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“You'll ask me to pray for rain”

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The Cinder and Smoke of Tim Stark is a gargantuan, environmentally stunning nation, ruled by Tim Stark with an even hand, and remarkable for its public floggings, irreverence towards religion, and punitive income tax rates. The compassionate population of 29.647 billion Saltians have some civil rights, but not too many, enjoy the freedom to spend their money however they like, to a point, and take part in free and open elections, although not too often.

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked morass — juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Education, and Defense. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Saltlandia. The average income tax rate is 80.1%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The powerhouse Tim Starkian economy, worth a remarkable 1,915 trillion Denarii a year, is highly specialized and led by the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Arms Manufacturing and Cheese Exports. Average income is 64,598 Denarii, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Most of the population has had bad experiences with hoes, burial ceremonies have become as routinised as tax forms, government officials are held to the highest standard of morality, and the Smalltopian embassy doubles as an electoral campaign headquarters. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Tim Stark's national animal is the Fishmonger, which frolics freely in the nation's sparkling oceans, and its national religion is Salt.

Tim Stark is ranked 11,189^th in the world and 1^st in The Frontier for Most Eco-Friendly Governments, scoring 5,083.01 on the Dolphin Recycling Awareness Index.