As predicted, the Swiss decided not to adopt the Waffeninitiative on Sunday. I mean, taking your gun to an arsenal would completely undermine the Swiss state and bring about a disintegration of the nation, probably leading to Libya invading and splitting the country up. How stupid was I not to realise this? Suprisingly, though, Kanton Zürich voted for the initiative, joining a camp that is usually only filled with French speakers and Basel-Stadt (sometimes Tessin joins the party, too). It's a nice, little, liberal camp. They seem to like foreignors here, and minarets...
Here in the north west there were several other votes, too. One in Basel-Stadt about Tagesschulen (all-day schools, rejected) and one in Basel-Landschaft about subsidies to the theatre here in Basel. Rejected.
But this has raised an interesting situation. Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft are two half-cantons, which were united until 1833, when BL left the original Kanton of Basel. It still isn't recognised in the constitution of Basel Stadt. Together they recieve the same representation in parliament as, say, somewhere as small as Zug. It makes total sense. The interesting situation is this: one of the Gemeinde in BL voted to keep paying subsidies, and apparently votes almost consistently with BS, to which it is physically but not politically joined.
In the papers today and yesterday there were several articles about the possibility of it joining BS, and whether there should actually be two separate cantons anyway. There was a referendum back in the late 60s, which was rejected by the people of BL. Could there be another on the way?
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