Idk man. https://bracket26.com/b/3gT7NtOujW

Quote from: King Txec on June 08, 2026, 11:41:29 AM

Quote from: Sir Lüc on June 08, 2026, 10:01:59 AMI for one am happy to report that, for the third edition in a row, my home country is boycotting a World Cup held in an authoritarian regime. (For a country so obsessed about football, we sure are rubbish at it lately. Luckily, I dislike both the game and the obsession, so I shall continue blissfully ignoring the plight of my compatriots.)

Didn't Italy simply fail to qualify for the World Cup? I don't think that's a boycott unless you say they played badly so they didn't have to go? :-)

-Txec R

Duh, the decades long ineptitude and mismanagement in the Italian football federation is obviously all a long ploy to avoid Russia, Qatar and the US.

I for one am happy to report that, for the third edition in a row, my home country is boycotting a World Cup held in an authoritarian regime. (For a country so obsessed about football, we sure are rubbish at it lately. Luckily, I dislike both the game and the obsession, so I shall continue blissfully ignoring the plight of my compatriots.)

E.11.4 for new citizens, and D.7.6.2 for existing citizens (which references a tool that already exists: https://database.talossa.com/citizenship/privacy)

There we go. 7.6.6 and 7.6.7 need a bit of work but otherwise this should be pretty complete.

Despite past discussions on the topic, I did not include in my draft a hypothetical "cultural" mailing list, because:

• I think it would be undesirable to chuck vastly different endeavours under that label, but conversely, it would be pretty onerous to implement separate lists for each (I think there should be a reasonable limit to what the Chancery is expected to do for what isn't really one of its core tasks); and
• I think it would be difficult to define who could use that list without either someone being the arbiter of what counts as a "legitimate cultural entity" (and someone also deciding if a specific mailer qualifies as a cultural mailer), or potentially exposing citizens to massive spam by simply not making that call and letting anything go.

I would obviously welcome input regarding how this could be implemented, but this can also be safely deferred to some future piece of legislation.

WHEREAS, during the electoral campaign for the 62nd Cosa General Elections, issues regarding the then-existing and outdated provisions on privacy and electoral communications were brought to light; and

WHEREAS, those issues were generally amicably resolved between contesting political parties and the Chancery, through the issuing of 61PD01 and certain stopgap provisions in the Election Rules for the 62nd Cosa General Elections; and

WHEREAS, it is regardless evident that Talossa needs a more permanent framework for data protection, resulting from open discussion between all stakeholders and data protection experts; and

WHEREAS, it is now necessary to have such a framework in place, so that Talossa is fully compliant with macronational data protection standards, and so that campaigning for the next General Election can be held under stable, democratically set rules; so

THEREFORE we, the Ziu of the Kingdom of Talossa, hereby enact as follows.

El Lexhatx Title D Section 7.4 is repealed in full and amended to read:

Quote7.4 Data Protection
7.4.1 Personal information such as, but not limited to, private mailing addresses, contact telephone numbers, private email addresses, given names, ages, dates of birth, and national identification numbers shall be held on file by the Chancery and shall only be accessed by the Secretary of State or The King, except where the citizen to whom the data relates has given explicit, informed, and freely given consent for such access or disclosure.

7.4.2 The Chancery shall ensure that all personal data collected, stored, or processed by any body of the Kingdom complies with the following principles:
a. Lawfulness, fairness and transparency: Personal data must be processed lawfully, fairly, and in a transparent manner in relation to the citizen to whom it relates.
b. Purpose limitation: Personal data shall be collected only for specified, explicit, and legitimate purposes, and shall not be further processed in any manner incompatible with those purposes.
c. Data minimisation: Personal data shall be adequate, relevant, and limited to what is necessary for the purposes for which it is processed.
d. Accuracy: Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date. Inaccurate data shall be corrected or erased without delay.
e. Storage limitation: Personal data shall not be retained in identifiable form for longer than is necessary for the purpose for which it was collected.
f. Integrity and confidentiality: Personal data shall be processed in a manner that ensures appropriate security, including protection against unauthorised access, loss, or destruction, through suitable technical and organisational measures.
g. Accountability: The Chancery, as the data controller, shall be responsible for and able to demonstrate compliance with all of the above principles.

7.4.3 Citizens shall have the right to request access to any personal data held about them by the Chancery, to request correction of inaccurate data, or to request deletion of their personal data unless retention is legally required for citizenship verification or archival purposes.

7.4.4 All personal data shall be securely stored, encrypted when technically feasible, and automatically deleted or anonymised after two years of inactivity, unless required for lawful archival purposes.

7.4.5 Any unauthorised disclosure, misuse, or negligent handling of citizens' personal data shall be treated as a data breach, and reported immediately upon discovery or knowledge of such breach to the citizen to whom the breached data pertains and the Uppermost Cort, which may order appropriate remedies and sanctions.

El Lexhatx Title D Section 7.6 is created to read:

Quote7.6 Mailing Lists
7.6.1 The Chancery shall serve as an email forwarding service for a number of purposes outlined in this section. To this end, the Chancery shall maintain a number of Mailing Lists for each separate purpose, such that 1) senders do not have access to citizens' personal email addresses; 2) messages are distributed only to citizens who have provided valid consent to receive them; and 3) all data processing complies with the principles set out in D.7.4 and its subsections.

7.6.2 The Chancery shall provide a simple and accessible mechanism for citizens to withdraw consent for the use or sharing of their personal data at any time, for what concerns any or all of the purposes listed below. Upon withdrawal, the Chancery shall ensure that the data is no longer used for the specified purposes.

7.6.3 No personal data, including email addresses, shall be disclosed to anyone unless a citizen has given explicit, informed, and specific consent for such disclosure. Consent to receive forwarded communications for any purpose shall not be interpreted as consent for direct data sharing.

7.6.4 Emails containing the Clark or electoral ballots, or reminders for voting on the Clark or on a General Election, or invitations to respond to a Census, or any other communication that originates directly from the Chancery and that the Chancery must send as a result of its operations, are exempt from the requirements of this section.

7.6.5 An Electoral Mailing List shall be maintained by the Chancery for the purpose of enabling electoral communications.
7.6.5.1 The Electoral Mailing List shall only be accessible to the Chancery for the purpose of forwarding electoral literature on behalf of political parties that are fully registered and have paid their registration fee.
7.6.5.2 Political parties shall not have direct access to the Electoral Mailing List. Each registered party shall be entitled to submit electoral literature through its leader or an agent authorised during registration, which shall be forwarded by the Chancery within a day to all citizens who have opted in to receive electoral communications.
7.6.5.3 Up to one communication may be forwarded prior to Balloting Day, and up to two communications may be forwarded between Balloting Day and the subsequent Election Deadline, no fewer than a week apart.
7.6.5.4 Each communication shall be titled and clearly identify the author, the person submitting the literature, and the registered political party on whose behalf the literature is being sent.
7.6.5.5 The Chancery shall maintain an auditable record of all parties that have submitted electoral communications and the dates on which messages were forwarded.

7.6.6 A News Mailing List shall be maintained by the Chancery for the purpose of sharing monthly gazettes compiled by the Government.
7.6.6.1 Communications shared in this way shall entirely consist of news about Talossa and drafted by the relevant Government minister.
7.6.6.2 Such communications may only be forwarded up to once per calendar month.

7.6.7 A Governmental Mailing List shall be maintained by the Chancery for the purpose of sharing information about Government business.
7.6.7.1 Communications shared in this way must entirely pertain to official Government business.
7.6.7.2 Such communications may not include publicity for, or any other business pertaining to, any political party or candidate for election, or any particular outcome for a specific referendum.
7.6.7.3 Such communications may only be forwarded no fewer than thirty days apart, and not in the period between a Dissolution of the Cosa and the Certification Deadline for the subsequent General Election.

El Lexhatx Title D Section 7.7 is created to read:

Quote7.7 GDPR Compliance
7.7.1 The Chancery shall be the designated data controller for all personal data processed in connection with the conduct of elections, referendums, censuses, or official communications.

7.7.2 If Talossan law conflicts with the data protection laws of a citizen's country of residence, the Chancery shall interpret and apply Talossan law in a manner consistent with those laws to the greatest extent possible. No officer of the Kingdom shall be compelled by Talossan law to act in a manner that would breach the applicable data protection laws of their country of residence.

7.7.3 The Chancery may, in consultation with the Technology Minister and the Uppermost Cort, issue regulations governing the technical and procedural aspects of this system, including encryption, password protection, and secure message forwarding.

7.7.4 The Chancery shall publish an annual Privacy Notice summarising the categories of data collected, the lawful bases for processing, and the data protection rights of citizens.

FURTHERMORE, El Lexhatx Title C Section 1.2.2.1. be amended by removing the clause "The Chancery will provide an option for respondents to share their email address with party leaders, pursuant to D.8.5.4."

FURTHERMORE, El Lexhatx Title C Section 1.2.2.3. be amended by removing the clause "The only exception is that citizens may opt to have their e-mail address shared with party leaders, pursuant to D.8.5.4."

FURTHERMORE, El Lexhatx Title C Section 1.2.2.5. and all its subsections, whose purpose has been transferred to El Lexhatx Title D Section 7.6.7 and its subsections, be repealed in full.

FURTHERMORE, El Lexhatx Title E Section 11.4 be amended to read:

QuoteIf, during the immigration process, a prospective citizen states that it is OK for Talossans to contact them by email, the prospective shall be opted-in to the Electoral, News and Governmental Mailing Lists once they are granted citizenship. The Secretary of State shall notify the new citizen that they may opt-out from any of the Mailing Lists at any time by contacting the Chancery.

FURTHERMORE we, the Ziu of the Kingdom of Talossa, hereby pay tribute to Baroness Cjantscheir of Tamoran Beach, and recognise her invaluable input in the drafting of parts of this bill, while regretting that medical reasons leave her unable to support the bill further.

Uréu q'estadra så,

Sir Lüc da Schir (Secretary of State)

FWIW, this is still on my radar so that a bill can be Clarked in the Sixth Clark.

I'm currently beginning to draft something that incorporates both Litz's draft and what I assume is the general agreement that there should be a couple mailers during election time only - I'm thinking one mailer allowed immediately after registering, and one or two mailers allowed in the actual balloting fortnight, with perhaps an additional provision to have the Chancery keep a (read only, replies allowed on separate threads) running Wittenberg thread of mailers as they get sent out.

No, I simply moved back to the Hopper (and tagged as "Clarkable") all the bills that are deemed to have passed the CRL by laying there for over a month. I thought it would be helpful if the CRL sub-board only contained bills actively under the scrutiny of the CRL, which those bills no longer would be.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on June 01, 2026, 07:55:18 AMFrom Stage 17 on, my Mençeis dropped in the ranks at a steady rate.  They finish nearly last, a testament to the shortcomings of my "buy the highest priced favorites and then try to fill in the gaps" strategy.  For TCAT France, I'll be switching it up.

Not a terrible strategy at all, and actually one that worked very well in the past, especially in TCAT France, ironically!

Unfortunately this time the second highest priced favourite, Pellizzari, was still a bit too inexperienced for a three week stage race and bombed. Next month, the second highest priced favourite is almost certainly going to be Vingegaard himself. Pretty reliable and hard to pass up on.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on June 01, 2026, 07:47:16 AMI also saw that @Mic'haglh Autófil, O.Be had a suggested new statute to require MCs to confirm their willingness to stand, and that seems like another good thing to include.  (It doesn't seem like a big logistical hurdle -- @Sir Lüc , would this be a challenge to implement?)

Not too difficult on my part - there would just be some kind of active list management in the Database where party leaders can log in and add and remove candidates, and candidates can then follow some unique emailed link to consent to their placement on the list.

Some of the Database's structure was already sort of designed to enable something like that later on (more broadly, letting party leaders manage their party registrations through automatic forms rather than on a Witt thread).

Voting on the June 2026 Clark (the fifth of the 62nd Cosă) is now open, until the 21st of the month, at 19h30 TST.

You can find the Clark at: https://database.talossa.com/ziu/clark (database) or at https://wiki.talossa.com/images/d/d6/June2026Clark.pdf (pdf)

MCs and Senators can all vote on the new Database using the credentials you have been sent by email: https://database.talossa.com/ziu/clark/vote

If you wish to vote on Wittenberg, MCs can vote here and Senators can vote here.



Sir Lüc da Schir, UrB
Secretary of State

Senators, you can cast your votes on the Fifth Clark here or on the database: https://database.talossa.com/ziu/clark/vote

You can find the Clark at: https://database.talossa.com/ziu/clark (database) or at https://wiki.talossa.com/images/d/d6/June2026Clark.pdf (pdf)

If you vote here on Witt, do not indicate any conditions which may make it sound like this vote isn't final: you can always change your vote later.

Members of the Cosă, you can cast your votes on the Fifth Clark here or on the database: https://database.talossa.com/ziu/clark/vote

You can find the Clark at: https://database.talossa.com/ziu/clark (database) or at https://wiki.talossa.com/images/d/d6/June2026Clark.pdf (pdf)

If you vote here on Witt, do not indicate any conditions which may make it sound like this vote isn't final: you can always change your vote later.

Stage 21 Roma -> Roma

Jonathan Milan (CHX/GHS) finally wins a stage in today's final sprint, and that's mostly it - everything TCAT related went the most likely way as discussed earlier.

GHST gets an eighth stagewin, their most ever in a single edition but well short of the record (13 by BDC in Italy 2024). This is likewise the second highest ever winning score. Cyclohexane gets the second most daily points, but when EoT points get applied it falls back to fourth behind ITW, who therefore get a podium in their debut edition.

FINAL STANDINGS (with Stage 21 and End of Tour points)

Pos	±		Team	Final	Stage 21	EoT
1st	(=)		Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	10448	+370	+2320
2nd	(=)		Cézembre Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs (BDC)	8618	+141	+2030
3rd	(+2)		Team In The Wind (ITW)	7765	+207	+1600
4th	(=)		Cyclohexane (CHX)	7718	+352	+1305
5th	(-2)		Els Talossaes Rexhital (REX)	7464	+184	+1140
6th	(+1)		Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	7151	+95	+1290
7th	(-1)		Maritiimi-Maxhestic Mençeis (MMM)	7111	+85	+1160
8th	(=)		Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	5001	+124	+1055

Some stats and side results will follow soonish, but for now, thanks for playing in yet another edition of the Talossan Cycling Association Tour, and we hope to see you back in about a month for the big event - TCAT France 2026 mirroring the famous Tour de France!

Moinul Moin presently holds two seats. He would only need to receive five additional seats, not seven.

The Chancery, having noticed Judge Perþonest's preliminary opinion, stands ready to assign 18 vacant seats as directed by @Baron Alexandreu Davinescu .

Given the limited time remaining before the Fifth Clark is slated to begin and in the interest of ensuring all seats are filled, if I receive no communication from the Seneschal within 24 hours I will assign the seats as initially requested (13 to Tong Mun Kit, for a total of 20, and 5 to Moinul Moin, for a total of 7).

"Quick" assessment of where we stand before the final two stages when taking into account End of Tour points - those that are given out at the end depending on the final standings in the General, Points, King of Mountains and Teams Classifications. Not gonna give exact numbers because some fluctuation will happen anyway as the final GC/PC/KOM/TC positions won't exactly be what they are tonight.

Gordon Hiatus Support Team is pretty much guaranteed the final win no matter what happens: if tomorrow goes to GC riders another 800+ points haul is likely, on top of having Milan as a potential winner for Sunday, the most EoT points, and a four digit lead over second place (only happened once in 11 past editions). The main question is basically whether or not they get to 10K points, which is usually the benchmark of whether or not the TCAT winner is globally strong when compared to all Velogames competitors.

Banqeu de Cézembre is also pretty much guaranteed a second place and a return to the TCAT podium, which they are missing from since Spain 2024; they haven't been a sprint threat, but they are safely a top 2 team in mountain stages and their EoT haul is also going to be the best of the rest by a fair bit.

Third place down is instead all but settled. Two teams have the best shot at the final podium position: Cyclohexane is virtually slightly in front due to their current points haul, but Pellizzari dropping out of GC hurt them a lot and their EoT points haul has shrunk slightly from what it would have been at the start of the week. Team In The Wind has instead been rather quiet lately, but it has an EoT advantage that would put it within striking distance. CHX has to hope not to lose too much tomorrow, where ITW is almost guaranteed to do better, and then root for Jonathan Milan to do better than Tobias Lund Andresen on Sunday. Right now, despite the slight virtual standings disadvantage, I think ITW is favoured, even if I might have jinxed their chance at getting more stage wins with my earlier stats post.

The three Narvaez-less teams will probably fight it out for 5th to 7th, with their standout rider's absence likely putting the podium out of reach, if not much harder:

• Els Talossaes Rexhitais have the advantage as it stands: Gall seems to safely be the second best climber, and Storer and Gee both had a solid performance today. They also have the best point chances of the three for Sunday with Andresen and Aular. To do better they will need to put 250ish on CHX - weaker tomorrow but with Milan to fill the gap on Sunday - and 150ish on ITW - who has superior climbing depth but no Aular for Sunday. Doubtful but not impossible.
• The Mençeis sadly don't have any sprinters left, so it all comes down to hoping Vingegaard, Piganzoli and Pellizzari do much better than REX's three GC riders tomorrow, to compensate both for likely scoring no stagepoints on Sunday and for the small EoT deficit.
• Velociposse is almost tied with MMM in virtuals; it has Gall, Pellizzari, Storer and Arensman, for what on paper seems like the climbing combination with the most point chances. They may/should overtake MMM due to climbing depth and literally having any sprinters at all, but to reach REX they have to hope Arensman/Pellizzari outscore Gee by a significant amount (200ish points), other than Andresen not scoring at all on Sunday.

And sadly, Fieschă will have to hope for better luck next time, but not all is lost as they still can root for Mozzato - twice a top 10 finisher in a Giro that hasn't been kind to sprinters - to win on Sunday and maybe deliver a stage win to the only team that hasn't managed one in this edition.

Stage 19 Feltre -> Alleghe (Piani di Pezzè)

The queen stage of this edition immediately saw an important surprise as Jhonatan Narvaez (MMM/REX/VFL), one of Giro's standout riders and still in full contention for the points classification, dropped out of the race after apparently crashing after yesterday's stage finish, en route to his team bus. The breakaway predictably took a while to form, but interestingly ended up including both climbers (Ciccone, Harper and Rubio) and a few GC riders (Storer and Gee-West).

It turned out Ciccone (BDC/CHX/ITW) and Rubio (CFA) more or less made a deal to respectively split summit points and intermediate sprints, but when Ciccone teammate Gee-West (REX) broke the deal by going for the second intermediate sprint, Rubio in turn "stole" the next summit from Ciccone, who did not take it well. The Italian rode off into the distance to attempt a solo win, but was caught and had to settle (yet again) for third, with Gee-West taking second.

So no stagewin to the GC favourites, with Gall, Vingegaard and Hindley having to settle for 4th to 6th. Points also to Piganzoli, Rubio and Storer closing off the top 10, with the biggest news being Thymen Arensman finishing only 12th and losing a minute from GC leader Vingegaard and the third place in GC from Hindley.

Banqeu de Cézembre gets their second stagewin of this edition; they seem headed for second place in the final standings, as they should score both more stagepoints and End of Tour points than Cyclohexane. The latter, in turn, should have more chances to defend at least the final podium position from ITW and MMM given Narvaez abandoning and Milan having a chance at a good position on Sunday.

Standings after stage 19:

Pos	±		Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)		Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	6943	+612
2nd	(=)		Cyclohexane (CHX)	5710	+510
3rd	(+2)		Cézembre Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs (BDC)	5691	+670
4th	(-1)		Els Talossaes Rexhital (REX)	5668	+495
5th	(-1)		Maritiimi-Maxhestic Mençeis (MMM)	5476	+338
6th	(+1)		Team In The Wind (ITW)	5385	+543
7th	(-1)		Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	5312	+363
8th	(=)		Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	3501	+372

Tomorrow we get TCAT's penultimate and probably decisive stage, featuring two laps of the 14km Piancavallo ascent. Since this is also my home stage, I will try and attend and get some pictures!

Stage 17 Cassano all'Adda -> Andalo

TCAT Italy 2026's finale is fast approaching, with the peloton making its way towards the Dolomites in a hilly stage that turned out to be quite tiring and demanding due to constant elevation changes, even without major climbs. Perfect day for a breakaway, and indeed 20ish riders survived to the finish in front of the peloton, of which 6 were in the frontmost group contending for the win. No luck for the TCAT riders involved in that effort, as CFA's Einer Rubio and CHX's Igor Arrieta finished 5th and 6th respectively. A fair bit behind, GHS's Garofoli finished 7th and eternal breakaway stage favourite Jhonatan Narvaez (MMM/REX/VFL) only managed 8th today. Minor points for Ciccone (13th, BDC/CHX/ITW), Bais (17th, CHX) and Gualdi (19th, GHS).

Cyclohexane gets the daily win, albeit a low scoring one - the whole pack fits in just 109 points today. This is still enough for the TCAT Italy 2023 champions to jump up to 4th for the time being.

Pos	±		Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)		Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	6015	+253
2nd	(=)		Els Talossaes Rexhital (REX)	5062	+162
3rd	(=)		Maritiimi-Maxhestic Mençeis (MMM)	5030	+193
4th	(+2)		Cyclohexane (CHX)	4908	+271
5th	(-1)		Cézembre Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs (BDC)	4901	+163
6th	(-1)		Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	4838	+172
7th	(=)		Team In The Wind (ITW)	4732	+165
8th	(=)		Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	3058	+213

Today, another breakaway-friendly stage but with less elevation change, still moving eastwards through Valsugana from Trentino to Veneto. This one might even see punchy sprinters survive to the end. In general, this might be the last chance for stagehunter unclassified picks to get any meaningful points, as only two big mountain GC days and the final Rome sprint remain.

The call for bills for the June 2026 Clark (the fifth of the 62nd Cosă) is now open. You may post a link to a bill's Hopper thread underneath in the usual fashion, provided it has passed the Hopper according to Lex.H.2 and you are entitled to Clark bills.

I will accept for Clarking any such bills (except for any that fall foul of H.2.7) that are presented between now and May 31st 11:59 PM TST, as I will begin assembling the Clark on the European morning of June 1st.