l0l0lpur32

This year has gone mega-fast for some reason, feels like only a month ago that 2008 started and now it's almost Christmas...

Not entirely sure on this, but I think a lot of it is down to taxes and also importing Oil instead of producing it like America does. In Ireland something like 65% of the Petrol price is tax. The price before tax is probably about the same in Europe as it is in the US - the vast majority of the price is tax.

Nay

to add to this, percentage wise U = 0-40% E = 40-50% D = 50-60% C = 60-70% B = 70-80% A = 80-90% A* = 90+ %. thats a rough guide. I know its right for sciences, but I have no idea if its 100% accurate for other subjects. Currently I'm aiming for at least a B in my next set of modules (January). We dont really have a constant grading system here. You dont know what you've got until you get your results back a month or two after the exam. In america, is there any kind of standardization for GPA or whatever, or does it differ completely from school to school? Adding some more: Every unit at A-level is worth a certain amount of UMS points, but all the units in the AS year add up to 300, and the same amount in the A2 year, adding up to 600 - the amount of units and what they are each worth depends on the subject. (At GCSE the amount of UMS points per module, and overall differs massively from subject to subject depending how much coursework there is etc) The A* at A level doesn't actually "exist" yet, it's only starting for people just beginning their AS year now. Also the A* isn't actually 90%+, it's 80%+ overall with 90%+ in all A2 units - i.e. it's possible to get 210/300 UMS overall in AS (a C), then get 90% (270/300 UMS) in all A2 units, giving 480/600 UMS for the full A-level, and get an A* with "just" 80% overall, whereas someone with 100% in every single unit but one 100-UMS A2 unit where they get 89%, with 589/600 UMS would "just" get an A even though they had ~98% UMS. (these are both extreme examples btw) Also the % of UMS marks per grade is consistent across all A-level subjects (at 80% = A, 70% = B etc), but at GCSE it's all over the place from subject to subject (generally around 85% = A*, 75% = A etc for things like Maths and English though - but for some stuff like Art it's something like 99% for an A* :shock:)

The people who egged him on are complete [bleep]s. Although a lot of them probably thought he was joking and wasn't going to do it, someone obviously has problems if they even joke about it so it's still wrong. I'm not sure on the full story but I wonder why the police weren't called earlier? Also I read that he threatened to commit suicide once before then on the same website, why weren't they called that time? p.s some of the posts on this thread make me sick

Attempted murder is just as bad as successful murder.

If anything, sales help the economy.

Didn't you say you wanted to unban drugs because of "freedom before safety"?

Of course it should be illegal, due to the human trafficking etc which goes with it.

Can you explain to me how a CEO who saw a gap in the market, built a business to the point he longer has to work for it, but owns it nonetheless for the money it produces, has worked for that money? All he's done is organised a clever way of making people earn money for him. You say that like it's easy - you do know the vast majority of new businesses fail within a few years? If there was no profit motive, very few people (less than now) would take the risk of opening a business and no new products would ever be made and we would be stuck in the 1950s. (Let me guess, under socialism/communism people would develop new products "for the good of society"?)

Nor ever will it be. Not even with transhumanism..? no

It doesn't work like that, you only pay the 25% on any earnings AFTER the amount where the 25% bracket starts.

You would rather have a single person let billions of dollars rot in their bank account doing nothing than to spread the wealth? You understand that the less money is spent, the worse off our economy is, correct? And If they're losing huge sums of money to taxes and want to complain about it, how about they go live a normal lifestyle? They don't have to outrageously wealthy. They are lucky enough to live such lavish lives, spend more money on a car than I will probably ever be able to spend on a house, and pay cash for a house I can only dream of ever even seeing? Yeah, that's really unfair to take away their hard earned money with those multi million dollar bonuses their work gives them at the end of each year. Or let's take this another direction. Who's to say they didn't come about their money through family. They're merely heirs. Tell me all about their struggle to earn enough to feed their families and afford enough gas to get to work. [/sarcasm] I assume you've never been in the position where finding work is next to impossible or you physically can't work at all. Suppose some day you have a bad accident and any money you had put away goes to paying your medical bills. You're so severely injured that you are never able to work again. Would you like some of those tax dollars coming your way or are you happy being physically handicapped and begging for money on the streets? You would rather steal money off people who earned it, and give it to people who didn't earn it? And about inheritance - the person who they inherited it off chose to give it (their money) to them, would you rather they were forced to give it to the state instead?

Yeah, it's not like the "people who are never going to use it" earned it is it?

Do you even understand what you just wrote?

Although capitalism makes people unequally rich, socialism just makes everyone equally poor.

I find it ironic how you say Cigarettes pay for health care for some reason :lol: I'm pretty sure the tax revenue from the excise duty on cigars is higher than the amount spent curing smoking-related diseases, not sure of the exact figures though.

How many people have being killed in communist states around the world in engineered famines, forced labour camps, gulags, mass-deportations etc? 100m in total is it (around 65m of that in China, 20m in the USSR then a few more million in other places)? But yeah, communism is really nice and helps the poor :roll: Who is arguing for communism here? Just because we're anti capitalist doesn't mean we're communist. That's a new one, usually people just reply with "oh they weren't really communist".

How many people have being killed in communist states around the world in engineered famines, forced labour camps, gulags, mass-deportations etc? 100m in total is it (around 65m of that in China, 20m in the USSR then a few more million in other places)? But yeah, communism is really nice and helps the poor :roll:

Very unrealistic on a large scale.

Holy jesus I barely even made it to the end of that sentence. I'm scared to read the rest of the post. Laugh while you have the consensus. There are two ways this can work out. 1. You guys realise how [bleep] stupid you are and the general consensus starts shifting to the left and we go from there. 2. You continue your little game, and people get tired of it. Eventually, the people who have had everything taken from them will TAKE IT BACK FROM YOU. All of it. By force. Such is the nature of a class war. The choice is yours. Go see a doctor or something

Grow up

The KKK doesn't even exist anymore except a few tiny fringe groups scattered over random places, with probably less than 500 or so members combined - I highly doubt they would be able to organise the assassination of the best-protected man in the world.

Bush's first term: -War on Terror -Patriot Act -Foundings for an economic disaster (see "War or Terror") -National Debt consistently sinks -Invasion of Iraq ..and many other "little things". I'd say he did a pretty good job of messing up his first term. He even got elected to a second term. What? You're blaming the credit crunch on the war on terror? Also, pretty much everything on that list would've happened no matter who won the election. Btw what do you mean by he "never got elected to a second term"?

I stopped reading when I reached this line - Obama isn't a socialist/communist