The art of fermented substances appreciation

For all those of you who love the educated arts and movies with meaningful plots, watch out for Beerfest (Bierfest, respectively) in the cinema near you.

I just follow my own common sense, and the hell with the law.

Today, the New York Times features an extensive report on how small courts directly violate the law that they are supposed to uphold and protect:

In 2003 alone, justices disciplined by the state included one in Montgomery County who had closed his court to the public and let prosecutors run the proceedings during 20 years in office. Another, in Westchester County, had warned the police not to arrest his political cronies for drunken driving, and asked a Lebanese-American with a parking ticket if she was a terrorist. A third, in Delaware County, had been convicted of having sex with a mentally retarded woman in his care.

You are still allowed to breathe

The Swiss federal parliament currently resides in Flims for the “Sessiun” and features a new electronic device for voting. Votes are cast by each member of the parliament wirelessly from now on. Sounds cool and pretty avant-garde, doesn’t it?

Well, the problem is that the wireless votes didn’t work from the first day on. As it turned out, the frequency these devices operate on and that has been exclusively reserved was being jammed. For this reason, the members of parliament had to stand up/remain seated when voting just like they traditionally did. That is until some pros from the Federal Office Of Communication (OFCOM) tracked down the jammer. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t one jammer, there were ten. For example, there was the electronic ordering system of a restaurant, a modem, and an avalanche warning system interfering with the fundamentals of our democracy. From now on everytime the parliament casts a vote, these devices have to be turned off first and can go back online when the vote is over.

Swiss radio anchorwoman Mona Vetsch was joking this morning that everything in Flims has to be turned off except for pacemakers. However, there is also an other piece of humor in this story. For those of you who don’t know, Flims is a relatively small tourists place deep in the Swiss Alps. I am really wondering how many additional jammers they are going to find once they are back in Bern.

This is what we do on a rainy Sunday

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bottom-up music

Switzerland has now its own LastFM clone called mx3. The platform is supported by the major Swiss radios targeted at a young audience and it sounds to me like a cheap way for them to spot newcomers.

A first quick peek has shown to me that the available music is very rich and definitely not mainstream, so if you like to explore that sort of realm you’ll be happy.

(the interface comes in all Swiss national languages plus English)