DISCLAIMER: Author may come across as very braggy and annoyingly euphoric. Both judgements would be so, so right right now

Oh my God, y'all .
I'm thisclose to graduating; it's not officially done till June 30, but I got my grades today, and so, please, celebrate me. Best'd be with a ticker-tape parade :pisang: .

And so you know why it's so celebration-worthy, first look here, the scan of the paper with my grades in German :funky_pisang:.

And an explanation in English: The abitur grade is composed of a number of individual grades. 15 is the best and 0 the worst.
Bragging (of more or less bragworthy things) Time:

132 points is the sum of my grades in my Leistungskurse (English and Math); the grades of 6 semesters are doubled and added. So, 132 of 180.
234 points is the sum of my grades in my Grundkurse; the grades from 22 semesters are added. So, 234 of 330.
30 points is the doubled grade of the Facharbeit, basically a term paper we had to write. I did mine in English and scored 30 of 30.

Then there were the four actual Abitur exams in May. I did mine
E : 15 points is my grade on the English abitur exam. Yes, I scored full points.
M : 07 points is my grade on the Math abitur exam. And it's exactly what I had hoped for in the best case, though of course I wouldn't have minded being better.
G : 12 points is my grade on the History abitur exam. Given how shitty I thought I was, yay me double!
B : 56 points is my actual grade quadrupled. My oral exam (colloquium) was graded 14 points, because I still rock in biology. Woot!
This gives me a total abitur grade of 232 points (out of 300 total).

Or as a short summary: I received 628 out of 840 points.
And that equals a grade average of 1.9, which is very good (considering that in Germany 1 is the best grade and 6 the worst). Of course, I could've been better (if it hadn't been for math), but an average with a 1.* in front was all I wanted, so, yay me ( :pisang:, some more!).

In an unprecedented move by Ceoranan voters today, they managed a five-way tie for the Ceoranan presidential election. In light of this, Congress, the votes for which have already been counted, took an unprecedented move and decided to open up voting to other nations of the IDU. Each nation may cast one vote, and this will determine the next Ceoranan president.

(OOC: I get to RP the absentee ballots that got lost in the mail if I don't like what you guys choose )

The Candidates:

Bjorn Cooper, Jr.
Ceorana Liberal Party
Ethnicity: Scandinavian
Age: 37
Two-term incumbent president of Ceorana. Led the nation out of the dark ages, although it is now knpwn that that probably had more to do with the Convergence (OOC: see history of Ceorana on NSwiki for details) than anything else. Holds left-wing views, favors low police and military, excessive welfare and public education, subsidies for businesses. Billed by the CLP as a "caring choice", billed by opponents as a "borderline commie".

Myra Peterson
Ceoranan Community Coalition (not actually a coalition, just the party name)
Ethnicity: Western European
Age: 68
Soft-spoken but hard-line community activist, with strong conservative Christian values but also "caring choices". Current member of the House of Representatives, but quitting in order to run for President. Anti-gay rights, anti-abortion, pro-establishment, anti-big government, pro-lots of welfare, pro-conscription, anti-military, and pro-environment. Billed by opponents as a "backwards, radical, hyper-religious hippy", billed by the CCC as an "alternative to big business and government, bringing the focus back to communities". (OOC: Yeah, right.)

James Lin
Global Progressive Party
Ethnicity: Slavic/Chinese
Age: 49
A software developer and State Department worker from Tzatzing, James Lin is the strongest advocate of the United Nations among all of the candidates. He is generally mild-mannered and a bit shy, but on some issues, he can get really riled up and has a habit of banging his fist on tables. True to his party's name, he strongly favors free trade and was the architect behind the software for the Ceoranan Anti-Tariff Gun, which inhabits the Ceoranan UN office. He favors increased education replacing welfare and has moderate views regarding fair competition laws, environmental policies, and gun laws. Billed by his supporters as the "progressive choice", billed by opponents as a "radical moderate flip-flopper".

Opal Kzeichnier
Ceoranan Right Wing Alliance
Ethnicity: Russian
Age: 89
A libertarian, Opal Kzeichnier is a loud and voracious speaker who doesn't ever seem to breath. Sending strong arguments for her pro-gun rights, anti-abortion, antidisestablisment, anti-government, anti-UN, anti-small business, anti-public education, anti-welfare position, she has managed to convince many a voter to consider her. She did lose a few rating points for making a strange gurgling noise into a microphone at a rally in Komosit last month. Billed by her party as the "right choice", billed by opposition as a "negative nut".

Horace Indigo
Ceoranan Alternative Party
Ethnicity: Indian/Finn
Age: 36
Horace Indigo is a member of a the Ceorana Alternative Party, a party which seeks to reach out to people who don't like any of the other parties. A hip (comparative) youngster, he is the most moderate of the candidates, mildly favoring free trade but slightly against big business. He is generally billed as the "people's candidate" by supporters, but billed as a "pandering idiot" by opponents.

This forum is in character. I differentiate it from our other in-character forum as follows:

This forum is as if all of our national leaders were sitting at a table in a room, or linked together by an electronic system, or however you want to visualize it. We're all here and we're all talking more or less face-to-face. Sort of like the UN forum. It's for announcing developments in your nation, or developing things that concern everyone. A regional trade agreement would go here. Bilateral trade would probably go in the other forum. This is a place where nations interact with the group.

Of course, it's all kind of a judgement call. So post what you want, where you want. This is just my idea of it.

And I'm stickying this, because it's OOC.

Watching the Portugal - Iran game this morning, I was struck with an idea. An IDU Football Tournament, sort of a World Cup of the IDU, but on a much smaller scale. I was thinking more like the UEFA European Football Championships, with sixteen nations participating.

For those unfamiliar with the UEFA tournament format, sixteen teams are divided equally into four groups, A, B, C and D, each consisting of four teams. The four groups are played in a league format, where a team plays its opponents once each. The points system used is three points for a win, one point for a draw, and no points for a defeat. The winner and runner-up of each group progresses to the quarter-finals, where a knockout system is used (the two teams play each other once, the winner progresses), this is used in all subsequent rounds as well. The winners of the quarter-finals matches progress to the semi-finals, where the winners play in the final. If in any of the knockout rounds after normal playing time, the scores are still equal, extra time and penalties are employed to separate the two teams.

The scorinator for our tournament can be either Python, NSFootySim, or any other methods, depending on the chosen host. The purpose of a proposed tournament would be to bring more participation onto the forums, use the tournament as a tool to help bring in nations into the region and its' forums, bring the nations of the IDU together, create more IDU wiki-pages, and to promote positive and peaceful relations between all nations of the IDU.

It would be simple to pull-off, a few hosting bids are needed though and a vote to choose the host nation and the voila! The only two challenges are whether or not we can bring together sixteen nations for the proposed tournament and whether or not (and how) to apply RP-bonuses.

So? Comments, Questions, Suggestions, Support? :duck:

Quote: Euthanasia Legality Convention

A resolution to restrict civil freedoms in the interest of moral decency.


Category: Moral Decency


Strength: Mild


Proposed by: Pro-Sovereignty Babes

Description: RECOGNIZING that good people disagree over the issue of Euthanasia. Since euthanasia can be broadly defined to mean very different things (from consent to withdrawing food and water) there are also many degrees of opinion.

ACKNOWLEDGING that there are many nations who believe Euthanasia is a human rights issue, to give people the right to have euthanasia legal, while others see euthanasia as a human rights issue to protect members of their society from active euthanasia. Further acknowledging that there are many more opinions that divide people on this issue.

BELIEVING that for the United Nations to rule decisively on this issue one way or the other would prevent those who disagree to violate their core beliefs from being a part of this world body.

REGRETTING that strong opinions on both sides will fail to bring those who disagree to any reasonable agreement on this issue,

SEEKING to establish a middle ground:

DECLARES that individual nations have the right to declare euthanasia legal or illegal, and to pass legislation extending or restricting the right to Euthanasia.

URGES the UN to pursue unity over all "deeply divisive" issues like abortion and euthanasia. This will prevent a Dis-United Nations and allow more participation from nations who might not otherwise choose to be involved.[/quote]

Quote: Repeal "Ban Single-Hulled Tankers"

A proposal to repeal a previously passed resolution


Category: Repeal


Resolution: #11


Proposed by: Larry is still God

Description: UN Resolution #11: Ban Single-Hulled Tankers (Category: Environmental; Industry Affected: All Businesses) shall be struck out and rendered null and void.

Argument: NOTING that environmental hazards are a primary concern in our interconnected,

FURTHER NOTING that Resolution #11, ?Ban Single-Hulled Tankers,? identifies too narrow of a subject area, and should be broadened to support environmental concerns in other areas,

CONSIDERING that the support of well-written, comprehensive resolutions is fundamental to the longevity of the United Nations,

CONCERNED that Resolution #11, ?Ban Single-Hulled Tankers,? is poorly written and ineffectual in that it defines a finite subject area and does not expand beyond it,

ALSO CONSIDERING that, as the United Nations has constantly shown, poor and ineffectual resolutions can be replaced with more effective ones,

SUPPORTING the replacement of Resolution #11, ?Ban Single-Hulled Tankers,? with a proposal both effective and broad in scope in its support of environmental protections,

REPEALS Resolution #11, ?Ban Single-Hulled Tankers.?

Co-authored by Dankism[/quote]

Quote: UN Copyright Convention
A resolution to reduce barriers to free trade and commerce.

Category: Free Trade
Strength: Significant
Proposed by: Ceorana

Description: The United Nations,

NOTING that the greatest value in intellectual property is the creative or investigative work used to create it, not the medium on which it is demonstrated or displayed,

BELIEVING that creators of intellectual property should be able to have control over the distribution and display of their work,

NOTING that many nations already have copyright laws in place, but these laws can vary immensely and do not apply to other nations,

AFFIRMING that an international convention on copyrights would guarantee copyright owners control over their work, and thus

CONCLUDING that an international convention on copyrights would give authors an incentive to market their work both internationally and nationally, improving economies through increased trade,

1. DEFINES, for the purpose of this resolution:
a. "intellectual property" as any work of mainly creative value that is of original authorship and is fixed in a tangible expressive medium;
b. "copyright law" as law which grants exclusive property rights to the creator of a particular form of intellectual property and provides protection to those rights;
c. "fair use" as a use or reproduction of intellectual property in educational institutions for educational purposes, for private/personal use, for use in critical articles or reviews, or for parodies, provided that such use does not excessively infringe on the rights and profits of the copyright holder;
d. ?legal entity? as a sentient being or corporation;

2. DECLARES that the copyright law of each nation shall apply to the distribution, demonstration, expression, and use of intellectual property in that nation, regardless of where the work was originally published or created or the citizenship of the author;

3. MANDATES that national copyright law must provide at least as much protection as the following:
a. No legal entity or government may print, display, demonstrate, reproduce, or store in an electronic system any intellectual property without the consent of the copyright holder for a period extending until at least thirty years after the death of the author, or, in the case of a corporation originating the copyright, at least sixty-five years after the work was placed in tangible form, except under the exceptions for fair use;
b. National copyright law must not discriminate in favor of domestic works;
c. Except as provided in this clause, application of copyrights must take place automatically at the time that the work was first placed in tangible form, with no statutory formalities required for protection. Nations may impose additional requirements for securing copyright, but these may apply only to works created within that nation by its own citizens;

4. DECLARES that copyright holders may license use of intellectual property to any or all legal entities under any terms they desire, but that all people reserve the rights to use the work under the pertinent national copyright law;

5. DECLARES that copyright holders may, if they wish, put their work into the public domain, at which time it is free for anyone to use for any purpose, with or without attribution;

6. DECLARES that copyrights may be held by any person or legal entity, and may be transfered or sold, but that the original author of the work must always have rights to use his work.

Co-authored by Ausserland.[/quote]
Vote will be cast as FOR as soon as this comes to vote, thank you very much.

RFID in new Weapons

A resolution to improve world security by boosting police and military budgets.


Category: International Security


Strength: Mild


Proposed by: Love and esterel

Description: The United Nations,

-A- Convinced that improved and efficient traceability contributes to decrease illegal arms sales worldwide,

-B- Affirming that, because of their destruction potential, the right to own weapons and its related privacy shall go along with some duties, as good conduct commitment and respect of dangerous products traceability,

-C- Desiring to help judicial process over nationals and international criminality by more accurate, faster and cost saving tracing processes,

-D- Defining a Radio Frequency Identification tag (?RFID tag?) as a generally very small electronic chip storing information about the item to which it is tagged, with an antenna which can receive and respond to radio-frequency queries from a reader - a passive RFID tag doesn't have its own power source and then doesn't send information without being requested,

-E- Fully aware of the very low cost of RFID tags:


-1- Urges members to legislate that a passive and read-only ?RFID tag? with encrypted information (electronic product code, serial number, manufacturer and manufactured year) and read range inferior to 10cm, to be including in most new firearms built, along with most explosive weapons, incendiary weapons and others weapons widely considered heavier;

-2- Urges members to inform weapon?s holder of the presence of the tag, at the time of the purchase, and of the presence or the use of any reader;

-3- Urges members to maintain a secured and encrypted electronic database including electronic product code and owner information for any new weapon sold;

-4- Urges members to not provide that information to entity other than accredited national administrations in justice or law enforcement departments or other nations? government, and to allow access to the database only by court order or reasonable and publicly established national procedures;

-5- Urges members to prohibit most arms imports and exports without ?RFID tag? embedded;

-6- Urges members to cooperate with other nations in order to provide related information, when significant national security matters are not at stake;

-7- Encourages members to share related RFID and computers technology with nations having not yet access to it.

Co-authored by Biotopia

Deadline for voting is Saturday.

Saidercray?s most popular newspaper, Saidercray Today, has a web site now:

http://saidercraytoday.blogspot.com/

http://themetropolistimes.blogspirit.com/a...-world-cup.html

Only a few more days are left until the 2006 FIFA World Cup, so I got geared up by simulating my own tournament. Only instead of measuring soccer skills, I tried to measure overall political, personal, press and economic freedom. The result is the 2006 Freedom World Cup, a competition to see which nation can boast being the "land of the free."

Methodology: The 2006 Freedom World Cup used the same format as the 2006 FIFA World Cup. The 64 teams were divided into 8 groups of 4 teams each. Each team played each other once, with 3 points for a win and 1 point for a tie. The top 2 from each group advanced.

I used 5 different rankings to determine the results. In order, they are the Freedom House's Political Rights rating, Freedom House's Civil Liberties rating, Reporters Without Borders's press freedom index, the Wall Street Journal's and Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom, and the Fraser Institutes's Economic Freedom of the World Index. They are represented in this order in the parentheses next to each team's group standings.

A country was awarded 1 goal for each time it had a lower number than its opponent for the first 3 rankings. A country took away 1 of its opponent's goals for each time it had a lower number than its opponent for the last 2 rankings. There were no negative goals. This meant, for example, that when the United States played the Czech Republic, it ended in a 0-0 draw, although the United States has lower numbers than the Czechs in more ratings.

In the knockout stages, a penalty shootout was often necessary to settle the score. Each country was awarded 1 penalty goal for each number it had lower in all 5 categories. In the rare situation that the penalty shootout ended in a tie, I awarded 1 bonus goal for the country I personally felt was more free.

The arbitrary way I convert rankings to goals and the highly debatable rankings themselves mean that the final results don't mean a ton. Its just for fun.



GROUP STAGE

GROUP A

Germany 9 3-0-0 5 0 (1, 1, #18, #19, #19)

Costa Rica 4 1-1-1 3 1 (1, 1, #41, #46, #20)

Poland 4 1-1-1 3 1 (1, 1, #53, #41, #78)

Ecuador 0 0-3-0 0 9 (3, 3, #87, #107, #88)



GROUP B

England 7 2-0-1 5 0 (1, 1, #24, #5, #6)

Sweden 7 2-0-1 5 0 (1, 1, #12, #19, #24)

Trinidad and Tobago 3 1-2-0 2 4 (3, 2, #12, #42, #44)

Paraguay 0 0-3-0 0 8 (3, 3, #69, #109, #66)



GROUP C

Netherlands 9 3-0-0 9 0 (1, 1, #1, #16, #13)

Argentina 6 2-1-0 5 3 (2, 2, #59, #107, #94)

Serbia & Montenegro 3 1-2-0 1 5 (3, 2, #65, X, X)

Ivory Coast 0 0-3-0 0 7 (6, 6, #144, #88, #103)



GROUP D

Portugal 9 3-0-0 9 0 (1, 1, #23, #30, #34)

Mexico 6 2-1-0 5 3 (2, 2, #135, #60, #59)

Angola 3 1-2-0 1 5 (6, 5, #76, #139, X)

Iran 0 0-3-0 0 7 (6, 6, #164, #156, #78)



GROUP E

Czech Republic 7 2-0-1 3 0 (1, 1, #9, #29, #44)

United States 5 1-0-2 2 0 (1, 1, #44, #9, #3)

Italy 4 1-1-1 2 1 (1, 1, #42, #42, #54)

Ghana 0 0-3-0 0 6 (1, 2, #66, #105, #76)



GROUP F

Australia 9 3-0-0 8 0 (1, 1, #31, #9, #9)

Japan 6 2-1-0 4 2 (1, 2, #37, #27, #30)

Croatia 3 1-2-0 1 5 (2, 2, #56, #55, #86)

Brazil 0 0-3-0 0 6 (2, 2, #63, #81, #88)



GROUP G

Switzerland 9 3-0-0 8 0 (1, 1, #1, #15, #3)

France 6 2-1-0 4 1 (1, 1, #30, #44, #38)

South Korea 3 1-2-0 3 3 (1, 2, #34, #45, #35)

Togo 0 0-3-0 0 6 (6, 5, #95, #134, #115)



GROUP H

Spain 9 3-0-0 9 0 (1, 1, #40, #33, #30)

Ukraine 6 2-1-0 4 3 (3, 2, #112, #99, #103)

Tunisia 3 1-2-0 2 5 (6, 5, #147, #99, #70)

Saudi Arabia 0 0-3-0 2 5 (7, 6, #154, #62, X)



Round of 16

Germany 0, Sweden 0 (pen. 2-1)

Netherlands 3, Mexico 0

Japan 0, Czech Republic 0 (pen. 2-1)

Switzerland 3, Ukraine 0

England 1, Costa Rica 0

Portugal 3, Argentina 0

United States 0, Australia 0 (pen. 2-1)

Spain 0, France 0 (pen. 2-1)



Quarter Finals

Netherlands 1, Germany 0

Switzerland 2, Japan 0

England 0, Portugal 0 (pen. 2-1)

United States 0, Spain 0 (pen. 2-1)



Semi Finals

Switzerland 0, Netherlands 0 (pen. 2-0)

England 0, United States 0 (pen. 2-1)



Final

Switzerland 0, England 0 (pen. 2-1)



During the group stages, the Freedom Cup results followed probable FIFA Cup results with surprising accuracy, especially in Groups B, C and E. The exception was F, where the probable result has been flipped on its head.

In the knockout rounds, the teams were all so close together in the rankings that the results are practically meaningless. Switzerland benefitted from its #1 RWB ranking, and its high economic freedom scores.

Before I began, I expected the United States to win handily. Instead they barely made it out of their tough group and struggled just to reach the semifinals. The Heritage Foundation put the United Kingdom's economic freedom ranking slightly ahead of the United States's, disagreeing with the Fraser Institute. The US suffered greatest from its #44 RWB ranking, which is still far better than what it had last year.

If I ignored the numbers, I'd probably have the US beating Netherlands or England in the final, but beating New Zealand if they qualified. Who would you pick?