I realised I could face legal consequences for endorsing anyones views. :-/

So move out of Switzerland. While not part of the EU, it's still pretty damn trivial to relocate to Germany, especially since you probably speak German as your first language. Most Swiss do. Just don't up-mod any Nazis and you'll be fine.

But it grows more difficult each day to find a good example of a society where people are equal and there is not a huge gap between rich, poor and middle class. While Switzerland has enjoyed a rather large middle class, even there the trends are that the poor and rich are growing and the middle class is shrinking. (yea, 5 year old article)

Becoming Swiss is tricky (IIRC 12 year residence requirement), but people most certain do just wander in and live there. 25% of the people living in Switzerland are foreign citizens.

Switzerland signs [Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development] tax convention
  October 15, 2013

The convention provides for all forms of mutual assistance including exchange on request, spontaneous tax examinations abroad, simultaneous tax examinations and assistance in tax collection, while protecting taxpayers' rights, the OECD said. Automatic exchange of data is possible under the convention but requires additional agreements between the states involved.

Once this treaty gets passed through the Swiss legislature, their bank secrecy will become a thing of the past.

A friend who lives in Switzerland was telling me while back he was concerned about an increased rate of suicide there, which was the highest in Europe on 2010. He attributed this to the requirement to keep military issue rifles at home. It's worth adding that Switzerland is also considered low-threat target for terrorist attacks.

Well there is a massive export of brainpower underway, which has been ongoing for years: lately it seems that anyone who can expatriate does. Of the half dozen friends I kept in touch with since college, I am the only one who has not yet moved abroad, though I'm now looking for a job in Switzerland. The yearly canadian quotas of french immigrates are expended in mere hours instead of the weeks or months it used to take. Swiss companies have started discriminating against cross-border candidates ("Swiss residency mandatory" is increasingly common in job ads). The economic crisis has worsened this situation, just like with Spain.

Much as this demonstrates a serious problem antivaxers have caused in the US, what does the boy catching the disease in Switzerland say about the state of measles vaccination/prevention in *that* country?

(Answer: the antivaxers are just as virulent there as they are in the US)

The world (especially voters and politicians) believe in nutjob armageddon/rapture bullshit and are hell-bent on making sure it happens as soon as possible

Let me help you out there -

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, AKA the Soviet Union, governed by the religion suppressing atheistic Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in a "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" operated according to the "scientific principles" of Marxist-Leninism, built an actual Doomsday weapon, that is still active: Soviet Doomsday Device Still Armed and Ready and Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine.. Apparently secular socialist progressive totalitarians are just as crazy as anyone else. Salud.

Related: Moscow arms against nuclear attack

Nearly 5,000 new emergency bomb shelters will be built in Moscow by 2012 to save people in case of potential attacks.

Out of sight but not out of mind

William Burrows’ classic 1986 book about satellite reconnaissance, Deep Black, opened with a vivid scene of retired US Air Force Major General George Keegan recounting how in the early 1970s he had become obsessed with Soviet civil defense preparedness. As head of Air Force intelligence, Keegan had ordered his junior officers to gather all the satellite photography that they could of Soviet underground shelter building. Eventually he compiled a massive amount of data indicating—he claimed—that virtually every large apartment building erected in the Soviet Union since 1955 included a fallout shelter, factories had underground bunkers, and there were “seventy-five huge underground command posts.” A few of these underground facilities housed command centers for the Strategic Rocket Forces and were buried in the Ural Mountains. In particular, Yamantau Mountain (“Evil Mountain” in the local Bashkir language) and Kosvinsky Mountain were considered to be the Soviet equivalents to Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado, home to NORAD (not to mention the W.O.P.R. and the Stargate).

Shelters part of long-term civil defense plan - Shanghai leaders stress the date of 2012 is purely a coincidence
Assessing PLA Underground Air Basing Capability

Bunkers for all

Switzerland is unique in having enough nuclear fallout shelters to accommodate its entire population, should they ever be needed.

IKEA in Hell - The interior design of Sweden’s giant nuclear bunker.

Israeli leaders spend day in 'Nation's Tunnel' nuclear bunker

The frightening truth of why Iran wants a bomb

According to Shia lore, the Imam is a messianic figure who, although in hiding, remains the true Sovereign of the World. In every generation, the Imam chooses 36 men, (and, for obvious reasons, no women) naming them the owtad or "nails", whose presence, hammered into mankind's existence, prevents the universe from "falling off". Although the "nails" are not known to common mortals, it is, at

A third state national can take a job in Switzerland only if a person cannot be hired from within the Swiss labour market or an EU/Efta state. Employers must show that they made “intensive efforts” to find a Swiss, EU/Efta citizen or any foreign national already in Switzerland with a permit to work. Moreover, employers must show why those with priority who applied were not suitable for the job.

Fortunately, some professions, like researchers, are exempt from quotas.

For anyone wishing to dig into details, here's the corresponding legislation (FR, DE or IT only)

This Swiss have just about got this figured out. It is called Direct Democracy: http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/specials/switzerland_for_the_record/world_records/The_Swiss_vote_more_than_any_other_country.html?cid=8483932 Several years ago I was visiting a friend in Sion Switzerland, when he excused himself for a few minutes saying that he had to vote on an important issue. He then turned on the TV where the representative for that district was speaking, picked up his home land-line phone, dialed several numbers and after just a couple of minutes he hung up. He explained that big insurance companies wanted to pass a law mandating that all vehicles be outfitted with a monitoring device that would record the drivers driving habits. As we watched the vote total shown on the TV, the representative explained that although there were vastly more cars on the roads than in the 1950s the safety of drivers had increased greatly and that the mandate was not justified. The public vote overwhelmingly defeated the new law and the representative cast his vote in favor of his constitutes. From what I witnessed that day, it seems like a Direct Democracy works very well in most cases.

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/Home/Archive/Man-made_tremor_shakes_Basel.html?cid=46232

[...] will have effects spanning billions of years.

Explain. I was of the impression that isotopes with half-lives in the range of billions of years (K-40, U-238, Th-232) can only be considered "technically radioactive" since they're just too damn stable to give off much of any radiation. Keep in mind 99.3% of all naturally occurring Uranium is U-238 and Potassium-40 is contained not just in nuclear reactors, but bananas and brazil nuts.

The increase in background radiation [...]

During the Chernobyl disaster, an estimated 50-80 million (Russian authorities), 1 billion (Time magazine; optimistic estimate) to 9 billion (whole core; pessimistic estimate) curies were blown into the atmosphere (source). Reasonable estimates vary around 3 to 4.5 billion, or a third to half of the core. A 2006 UN report figures an average lifetime dose throughout Europe of around 1 mSv or some three to four months of (global) background radiation.

[...]people who voluntarily and knowingly engage in such employment

And people living near coal mines or plants, breathing the exhaust air from coal plants, living near hydroelectic dams, living near windmills...

Solar, wind, and hydrothermal are much safer.

Nuclear: You're the expert, please provide numbers.
Hydroelectric: Quick Googlage reveals tens of thousands evacuated and >100 casualties 2009-2011.
Wind: Old data mentions rates between 0.1 and 0.4 casualties per TWh, about twenty deaths in NAM from mid-nineties through 2011. Some more googling finds interesting data.
Geothermal: Seems safe but may cause earthquakes. Some pollution issues are to be worked out, but after that we might have ourselves a real contender.
Solar: Apparently more dangerous than wind and hydroelectricity. Who knew.

Yep, in Switzerland, for example. Links: article, analysis

The Muslim extremists have already won - politicians are too cowardly to stand up to them because they might lose a few votes and most citizens are afraid to stand up to them because they might be called "mean" or "racist".

It's fairly obvious that it is a rather unstable situation, and it looks like the pendulum is already swinging the other way.

Which is unfortunate; I fear that, if PC police will keep the lid shut tight, when the thing finally explodes (and it will, mark my words), it won't just be anti-Islamic - it will also be plainly racist, and quite possibly warring fundamentalist Christian; and violent, with another Kristallnacht and lynchings on the streets. Which would be even worse.

Ash is dry and doesn't show up on radar, so new sensors are needed so pilots can discover it

Actually, that problem is solved by the Swiss, they do it with lasers.

For the rest, yup, good summary. The main issue is that we're dealing with something that never before had such an impact, so it's time to do the research that wasn't done with earlier eruptions: just how dangerous is it? What I did *not* find acceptable was airlines claiming it was "all safe" because they managed to get a few planes fly unharmed.

Without some science to measure the variables involved this amounts to stating that it's OK to cross the road blindfolded because two people have managed to survive it before, without any data on time of day, day of the week and whether cars swerved to get out of their way..

Anyway, let's see what the second eruption looks like..

Thanks for the summary.

Both chambers of parliament have agreed to demand that cabinet draws up a draft law, despite opposition by Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf.

The summary and TFA is inaccurate. As this Swissinfo article explains, the Swiss parliament has not yet passed a law providing for a ban. They have passed a motion, which is a request that the government propose a bill that provides for a ban. Parliament must still discuss and vote on that proposed bill, and if it adopts that bill as a law, it will be made subject to a nationwide referendum if 50,000 voters request it.

Using the new In-Cell growing technique many companies seem to be coming up with vaccines in a shorter period than earlier. Medicinenet has an informative article on Flu Vaccines and immunization candidates, and goes on to say why they are required. This is a good read to understand why vaccination is being given importance here. The 1918 "Spanish" Flu epidemic Virus which is very similar to the recent outbreak was re-created in a laboratory in 2005 by Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger and colleagues at AFIP. Comparison with Avian flu strains led to the conclusion that Human Flu Virus strains are derived from Avian flu virii.

Among young people and children Flu vaccines claim to be 70%-90% effective, while this drops down to 30%-40% in people aged over 65 who may have other secondary complications. Hence the scale of vaccination required for the present outbreak (which has been repeatedly noted for not being as lethal as the 1918 Flu strain) may be entirely different covering only those in a risk category. More stress is on drugs that help in combating the Virus in an infected individual. These are usually amino-acid chain suppressors like Tamiflu. There has already been mobilization and distribution of the drugs to combat such an outbreak. The WHO has done a recent donation of drugs to Nigeria. This is however related to continued support of a H5N1 outbreak since 2006.

The role and importance of the Vaccines that would be available is not yet certain. It seems that the stress is more on treatment. Insofar stress on prevention without the involvement of Primary Medical care personnel. Only those who suspect infection have been requested to visit quarantine or medical facilities for treatment. The W.H.O's present stand with the Flu Virus has been a direct result of criticism during the second widespread Avian flu H5N1 attack incidents in 2006. Attention is being given to Avian Influenza as a pandemic because it leads to complications and secondaries making it difficult to fight other diseases with stronger morbidity. -- No Greater Friend, No Greater Enemy! (Lucius Cornelius Sulla)

Using the new In-Cell growing technique many companies seem to be coming up with vaccines in a shorter period than earlier. Medicinenet has an informative article on Flu Vaccines and immunization candidates, and goes on to say why they are required. This is a good read to understand why vaccination is being given importance here. The 1918 "Spanish" Flu epidemic Virus which is very similar to the recent outbreak was re-engineered in a laboratory in 2005 by Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger and colleagues at AFIP. Comparison with Avian flu strains led to the conclusion that Human Flu Virus strains are derived from Avian flu virii.

Among young people and children Flu vaccines claim to be 70%-90% effective, while this drops down to 30%-40% in people aged over 65 who may have other secondary complications. Hence the scale of vaccination required for the present outbreak (which has been repeatedly noted for not being as lethal as the 1918 Flu strain) may be entirely different covering only those in a risk category. More stress is on drugs that help in combating the Virus in an infected individual. These are usually amino-acid chain suppressors like Tamiflu. There has already been mobilization and distribution of the drugs to combat such an outbreak. The WHO has done a recent donation of drugs to Nigeria.

The role and importance of the Vaccines that would be available is not yet certain. It seems that the stress is more on treatment. Insofar stress on prevention without the involvement of Primary Medical care personnel. Only those who suspect infection have been requested to visit quarantine or medical facilities for treatment. The WHO's present stand with the Flu Virus has been a direct result of criticism during the second widespread Avian flu H5N1 attack incidents in 2006.

The issue is that this ignorant view may be perpetuated in America. I have never heard anyone in Europe utter such crap.

You've obviously never lived in Europe.

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_news/Swiss_drag_knuckles_accepting_evolution.html?siteSect=201&sid=7141596&cKey=1160562740000&ty=st

Ignorance is not solely an American problem; it's simply our prevalence on the world stage that leads you to believe that. Living in Europe for the last 3 years, I've found it's not particularly different here.

Spanish ex-spurt? Now there's the mother of all oxymorons.
How about the Catholic commissionaires of:
The Crusades,
The Jesuit Inquisition and-
The Catholic Church paedo cover-ups - invented necrophilia - then?
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news/social_affairs/Church_admits_complicity_in_sex_abuse_case.html?siteSect=201&sid=8648354&cKey=1200989068000&ty=st

Seriously. Accepting the ludicrous notion that "The Internet Creates Pedophiles",
means it's obviously all Al Gore's fault because "he invented the internet".
Any fool can say anything it likes - but that doesn't make it true.
RR

The tests were unable to show which substances had caused the lung damage, but cannabis fibres were found in the tissue samples and can constitute the starting point for inflammation.(...) There were also no cases of emphysema in the control group, even though it included 74 regular smokers.