I do to, but as he/she is American I wouldn't push the point in case you end up with an unscheduled holiday.... in Guantanamo Bay . I do think American knowledge of the world must improving as they've managed to send troops to so many different places now

Made I chuckle

How does anyone with so little knowledge have so much to say?

Would love to stand on any street corner in the USofA and ask the common
John Q. Public to point out where the US troops currently are stationed in a
hazardous zone.

Don't think 30% could point it out correctly... and that is being generous

Appears OP is bored and typed his/her opinion here to humor us.

Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one.

empty vessels and all that

Just had a second go, still couldn't get to the end.... maybe the are related to Sarah Palin

17. Switzerland - or Europe as a whole - is not lead by George Bush.

That should have them flocking over.

I just got to the end - phew! What helped was imagining the whole thing being said in an Inspector Clouseau nasal tone

Funny.... but difficult as I think the OP may have a liking for the Peruvian marching powder prefered by SoCalites, and thats not to kind to the old nasal pasages.... so I'm told

" Unlike our neighbors M exico and CANADA, their neighbors are huge energy- resource-owing many of which are completley "unreligius" as communism removed this " Quote; I am completely lost: explain.But I am not completley "unreligius , just "un/non religius(Atheist) I have mine removed in Cuba

'(well,Socal could be invaded by Candians and Mexicans, Noood) Quote: Canadians attacking from the north mexicans from the south to confuse the californians I am so smart Que; whats a "noood"??

There is a hell of a lot of rubbish in that passage, however let's not be too harsh and acknowledge that are there also some truths

Here stuff for the select group of people discussing the text......;-),
...and some info for non-American English speakers.

1) Gilroy - yes it is in NorCal, word, ! Of course, it lowers Socal garlic prices too. BTW, to credit the "garlic policy" of the Swiss, you can get fresh garlic here at the COOP, which I have not seen at Ralph's or Trader Joe's, nor do I think Whole Foods had it.

2) "CERN made the Internet". Long, long, long before there was the internet, thousands and thousands of PCs and PC-predecessors in the US were connected, with real webpages called "Bulletin Boards", all in monocolor. Maneuvering was not as rapid, there were no hyperlinks, a fat Everett Modem throwned beeping near your giant PC. Once this infrastructure was in place and in heavy use, and as connections became faster, a protocol for rendering fonts better and rendering images automatically was developed at CERN. But if you define the internet as an interaccessible network of computers by private users without a central hub, that was before CERN. Nevertheless, a nice contribution. Incidentally, much of the interactive nature of the web is contributed by Java, and this is an Indian contribution. (From massive, massive cohorts of Indians at Sun.)

3) The Socal-Swiss info sounds like from the show V (!) ( "V" was a US show in which some aliens live in disguise on earth, occasionally they take their masks off, they are cold/unemotional.) I tried listing the diffferences betw. these regions neutrally and objectively, without taking pro or con positions.

4) East Europeans can't be surrounding Western Europe.. Ok, right, but in the West is water.
Remember that all the E.European countries (up till know) pretty much got completely left behind in the industrial revolution. However, their population is by no means stupid or unambitious. This is what creates the problem. There are very large numbers of enterprising, intelligent individuals who have no money, and who are just hours away from the wealthier West European states. Worse, the reason the West Europeans have become so wealthy in the first place is that a work-eager and compliant population is a key advantage for building an industrial society. But when it comes to controlling this wealth, and making sure it is not "sucked dry", the E.Europeans might have done a better job than the W.Europeans.

4)a) "Unreligious" I used the term bec. 20 year old's have not had much time to contemplate the universe, so agnostic or atheistic is too precise a term. Important is that E. European/Russian school systems did not drill religion. There are correlates between religious beliefs and behavior.

(For Non-US English speakers)
5) What is the meaning of "NOOD" ? As in "Canadians and Mexicans might invade the U.S- NOOT". The centrally-distributed portion of popular culture of the world comes largely from Southern California, but is not dubbed, so Socal verbal habits cannot penetrate the rest of the non-English speaking world. "NOOT" after a proposition is a short and elegant way of negating it, after triggering a moment of incredulity. Other examples of "valley-talk" (San Fernando Valley,LA area) are (for females) injecting "OMEEGAAD" (Oh my god) after every third proposition, and for both genders inserting the word "LIKE" 3-4 times in a sentence. "Yeah, like, I like went to the Schilthorn, like, and like, it was, like, DUDE, "wow", like..ok? " (Scholarly papers have been written about these language changes and why they happen).

6) Someone was critical of how I describe the US ("drug maintenance and law enforcement). Socal and Switzerland are my favorite areas, and this was a discussion of how these states go about preserving law and order. But the comparison of the law enforcement issues was not complete.
An additional factor with which the US (here it's judicial system) manages a numerous and potentially violent criminal class is what might be called "ASVR" or "Acceptance of Strong Victim Response".

Let me contrast some cases from the two jurisdictions (Switz.+US.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
a) Recently, in Zurich, a Swiss man parks his car near an ATM, gets his money, as he returns he finds that it has been blocked by another car with two guys. He asks them to move, upon which they apparently become angry. One of them moves toward him, he retreats inside his car. The other keeps coming, the Swiss now brandishes a handgun. Undeterred, the other apparently enters the car of the Swiss or brings his upper body through the window. The Swiss injures him in the neck with a shot.

Result: 3-4 years jailtime for the Swiss. ASVR = low.

b) In the 80's, there was a lot of subway crime in NYC.One day, a young Mr. Goetz who had been mugged previously, is surrounded by 4 "apparent robbers" who have shown no weapon, and is asked for "5 Dollars". In his police statement later he said " I could see their beady eyes. I laid down a pattern of fire from left to right". He also stated he shot one of them again after he had fallen on a bench, saying "You still look allright".

Result: 3 month jailtime on a weapons possession charge, Goetz later runs for governor. ASVR=very high. Subway crime drops.

c) In 2007, Texas, a senior observes burglars removing property from his neighbors house. He calls police, tells them he is about to shoot these thieves. Dispatch specifically discourages him, explains that shooting here is inappropriate, he should wait for police. Rather than seeing his neighbors property removed, he warns the burglars, they flee, he kills them both. Grand jury cleared him.

Result: ASVR=very high, he was not threatened
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The judicial system in the US recognizes that we can't have cops everywhere, and tacitly sacrifices the rights of minor criminals to prevent future crimes. Until recently, if you killed an intruder in your house in the US, you still had to show that you had reason to feel physically threatened. This provision is gone now, in Calif. and Texas, you can shoot intruders now w.o. evidence of being threatened. (Recently a poor Japanese student got killed ringing a door repeatedly in the US, to give an example of the downside of the ASVR policy).

How is this relevant for Europe and Switzerland ? Western Europe is not a pioneer society like the US, though Switzerland with its natural mountain hazards has some of that spirit, in which a community is capable of defending itself very vigorously if attacked. Europe has low gun-ownership, but in Switzerland, the US model might have a chance to succeed. Every second minor village has a sharp-shooting club, the Tell Saga, and shooting events play a major role in Swiss society, though this is not so visible to non-locals.

In summary, the US has evolved methodologies to keep society very stable, whereas Europe, with a low crime rate and no history of imported slave labor simply has not had to devote a lot of thought to keeping "domestic tranquility". This is a new challenge for them.

Additional Resort info pre-tested for you:

1) Schilthorn has great snowboarding. Be careful with off-piste there: an avalanches may alter terrain there such that distant-off-piste snowboarders can be lead into hazards.

2) Jakobshorn: The best run is the black running down in the rear near the cablecar, few people take that, has great near-piste-freeriding after a 3 minute descent down a mogul field.

The front side is more crowded, if you cross the pipe/snowpark, there is a lengthy mogul field, after about 1/2 mile you reach deep snow. But for this mogul-field cross you get only about 3/4 of a mile deep snow back to the lift. On the other hand there is no avalanche threat in that area.

The private red-frame rental shop in the rear (but part of) of the Jacobshorn station is recommended, replaced 3 special screws in my binding for only 5 bucks, I had expected a lot more, this being Switzerland, took awhile, native English speaking staff. The Rental shop near the railroad station (either dorf or platz) would not replace these screws.

3) Additional Parsenn (Davos) Info: The "Meiertoepfli" is the lift under the last stop before the Weissfluhjoch, this is in my view the best near-piste freeriding I've done here including the other resorts mentioned. Note though that when it comes to closing time in inclement weather, if you are not planning to ride down back to town, you cannot get back to the main cablecar from the top of the "Meiertoepfli". You need to take a long run (10-15 minutes in low visibility) to the bottom of another lift to take you back up to the cablecar.

If anything, religious beliefs do have a negative impact on behavior.....

Gotta love, Mr. T

round two.......

I find this rigid approach to culture changes a bit creepy

is it really so diffeent and what has garlic got to do with it?

A British at CERN created the World Wide Web. Americans are the pioneers of the internet and they developed a whole lot of protocols (among them Gopher which is still supported by most web browsers except IE, you can test this by clicking here ). I think you confuse Java and JavaScript, I think at no point in time have Java applets been used by more than 1% of websites. Both Java and Javascript were invented in the US and I'm not sure if Indians participated in the teams that made these inventions in the early nineties.


The expat workforce from poorer countries mostly benefits both them and Switzerland, else it wouldn't have become such an established system. I don't agree Switzerland get's sucked dry by expats nor do I think that for example the latest Eastern additions to the EU are shining examples of governmental integrity.


The victim didn't enter his car. The Swiss probably didn't have a carry permit for this gun, he inflicted a life-threatening injury and fled from the scene.

Sanity of the legal system: intact

By the way I haven't found the court ruling and would be interested in reading it if you have, I've only found the police's press release.

There once was a case of a local SVP figure who fired his army rifle at a fleeing intruder, he was found guilty but I don't remember his conviction.


Ehm I think you should get a bit more familiar with the European mainland's history of the last millennium, not all was peace and tranquility between Hamburg and Rome...

Not to deny the differences in society and the legal system, these can be surprising at times.

I get the impression you think these are good outcomes?

These posts feel like the OP wanted to post all information and opinion s/he has on Switzerland in a single thread

"succeed" - would you really call a system that results in more violent crimes than in any European country with around 1% of the population in jail and another 2% on probation a "success"?????

I think we should be grateful for that!