Our trusty and well-beloved Defence and STUFF Minister @Bråneu Excelsio, UrN is currently overloaded with other responsibilities, and apparently struggles with Mexican internet utilities, and has asked for his workload to be lightened somewhat.

Thus, I have requested @King Txec to appoint @Mic'haglh Autófil, O.Be to the portfolio of Minister of STUFF. Cxhn. Excelsio will continue to serve, not only in Cabinet as Defence Minister, but as Deputy Minister of STUFF in the Propaganda sub-portfolio, with oversight of the National Website, our social media accounts, and publication of La C'hronică. All this is of course provisional in view of a proposed top-to-bottom legislative reorganisation of the frankly bloated STUFF portfolio.

tHaNk YoU fOr ThIs AtTeNtIoN tO tHiS mAtTeR!!!

Estimat Túischac'h, the question of the future of the role of "Immigration greeter" has been put to Cabinet for discussion. We note that previous incarnations of this function, including the "TalossAssistant" program, fell by the wayside, for the same reason many things do nowadays: no-one wants to do the work, and calling for volunteers doesn't help.

Estimat Túischac'h, may I also wholeheartedly endorse the comments of my colleague the Foreign Minister, made elsewhere, and express regret that under Talossa's electoral system, there is no way anyone prepared to vote for themselves can fail to get a Cosă seat, no matter how much of a verpă they are.

Quote from: Tric'hard Lenxheir on May 26, 2025, 05:43:02 PMwhen we actually create a law, with teeth, regarding harassment, sexual or otherwise, I

In fact, we already have one of those.

QuoteA.7.1.2. "Harassment" shall mean engaging in a course of conduct or repeatedly committing acts which harass, intimidate or distress a person and which serve no legitimate purpose.

...

    7.3.1. Whoever commits physical or sexual violence or threats thereof against any citizen or "judicial person" under Talossan law is guilty of a felony. [58]

        7.3.1.1. "Sexual violence" shall include abuse of trust, where a Talossan citizen over the age of 18 initiates sexual conduct (physically or by means of words or images) with any person under the age of 18; and the citizen over 18 is in a position of supervision, authority or tutelage over said person under 18.[59]

    7.3.2. Whoever commits fraud or harassment against any citizen or "judicial person" under Talossan law is guilty of a serious misdemeanour. Whoever commits threats of the above is guilty of a misdemeanour.

The thing is that what Brenéir did, while repulsive, did not rise to that criminal level.

Okay, I think I've figured it out.

The Ministry of STUFF to be reconfigured to be about "making stuff"- "the design and production of "physical embodiments of Talossanity", whether for distribution to citizens, to publicise the Kingdom to outsiders, or to sell for profit." (I prefer a PermSec to be in charge of actually making the stuff.)

A Ministry of Propaganda to be set up for "for the internal and external promotion of the Kingdom, all events therein and all things Talossan through public relations, and shall dutifully ensure that the Kingdom and its events are regularly publicised and may use any means and media available to them to achieve this. The Ministry of Propaganda shall be directly responsible for the content of one or more websites and/or social media accounts named as the 'official' website(s) and social media account(s) of the Kingdom."

A Ministry of Information to take on ensuring the availability, for all Talossans, of "information necessary for or useful to citizenship". This would mean, in concrete terms right now, La C'hronica and Infoteca.

I still think that the test taken to authorise ID cards should come under "Culture".

Bump. The recent AI hype has stiffened my resolve in this regard, but I have other things to do right now.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on June 04, 2025, 07:43:27 AMI believe honorary citizenship could be granted to an LLM.

I am *not* putting a chatbot on the same legal footing as a living, breathing, Talossan human, and that's final.

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil, O.Be on June 03, 2025, 10:09:00 PMPersonally, I don't think putting anything ID card-related under the Immigration Portfolio makes much sense given the arrangement of the rest of the Government's duties.

Which current portfolio do you think is appropriate for designing ID cards and issuing them to citizens? I'm actually leaning back towards Culture, if only because right now they're contingent on the Citizenship Test

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on June 03, 2025, 07:21:04 AMI would strongly urge you not to add anything to Immigration beyond its existing duties.

Here's something a lot of people don't know - by law, MinImmigration deals *only* with the actual immigration process. Publicising Talossa to potential new immigrants comes under STUFF.

QuoteIt might also make sense at this time to consider changing the name of MinSTUFF.  It's a backronym created because a past government just wanted to make someone responsible for doing miscellaneous things

As far as I can tell, "Minister of Stuff" was originally a pointless title that King Robert I gave to his father. Later it became synonymous with "Minister of Finance" (i.e. Harry Madison gave his kid pocket money). It already meant something different from that when I started in 1997. I think it's one of those quirky traditions that bears keeping.

QuoteMaybe it's time to make a Minister of Stuff (as in, producing things like TalossaWare and ID cards) and a Minister for Across the River (website and social media)?

I *like* it, but for continuity purposes, actually making Stuff should be a civil service job.

Quote from: Sir Lüc on June 03, 2025, 08:34:55 AMI for one am glad we're increasing the number of portfolios rather than axing them. It may be counterintuitive, but it adds way more flexibility to deal with fluctuating activity levels and managing individual ministers's workload.

Assuming you can find an extra Cabinet minister, and you're not just chopping one hat into two

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on June 03, 2025, 03:54:52 PMso what other details can you share then, from that process?

Well, we created a list of questions from this company and got a list of answers in return - @Mic'haglh Autófil, O.Be was the point man on this, and I'll ask Cabinet for permission to republish those.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on June 03, 2025, 09:53:31 AMI hope that the Government does the responsible thing and explores the idea, privately, even if it doesn't work out as a good idea.

The Government has already explored the idea privately. Why do you think it's taken a month to go public, lol :D

I, personally, am vehemently opposed to the idea, for reasons I'll explore in another post, but that was not a Cabinet consensus. So after a lot of discussion, and posting questions to these people, we decided to advise His Maj to make the proposal public.

I am leaning more towards Production being a Civil Service (i.e. totally non-political) branch of the State. "Making things" IMHO requires some level of specialisation (or at least being able to get in touch with manufacturers), and it would honestly be good to have all of that in one place.

Incidentally, as I envisage it, Production would make all kinds of things we need - Talossaware, ID cards - but ID cards should no longer be under STUFF. The purpose of STUFF is publicity and information for and about Talossa. The *design and issue* (as opposed to manufacture) of ID cards should, I feel, probably come under Immigration (to be renamed Immigration and Citizenship)?

All this of course assumes that there's someone who could be a Civil Servant who thinks they could have a go at Making Stuff, or at least Ensuring Stuff Gets Made.

Twenty-one years ago today, Tamoran dal Navă, Mic'haglh Popeu, @GV, @Gjermund Higraff and seven others Dared Something Worthy and struck the first major blow for a democratic Talossa, which led us to where we are today.

We honour their tenacity and their sacrifice, and the traditions of the Republic which they founded, still embodied in the Free Province of Fiovă today.

Quote from: mximo on June 01, 2025, 10:23:50 AMhave  concerned by what appears to be undue interference by the Prime Minister in the internal affairs of our Province

? All I did is cite a historical fact. I would like to call as my witness that defender of Talossa's traditions, @Baron Alexandreu Davinescu , to confirm that yes, Cunstavais have traditionally not been citizens of the provinces they oversees, and that was undoubtedly a deliberate choice by Good King John and his court at the time.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on May 31, 2025, 10:37:38 PMthe Senats has served to allow for individual representation of the interests of each province

See, I don't believe that provinces in Talossa have distinct interests, with the possible exception of Cezembre.