Frank Bitterlich

Der Bau von Minaretten ist verboten.

— Swiss Federal Constitution, Article 72, Paragraph 3

4.

— Total number of existing minarets in Switzerland.

“The construction of minarets is forbidden.”

Rarely has such a short sentence of legislation caused such a stir worldwide. But as small Switzerland is, as powerful is its economic; and in parallel, as short as this addition to the swiss constitution is, as explosive its consequences may be.

An overall of 57% of swiss voters supported this addition, causing reactions from utter disbelief and shock to suggestions to follow this example by right-wing parties all across Europe.

Switzerland has long been known for restrictive immigration policy, reservedness against refugees and generally a good bit of xenophobia among parts of its people. But this decision has caught most of Europe and even Switzerland by surprise. But why? Read More »

I wonder what brand of dictionary the folks over in Redmond are using. But until now, the word “stable” had a pretty well-defined meaning for me. Not so any more… This is a quote from Simon Aldous, manager with the Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft Ltd. (UK):

One of the things that people say an awful lot about the Apple Mac is that the OS is fantastic, that it’s very graphical and easy to use. What we’ve tried to do with Windows 7 – whether it’s traditional format or in a touch format – is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics. We’ve significantly improved the graphical user interface, but it’s built on that very stable core Vista technology, which is far more stable than the current Mac platform, for instance.

(Emphasis added by me)

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