Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil, O.Be on August 05, 2026, 12:46:35 AMI'm not sure exactly where this Reformation (forgive the pun) is at in terms of planning and decisions, but is there any particular denomination this is leaning towards? From first glance I would presume some sort of "non-denominational 'national' church", but if there is one ecclesiastical heraldic tradition or another we can or should borrow from more heavily that could be useful information.

Unrelated to my previous question, if you'll forgive a little public brainstorming, I note that archbishops' arms in several denominations utilize a pallium or pall as a heraldic device. In this case, if done properly it could be doubly symbolic for the merging of the Milwaukee River with either of its downtown tributaries before emptying into la Mar Talossan. Food for thought!

Foxmouth

Yes, we're aiming for Western Rite Orthodoxy, so it'll be a Catholic coat of arms (since the West was Orthodox for a thousand years, to quote St. John Maximovitch.) My signature also lists my would-be titles in "Old Talossan" (including "Vicar of the Patriarch of Antioch and All the East").

I'm not sure exactly where this Reformation (forgive the pun) is at in terms of planning and decisions, but is there any particular denomination this is leaning towards? From first glance I would presume some sort of "non-denominational 'national' church", but if there is one ecclesiastical heraldic tradition or another we can or should borrow from more heavily that could be useful information.

Unrelated to my previous question, if you'll forgive a little public brainstorming, I note that archbishops' arms in several denominations utilize a pallium or pall as a heraldic device. In this case, if done properly it could be doubly symbolic for the merging of the Milwaukee River with either of its downtown tributaries before emptying into la Mar Talossan. Food for thought!

Foxmouth

The URL's registration fee is submitted, if the good Burgermeister Sir @xpb would confirm when it is received.

In the lead-up to the last election, the now-Seneschal described his party's promises as "ludicrous". Unfortunately, a word defined as "laughable, ridiculous" has ended up being a more accurate assessment than the Baron would probably prefer.

Immigration: As we've touched on before, the Baron and his party chose to make immigration the big issue of the last election, but it's not an issue they've succeeded with. The outgoing Government has not managed to grow the country. They have welcomed fewer immigrants than the previous Government, and while there have been more applicants, this means the percent of successful applications has been cut in half. The government's assumption that "more applicants = more citizens" has been proven false. The big reason for this is that they are focused only on "making the number go up" -- and they've not succeeded. We have previously commented on the limitations of the outgoing Seneschal's fixation on "management by statistics". We are now seeing those limitations demonstrated in real time. The URL, on the other hand, knows that recruiting the right citizens is more important in the long run than how many we can get in one term. Trying to target the kinds of people who are already interested in the sorts of things Talossa can provide will result in people sticking around and being active instead of immigrating and lapsing out as quickly as possible. Immigration shouldn't have to be about recuperating our losses. It should be about actually growing the country. The URL will prioritize recruiting citizens with an interest in political simulators, among other still-ignored sources.

Transparency in Government: Another big issue in the last election was the Public Process Act. After the URL pointed out that the bill as originally written had no enforcement mechanism, we were able to get one added when the new Cosă was seated. The PPA 2.0 passed in January. It is now August. Seven months on, the Baron's government has not yet begun to follow their own flagship piece of legislation. The Leader of the Opposition is now legally required to have a view to immigration applications. The Leader of the Opposition does not have that view. So much for transparency. A URL government can be trusted to actually follow the Kingdom's laws.

Improving Talossan Infrastructure: Exactly zero of the proposals in this thread have come to fruition.

"Cutting Red Tape": Their solution to this was to propose reducing the number of individuals in the Government that are accountable to the Ziu. We made sure that oversight stayed in place. The country deserves a government that is held accountable for their actions.

Regardless of the merits of their proposals or how they may try to spin the situation, the outgoing Government has failed to deliver on their promised agenda in this last term. Their "one-man band" problem has only worsened since then. As time goes on, the reason becomes more painfully obvious to the rest of the country: this Government has largely been one individual, clearly overworked, trying to drag his Cabinet forward. The Baron's situation is unenviable at best, but it goes back to what we've said before: government should be a team, not one person. A team of people have a much better time achieving their goals, instead of spinning their wheels and having to inflate accomplishments.

Is this effort on hold until after the election?

Quote from: xpb on July 01, 2026, 01:19:00 PM

Quote from: Breneir Tzaracomprada on June 30, 2026, 10:31:45 PM

Quote from: xpb on March 14, 2026, 10:23:19 PMnote: data collected by Breneir duing impulse #1 for Asgardia not including SWOT analysis has been submitted to their foreign ministry for review of accuracy - this is an information gathering step only, not establishing any specific relationship

Hey @xpb

In starting to finally get to work on the second report for the Dominion of Vancouver Island I noticed this note concerning the Asgardia report. Have you heard anything back from Asgardian Foreign Ministry?

Asgardia did not reply to my March 2 inquiry: Establishing Asgardia information for Talossan Factbook 2026.  I most recently received from them their general newsletter on June 18th (their unity day) indicating that their upcoming 10-year anniversary 12 October 2026.

meanwhile there's an effort by Microcon/Slowjamistan to create a more terse directory that wouldn't have the details of the fact book but could be a starting point to collect information from.

Hey @xpb

I saw the idea of creating embassies but I wanted to check in on the information sharing project which I am surprised is not a part of the PA campaign. Unfortunately, I've not made any progress for my second report on the Dominion of Vancouver Island. Have any other participants turned in their reports? Any news from Asgardia on my report?

Quote from: Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP on August 04, 2026, 07:49:24 PM

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on August 04, 2026, 07:42:08 PMI think there's no barrier to these things being expected to come into effect immediately upon ratification:

• Seat limit change

I think that these requirements require a process that cannot be expected to have occurred (ranked lists) or which have a timer running, and so they will happen with the 64th Cosa:

• Baseline 20 seats
• Ordered list
• Redistribution via ordered list
• Consent to be on a list required

The seat limit change is related to the abolition of off-listers, so as long as off-listers are abolished for the 63rd Cosă onwards, I believe this timeline should be fine.

I missed two things:

• No more new citizen seats, taking effect immediately after ratification
• No more off-list, which I think I agree takes effect immediately after ratification

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on August 04, 2026, 07:42:08 PMI think there's no barrier to these things being expected to come into effect immediately upon ratification:

• Seat limit change

I think that these requirements require a process that cannot be expected to have occurred (ranked lists) or which have a timer running, and so they will happen with the 64th Cosa:

• Baseline 20 seats
• Ordered list
• Redistribution via ordered list
• Consent to be on a list required

The seat limit change is related to the abolition of off-listers, so as long as off-listers are abolished for the 63rd Cosă onwards, I believe this timeline should be fine.

Okay, so these are the effects of the bill:

• Baseline 20 seats
• Ordered list
• Redistribution via ordered list
• Seat limit change
• Consent to be on a list required

I think there's no barrier to these things being expected to come into effect immediately upon ratification:

• Seat limit change

I think that these requirements require a process that cannot be expected to have occurred (ranked lists) or which have a timer running, and so they will happen with the 64th Cosa:

• Baseline 20 seats
• Ordered list
• Redistribution via ordered list
• Consent to be on a list required

I would have said a lot differently about some of those things, but Miestra's argument as you recount it is rock-solid... parties can't have ordered lists going into this election, and so effects cascading from that are nullified.

Maybe a PD is in order to clarify expectations and the timeline, since you're right that this is confusing.  That's what happens when you rush, I guess... we really hustled to make the last Clark with that one.

Quote from: Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP on August 04, 2026, 05:35:44 PMWhen and where did the Ziu agree that this particular baseline change to Org.IV.2.1 would only enter into effect during or after February?

The Ziu affirmed the underlying rule governing when changes to the size of the Ziu would come into effect by passing the same language with that requirement, unchanged.

Quote from: Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP on August 04, 2026, 05:35:44 PMThat's an interesting point, actually. Miestră believes that ironclad lists cannot come into effect immediately because electoral lists under the current pre-referendum system are not the same form as the ironclad post-referendum system, i.e. they're not numerically ordered. In her view, the Cosă constitutes under the old rules as soon as the election results are published, but before any amendments enter into effect.

If this isn't a reason for all of us to come to an agreement as to when and how the amendment enters into effect and what ramifications it would have, I don't know what is.

That's actually a really good point.  Could people be fairly held to requirements that didn't yet exist, knowing that they probably will but might not exist in the future?  I don't think so... I think you're right on this one, and I'm wrong.  I think the whole thing will come into effect not in this upcoming Cosa, but the next one.  Good thinking.