Most of us think of the Swiss as a peaceful people ... remaining neutral, focused on gold bullion, chocolate and keeping good time. That's a great combination. My life would be much improved if I had some gold bullion, high quality dark chocolate and more time.

But the Swiss Secret is out. And I'd venture to say they're rather embarassed about it, even though they're trying to stay Swiss-calm as ever.

They've got mad cows.

Not the kind that have bovine spongiform encephalopathy, but just plain old, pissed off cows.

Apparently, the Swiss Hiking Federation has made an announcement that hikers in the Swiss alps need to stay away from the cows.

Their website at http://www.swisshiking.ch apparently says, "...never hug a calf."

Seems reasonable advice to me. Why would I want to hug a calf again?

The website goes on to say, "Do not scare the animals or look them directly in the eye. Do not wave sticks. Give a precise blow to the muzzle of the cow in the event of absolute need..."

That last point really has me wondering what's going on here. There are extremely vivid pictures running through my mind of people fondling, groping and generally abusing cows in ways they weren't meant to be abused by humans, and the cows going crazy. Suddenly the cow swerves away and attempts a judo chop to the idiot human's head. At this point, you're supposed to give a precise blow to the muzzle of the cow...presumably incapacitating it or scaring it off?

Given that few of us are actually ninjas, is it not safe to assume that someone will try this, miss and/or not cause the appropriate response from the cow, only to have the cow really give it to them?

Have the Swiss decided to use cows to police the Alps? And how many cows are out there, just waiting to form a cohesive, secret strike force of deadly bovine insanity?

Somehow, I don't have a lot of faith that the Swiss can contain their crazy cows. So as much as I'd like to see the Swiss Alps, eat some of their chocolate and keep really, really good time, I'd rather not be another victim of cow assaults.

That cow is wearing a beret! And what's that behind him on the left? A Patriot missile installation? Um...

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