Esteemed Mençéi and Túischac'h and all the Senators and Members of the Cosă:

Votes on the last Clark have now been tallied, and soon the 54^th Cosâ will be dissolved. I stand before you today to give what I hope to be as balanced an account of the outgoing Government – a coalition between the Free Democrats, "Awakening and Magnifiying Passion", and the Peculiar Nationalists - which I have led in this term.

While the last Clark results have not yet been formally announced by the Secretary of State, the good news is that the Non-Hereditary Monarchy Amendment has achieved the necessary 3/4 of the Cosă, and absolute majority of the Senäts, to override the Royal veto, and will thus go before the people in referendum at the upcoming general election. With this, the outgoing Government have achieved a milestone in the ongoing project of a Talossa which belongs to the people; notwithstanding, of course, that (with the brief and embarrassing "reign" of the Boy King Louis) Talossa's monarchy has always been elective. Thus, this amendment should be seen as enshrining the status quo rather than bringing in a dangerous novelty – which should surely make it appeal to Talossan conservatives.

Alongside this, the Talossan people will also vote in referendum on two other major reforms: the Seneschál to be nominated by a majority of the Cosă, and the King to be given specific cultural rather than political duties. In this, the outgoing Government has achieved 3 out of 3 of the goals it set itself in its Coalition Agreement – and here are some of the other successes that we are proud of.

   
• Most importantly, the successful move to New Wittenberg.
• The end of 13 years of bickering about the shape of the Talossan language with the adoption of unified rules of spelling by SIGN, the new language authority, and the consequent updating of our online dictionary, l'Överstéir.

These are things that – to reuse the expression I used in my valedictory address to the last Cosă, about the nationalisation of the national webspace - "other governments talked about it endlessly, but our government did it". In the words of our party slogan, Free Democrats in power get things done.

Other more minor successes include the amendment allowing for a fee for succesful Senäts candidates; and the convocation of the Council of Governors. But, as I said in my last valedictory speech, I prize intellectual honesty as among the highest of virtues. So I would like to briefly discuss things that we agreed to do, but failed to.

   
• Most upsettingly for myself personally, we failed to "promote competitions, games and other cultural events for citizens".
• We failed to "use social media creatively to get Talossa "noticed". Market coins and stamps as outreach; investigate stylish presentation frames for them."
• We have not yet released a New Citizens' Information Packet or found "other ways to get new citizens quickly involved in Talossan society and state."
• We failed to enact a drive for "voluntary taxation" (donations from citizens, perhaps a Patreon).
• In contrast, our suggestion of creating a voter's roll to replace the Three Strikes law was developed and introduced; but rejected by the Ziu.
• Finally, we failed to examine taking Wisconsin law out of Talossan law; while absolutely nothing happened in the Foreign Affairs and Defence portfolios.

The only real excuse I can make for these failures is that the members of the Government only have a certain amount of time and space to "do Talossa"; thus, some things got prioritised and others fell by the wayside. In many cases, some preliminary steps were taken to enact these promises, behind the scenes – even some things that the incoming government might be able to build on - but nothing the general public ever got to see.

But "the buck stops here". In some cases, Cabinet Ministers just did not do what they should have done – what their parties promised to do in the Coalition Agreement - and deserve to be held accountable for that. One issue is simply the one of "manpower" - the ongoing crisis of activity in Talossa, which I will return to below – meant that an ill-performing minister could simply not be replaced, and "nothing" was the best available option. In other cases, manpower decisions were influenced by considerations of keeping political balance in a three-party governing Coalition.

For example, in my own portfolio, certain very valuable cultural events did take place – such as the Mixtape Project or the Chess Championship – but without any Government help. As Culture Minister, I take personal responsibility for this. I prioritised setting up SIGN and making the new spelling effective, and hived off responsibilities for competitions and games to a Permanent Secretary, who in turn was unable to do anything.

In this regard, I realise that those critics who have accused me of "squatting" in the Culture Ministry for several terms, on and off, have a point. I have been interested in the language above all, and let other things slide. Therefore, I foreshadow that – assuming Free Democrats are returned to government – I will leave the office of Minister of Culture, although (assuming my successor approves) I would like to retain the office of Ladintsch Naziunal, as chief State promoter of the use of Talossan language, and head of a renewed project of translation of important State documents into ár glheþ naziunal.

I also foreshadow that – assuming that I lead the next Government – I will lead a zero-tolerance regime for "slacking" in the Cabinet. If a Minister fails to do what they've promised, I will require them to explain themselves to the Ziu, or request their resignation, even if there's no obvious replacement. An "empty" chair at the Cabinet is more honest than someone squatting on a portfolio.

But of course, inactivity in Government is only a special case of citizen inactivity in general. Looking back on my valedictory speech to the 53rd Cosă, I realise that I pretty much said everything I needed to so on that subject back then. So here are just some edited highlights:

QuoteTalossa can only have those things which Talossans are happy to put time and effort in to working on. I don't spend stupid amounts of time on Talossa – maybe 30 minutes to an hour a day, on average, and I'm the head of the Government...

What is in my opinion even more shameful – even unpatriotic – is to simultaneously do nothing, and to complain that nothing is being done or, even worse, attempt to obstruct and derail attempts at doing something...

If you want a buzzing, vibrant Talossa which attracts new citizens so that old ones can have a rest, and yet continues to build upon its political and cultural achievement, you all have to work for it – not to just elect a Government which promises to do everything for you.... Nothing will happen, nothing will fundamentally change in Talossa, unless existing Talossans get of their ciúls and make it happen. I don't know what I can do to make that happen except for making vaguely threatening speeches.

On this subject, I would like to briefly address issues raised by Sir Alexandreu Davinescù in his recent criticism of the Government's record, which (in both what we have done, and what we have failed to do) he holds responsible for the current crisis of activity.

The first thing to say about Sir Alexandreu's analysis of our current decline in activity and participation, that the democratic reforms enacted post-Reunision have made Talossa less quirky and fun, is perhaps a shocking one: he may be correct. Perhaps he is right that an essential part of Talossa's appeal of was the pomp and grandeur of a jocular but politically active monarchy, and republicanism (or even constitutional monarchy, as understood in many European countries today) is poison. I don't believe so, but other strong contributors to Talossa do, as is their right.

Some respondents to the first National Survey specifically said that things were much better before Reunision, in the era when Lord Hooligan was the primary figure in Talossa's politics and culture. Certainly Manus Hand has done a lot for Talossa, but this is the same gentleman who said last year – in rejecting the Fiova-Florencia provincial merger, even though he and most other Florencian citizens were not active in their province - "Is inactivity bad? I think not!" (A position that Sir Alexandreu, with his consistent lamentations about the decline in activity, has never to my knowledge seen fit to respond to.)

I must put it plainly: when Lord Hooligan and Sir Cresti Sierviciul decided they were less interested in a Talossa leaning away from the RUMP brand of jocular conservative monarchism, they let not only our language organisation, the CÚG, but the national website wind down and stop functioning. This led to the last two Governments to have to not only rebuild our national website, but our national language community, from the ground up. If Talossan patriotism means ensuring Talossa continues – either through activity, or through "handing off" to those who are still interested, allowing the CÚG and kingdomoftalossa.net to grind to a halt was an act of mammoth unpatriotism, even a kind of vandalism-by-inaction.

Which leads me to the second point: it is reasonable, I believe, to see the decline in activity and voter turnout as a kind of political strike, or boycott, on behalf of Talossans who preferred the 2005-2011 Kingdom. Such citizens don't like how Talossa has changed in the years of coalition government between centrist and progressive parties, so they don't participate. Their only interest in Talossa as it is is to occasionally check into see if this has happened yet. I name this the Atlas Shrugged approach to Talossa. See you in Hool's Gulch, I suppose.

Of course, no-one owes Talossa their activity if they don't like how it is. But let us also be clear that inactivity for any Talossan, of whatever political persuasion, is a personal decision. Conversely, if some people decide not to "do Talossa" for whatever reason, it is our right to try to continue to do Talossa without their active input.

I say to Talossan conservatives: I am happy to accept that my personal style, and the constant pressure for reforms of the monarchy, alienates you, even that it makes you feel like you have nothing to contribute to contemporary Talossa, that it's no fun anymore. I will even humbly accept that – this term – this Government has failed in our objectives of increasing cultural activity and the integration of new citizens into Talossan activity. We have at least tried, and failed – hence my renunciation of the Culture portfolio.

But even admitting all that, the future of Talossa belongs to its active citizens. If Talossa's conservatives would prefer Talossa to shrink rather than thrive with its current institutions, that's their decision. To such people, we say: we encourage you to come back to activity; to try to win political victories against the current majority, and failing that, to work within the system for the good of the whole ImagiNation.

When Reunision happened, we citizens of the Talossan Republic didn't much like how things were in the Kingdom. But – given that the continued existence of the Kingdom meant the eclipse of immigration to the Republic – we had no choice but to swallow that, and to prepare ourselves for what Senator Ian Plätschisch has called "the ideological long game". We swallowed what we didn't like about the Kingdom, because we were granted the political liberty to fight to change it – if we could. And guess what? Turns out, we could.  If you are truly Talossan patriots – not just fair-weather citizens, who only love Talossa when it's Talossa the way they want it – I urge you to follow our example and get back into the political and cultural game.

I can only add, to be fair, that I sometimes get disgruntled about the inactivity of many of my political co-thinkers, especially former citizens of the Republic. I can only wonder, when I think of Sir Tamorán dal Navă, Ián Anglatzară or Ceváglh Scurzniol: what would it take to get those guys interested again?

This is why it will be one of the top priorities of Free Democrats, if we participate in the next Government, to find and enact ways of getting new citizens involved, and reactivating old citizens. Our top three priorities in that regard will be:

   
• A new National Survey, following up from that of June last year, which will offer another chance for Talossans both active and inactive to anonymously let the Government know what we can do for them.
• A Talossan Labour Exchange to match citizens to possible jobs. This will combine a list of all Government and/or private sector jobs which are unfilled, with a place for citizens to register their interests so that those responsible for filling jobs can get leads on people who might be keen to fill themselves.
• Improving communication between government and citizenry looking at things like the National Website; the in-development "Immigration Mini-site", including information for new citzens; the La C'hronică newsletter; social media; and the existing mail-out lists held by the Chancery.

When I first applied for Talossan citizenship in 1997, there were two things that appealed to me above all: ár glhe‏‏tg naziunál, and the promise of "a freewheeling multi-party democracy". The latter turned out, at the time, to be a smokescreen for arbitrary royal power. But I've worked for 23 years to make it true. And we're 90% of the way there.

The question arises then: why isn't 90% of our programme enough? Why can't we be satisfied with what we have accomplished, politically speaking? If stopping the constitutional reform process – or even rolling it back - would make Talossan conservatives feel safe, more welcomed, and thus encourage them to give up their boycott, wouldn't it help us all?

The first answer is that a Talossan political party is like a bicycle. If it doesn't keep going forward, it falls over. What would be the point of the Free Democrats of Talossa if we didn't keep pushing towards the final goal – that of a non-political monarchy or an elected Head of State, whichever gets more popular support? We could of course go to the voters and say "So... we're the party in power. Do you like it? Well, vote for us and get more of the same." But that's squatting in power. That's what the RUMP – and before them, King Robert's PC and MN parties – used to do, which we condemned.

The second answer, in fact, relates to something that Sir Alexandreu Davinescù mentioned – that there has been a collapse in political diversity in the current Cosă. But as many responses have pointed out, that's not the fault of the governing parties.

Last election, former Senator Ieremiac'h Ventrútx cheated the people of Talossa – and the monarchist/conservative section of it, in particular – by running his ZPT party and then never claiming his seats. If he'd announced he was going to do so – running on an abstentionist platform like Sinn Féin used to in Ireland and still do for the UK Parliament – then no-one would complain. But 10 Talossans gave the former Senator their votes, and he flushed them down the toilet. He couldn't even be bothered voting for himself. This is only an extreme example of how tactics of weaponized apathy (the "political strike" mentioned above) are not only self-defeating, but corrosive to Talossa's institutions.

When the RUMP were in power, we oppositionists used to preach that alternance (regular changes in the composition of the government) was a good thing. And so it is. But to get that you need an opposition which offers a political alternative. And by setting out the Free Democrats clearly as the party of more fundamental reforms – as opposed to the status quo – we leave plenty of room for parties who defend the status quo to offer an alternative; and to defeat us, if they can.

This is why the Free Democrats are putting at the top of our programme for the upcoming elections the Ranked Choice Constitutional Referendum offering two options for fundamental changes to the monarchy, versus the status quo. If you vote Free Democrat at the upcoming election, you are voting for two things above all: 1) this referendum, as well as examination of other fundamental constitutional reforms; 2) Miestră Schivă as Seneschál for a third term. This clearly leaves space for parties of the constitutional status quo, and "anyone else but Miestră in charge".

I wish to give a tip of the hat to the current Distáin, Senator Plätschisch, who has given up the pleasures of another term of Coalition, making the first move to set up a centre-right party which will offer a clear alternative to both more reforms and more Miestră. There is a truckload of room for more political diversity – assuming that the conservative opposition doesn't want to rally around this new party. Put up, fellow citizens, or stop whining.

I therefore have good reason to hope that centrist and conservative Talossans will have better options to vote for at the coming election, and the 55^th Cosa will have both a government with a clear agenda, and a strong opposition holding them to account. Whichever side of the aisle the Free Democrats end up on, I will be happy if that is the result. But of course, I urge the voters to give a majority to both the Free Democrats; and to all the Organic Law amendments which will be put to referendum.

Sa vivadra Talossa! 40 års pü!

BE IT ENACTED by the King, Cosă and Senäts of Talossa in Ziu assembled as followed, under the authority of Organic Law VII.13:

1. During the same month as the 3rd Clark of the 55th Cosa, the Chancery shall submit the following referendum question to the people:

What is your preference for Talossa's constitutional future?

2. This referendum shall be conducted as a Ranked Choice vote between the following four options, which shall appear on the ballot in a randomized order:

- the King of Talossa shall continue to have the political powers granted by the current Organic Law.
- the King of Talossa shall have no political powers except in cases of emergency or constitutional crisis.
- the king of Talossa shall share power with a periodically elected co-prince.
- the King of Talossa shall be replaced by an elected head of state.

3. The votes for this referendum shall be counted as follows:

   3.1. At the conclusion of the election, each option is assigned all ballots which express it as first preference. The option with the fewest ballots assigned to it is eliminated. Each ballot cast for the eliminated option is reassigned to the next expressed preference on the ballot.

    3.2 Once the ballots are reassigned, the option with the fewest ballots assigned to it is eliminated and the ballots cast for it reassigned as above. This process is repeated until one option wins by having a majority of non-abstention ballots assigned to it.

    3.3. If, after any iteration, there are two or more options with the fewest ballots assigned to them, the option with the fewest first preferences assigned to it shall be eliminated. If these options all have the same number of first preferences assigned to them, the option with the fewest second preferences assigned to it shall be eliminated, and so forth.

        3.3.1 If no such distinction can be made between these options because all have the same number of votes on every level of preference, the remaining iterations shall be conducted under multiple scenarios. Each scenario shall eliminate one of the tied options.

            3.3.1.1 If the different scenarios described above result in the same winner of the election overall, the winning option shall be declared successful.

            3.3.1.2 If the different scenarios described above result in different winners of the election overall, the result will be considered a tie between the two or three leading options.

    3.4. If any ballot assigned to an eliminated option does not express a next preference, the ballot is treated in the same way as an abstention.

    3.5 A option may not be assigned ballots after it has been eliminated. A ballot that would otherwise be reassigned to an eliminated option is instead assigned to the highest-ranked option that has not been eliminated, or treated as an abstention as above.

FURTHERMORE,

4. If an option involving a change in the Organic Law wins this referendum, the Government shall introduce an Organic Law amendment to that effect within the lifetime of the 55th Cosă.

(counting rules cut and pasted mutatis mutandis from El Lexhatx B.14)

TalossaWiki is currently non-functional due to some kind of error with its extensions which I cannot make head nor tail of, and neither can the rest of the Government. We hope @our national webmonkey will be able to pop in sometime soon.

The Free Democrats will be going into the next election on a platform of having a Senäts Committee agree on a compromise proposal for reform of the Ziu and the electoral systems of its two houses. Notwithstanding this, we would like to suggest for consideration a new format for a "Real Cosa", as existed in Talossa 1997-2002. I have @MPF to thank for the inspiration here.

The essential points would be:

• A "circular" party list. Seats would now be allocated automatically by the SoS, one each to every candidate on the list, in order, and when the list comes to an end, it begins again from the beginning. Example: a party which has 5 members on the list but wins 8 seats would end up giving 2 seats to the first 3 people on the list, and 1 to everyone else.
• The current "1/3 allocations off list" would be changed to "a party may add 1/3 extra members, rounded up, to its list after the election". If your original list had 5 people on it you could add another 2 later. If you only had 1 person on your list, you could only add 1 later.
• Existing provisions barring MCs from individually holding more than x% of the Cosa would still exist, meaning there would be a limit to how many seats could be held by a 1-person party.
• Seats would be allocated by a rounding system known as Webster/Sainte-Laguë, which benefits smaller parties.
• The basic idea is for a 20 seat Cosa, which would mean that - based on the votes from the last election - a party would need at least 3 votes to win any Cosa seats. If this threshold is considered to stringent, the model would work well with more MCs. If one or more parties were "tied" for the last seat, they would all get a seat and thus the Cosa would be slightly expanded.

Based on this, the results of the last election would have been: FreeDems 8 seats, AMP 5, ZPT 3, PNP 3, NPW 1, MTGA 0. I can recalculate it for a larger Cosa if anyone's interested.

What do you think, sirs?

In an otherwise impressive display of the art known in our national language as nas-bråneu, the Senator from Maricopa made a shocking accusation:

QuoteHad it not been for a sudden busy life with work and 3 kids coupled with some very unfortunate incidents caused by some wily Talossan(s) who tried to invade his personal life and create havoc, we wouldn't have to see a situation when our great AD looked at the Witt once in a while. In fact there should be a ban on such individuals from joining Talossa later as 'returning citizens'.

To whom is the Senator referring here? I'm pretty sure I know the incident to which he is referring (which targeted Admiral Timoþeu Asmorescu as well as Sir AD), but who is the "Talossan(s)" he believes to be the culprit?

WHEREAS Organic Law VIII.1 states:

QuoteThe justices of the Cort pü Inalt and the judges of any inferior courts shall hold their offices for life (or until resignation), but may be removed by either a two-thirds vote in the Cosa with approval by the King and the Senäts or due to inactivity as defined by law.

(emphasis added);

and WHEREAS "inactivity" re: the CpI is nowhere defined by law at the moment:

BE IT ENACTED by the King, Cosă and Senäts in Ziu assembled that:

1. The following section shall be added to Title G of El Lexhatx:

QuoteA Justice of the Cort pü Inalt shall be declared inactive, and to have vacated their seat, within the meaning of Organic Law VIII.1 if the Clerk of Courts, contacting the members of the CpI to assign a case as described in El Lexhatx G.5.3, is unable to contact that Justice or does not receive any response to their enquiries, within 30 days.

2. The following amendment shall be made to El Lexhatx G.7.1:

QuoteJustices (or Judges) may be compelled to retire through organic removal from office through an act of the Ziu in accordance with Article XVI VIII Section 1 of the Organic Law. In such case, the Ziu shall stipulate whether the removal is punitive in nature or simply to compel retirement. In either case, such measure shall include a clear and objective narrative which highlights the misconduct or negligence which resulted in a punitive removal from office, or the merits and career highlights of a retired Jurist, respectively.

WHEREAS a novel strain of Coronavirus, known as Covid-19, has spread globally, resulting in an ongoing pandemic, and

WHEREAS the effects of this pandemic are impacting every living soul on the planet, and

WHEREAS governments around the world have taken measures to protect and to help their citizens including unprecedented measures to help them financially in as far as practicably possible, and

WHEREAS the government of Talossa recognizes that we, too, share that same responsibility to help our own citizens in times of peril, and

WHEREAS the government has analysed the state of the Treasury and has taken into account estimations of projected income and expenditure for the next two years, and

WHEREAS the government, in group conscience, has achieved achieved consensus on the following, so

THEREFORE be it resolved that:

A financial assistance fund of US$480 shall be made available for the benefit of Talossan citizens who may find themselves suffering from financial difficulty as a result of events related to the pandemic of Covid-19.

Talossan citizens may apply for financial grants and loans from this fund by making an application to the Ministry of Finance. Any loans awarded from this fund shall be zero interest. The Ministry of Finance shall, as far as practicable, obtain evidence or supporting documents when processing applications, such as proof of illness, proof of loss of income or evidence of financial hardship.

Payments from the fund shall be administered by the Burgermeister of the Inland Revenue. The Burgermeister shall release monies from the fund to citizens via whichever methods are most practicable. The Burgermeister shall release monies from the fund upon authorization from the Minister of Finance with the assent of the Prime Minister. The Burgermeister shall not release any monies without authorization from the Minister of Finance with the assent of the Prime Minister. Each individual release of monies requires the authorization of the Minister of Finance with the assent of the Prime Minister.

===

His Majesty the King has already consented to this PD by email.

I quote the response of the Senator from Maricopa to the latest Clark, in respect of the Non-Hereditary Monarchy Amendment:

QuoteThe day is not far when the present government will try to turn this country into a Republic. Reunison destroyed the Constitutional fabric of the Nation.

A few comments:

1) the present Government includes two monarchist parties and one party which is agnostic on the issue, so no it won't.

2) the Free Democrats will not attempt to found a New Republic - or to make serious amendments to the powers of the monarchy - without prior authorization in a referendum.

3) of the 19 current MZs, only 4 of them came in with Reunision. If ideas of democracy and limits to monarchical power have now won a broad majority among Talossans, it's surely due to the power of the ideas and not by "real, royal Talossa" being swamped by dangerous immigrants. I should also note that, for example, I, GV and MPF were veterans of Talossan politics while the Senator from Maricopa was in short pants.

4) if Reunision was a mistake, then the mistake lies with His Majesty, Lord Hooligan and other leaders of Talossan monarchism who happily invited the Republicans back in, perhaps wrongly thinking that Reunision meant the final defeat of Talossan Republicanism. Blame those guys, BenArd. Or you can perhaps blame Talossan monarchists in general, who let the RUMP wither away, wasted their votes on the stillborn ZPT, and haven't been able to re-organise themselves in the current Cosa.

So does anyone want to run Fiovă's provincial government for the next year?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Bueller?

I'll make this brief but bold.

Any suggestions as to what important Talossan text needs to be translated into our national language first?

¡Azul!

It is with a heavy heart that I announce that @Cresti d.I Nouacastra has submitted his resignation as Attorney-General. Cxhn. Nouacastra is currently helping staff a hospital in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic, and has had to (rightly) prioritise that over his Talossan duties.

After consultation with the Cabinet, I have nominated Senator @Açafat dal Val as the new Attorney-General, and he has graciously accepted.

The Cabinet is aware that at least one Talossan citizen is living with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in their close family. We don't know how many others might be "suffering in silence" - who knows how many of us might not be participating in Talossa at the moment because they're ill, or worse.

Therefore the Government aims to set up a fund from our national reserves to support Talossans suffering from the COVID emergency. We are in discussions with the Burgermeister of Internal Revenue as to how much funding we will make available in total, and what the provisions of such a fund could be.

If we claim to be a nation, or at least to be having fun acting like one, we must be supporting our citizens to the extent which we are capable.

Ha ha ha, he actually looked it up on l'Översteir :D

QuoteAzul from Talossa!

The Greater Talossan Area roughly overlaps with the East Side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but the Kingdom itself—founded in 1979, when 14-year-old Robert Ben Madison, first in a line of elected kings and queens, declared his bedroom a sovereign state—is one of the earliest and most successful examples of a primarily online micronation, with more than a hundred active citizens around the world. Since 1995, Talossa has developed an elaborate government and culture, with a two-chamber legislature, cabinet ministers, political parties and its idiosyncratic invented language.

"We are like any other micronation out there in that what we do is very tongue-in-cheek and gives our participants a chance to make a difference in a unique societal framework," Talossian Jeffrey Ragsdale told Newsweek.

According to Talossan Prime Minister Daphne Lawless, Talossans haven't had an in-person meet up for several months, ensuring that "community transmission of COVID-19 in Talossa is zero."

"Talossans are pioneers at social distancing," Prime Minister Daphne Lawless told Newsweek, citing the exclusively online nature of their government and civic life. "For our Big Neighbour, the United States of America, I wish nothing but the best of health and welfare."

The Prime Minister ended our email correspondence with a Talossan proverb: "Voastra soleu ispéu da sürvivonçă, c'è despasar acest malignh crisomileu din la Casă Biancă."

Using their online lexicon, their proverb translates loosely to, "Your only hope for survival is to get rid of that orange goblin in the White House."

Dear friends of the Talossan language, please be present at the unveiling of the new Översteir, the online English-Talossan dictionary. Programmed by Talossa's official webmonkey, @Senator Lüc da Schir, it is now as fully functional as the previous model, and (importantly) it uses up-to-date spelling based on the SIGN "Provisional Rules".

Lüc adds:

QuoteThere's a little to do list,
- filtering the search on part of speech
- noun/adjective declination
- control panel for future Treisour changes / fixes
- voice synthesis (maybe?)
and there certainly are other things that may be requested (or me or Marcel couldn't think of)
but this as it stands is a fully usable replacement for old Översteir, with the new spelling to boot, which we can maintain and improve in the future
I will keep working on a beta version while the official Översteir is stable and untouched
And every time the stable Översteir is updated, I will publish the code of that version somewhere

(You know what I just thought of? Some day some real GIANT of linguistics will translate El Treisour into other languages... French? Esperanto? Quenya?)

¡Amusetz-voi ben!

1) It is with great regret that I announce the resignation of @Iac Marscheir as Ladintsch Naziunal. Cxhn. Marscheir is overloaded with work outside Talossa now (a silver lining to the COVID-19 cloud) and can no longer fulfil the duties of the role.

As Minister of Culture, I am making the decision to disestablish the Permanent Secretary role of Ladintsch Naziunal, and to assume the statutory duties of Ladintsch Naziunal (as set out in El Lexhatx 2.7.2) myself for the time being.

2) It is with excitement that I announce that Lord Hooligan has transmitted to SIGN the incomplete proofs of the Third Edition of Ün Guizua Compläts àl Glheþ Talossan. An informal SIGN committee is being set up to discuss completing the text, including updating the spelling to the new SIGN rules. Any volunteers for this committee, please contact myself or @the SIGN Convenor.

3) I've seen an alpha-test version of the new Översteir, and it's beautiful, if not fully functional yet. :D

I just found out that the Talossan word for a lost-and-found bureau is büreu d'anfladă. Curious about where the second element comes from, Google could only tell me (in German) that it's a Rumantsch word which means "finding", but only in the religious sense of the Discovery of the True Cross.

KR1 was pretty abstruse at times. Anyone got any funnier stories of Talossan etymology?

Is there any objection to continuing to use Hool's grammar as the official grammar endorsed by SIGN - after we bring its spelling up to date, of course? Or do we need to make changes to it?

(Me, I'm going to continue to use KR1's Scurzniă Gramatică from 1996-7 until such point as Hool makes his version available in digital format, but then I'm old-fashioned. Are there any serious differences?)

On OldWitt, the Senator from Florencia said:

QuoteI reiterate my earlier concerns. As much as this bill has good intentions, and as much as I support the principle which it tries to achieve, if it became law today then our OrgLaw and process would be a mess. This needs a rewrite, and it needs to come with simultaneous and complimentary changes to other sections of the OrgLaw and El Lexhatx.

Time to put up or shut up, Açafat: please let me know what amendments you require to the below.

===

WHEREAS the current Government agreed to submit various Organic Law reforms to the current Ziu, including a provision for the Seneschál to be nominated by the Cosa prior to appointment by the King;

AND WHEREAS the following seems the most likely procedure to enable this to happen;

BE IT ENACTED by the King, Cosa and Senäts of Talossa in Ziu assembled as follows

1. Organic Law VI.2, which currently reads:

QuoteThe King appoints the Seneschal. If a single party occupies a majority of the seats in the Cosa, the King shall choose as PM whichever individual shall be designated by that party. If no single party has a majority, the King shall appoint a Seneschal after consulting party leaders with the objective of finding a PM who can be sustained in subsequent Votes of Confidence by a majority of seats in the Cosa. The King must appoint a new Seneschal or announce the continuation of the incumbent in office within one month of the end of elections, or, if after one month no candidate can be appointed with the support of a Cosa majority, dissolve the Cosa after the first Clark and call for new elections.

shall be amended to read as follows:

QuoteThe King shall, on the nomination of the Cosa, appoint the Seneschál, before the beginning of the next Clark subsequent to their nomination.

The Cosa must nominate a Seneschál by the end of the first Clark of each Cosa, and by the end of the next Clark (if any) of each Cosa after the office of Seneschál shall become vacant as in VI.7 below. If this fails to happen, the King shall dissolve the Cosa and call for new elections.

2. The following new section shall be added to El Lexhatx, at the beginning of Title D, with following sections to be renumbered accordingly::

QuoteThe Cosa shall nominate the Seneschál under Organic Law VI.2 as follows.

1. At any time between the Election Deadline and the following Dissolution of the Cosa, any Member of the Cosa shall be empowered to publish and open for signatures a petition nominating an eligible person for the office of Seneschal.

2. Once a petition is published, any eligible Member of the Cosa shall be empowered to second the nomination by countersigning the petition in public.

3. Members may not second multiple nominations concurrently; if a Member wishes to support a different petition, he/she shall first publicly retract the earlier countersignature.

4. Following any number of petitions supporting the same candidate, being signed or counter-signed by members currently representing an absolute majority of seats in the Cosa, the candidate named in the petition(s) shall be presented to the King as the Cosa's nomination for Seneschál.

5. Petitions may not be carried over from one vacancy in the office of Seneschal to another. Once a Seneschal is nominated, all petitions shall be made moot.

Speech of the Seneschál, Miestra A. Schiva, in her capacity as President of the Free Democrats of Talossa to the Free Democrat Convention, March 2020/XVL