Quote from: Breneir Tzaracomprada on April 02, 2022, 10:07:07 PM

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on April 02, 2022, 10:06:01 PM
You know, that would be an excellent idea. You will no doubt understand that I'm distracted at the moment. But I would like to suggest that @GV, the other most active Reviensadeir, would be the ideal person to take charge of such commemorations - also seeing as it's the 10th anniversary of the Free Province of Fiovă.

@GV ?

I think a videoconference-party is in order.  Reunision took place 20 April 2012.  I am free that evening and can put the Zoom call together. 

If the 'cool kids' are using a different videoconferencing system, I can work with that, too.

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil on March 17, 2022, 08:19:10 PM
Since the table doesn't really let you bring the images to full resolution, I have them extracted from the table here:

   

I make no comments on the designs themselve say to say the execution of those designs is stunning.  However much traction these designs ultimately get, do not let any obstacles stop you from continuing work.  This stuff is truly beautiful.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on February 12, 2022, 01:51:07 PM
These are modified arms of the comte de Toulouse (Gules a cross clechy pommety and voided or).  Their blazon would be... Gules a cross clechy and pommety or, filled vert, I'd suppose.  They are a longtime symbol of Occitania and former Toulouse domains.  Robert Ben Madison cannot conceivably be the lineal heir to last comte de Toulouse, so he wouldn't be entitled to bear their symbol by right; are these different enough to pass muster as new arms?

Inquiring minds want to know.  Thank you, AD, for this.

Wow, I forgot more than I know.  I stand corrected AD, re the Zuaves, but stand firm in the roots of the Talossan divide and our role in it.  Both yours...and mine.  :-)

Upon coming to Talossa, you took to John's narrative as a duck takes to water.  This issue is still unresolved and is still at the very heart of why I think Miestra has had a beef with you for so long.  :-)

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on March 22, 2022, 06:18:49 PM

• We will issue ID cards for everyone.  Have a piece of Talossa to hold in your hands  -- and maybe even to show off to friends and family who might be interested!

...snipped, but only for brevity's sake

I'll own my part of last term yet again: in classic GV fashion, as Minister of Culture, I was not nearly as communicative to Cabinet about being more utterly burned out with Talossa than I thought I actually was.

As Minister of Defence, once I was informed - by you no less - the Zuaves genuinely didn't need much help at all from Defence, I let it go at that and didn't worry over it any more.

As for Minister of Culture, I was good until about July when I completely fell off the rails.  This is when I should have resigned from Culture, though I was right to keep Defence.

Betrayed.  Stolen.  Kept.

AD, I've always appreciated your enthusiasm for Talossa.  Since you first came to us ca. 2006(!), you have not, I think, ceased to be active in at least some way.  I still look to El Lex, as imperfect as some might rightly say it was, as your greatest achievement in Talossa - taking the bull by the horns to get done a project that JJ himself should have thought about doing back in the 1990s, though to be fair to JJ, he was still the greatest administrator Talossa ever had until MPF came along.

The reason why we rail at you so much, Alexander, is because we see you as nothing more than a mouthpiece for a mostly-absentee monarch who has since 2007 refused to engage with the liberal wing of Talossan society on any basis more than a cursory professional level, his generous handling of Reunision notwithstanding, but even that is seen in some quarters is not being so much as altruistic, but done simply because the Kingdom was incredibly stagnant at that time. 

And guess what?  It was the same reason why the Republic-other-than-GV said 'yes' to Reunision.  It was getting to the point we were considering outright dissolution.  Rightly, the Kingdom had won the 'war' of the internet.

AD, you have always seemed to me to be an intelligent person.  You have read my diatribes of the past where I raged about King John.  You know the reasons why we didn't come back in 2005-2007, a terrible mistake in retrospect, but the Republic had good reasons to stay away.  After all, your mantra of 'Betrayed.  Stolen.  Kept.' fanned the flames of animosity towards us and actually kept us from returning the domains to the whole of the Talossan nation.

Imagine what might have happened had you not decided to follow your correct perception of the pathway to power in Talossa being being the avatar of Talossan Woollerianism.  You might have been the midwife of a 2008-ish Reunision or earlier.  We might have even had the opportunity to vote John in as King in March 2007.

And Talossa would have been far stronger.

To be fair, I well remember the broad strokes of your 2008 attempt at getting a Republic Wittenberg account.  You were rebuffed, and I still regret my small part in that.  I should have stood up for you.

And to be fair, I cannot and do not put this all at your doorstep.  The present king had to power to repair Talossa in one Wittenberg post, yet he refused to do so - a power you've never quite had through no fault of your own.  The quirks in our constitution prevent hasty wholesale change in giant scales, but as the country has found out, a few people are all it takes to be a mountain of obstruction.

In my opinion, you did the job as Regent you were supposed to.  The fact you were enobled for doing the job you should have done is not a travesty, but certain is a minor scandal.  You never should have been made a Baron, but you rightly received the appreciation of a grateful nation.

And I should never have been given Për la Naziun.  My work with the archives was epic (it really was), but did it truly save the country?  The PM at the time recommended me for a knightly order that had been defunct for many years.  I was not raised to that order, and I seriously considered outright refusing the honour altogether, as I felt not being made Order of the Flag was a spiteful move by the monarch - at least it sure looked that way.

I really do think John Woolley has always disliked all of us 'down south'.  I really do.  We don't need to be his best-buddy, but he never truly respected us.  I hope I'm wrong on all of this, by the way.

You and I in Talossa are getting old.  The day is coming when the country won't give a rat's a$% about the war for the soul of Talossa that has been raging since 1 June 2004.  I only ask the people of this country to remember the mistakes that were made - some worse than others - Ben's worst of all - and learn from them.

VOTEZ FREEDEMS - and show up GV and GET F&#(* INVOLVED!!

GV

[/list]

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on March 23, 2022, 05:56:43 PM
Thanks very much for your enthusiasm, although I must say that anyone who finds financial administration "fascinating" is somewhat suspect :D [snipped]

As do I.  :-)

If we could have cloned Isteban a thousand times over, he could have been Burgermeister forever.

Yours is the most important job in Talossa along with Secretary of State, and you have done it well for many years.

The Burgermeister must be the most trusted and consistent person in Talossa able to do the job, and I have full confidence in our country's ability to come together to find a new one, though Istefan will never truly be 'replaced'.

I'm sure I suffer from anxiety to a very small extent, but I throw good vibes, love, and white light out to anyone who truly does suffer from that, depression, or other mental health issues. 

GV

And she is ready to lead us into another term.  Votez FREEDEMS!

Cosa: FREEDEM
Referenda: Për to all
Fiova Senator: GV
Fiova Praisedeu: Brad, Miestra, and GV

GV, Fiova

And defence, too, for that matter...

I started off well last June, but fell off the wagon completely with that most-deadly of words...  'Tomorrow'...  Tomorrow crept up on me.

Moreover and thanks to the absolute tedium of my archives work in 2020 and 2021, I am utterly burned out on 'obligatory Talossa'.  I have made it clear it is easy enough to Senäts, and I am looking forward to serving another term, but I will not serve in Cabinet again for the foreseeable future.

No excuses...just complete dropping of the ball on my part, and to the country and my party, I wholeheartedly apologize and look forward to the younger generation picking up where I should have left off.

GV

Quote from: Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial on February 23, 2022, 03:15:24 PM

Quote from: Breneir Tzaracomprada on February 23, 2022, 02:52:05 PM
I really like Garibaldi. Is that a merger of Florencia and Benito?

It is! You could think of it as a reunification, as Florenciă used to be a part of Benito (then Mussolini) province. I was originally planning to name it Grült-Benito i.e. Greater Benito but Lüc didn't like that idea and I'm trusting his expertise on this topic.

Now how likely these mergers are I can't say. I believe there was an attempt at unifying Vuode and M-M a few years back and that amounted to nothing, but that hasn't stopped anyone from wild speculating before.

Do not forget the failed Fiova/Florencia merger.

I want the country to know when Dame Miestra references 'Culture', she means yours-truly.  I did not do my job as Minister of Culture, and I have no excuses to offer.

That being said, we at least have shown up. 

The Opposition hasn't even done that.

The conservative Opposition has offered no ideas for Talossa's immigration woes save tacit approval for royal vetos of the curtailing of the King's powers - the few times when His Majesty has come out of his royal slumber to feed on democracy.

The conservative Opposition has done as much for Talossan culture as I did in Cabinet this past term.  In other words, nothing.

The conservative Opposition fully supported the most ludicrous 'award' and 'honour' in the history of Talossa.  The only thing AD did that provoked the King to make him a Baron was doing his job well.  Aside from the King's continued slumber, AD as Regent had no other crisis, and he did precious little to awaken His Majesty from hibernation.

We, the Free Democrats and our coalition partners, have asked questions.  We have spoken truth to power.  We have helped to level the playing field in Talossa.

What has the Opposition done? 

GV

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on February 22, 2022, 07:55:31 PM
I wholeheartedly agree.

For once, I agree with AD completely on something.  ;-)

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on February 14, 2022, 08:58:33 PM
There's 425 total threads, but the vast majority are in areas not open to the general public.  Are they archived or backed-up anywhere?

The Modrads will need to coordinate with those better-versed than I in such things as to archiving their forums.  Were those forums entirely public, they are sparse enough to warrant an easy brute-force backup.

GV, RArchivist

Për for all bills

GV, Fiova