Switzerland’s Anti-PowerPoint Party
The best up-and-coming political force may be Switzerland’s Anti-PowerPoint Party. The intrepid Party is fighting the use of PowerPoint presentations in business, government, and education, arguing that use of PowerPoint costs their nation approximately 2.5 billion $USD yearly. (There is no methodology behind this number.)
Ultimately, the group is working to obtain 100,000 voter signatures, which would enable it to call for a national referendum to ban PowerPoint and other presentation software throughout Switzerland. Their website has a library of examples of terrible presentation slides:
The APPP sees itself as the advocate of approximately 250 Million people worldwide, who, every month, are obliged to be present during boring presentations in companies, universities, or at other institutions, and who had up to now no representation in politics.
George W. Bush Cancels Swiss Trip To Avoid Prosecution For Torture
Mr. Blair (left) and Mr. Bush
There was a British television drama a few years ago that had ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair being sent for war crimes prosecution at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Apparently ex-President George W. Bush doesn’t think that’s so far-fetched and is avoiding Switzerland for fear of being arrested, according to Reuters:
Former President George W. Bush has canceled a visit to Switzerland, where he was to address a Jewish charity gala, due to the risk of legal action against him for alleged torture, rights groups said on Saturday.
Bush was to be the keynote speaker at Keren Hayesod’s annual dinner on February 12 in Geneva. But pressure has been building on the Swiss government to arrest him and open a criminal investigation if he enters the Alpine country.
Criminal complaints against Bush alleging torture have been lodged in Geneva, court officials say.
Human rights groups said they had…
Did Google Street View Find God Above a Swiss Lake?
So, even God can’t hide from Google Street View? Max Read writes on Gawker:
Who are those blurry, possibly robed figures hovering above a lake in Quarten, Switzerland, visible on Google Street View? Is it something on the camera lens? Or is it maybe… God and His only begotten Son? And who’s to say that God isn’t “something on the lens,” in some kind of a cosmic, metaphysical sense?
NEW! Extra Small Condoms For 12-Year-Olds
Can you see this happening in America? Alexandra Williams reports that extra small condoms for boys as young as 12 are going on sale in Switzerland, in the Telegraph:
Called the Hotshot, the condom has been produced after government research showed 12 to14-year-olds did not use sufficient protection when having sex.
The study, conducted on behalf of the Federal Commission for Children and Youth, interviewed 1,480 people aged 10 to 20. It showed more 12 to 14-year-olds were having sex, in comparison with the 1990s.
The Hotshot condoms, which cost 7fr60 (£4.70) for a packet of six, have been created by Lamprecht AG, a leading condom manufacturer in Switzerland. The company has said the UK would be “top priority” if they expanded abroad, considering that it has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe.
Nysse Norballe, a spokesman for the company, said: “At the moment we are only producing the Hotshot in Switzerland. But…
The Swiss Ban Makes Me Shudder
From The Guardian:
I can’t help imagining how I would feel if the attitudes reflected in the minaret vote were directed at my own community.
It’s a crude reaction but it’s the first one I had on hearing that the Swiss had voted to ban the building of minarets on mosques – the same reaction I have to the increasingly-frequent stories like it: how would I feel if this were not about them, but us? How, in other words, would I react if this latest attack were not on Muslims but on Jews?
It’s crude because no two situations are ever exactly the same, and Muslims and Jews have different histories – in Switzerland and everywhere else. But it’s useful, allowing the testing of any proposition against an almost instinctive yardstick of decency.
So how would I react if the Swiss voted to restrict the way synagogues are built? With horror, of course. Indeed, the mere…
Switzerland To Turn Over Secret Bank Account Names
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Swiss government will be revealing to the U.S. government the names of all U.S. taxpayers holding Swiss bank accounts with balances greater than 1 million Swiss francs ($993,000).
The IRS is chomping at the bit: for decades, rich Americans have hidden money tax-free in secret Swiss bank accounts. Up to October 15, the IRS briefly offered a “Voluntary Disclosure” Program for all offshore account holders with undeclared income, giving people a chance to come clean and face reduced penalties. The program experienced a tsunami of applicants towards the final deadline, receiving about 14,700 confessions, far greater than expected.
Now the amnesty period is up.
Switzerland Tries To Stop Suicide Tourism
Roger Boyes writes for The Times:
Switzerland announced plans yesterday to crack down on “suicide tourism”, signalling that it might close the Dignitas clinic that has helped hundreds of terminally ill people to take their lives.
The plans — in the form of two draft Bills that will be offered for public debate — are likely to set off a rush of patients from Britain and elsewhere in Europe since Switzerland has become the main destination for those seeking assisted suicide.
Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, the Justice Minister, said that two options would be presented to parliament. Either clinics such as Dignitas and Exit, which deals chiefly with Swiss patients, will have to accept much stricter regulation or they will be closed down.
The tightening of the rules would require patients to present two medical opinions declaring their disease incurable, that death is expected within months and that they have made their decision of sound mind…
