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Cashew butter is great, but it's too expensive.  Peanut butter is almost as good, and much more affordable.  Almond butter is oddly bland.  I want to try other varieties eventually, especially pistachio butter.

Refugia
World Assembly Nations
Speculative Index of Food Quality
The data source utilized is located here:  https://www.nationstates.net/page=beta/beta=21

1.  Refuge Isle:  233.36
2.  Ortharion:  190.34
3.  Olivatopia:  190.02
4.  Sylh Alanor:  165.83
5.  Subadent:  153.66
6.  Merzbach:  145.64
7.  Virandon:  120.20
8.  Chacapoya:  112.65
9.  Vakoller:  82.24
10.  Narwhal:  63.68
11.  Athidill:  59.36
12.  Wankdeed:  27.18
13.  Sentient Igaunas:  25.26
14.  Mousetown:  23.35
15.  Tdhitihita:  19.92
16.  Wu Nation:  18.54
17.  Verrhelisa:  16.00
18.  Polis Diamonil:  15.07
19.  Orodove:  14.54
20.  Jectilan:  14.39
21.  Podophilia:  12.09
22.  NorthEastern Arrakis:  11.97
23.  The Second Iberian Peninsula:  11.62
24.  Rubaiya:  11.20
25.  Amarland:  10.40
26.  Elenaraghaenaris:  10.20
27.  Souka Expes:  10.12
28.  Uwusberg:  9.79
29.  Glentara:  9.31
30.  Borath Ilna:  8.96
31.  Pilliveerreusterve:  8.72
32.  0 Vipa 1 Nation:  9.12
33.  Poll Party:  8.47
34.  The Commune of Tazmania:  7.77
35.  Sanisun:  7.72

Note that Refuge Isle recently issued a policy such that:  "Economic output is rising as the chronically depressed are persuaded not to burden society."  Is that one of the secrets of having exceptionally tasty cuisine?

(Hi!  I wasn't sure if I should post this here or in RP.  It's technically a request for commentary on the most proper evils to introduce in a nation via the in-game issues system, but it's meant to be IC-ish like most of how I play Polis Diamonil...  So I don't know if this essentially NS-mechanical or essentially RP.)

The background dispatch:
https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1301914
(Note that Polis Diamonil dispatches may update with 'news updates'.  The number at the top is the day-of-play; DoP to date conversions are available in the main Iss-Log.)

A remarkable speech has recently shook the Diamonil Sortition Parliament as a previously unknown faction of still unknown extent has become visible to the government only after a member of it was drafted by the lots into the Parliament itself.  Recurrent deliberations about how to cajole or compel the payment of taxes so that the government could become more efficiently funded brought forth this spark of unexpected light.  While some skepticism still exists about whether the Sharkside Society of Distrust truly exists at all, a new strain of shocking analysis is entering the contemplations of the Diamonil Sortition Parliament just as the brutal utilitarianism of the Adamant Talons is entering a period on the wane in the wake of a terrifying conflict that wove through and beyond the borders of Polis Diamonil.

The Sharkside Society has warned that everything proposed in their name "will be a bad policy".  They have nevertheless expressed that in an endeavor to promote "rational distrust", it is their express intention to begin to sabotage policy deliberations in Polis Diamonil, and to encourage the government of Polis Diamonil to make a greater rate of "useful and necessary" errors.  The intention of this is to operate in such a means as to produce not disruption, but clarity.

The "sharksiders" are presently seeking international assistance from Refugia in identifying correctly bad government policies so that the nation may grow more savvy over time without destabilizing its idealistic dedications.

Ooh, a music thread!  Vienna Teng's "Dreaming Through The Noise" has several of my favorite songs on it.

Recessional is mystifying and beautiful:
And the words: they're everything and nothing.
I want to search for her in the offhand remarks.
Who are you, taking coffee and sugar?
Who are you, echoing street signs?
Who are you, the stranger in the shell of a lover,
Darker than strong by the passage of time?

Oh, words, like rain, how sweet the sound.
"Well anyway, " she says, "I'll see you around..."
Everyone drinks their coffee black, right?  Well...  I do too.  I've usually thought coffee tastes better unsweetened, though this morning I've discovered that buttered rum mix tastes better in coffee than rum.  Even so, I doubt I'll do that very many more times.  Who doesn't drink their coffee black?  I think everyone experiments, but who likes it better with sugar?  It sticks with me more than you might think to hear a singer with a sorrowing voice wonder about that question.

Or, well...  it had.  I was gravely disappointed while composing this post to realize the lyrics say, taking coffee, no sugar, because that's everyone I've ever met.  I guess... maybe that's interesting, too.  I don't know people who drink coffee with sugar.  What kind of person has rarely met someone who drinks their coffee black, instead?

The other part stands.  That idea of... longing to know who is lost inside a darkened shell.  I know that pain.  It isn't sung about often.

Whatever You Want is like an anthem of my private ideology, too:
but in the night she leaves the papers in a tiny pile: evidence for her reasons.
And in the night he takes the main accounts and pulls the files, detailing every treason.
I am the last one you'd ever suspect of setting the fire, of setting the fire.
But as you switch on your TV tomorrow morning, you'll hear me saying quietly:
Whatever you want, whatever you want, whatever you want is fine by me.
Whatever you want, whatever you want, whatever you want is fine by me.
I believe the people who can't be stopped from going their own way are the very heart of civilization.  We are all sometimes saved in darkness if ever we are saved at all.

Ah, but ages ago I found Blue Caravan, before I had ever heard anything else associated with the name of Vienna Teng, and it's been a soothing balm for me whenever I've found myself caught in memories of an artistic mentor who turned foul on me:
So like a fool, blue caravan
I believed him and I walked away.

Oh my blue blue caravan
The highway is my great wall
For my true love is a man
Who never existed at all
Oh he was a beautiful fiction
I invented to keep out the cold
But now, my blue blue caravan
I can feel my heart growing Cold
Oh my blue blue caravan
I can feel my heart growing Cold

Finally, the strange sound of I Don't Feel So Well took a while to grow on me, but it only got better as I listened to it more:
I don't call them that
I thought that you should know
I thought that you should know
That I don't call them that
I thought that you should know before you fall

I saw it begin to dawn on us both
That somehow it wasn't surprising
And so you're preparing to swear every oath
And all the while I'm realizing

I can't love you then
I thought that you should know
I thought that you should know
That I can't love you then
I thought that you should know before you fall
The lyrics are simple, even repetitive, but they have a drama to them that is greatly reinforced by the skillful instrumental work.

I've written a number of dispatches contemplating my nation of Polis Diamonil and attempting to extend its fiction well beyond the rude boundaries permitted by the NationStates issue system.  The general link is here:
https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatches/nation=polis_diamonil

Every issue that passes through Polis Diamonil is (eventually) logged!  The sequence in which issues pass or are dismissed is however not at all the same as the order that the issues arrived in.  The game is (pretending at) presenting issues at random, so I am not bound to produce my stories according to the ordering in which issues are given!

Hello, Refugia!  I'm Kayla.  My pronouns are mostly whatever; I consider myself genderless.

I'm a perpetual student of political organization, an unrecognized firebrand in strange places, an unacknowledged influence on cultural history, and a strange person with almost no social interests.  "Nobody" follows me, and for years now I've traveled across the internet looking for places where "nobody" will stop finding me.    I've unmasked "nobody" at least three times through rhetorical appeals, and I've converted a violent conservative into an advocate for sex education at least once.  I am uncertain how I developed a persuasive talent despite extreme introversion.  I think it's just something about how I think.

My favorite album is Vienna Teng's "Dreaming Through the Noise".  My musical tastes are eclectic, but I tend towards gentle, quiet music.  I'm an atheist, but sometimes I greatly enjoy religious music.  I also like silence and void.  Sacred spaces appeal to me for their calm and joyous natures, but I am neither bound nor described by any creed or dogma.

My primary nation on NationStates is Polis Diamonil, which is also my nation in Refugia and my World Assembly nation.  I also control Being Easily Found; Polis Diamonil was created after Being Easily Found received a recruitment telegram from Refugia.  I have a couple of other nations, although I'm presently likely to abandon them.  I've had...  circa 36 nations in all?  I dislike the intrinsic rudeness of NationStates, and I think the game misrepresents some of its mechanics awfully, but the contemplation of political economy is such an essential pleasure to me that I've found the site impossible to withdraw from since I discovered it.

I am something of a slow thinker, but my thoughts are not small.  It is emotionally difficult for me to speak with brevity.  Eighteen years ago now I attempted to train myself towards brevity by writing poetry, but it never got easier.