mindless ramblings

Sick of driving straight on those big wide North American roads?

Try this Swiss mountain road on for size!

Thanks to Wikipedia and a thread on the local Protege forum (registration required… sorry no BugMeNot!), here’s some cool facts about Switzerland.

Fact 1:
Members of the armed forces are allowed to keep their weapons and gear at home for quick mobilization. Apparently this allows the entire armed forces to be ready within a very short 12 hours. Moreover, tunnels leading into the country are all rigged with demolitions so that they can be closed to deny the invading forces a quick entry. However, the coolest bit is underground air bases, which have catapults similar to the ones used on aircraft carriers. Now that’s cool!

Fact 2:
If a citizen can collect 50,000 signatures within 100 days with regards to opposition of a certain law, a national vote has to be carried out to decide whether to keep the law. Where else in the world can this be done? That’s real democracy for you. Just want to amend a law? That’s even easier, just collect 50,000 votes in 18 months.