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Comment Re:French republic vs monarchy ? (Score 1) 105

The citizens vote to elect the two parliament chambers members, representing proportionally the states and the peoples. Then the parliament (all members of the two chambers) vote to appoint the 7 Federal Council members. There can appoint any citizen of the country even it's not a candidate. As strange as it look like, yes this has happened: a citizen without high view on the politic can be boosted up to the highest level in a few hours. The main goal is to form a stable Federal Council with a proportional diversity of the leading parties. Then 7 Federal Council members decide by them self there minister assignation between them.

That is how democracy works. That is no different from any other country in Europe. You still need to get around the problem of selecting a person the parliament can vote on. They can't vote on everybody.

Comment Re:French republic vs monarchy ? (Score 1) 105

It's only a democratic country because there can vote for the king, but the king choose the ministers and the ministers can do anything. The parliament is a joke to keep some credibility that some discussion exists. The citizen are left with there problems and never take seriously.

The french president have had a lot of power since thr 50s, but appointing the government (or administration as Americans put is) is alwsys the primary responsibility of the head of government. The same happens in all states. Prime ministers to presidents all do that.

Comment Re:Easy grammar (Score 1) 626

This is more of the rule than the exception in most languages that I know.

English is my fourth language, and when I started getting serious about speaking it properly, I realized two things:
- I had been pronouncing many words incorrectly, and to this day, 25 years later, I sometimes realize that I had the wrong pronunciation all along. Sometimes it is because I am familiar with the word in the original language, but it is pronounced differently in English, and sometimes it is because the pronunciation disobeys English rules.
- Many native speakers have no idea how to pronounce words that they have never heard.

But in Bulgarian, Russian, French, Spanish, Hungarian, Polish, German, there are very, very few words that you would mispronounce if you see them written down, as long as you know the applicable rules. Some of the languages above (not all) are also very easy to spell, because as long as you know the correct pronunciation, there is only one possible spelling.

Most of the languages have rythm and emphesis rules that you have to know, and are not written down. Getting that wrong is as confusing to a native speaker as choosing the wrong vowel sound in English.

Btw. The quick way to figuring out how close the writen and spoken languages are, is to check how old the written language is. If the written language is several hundred years old, then it is going to be rather different from the spoken language that has evolved faster in the meantime.

Businesses

Swiss Launch of Apple Watch Hit By Patent Issue 111

wabrandsma points out this Reuters story, according to which: Apple is not able to launch its new smartwatch in Switzerland until at least the end of this year because of an intellectual property rights issue, Swiss broadcaster RTS reported on its website. The U.S. tech giant cannot use the image of an apple nor the word 'apple' to launch its watch within Switzerland, the home of luxury watches, because of a patent from 1985, RTS reported, citing a document from the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property.

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