Update tbd, but here are the standings

Standings after stage 2:

Pos	±		Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(+2)		Cyclohexane (CHX)	555	+358
2nd	(=)		Team In The Wind (ITW)	527	+309
3rd	(-2)		Els Talossaes Rexhital (REX)	522	+290
4th	(+2)		Cézembre Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs (BDC)	463	+418
5th	(=)		Maritiimi-Maxhestic Mençeis (MMM)	446	+338
6th	(-2)		Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	346	+155
7th	(+1)		Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	281	+269
8th	(-1)		Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	209	+181

Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas

80's sounding (apparently its from 1990) dream pop with shiny bright vocals, post-punky basslines, and indecipherable lyrics. I was only vaguely aware of them before. I did not expect to be this blown away.

Best tracks (in tracklist order): Pitch the Baby, Iceblink Luck, Fifty-fifty clown, Heaven or Las Vegas, I Wear Your Ring, but probably it's best to experience the whole thing from start to finish.

I expect @Crement Itravilatx to rub it in that his team has such early success.

I missed the deadline too. (I've been working so much lately, half the time I don't even know what day of the week it is.)

Talossa's Embassy in Ohio, formerly located at 508 East State Street, in Salem, Ohio, has moved! (To be honest, it wasn't much of an embassy, we never even got a Talossan flag installed. We promise to do better in the new location.) Nerdy Necessities, the game store that also operates as the embassy, has just moved down the street a few blocks. New address is 420 East State Street. If you happen to be in the area, you are welcome to visit (and hopefully not leave without buying something.) The new location sits above a place called "Kast Iron Soda Works", a soda pop saloon that makes many of its own products, and is across the street from an awesome record store (State Street Records). There's also a popular tattoo parlour next to the record store. And if you want something stronger than soda pop, there are several establishments offering a variety of alcoholic beverages just a short walk away. (Ricky's English Pub is my favorite. They have Guinness on tap and the food is generally pretty good.) Stop by sometime.
(And if you can't, you can still support a Talossan owned business! Nerdy Necessities has a website you can order stuff from.)

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on May 08, 2026, 06:53:05 PMThere is already a bill in the CRL that would modify the same provision. In such a circumstance, I would not want to move forward with a bill that would modify the same provision, because it's confusing and poor form. While this bill is fine in form and function, and I vote to approve, I think it would be best to wait for a future Clark.

Thank you for approving in form and function. My bill removes the strongmen statement in the WHEREAS clause which was mentioned as a concern. If there is no movement before the call for bills for the sixth Clark I will move forward with this one.

There is already a bill in the CRL that would modify the same provision. In such a circumstance, I would not want to move forward with a bill that would modify the same provision, because it's confusing and poor form. While this bill is fine in form and function, and I vote to approve, I think it would be best to wait for a future Clark.

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil, O.Be on May 08, 2026, 04:38:40 PM@Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP , could you maybe elaborate a bit on what happens in the event there are fewer than 20 candidates on the ballot?

If there are fewer candidates than seats to fill, then every candidate would get in and the rest is left empty. Needless to say, the system only works if we have enough people to actually run, and if we cant get at least 20 people to run, then maybe 20 seats is too much still...?

This, by the way, is why the Pseudo-Real Cosă is called pseudo: I was afraid that we might not have enough candidates to fill 20 seats, so the old assign post-hoc system would stay in place until a proper Real Cosă can be implemented faithfully.

Quote from: Françal I. Lux on May 06, 2026, 10:19:08 AMJust to be clear, I'm not arguing against party politics at all, I'm just not a fan of lists in principle because, in my view, it robs the voters choice. As I stated previously, it forces voters to elect their representatives as a block and prevents them from scrutinizing individual candidates. Let's say I ideologically align with Party A, but there's one or two individuals on their party list I disagree with for whatever reason, why should I be forced to elect them into office? What if I want to split my vote because there's someone in Party B who I actually know will be a good MC despite some political disagreements we might have?

Again, with a 20-seat Cosa, I would argue it's even more important that voters get to scrutinize individual candidates and ascertain whether they'd be good, responsible and serious public servants. Having to rely on a party list prevents that from happening because the party itself can pave over whatever flaws their candidates may have. If someone running for office can't stand on their own two feet and articulate why they should be in the Cosa, or if they lack the commitment or time to truly be present and active enough, I'd argue they have no business running for office.

I appreciate you going into further detail! In addition to the SPAV system Sir Marcel is a fan of, you may also be interested in panachage, at least based on that bit I've bolded.

@Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP , could you maybe elaborate a bit on what happens in the event there are fewer than 20 candidates on the ballot? Would everyone end up getting a seat and then we cycle around to the beginning and do the whole thing again until all 20 seats are allocated? My concern there is that in such a scenario, larger parties may unduly benefit by virtue of being able to field more candidates. It becomes less about your share of the vote and more about how many names you can put on the ballot, if that makes sense. Alternatively, could we rework the system to give someone a second seat if they've earned it before everyone else has been given one?

I'm also wondering if there's an easy way to work in a "disapproval vote" into an open-list method. That may technically also fall under the panachage umbrella, now that I think about it.
- Vote for party of preference
- Give a +1/0/-1 to every candidate on said list.
- Party gets seats proportional to list vote.
- Candidates with negative totals are not granted seats.
- Everyone else receives seats in order of total score, cycling back around to "top" of party list as necessary.

My team taking the first lead is just as it should be!

-Txec R