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by Rocain Founder » Sat Jul 24, 2021 7:17 am
1. “@@LEADER@@, we have a brilliant opportunity!” excitedly cheers Francine Meier, the mayor of one of the cities. “Imagine, our city, a front to the world in both summer and winter. All we need to do is develop and deploy a whole fleet of state-of-the-art icebreakers the likes of which the world has never seen before! I can just picture it now: hundreds of ships and thousands of tourists could finally bring millions of @@CURRENCYPLURAL@@ from across the globe to my port... err, @@NAME@@.”
by Rocain Founder » Mon Jul 26, 2021 5:13 am
by Rocain Founder » Mon Jul 26, 2021 7:09 am
“Allowing cars to scoot around and pollute our cities was a bad idea in the first place,” says Vera Shakespeare, a famous environmentalist. “The solution is to abolish private motor transport whilst funding a major urban public transport scheme. Our buses and undergrounds could be the envy of the world! Yes, the car companies will suffer, and yes, there’ll be a bit more tax, but wouldn’t it be worth it for a bit of fresh air and safe streets for the children?”
by Trotterdam » Mon Jul 26, 2021 7:47 am
You made a typo here. You're actually talking about #310.Rocain Founder wrote:The spoilers indicate that option 3 of issue 301 is TBD.
by Rocain Founder » Mon Jul 26, 2021 3:08 pm
by Rocain Founder » Mon Jul 26, 2021 4:02 pm
“You’ve got to be kidding,” says green pamphleteer Lee Gonzalez. “This rainforest is thousands of years old! This country needs more environmental protection, not less. And to destroy the environment in order to mine uranium that then goes into nuclear bombs—well, that really sticks in my craw.”
by Trotterdam » Wed Jul 28, 2021 1:38 pm
#1469 News Flash!"Warner", at least, seems unlikely to be a random name.
The Issue
While reporting an incident where no less than seven cats got stuck in the same tree at once, broadcasts on major news networks featured blaring noises and rapidly flashing colors, causing many discomfort, migraines, and in a few cases, full-blown epileptic seizures.
The Debate
1. "The last thing I expect in the morning is to be attacked by my television, and there's no doubt that this stinking migraine I have is from that news report," sighs beleaguered mum Nyota Pelosi, whose five-year-old has loudly sung sixty-seven consecutive repetitions of the Baby Shark song since coming into your office. "The jabbering nonsense news anchors regurgitate is painful enough. News and other TV shows must be barred from broadcasting these sorts of noises and graphics."
2. "What if we made shows put epilepsy warnings before each instance and program?" suggests children's show editor Miley Warner, showing you a happy face with a warning in colorful, flashy letters. "Then people will know when to switch channels, and networks will favor writers who are more conscientious. It's a nice compromise that can be applied to all media. Hey, I know a song about compromise we can all sing! Just to warn you, there's some moderately loud clapping in the middle."
3. "Why should my show be compromised?" refutes popular TV show host Théoden Dahl, entering your office with blinding rainbow strobe lights. "Which would you rather watch? A boring old guy in a suit, or a cinematic extravaganza featuring epic explosions and fast-paced drama? If some people are too sensitive to watch the news, then they can always listen to it on radio or something. You know, you should give your official political broadcasts more pizzaz too. I'll give you the number of the SFX guys I use. I guarantee people will sit up and take notice!"
Issue by Jutsa
Edited by Candlewhisper Archive
by Jutsa » Wed Jul 28, 2021 2:41 pm
by Malanasia » Thu Jul 29, 2021 4:39 am
by Rocain Founder » Thu Jul 29, 2021 6:40 am
by Trotterdam » Thu Jul 29, 2021 12:25 pm
by Rocain Founder » Thu Jul 29, 2021 12:41 pm
by Tinhampton » Fri Jul 30, 2021 2:44 pm
by Valentine Z » Sat Jul 31, 2021 5:18 am
by Voxija » Sat Jul 31, 2021 2:33 pm
#1471: @@LEADER@@ and the Lost Chamber of Vetoes
The Issue
The hall that once hosted the legislature’s now-defunct upper house sits forlornly in the parliamentary building in Xirroni, collecting dust, attracting vermin, and sheltering angsty aides seeking to evade their boss’ supervision. Given the importance the chamber once held, competing interests have been trying to claim it for their own purposes.
The Debate
1. “A museum is the most logical choice,” notes your advisor Ellie Tarkin, standing before the door to the hall, while slurping a little too loudly on an iced coffee. “It could become a place where we’d celebrate and share our nation’s history of democracy. Early drafts of our constitution on display, a big statue of yourself of course, and you can have the former members give tours to the public!”
2. “A museum is for old farts who dwell in the bog of history, darling!” tuts passing parliamentarian Jude Chan. “It’s time we introduced some haute cuisine into this tasteless den of stale sandwiches and withered salads to woo foreign ambassadors! Imagine fountains spraying caviar, langoustines waiting to pop out of their shells into our salivating mouths, delectable truffles sprinkled on top of the finest dishes. Make this hall splendid again!”
3. “Uh, hey, uhm... c-could we think about the l-little folk for once?” stammers an overworked aide, emerging from a silent corner of the hall. “W-we really could use a moment to ourselves at times. S-some peace and quiet. M-maybe we could put a break room in here, with a little Zen garden? You know, f-for us to meditate and de-stress? That would be nice...”
4. “I’ll tell you what to do with this chamber!” rages former chair of the upper house Nyota Hunt, gesticulating wildly from the hallway where she is camped with a number of her former colleagues. “Re-open it! This joke has run its course. @@NAME@@ needs the calm and level-headed guidance of upper house members like myself! Give us back our jobs, or else there will be trouble.”
Issue by The Royal State of Daarwyrth
Edited by Verdant Haven
by Jutsa » Sun Aug 01, 2021 1:25 pm
by Rocain Founder » Sun Aug 01, 2021 6:46 pm
“The easiest thing to do would be to introduce online voting,” interrupts your intern, whose high-tech Boogle glasses obscure her face. “Instant fingerprint recognition, ocular identification, strong passwords and meticulous analysis of cursor movements are the future of electioneering scrutiny. It’s voter identification without the hassle of in-person voting. And, the poor can easily sign up at their nearest library.”
by Rocain Founder » Mon Aug 02, 2021 4:46 pm
“I don’t see why it’s anyone’s business but my own how I kill myself,” says Emile Jordan, a pleasantly plump former computer programmer, midway through a chili dog. “My weight is my own business, and if I don’t feel like exercising, that’s my choice. Sure, it’d be healthier to lose a few pounds, but my priorities lie elsewhere. Leave us alone, and we, the citizens of @@NAME@@, will decide what’s important to us and what we want to eat.”
by Trotterdam » Tue Aug 03, 2021 6:32 am
#1472 Home Is Where the Lung IsAccording to the draft thread, option 1 is for capitalist nations and option 2 for socialist nations.
The Issue
Recent studies have concluded that the indoor air quality in @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ buildings often reaches unhealthy levels, leading to decreased comfort and productivity across the nation. That explains why all your meetings this morning were interrupted by the sounds of your assistants sneezing and coughing throughout the office.
The Debate
1. "There's a simple solution to this!" declares @@RANDOMNAME@@, CEO of the trendy tech startup Vaporware LLC. "Our smart air purifiers will clean all those pesky particulates out of your homes and workplaces, and they even come with a bright LED display that glows one of 500 different colors to tell the user exactly what the machine's doing. Just sign here and my company will sell you enough air purifiers to put those bad boys in every building in @@NAME@@!"
2. ???
3. "There's no need to blow through money like that," snuffles your runny-nosed Minister of Safety, still clutching the tissue box that @@HE/SHE@@ has been carrying all morning. "Many indoor air pollutants come from the organic compounds found in building materials, paint, and cleaning products. If we restrict the use of these chemicals, we'll tackle the root of the problem, and we won't have to worry about biting off more than we can a-a-CHEW!"
4. "This wouldn't be such a problem if people weren't spending all their time inside," rebuts lonely park ranger @@RANDOMNAME@@, who deserted @@HIS/HER@@ post to meet with you without anybody noticing. "If you invest in public parks, plazas, and hiking trails, I think you'll see more people enjoying the great outdoors and less people complaining about this whole indoor air quality thing, since they won't be exposed to it anymore! Well, not as much, anyway."
5. "New machines? New restrictions? You're all absolutely insane!" interrupts a disgruntled old man who you don't recall inviting to this meeting. "You know what we did back in my day when we wanted fresh air? That's right, open a goddang window! You should just mandate that every building open all their windows for two hours a day. Problem solved." The man then exits the room via the open window behind him.
Issue by Osheiga
Edited by USS Monitor
by Bears Armed » Tue Aug 03, 2021 6:33 am
NO. 1'474
Cuy Bono?
The Issue
A morning meeting with some of your ministers is just starting when your sister bursts into the room and into an angry complaint about how, when her family went out to dinner at a fashionable new Tiquitacan restaurant yesterday evening, her young daughter was brought to tears by finding guinea pig on the menu.
The Debate
“At first she was delighted to see that they had a pen of guinea pigs, which she thought was a petting zoo, until one of the waiters explained that those animals — which his people call cuy — were actually there so that diners could choose which ones they wanted to eat. She was still crying right up until she finally went to sleep that night. It shouldn’t be allowed! Some kinds of animals are food but some kinds are just pets instead, at least in civilized countries like ours, and the law should make it clear which are which.”
“But the guinea pig has always been an important meat animal for the Tiquitacans, and it’s really tasty too. I remember that from when I was posted at our embassy there,” remarks Caliban Lennon, your Foreign Minister, salivating slightly. “Not only should we continue to allow the use of guinea pigs as meat, but there are so many other foreign delicacies that we should encourage restaurants and shops here to stock as well: Skandilund’s reindeer hind cutlets with eyeball sauce, for example, or Tasmanian fermented platypus eggs. Yum!”
“All meat is murder!” protests Harriet Schmo, your Environment Minister. “It’s a slippery slope: First, people eat the flesh of ‘domestic livestock’, then they eat the flesh of animals traditionally kept just as pets... and then, maybe, they’ll even ‘graduate’ to putting pineapple on pizza! It’s barbaric! This incident is just more proof that we should outlaw meat-eating altogether.”Issue by The Free Bears of Bears Armed
Edited by The Marsupial Illuminati
by Jutsa » Tue Aug 03, 2021 6:42 am
by Eshialand » Tue Aug 03, 2021 10:02 am
Bears Armed wrote:Now in use _NO. 1'474
Cuy Bono?
The Issue
A morning meeting with some of your ministers is just starting when your sister bursts into the room and into an angry complaint about how, when her family went out to dinner at a fashionable new Tiquitacan restaurant yesterday evening, her young daughter was brought to tears by finding guinea pig on the menu.
The Debate
“At first she was delighted to see that they had a pen of guinea pigs, which she thought was a petting zoo, until one of the waiters explained that those animals — which his people call cuy — were actually there so that diners could choose which ones they wanted to eat. She was still crying right up until she finally went to sleep that night. It shouldn’t be allowed! Some kinds of animals are food but some kinds are just pets instead, at least in civilized countries like ours, and the law should make it clear which are which.”
“But the guinea pig has always been an important meat animal for the Tiquitacans, and it’s really tasty too. I remember that from when I was posted at our embassy there,” remarks Caliban Lennon, your Foreign Minister, salivating slightly. “Not only should we continue to allow the use of guinea pigs as meat, but there are so many other foreign delicacies that we should encourage restaurants and shops here to stock as well: Skandilund’s reindeer hind cutlets with eyeball sauce, for example, or Tasmanian fermented platypus eggs. Yum!”
“All meat is murder!” protests Harriet Schmo, your Environment Minister. “It’s a slippery slope: First, people eat the flesh of ‘domestic livestock’, then they eat the flesh of animals traditionally kept just as pets... and then, maybe, they’ll even ‘graduate’ to putting pineapple on pizza! It’s barbaric! This incident is just more proof that we should outlaw meat-eating altogether.”Issue by The Free Bears of Bears Armed
Edited by The Marsupial Illuminati
I don't know whether the two names given in red here are fixed or random.
I can confirm that the effect line for option 2 is, as was submitted, "@@CAPITAL@@ has restaurants serving every meat from aardvark to zebra".
I don't know whether the change during editing from "Titicacan" to "Tiquitacan" was just because the editor thought this sounded better or to reduce the "RL reference" aspect (which had the unfortunate side-effect of also reducing the strength of the 'shout-out to The Goon Show' aspect...) ... or just because the editor[s] didn't want it to say "tit".
Presumably the changes to the Skandilunder recipe in option 2 were to make it sound revolting rather than [potentially] appetizing, and the change in the Tasmanian recipe from "devilled eggs" to "fermented eggs" was because the editor[s] thought that more people would understand the latter?
And, while I agree that pineapple on pizza is an abomination, its inclusion in that escalating scale of horrors in option 3 -- when the rest of that option, like the rest of the issue as a whole, is specifically about carnivory -- seems rather inappropriate to me...
Or is the nation's Environment Minister actually supposed to think that pineapple is a form of meat?!
by Rocain Founder » Tue Aug 03, 2021 11:20 am
“The ignorant have taken over @@NAME@@,” yells Dawang Goff, from atop a soap box podium. “”I knew compulsory voting would bring the lowest common denominator out from under their rock. It is time that the intelligent retake the polls! Mr. ‘Scruffy’ is a disgrace to democracy and should be taken out of office instantly! I propose we issue mandatory I.Q. tests for every voting citizen and if they are found to have below average reasoning ability - namely lacking the foresight to see that electing an inanimate object to office will cause disaster - then they shall be excused from the responsibility of voting.”
by SherpDaWerp » Tue Aug 03, 2021 5:02 pm
#1475: Bombshell for @@LEADER@@ [Fauxia; ed: The Free Joy State]
The Issue
Your re-election campaign has been thrust into the headlines due to adult film star Catherine Gratwick announcing her full-throated support. She has since hooked up with your campaign manager to offer her services on the campaign trail.
The Debate
1. "That’s a great ass... uh, asset!" assesses your brother, fingering through an assortment of Gratwick’s films. "You should flaunt the association all over the place and assert your dominance over the competition! Ask for her assistance at every assembly. The moralists may assail you for it, but rest assured, you don’t need their assent to get over the hump. Tell them to shove off and assimilate into the modern world."
2. "Screw her!" shouts your self-appointed morals counselor, Prue Dish, confiscating your brother's movies while he is busy cheering. "Gratwick is a disgusting, disgraceful deviant! Those are the triple Ds of her profession. You can’t possibly get into bed with people like her! Listen to Prudence: denounce her. Reassure the public that you've never even heard of those demeaning films -- you haven’t, have you -- and send demure surrogates to represent you. That prim actress who's been in the soap Hard Days on Easy Street for fifty years just loves you."
3. "She's a good one, but you should always play it safe and see how it works," suggests your campaign manager, Thaddeus Kapoor, who seems to carry an infinite supply of latex. "Don't say anything about Gratwick's endorsement. If it's mentioned, obfuscate; maybe bring up that obscure novelist who wrote you that intimate letter. Then, send her as a surrogate to events where it might be useful. It's all about saying the right things to the right people, you know."
4. "Get on with it,” moans Joe Reid, a volunteer for your campaign who entered the room unsolicited. "Catherine Gratwick? She’s just some dumb actress. Why should her support mean more than anyone else's? Sure, lots of people know all about her, but don't our votes count equally? How about you celebrate the average Joes you couldn't do it without; maybe invite us to speak at events? It's us who win the elections, not the latest blonde or brunette actress in bad churned-out movies."
by Verdant Haven » Tue Aug 03, 2021 5:37 pm
Rocain Founder wrote:Option 2 of issue #144 has turned up.
-snip-
The double quotation mark after the word "podium" was present in the text received from the API.
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