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n72.75

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I have 5€, and only $3, in my wallet right now. No one in Maine will take the euros, weirdly enough....
 

jedidia

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Day of month is one-indexed, month of year is zero-indexed. Thanks for nothng, Javascript...
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If he goes off looking for euroes in Switzerland, the poor thing might go insane... ;)

Huh. Didn't realize that Switzerland isn't even part of the EU. Being completely surrounded by the EU, I'd think it would be. Of course, being in the EU doesn't guarantee having switched to the Euro either.
 

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Huh. Didn't realize that Switzerland isn't even part of the EU. Being completely surrounded by the EU, I'd think it would be. Of course, being in the EU doesn't guarantee having switched to the Euro either.

Switzerland is a very special case. It has to follow most of the EU laws and treaties without ever being asked what it thinks about it. Which explains its passive-aggressive communication with the EU. It can tell us EU-citizens to go to hell, but would offer us EU-certified maps and directions should we not know how to get there.
 

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Which explains its passive-aggressive communication with the EU.

It's not just that. The biggest problem of the EU is that they have to deal with our direct democracy. Negotiating with the Swiss government is like negaotiating with a guy from a company that doesn't have the authority to actually close the deal. All they can get are provisionary treaties, that they then have to wait for the swiss people to approve, and it's driving them nuts :LOL:

Being completely surrounded by the EU, I'd think it would be.

It was also completely surrounded by fascist regimes and wasn't part of them. Not that I would compare the EU to those. It just shows a certain tendency for independance and to do its own things while somehow managing to arrange itself with its neighbours, however influential, powerful or rude they might be.
 
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It's not just that. The biggest problem of the EU is that they have to deal with our direct democracy. Negotiating with the Swiss government is like negaotiating with a guy from a company that doesn't have the authority to actually close the deal. All they can get are provisionary treaties, that they then have to wait for the swiss people to approve, and it's driving them nuts :LOL:

Yeah, its quite annoying to learn, that the head of state in Switzerland is actually just a lowly bureaucrat who drew the short straw today and now has to explain politics which he does not quite understand himself....

"Oh yes, we want to sign this treaty, but it rained yesterday on election day and now the treaty for common meat designation standards has to ensure that the Raetian regional language is taught as secondary language in EU schools...and don't ask me about the ponys, please..."

"Somehow, we want the right to build five aircraft carriers under the Washington Naval treaty...."
 

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It's not just that. The biggest problem of the EU is that they have to deal with our direct democracy. Negotiating with the Swiss government is like negaotiating with a guy from a company that doesn't have the authority to actually close the deal. All they can get are provisionary treaties, that they then have to wait for the swiss people to approve, and it's driving them nuts :LOL:

Sounds like what happened with the JCPOA. It's not exactly parallel, as the US isn't a direct democracy and there are counterarguments to the argument that the Obama administration didn't have authority to sign, but the unpopularity of the agreement stems in part from the perception that it was signed without proper authority. And that's all that I'll say about that agreement in this thread, otherwise it would go deep into basement territory really fast.

It was also completely surrounded by fascist regimes and wasn't part of them. Not that I would compare the EU to those. It just shows a certain tendency for independance and to do its own things while somehow managing to arrange itself with its neighbours, however influential, powerful or rude they might be.

Well, with the fascists, I'm sure the prospect of fighting a guerrilla war in the Alps didn't appeal to Hitler or Mussolini.

"Fascist Switzerland" reminds me of a game I played as a kid that had "Swiss Occupied Europe" as part of its tongue-in-cheek backstory.

But the EU is a fair bit closer (EDIT: ideologically, that is) to Switzerland than the fascists were, so I'd think there'd be at least a chance of Switzerland deciding to join the EU of its own accord. Heck, if the EU didn't exist yet, I'd almost expect the Swiss to come up with the idea (then again, I'm not Swiss).
 
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"Somehow, we want the right to build five aircraft carriers under the Washington Naval treaty...."

American ambassador: "The United States is happy to grant Switzerland a million ton total cap on capital ship tonnage, with no restrictions on numbers or individual tonnages per ship type. We are sure that we can get Britain and Japan to sign off in this as well. It's not like the Swiss fleet will ever leave Lake Geneva. France may have concerns about this arrangement, though."
 

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American ambassador: "The United States is happy to grant Switzerland a million ton total cap on capital ship tonnage, with no restrictions on numbers or individual tonnages per ship type. We are sure that we can get Britain and Japan to sign off in this as well. It's not like the Swiss fleet will ever leave Lake Geneva. France may have concerns about this arrangement, though."

Its only 279 km from Lake Geneva to the ocean and the Swiss know how to tunnel under almost 4000m high mountains....
 

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Yeah, its quite annoying to learn, that the head of state in Switzerland is actually just a lowly bureaucrat who drew the short straw today and now has to explain politics which he does not quite understand himself....

"A lowly bureaucrat" is a bit demeaning. Foreign policy is handled by the president. Trouble is, that (and being chairman at the council meetings) are about the only "priviledges" that come with the title. They are usually competent at what they do. They have to be, because their not very grateful job is to somehow negotiate a treaty with the EU that they actually feel has a chance to be accepted by the popular vote, and it might be quite contrary to what they might actually want personally.

"Oh yes, we want to sign this treaty, but it rained yesterday on election day and now the treaty for common meat designation standards has to ensure that the Raetian regional language is taught as secondary language in EU schools...and don't ask me about the ponys, please..."

That one cracked me up quite a bit, though. It's kinda true, but then I think the swiss government would be happy to have such direct input. If a treaty doesn't pass the vote, all they usually have is a "thanks but no thanks", and they have to engage the data analysis machine to get some idea about which part of the treaty they actually need to change to what in order for it to pass.


"Somehow, we want the right to build five aircraft carriers under the Washington Naval treaty...."

I doubt the Swiss population would approve that. Our airforce is pretty outdated and underequiped right now, and I have a ballot on my desk as I type that begs me to allow the military to spend 6 billion on new fighter jets, and it's not all too sure it's going to pass... :sneaky:

The swiss people also didn't allow the government to acquire nuclear warheads back during the cold war... Now that was a good decision by the previous generation of voters. I don't want to think about what expenses and troubles we'd have with those by now...
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"A lowly bureaucrat" is a bit demeaning.

Well, compare those seven with the other top politicians... what priviledges do they have? Oh yes, they can have a funny clothed guy delivering their mail. And the Swiss military would give them a bodyguard, if they want one... and actually they are not even considered significant enough in Switzerland to really need one. Who would kill somebody of the federal council? You would just elect somebody else, who has to do the job.

They are not even getting a villa or palace. Or a fancy car. Just try that in France. We could give up the villa in Germany, but no fancy car by a German manufacturer? That would cause riots here.
 

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Well, with the fascists, I'm sure the prospect of fighting a guerrilla war in the Alps didn't appeal to Hitler or Mussolini.

The whole thing was a careful arrangement between making it cheaper for them to buy what they needed than it would have been to take it by force, as the Swiss military could actually deploy significant manpower to defend relatively little area (mandatory conscription and all that...). Plus, doubtlessly the most valuable thing Switzerland had to offer was passage through the Alps. Which the Swiss would have blown up if an invasion would seem inevitable. The whole conduct of Switzerland during the time is a bit of a dilemma between survival and profiteering... I am not ashamed for most measures that were taken, except for the rampant opportunism of swiss banks secreting away (usually ill-gotten) treasure of high-ranking Nazis, and the ever xenophobic swiss taking the opportunity to diss the Jews by explicitly excluding them from the law that granted assylum to political refugees.

And as for ideological differences... Let's just say that depended heavily on who you asked in Switzerland. But even most that thought Hitler had the right idea weren't too keen to actually become part of it. It's a Swiss thing, I guess...

But the EU is a fair bit closer (EDIT: ideologically, that is) to Switzerland than the fascists were, so I'd think there'd be at least a chance of Switzerland deciding to join the EU of its own accord.

We're fairly close in ethics and values. We have completely different ideas of how a state should be run, however, so Swiss membership in the EU never really stood a chance. It was voted down twice, with margin to spare.
 
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jedidia

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Well, compare those seven with the other top politicians... what priviledges do they have?

They get to give up their right to free speech :p
Your comment is seriously making me laugh, it's pretty much on point. We consider our executive to be employees of parliament, really. Leadership is one of the jobs we're paying them for, but only if they don't show too much initiative.
I'd not consider them incompetent because of that, though.
 

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The whole thing was a careful arrangement between making it cheaper for them to buy what they needed than it would have been to take it by force, as the Swiss military could actually deploy significant manpower to defend relatively little area (mandatory conscription and all that...).

My point was that mountain ranges tend to act as prefab fortresses. You don't actually need a lot of manpower to defend Switzerland. If Switzerland were as flat as Belgium, I don't think that you could have stopped the Germans if they had tried to invade, good manpower/area ratio or not. As it is, Germany would have had a hard time invading Switzerland if they had seen fit to do so. If they could actually make headway, it would have still taken them a while to overrun the place, and, as you say, the Swiss would have destroyed all the Alpine transportation infrastructure in the meantime. Once Switzerland was formally subdued, Germany would still have found itself fighting a guerilla war for years.

IOW:

Everyone who's ever tried to invade Switzerland: "@#$%&ing camper!!! Come out and fight us fair and square!"

Switzerland: "@$%&ing n00bs! No."
 

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My point was that mountain ranges tend to act as prefab fortresses.

They are fortresses now, and there's nothing prefab about them. During WW2, not so much. The entire "reduit" was pretty much developed after WW2 to force an invader into exactly the scenario you describe (although the invader would not be facing guerilla warfare. They would face static warfare... against a mountain range armed with long-range artillery), but the infrastructure wasn't there yet, and neither the strategic idea behind it. Up until that point, Switzerland still adhered to the "Hedgehog-doctrine": Get so much armed manpower to the relatively short border to make everybody think twice, or three or four times.

That' s exactly what they did during WW2. Could they have stopped the Germans if they would have committed to an invasion? Hell no. But that was not the job. The job was merely to make the pricetags for buying things more lucrative than the pricetags of taking things.
 

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IOW:

Everyone who's ever tried to invade Switzerland: "@#$%&ing camper!!! Come out and fight us fair and square!"

Switzerland: "@$%&ing n00bs! No."

n122vu as he reloads his golden sniper rifle behind a rock (screams) "It's @#$%&ing part of the game! They literally have rewards designed around it. Get over it, n00b!"
 

n122vu

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Now there's a thing that sounds horribly impractical :p

Indeed. :LOL:

The HDR in MW2020 is the only weapon I've taken the time to get gold camo on in all my years playing Call of Duty. I don't know why I felt it necessary lol, but it is what it is.
 
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