Nous sommes à moins de deux semaines du premier tour des élections présidentielles et cinquante ans après l'instauration de la Ve République, les (petits et moyens) partis politiques n'ont toujours pas compris comment utiliser le mode du scrutin pour défendre leurs causes.
Pour rappel : Au deuxième tour ne sont admis que les deux candidants ayant obtenu le plus de voix au premier tour. Si l'on croit les sondages effectués, cinq candidats obtiendront plus de 10% des votes et les cinq autres se contenteront de moins de 2%. Tout en accordant le respect nécessaire à l'esprit olympique ("l'important, c'est de participer"), je ne vois pas l'utilité des cinq candidats très nettement distancés à vouloir participer au premier tour (à part si les sondages ne représentent pas les indécis comme moi-même). Ca n'a tout simplement pas de sens - ils feraient mieux d'investir leur temps et leur énergie dans les mandants qu'ils exercent déjà ! A quoi bon de recueillir 500 parainages d'élus pour de maigres 0.5% d'intentions de vote...
Les cinq ou six candidats sans chance d'être admis au second tour devraient dès maintenant se retirer de la course à la présidentielle et mobiliser leurs électeurs à voter pour un des quatre ou cinq candidats avec une chance réaliste de pouvoir passer au second tour.

I had the opportunity to attend my first ice hockey match on Saturday evening featuring the SC Langnau Tigers against the HC Lugano. It was quite impressive, although I had thought that the so-called atmosphere would be more catching. The game is so damned fast - maybe too fast for me. I missed the replays I'm used to on TV. And the brutality of the players and the game itself is awful. I'd never seen the Ilfis Halle when it's in "hockey dress" before. It was alright because it was still summer, but I don't know if I could bear it in winter. Anyway Langnau eventually won 4:3 after starting with 1:3 into the last round. The audience was pleased.

Summary of this week's very relevant news from the World out there:
The lives of US soldiers at war are now in danger for the first time ever because wikileaks released around 400'000 documents from the Iraq war, US foreign minister Hillary Clinton claims. Maybe they shouldn't have gone to war in the first place.
Gas is becoming a scarce resource in France because the lazy beans will have to work until the age of 62 before going to pension. There still is spare oil to be collected from the residues of the Deep Water Horizon leaks in Mississippi...
The SCL Tigers won 9:1 against Lugano in the Swiss Hockey National League A.

I'd like to provide you a 360° panorama view of the Louvre in Paris. Assembled by hand from various pictures I took during our trip to the capital of France in July 2009, it shows the small Arc de Triomphe, the glass pyramid and the side wings of the gigantic museum.

The Swiss have accepted the proposal to ban the building of minarets, official results show.
It's shameful for a democratic country to globally ban the Islamic religious expression in its constitution. The proposal doesn't forbid the building of mosques or other religious temples - only minarets. However, it shows how narrow minded voters are and how very little diplomatic feeling they have.
As an atheist, I must confess that I am way more bothered by christian churches and their bells than by any minaret.
It would be interesting to see how much damage Muslims could inflict to the Swiss banking system if they would draw back all their money from Swiss banks - and how much political damage this decision inflicts to Switzerland on the international level.