The Post Tribune Telegraph of AAtlasia - TPTTAA

[Fuzzybigfoot]

Pacific region down to a single legislator.
With Mr. Fuzzleton's resignation, the Pacific council now only has a single member. There is as of yet no news on how that will effect the operation of that chamber.

What a wonderful idea that clearly turned out to be.

Not like we had much to reform anyhow.  Now quit your trolling. 

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

COMIC...ish

http://damnyouautocorrect.com/

[Associate Justice PiT]

Pacific region down to a single legislator.
With Mr. Fuzzleton's resignation, the Pacific council now only has a single member. There is as of yet no news on how that will effect the operation of that chamber.

What a wonderful idea that clearly turned out to be.

     I must echo this, given how close Atlasia came to adopting an apparatus like the Pacific's on the federal level. So long after the fact, it seems that the opponents of universalism have been vindicated.

     With that said, the Pacific's system is unique among the regions of Atlasia, & I would be sad to see it go. Hopefully this doesn't discourage a more active region (which may well be the Pacific again a year from now) from trying this again down the road.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Pacific region down to a single legislator.
With Mr. Fuzzleton's resignation, the Pacific council now only has a single member. There is as of yet no news on how that will effect the operation of that chamber.

What a wonderful idea that clearly turned out to be.

     I must echo this, given how close Atlasia came to adopting an apparatus like the Pacific's on the federal level. So long after the fact, it seems that the opponents of universalism have been vindicated.

     With that said, the Pacific's system is unique among the regions of Atlasia, & I would be sad to see it go. Hopefully this doesn't discourage a more active region (which may well be the Pacific again a year from now) from trying this again down the road.

The problem of our voting system is not universalism. Actually, when the PA legislature was fully universalist, things worked better. The true problems are :
- Too many councilors
- Councilors not being able to vote as members of the lower house
- Low regional activity

The first two need to be fixed ASAP, the third can hopefully be overcome.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Pacific region down to a single legislator.
With Mr. Fuzzleton's resignation, the Pacific council now only has a single member. There is as of yet no news on how that will effect the operation of that chamber.

What a wonderful idea that clearly turned out to be.

     I must echo this, given how close Atlasia came to adopting an apparatus like the Pacific's on the federal level. So long after the fact, it seems that the opponents of universalism have been vindicated.

     With that said, the Pacific's system is unique among the regions of Atlasia, & I would be sad to see it go. Hopefully this doesn't discourage a more active region (which may well be the Pacific again a year from now) from trying this again down the road.

The problem of our voting system is not universalism. Actually, when the PA legislature was fully universalist, things worked better. The true problems are :
- Too many councilors
- Councilors not being able to vote as members of the lower house
- Low regional activity

The first two need to be fixed ASAP, the third can hopefully be overcome.

     I realize it's rather confusing now, but I use universalism to refer to a two-house system consisting of one elected house & one universal house, as the term was coined to refer to the system proposed during the Third Constitutional Convention in the Spring of 2009.

     I don't know how much you know about the Third ConCon since that was pretty soon after you joined, but Atlasia very nearly ended up organizing its federal legislative branch in nearly the same manner. The opposition to the proposal was led by Marokai, but I know that Lief, Purple State, & myself were also opposed to it.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, personally I think that if the councilors could have voted in the universal legislature too, things could also have worked fine. The problem is that the "universal" legislature actually consists in a mere 3 people.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

A CHAT WITH BEN


TPTTAA:
Ben, thank you for talking to us. Lets begin with your position in Cabinet. You are the current SoEA. When did you begin this job?

Ben:
I first became SoEA in July of 2010.  I held the position for four months, and returned to the job last week.

TPTTAA:
What happened in the interim?

Ben:
I served in the Mideast Assembly for a couple of weeks, and lost bids to the Assembly, Senate, and the Presidency.

TPTTAA:
Tell me about your bid for the presidency, how well did you do, and are you thinking about running again?

Ben:
I ran for President on a lark, and when certain members of the UDL made a big deal out of it, I became a serious candidate.  I was crushed because a large segment of the UDL decided not to back me, and I WILL NEVER RUN FOR PRESIDENT EVER AGAIN, NO NO NO NO NO NO CHANCE NO CHANCE NEVER NEVER NEVER NO CHANCE

TPTTAA:
Since you do not have ambition for the Presidency any longer, is there any other position that you would prefer? Your current position perhaps, another spot in Cabinet, or perhaps something on a Regional level?

Ben:
I'd like to remain SoEA as long as possible, and maybe a spot in the Senate.

TPTTAA:
Have you ever been a Senator before? And what other jobs have you held in the past?

Ben:
No, I never served in the Senate.  I was Lt. Governor of the Mideast for 10 months, Governor for 2, and an Assemblyman for about 7 months, in addition to 4 months as SoEA.

TPTTAA:
Thank you for your time.

[ilikeverin]

Pacific region down to a single legislator.
With Mr. Fuzzleton's resignation, the Pacific council now only has a single member. There is as of yet no news on how that will effect the operation of that chamber.

What a wonderful idea that clearly turned out to be.

     I must echo this, given how close Atlasia came to adopting an apparatus like the Pacific's on the federal level. So long after the fact, it seems that the opponents of universalism have been vindicated.

     With that said, the Pacific's system is unique among the regions of Atlasia, & I would be sad to see it go. Hopefully this doesn't discourage a more active region (which may well be the Pacific again a year from now) from trying this again down the road.

The problem of our voting system is not universalism. Actually, when the PA legislature was fully universalist, things worked better. The true problems are :
- Too many councilors
- Councilors not being able to vote as members of the lower house
- Low regional activity

The first two need to be fixed ASAP, the third can hopefully be overcome.

     I realize it's rather confusing now, but I use universalism to refer to a two-house system consisting of one elected house & one universal house, as the term was coined to refer to the system proposed during the Third Constitutional Convention in the Spring of 2009.

     I don't know how much you know about the Third ConCon since that was pretty soon after you joined, but Atlasia very nearly ended up organizing its federal legislative branch in nearly the same manner. The opposition to the proposal was led by Marokai, but I know that Lief, Purple State, & myself were also opposed to it.

To be fair, the universalist proposal came a long with a lot of other changes, too.  Though you could talk about whether the current example of the Pacific could scale up to a national level (I don't think it could, and I've never been a proponent of bicameral regions—witness my strong opposition to organizing an elected legislature on top of the Alþing in the Midwest—but I understand the comparison is more apt), we certainly couldn't generalize the results of the Pacific experiment to some of the more radical proposals at that ConCon (i.e., mine ).

[Marokai Backbeat]

     I realize it's rather confusing now, but I use universalism to refer to a two-house system consisting of one elected house & one universal house, as the term was coined to refer to the system proposed during the Third Constitutional Convention in the Spring of 2009.

     I don't know how much you know about the Third ConCon since that was pretty soon after you joined, but Atlasia very nearly ended up organizing its federal legislative branch in nearly the same manner. The opposition to the proposal was led by Marokai, but I know that Lief, Purple State, & myself were also opposed to it.

Oh I feel old. That feels like ages ago.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Pacific region down to a single legislator.
With Mr. Fuzzleton's resignation, the Pacific council now only has a single member. There is as of yet no news on how that will effect the operation of that chamber.

What a wonderful idea that clearly turned out to be.

     I must echo this, given how close Atlasia came to adopting an apparatus like the Pacific's on the federal level. So long after the fact, it seems that the opponents of universalism have been vindicated.

     With that said, the Pacific's system is unique among the regions of Atlasia, & I would be sad to see it go. Hopefully this doesn't discourage a more active region (which may well be the Pacific again a year from now) from trying this again down the road.

The problem of our voting system is not universalism. Actually, when the PA legislature was fully universalist, things worked better. The true problems are :
- Too many councilors
- Councilors not being able to vote as members of the lower house
- Low regional activity

The first two need to be fixed ASAP, the third can hopefully be overcome.

     I realize it's rather confusing now, but I use universalism to refer to a two-house system consisting of one elected house & one universal house, as the term was coined to refer to the system proposed during the Third Constitutional Convention in the Spring of 2009.

     I don't know how much you know about the Third ConCon since that was pretty soon after you joined, but Atlasia very nearly ended up organizing its federal legislative branch in nearly the same manner. The opposition to the proposal was led by Marokai, but I know that Lief, Purple State, & myself were also opposed to it.

To be fair, the universalist proposal came a long with a lot of other changes, too.  Though you could talk about whether the current example of the Pacific could scale up to a national level (I don't think it could, and I've never been a proponent of bicameral regions—witness my strong opposition to organizing an elected legislature on top of the Alþing in the Midwest—but I understand the comparison is more apt), we certainly couldn't generalize the results of the Pacific experiment to some of the more radical proposals at that ConCon (i.e., mine ).

     With all due respect to Smid, I thought his proposal just demanded too high a proportion of activity to be reasonable. I wonder though if the current system doesn't demand a high enough proportion of activity. The regional assemblies/legislatures/councils/alþings have been doing great lately, but I can't help but wonder if that is primarily because there just isn't any good route into the federal government unless you've already been here for at least a year.

     Re-reading the arguments of the ConCon, I noticed Purple State describing the regions as a launching board for newbies. I can't help but wonder if they have developed into an altogether viable level of government, despite the inherent restrictions on regional governance. Not saying that's a bad thing or anything, but the discussions of the ConCon have aged amazingly poorly; the large majority of the suggestions made there seem completely useless now. In retrospect, it seems right that it failed to produce any finalized document, as the problems were ultimately fixed without any need to resort to fundamental alterations of the system of government.

     I must admit that I would have been willing to support abolishing the federal government, but abolishing the regions was always a non-starter for me. The regions have the nice feature of promoting working relationships, & thereby promoting people who can form these relationships. Contrast this with the at-large Senate seats & the success of abrasive ideologues like DWTL & Libertas there. That isn't to say they would have had difficulty surviving on the regional level, but we can look at the fate of one other abrasive ideologue, Friz. Had he been in an at-large seat, there would have been no chance of him being unseated.

     The main problems that regional offices & Senate seats encounter are limited candidate pools & hesitance to run against friends or strong incumbents. I'll admit these problems still exist to some extent today, though that's mainly due to a lack of will to fix them. The notion of centralizing government is akin to junking your car because of a faulty computer chip. Regional seats have their problems, but I consider those far more tolerable than the problems of national seats; those being a tendency towards extremism & homogeneity.

     Finally, let me say that if the parties would bother putting up candidates for every seat they could, regional seats would be much better off. Given the nearly even split between the JCP & UDL in the Midwest, Kalwejt's uncontested election is inexcusable. Likewise, the JCP could have had a better candidate than Gporter in the IDS & the UDL could have had a better candidate than Sewer in the Pacific. The Northeast & Mideast were brilliantly fought, though I would have liked to see someone challenge HappyWarrior from the left as well. I suppose that that is not very feasible, though, given the right-leaning nature of that region.

[Oakvale]

Pacific region down to a single legislator.
With Mr. Fuzzleton's resignation, the Pacific council now only has a single member. There is as of yet no news on how that will effect the operation of that chamber.

What a wonderful idea that clearly turned out to be.

I'm still convinced it was a good idea to try.

Not hugely relevant that it didn't eventually work out... tinkering is a good thing, IMO, espeically on a regional level.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Pacific region down to a single legislator.
With Mr. Fuzzleton's resignation, the Pacific council now only has a single member. There is as of yet no news on how that will effect the operation of that chamber.

What a wonderful idea that clearly turned out to be.

I'm still convinced it was a good idea to try.

Not hugely relevant that it didn't eventually work out... tinkering is a good thing, IMO, espeically on a regional level.

Tinkering with broken systems, yes. But the Pacific's system before the addition of an elected legislature was something I was hoping everyone else would copy. The Pacific did not and does not have an active enough citizenry to sustain an elected legislature. There have been times where the universal legislature didn't get comments for weeks. Activity in that region for legislating just comes and goes, and that was the beauty of the old system, it let us come and go without any problem.

Though, I suppose, I shouldn't have to worry about it anymore, since I moved. The Northeast is certainly far worse.

[Oakvale]

Pacific region down to a single legislator.
With Mr. Fuzzleton's resignation, the Pacific council now only has a single member. There is as of yet no news on how that will effect the operation of that chamber.

What a wonderful idea that clearly turned out to be.

I'm still convinced it was a good idea to try.

Not hugely relevant that it didn't eventually work out... tinkering is a good thing, IMO, espeically on a regional level.

Tinkering with broken systems, yes. But the Pacific's system before the addition of an elected legislature was something I was hoping everyone else would copy. The Pacific did not and does not have an active enough citizenry to sustain an elected legislature. There have been times where the universal legislature didn't get comments for weeks. Activity in that region for legislating just comes and goes, and that was the beauty of the old system, it let us come and go without any problem.

Hmm, the idea was to stir up activity by getting people interested, elections being the focus of the game. And it worked!

... but only for a while, so, uh, yeah.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I was considering moving to the Northeast myself, actually. That place is in desperate need of fixin'.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Come on over! Invite all the left-wingers you can. We can make it better.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

EARLY NEWS - 20MAR2011

Repercussions of the Pacific's political situation continue to reverberate. SoIA Jbrase has suggested a return to the "old system" in the Pacific, with a single universal legislature, while others, such as Oakvale, have debated leaving the Pacific region altogether. When asked for comment, Oakvale said he was "getting itchy feet" and that moving to another region could be "interesting"

Meanwhile in the Southeast, the continuing election trend appears to be set to produce a result, with Gporter being replaced by Sanchez, and the other incumbents returning.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

EVENING NEWS 20 MARCH 2011

Senate debates bill to change role of GM
The Senate is currently debating a bill to change the operation of the game mastering system in operation in Atlasia. This would give the SoIA and SoEA more power to decide what is going on. Concerns have been raised that this would allow either of these people to create a situation for themselves to solve, however the backers of the bill say that this is not the intent of the legislation.

Commute Time changes in legislation
As reported earlier in TPTTAA, Commute Time has become a minor issue. The most recent proposal would see the allotted time from 2 hours to 45 minutes. TPTTAA Editor added "I take more than 45 minutes to get to work every day, and my commute is among the shortest at my workplace"

Declaw law declawed.
A bill to prohibit the declawing of cats in Atlasia has seen opposition in the Senate. The newest proposals would see the bill weakened, allowing for "alternatives" that would see cats being declawed without being declawed.

Senators to receive numbers.
A new bill in the Senate would see Senators assigned numbers to clarify the recording of our history in the wiki. This is a pro-active move by the Senate, a move that some have suggested is not needed. The mover of the bill, however, brought up the prospect of the Populares colour dispute, which saw an attempt to have a court case decide which shade of Green is the proper shade.

Atlasia says "Welcome"
A new Welcoming Committee, lead by the Vice President, will be formed. There will be one member from each party. The current members are Kalwejt, Cathcon, WisconsinGurl, Jake Matthews, and HappyWarrior. The Committee's main duty will be to welcome new citizens and help them adjust to political live in Atlasia.

Southeast Election draws to close.
With only 75 minutes left, the election in the IDS appears to be going the way we reported earlier. There has been some talk of a "last minute surge" for write-in candidate Bacon King, however this has yet to be seen.

Northeast looks for new Lt.Gov
With a vacant office and a Governor able to appoint anyone, the assembly has been looking at recommending a person for the office. TPTTAA would like to take this opportunity to suggest the Governor appoint someone who has yet to hold an office of this rank, to bring a fresh set of eyes to government.

[Junkie]

This has been excellent.

[Junkie]

The Northeast & Mideast were brilliantly fought, though I would have liked to see someone challenge HappyWarrior from the left as well.

On a few issues, I did challenge him from the left.  Although, you might not be talking about my last race.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

In about 4-5 hours, there will be a lull in activity on the entire forum. It happens every day. I will likely move my newscasts to that time, as it will be easier to segment off each day.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Come on over! Invite all the left-wingers you can. We can make it better.

Uncompetitive elections for regional Senate seats, unfair election tactics such as strategic registration, inactive Governors, etc.

Unfortunately for you.....
I never will forget those nights
I wonder if it was a dream
Remember how you made me crazy?


Except of the lyrics to Don Henley's "Boys of Summer"

Sometimes a good song quote is too good to pass up.

[Marokai Backbeat]

The Northeast can't possibly get any worse, though.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The Northeast can't possibly get any worse, though.

That may or may not be the case. However, does the effect on the region make the tactic itself any less despicable?


Its not as if the right in the NE has a monopoly on incompetence and innactivity, you know. Hence all the more ridiculus your call for a leftist invasion of the region.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I think if I was actually serious about influencing the Northeast I wouldn't be screaming my plans in public. I'm just a spitball thrower these days.

[Associate Justice PiT]

The Northeast & Mideast were brilliantly fought, though I would have liked to see someone challenge HappyWarrior from the left as well.

On a few issues, I did challenge him from the left.  Although, you might not be talking about my last race.

     I was talking about your last race, actually. While there wasn't a clear ideological gap between you & HappyWarrior, your base of support was essentially the right-wing while his was the center & the left-wing.

[ilikeverin]

The Northeast can't possibly get any worse, though.

That may or may not be the case. However, does the effect on the region make the tactic itself any less despicable?

I've never understood the idea that it's despicable; it's been around basically since Atlasia started.  I recall a big advertising campaign on the part of the Midwest for new residents when we dropped to something like 10 people at one point (whereas the Northeast was at 35 or something ridiculous like that).