jakke

Dec 10 2012 ∞

Kicking the can down the road: climate talks at Doha

This year’s UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is winding down. What did the world’s leaders accomplish at the biggest and most important international talking shop in climate change mitigation?

Yeah so the TL;DR here is that by the time you’re old your home will be either a desert or underwater and there’s not going to be an international agreement to prevent this sorry.

2 notes

Nov 29 2012 ∞
So there’s a new party in Israel - Tzipi Livni has founded Hatnuah, which is basically a resurrected version of the Kadima she used to run. This is kind of cool, as she’s probably the most high-profile advocate of a realistic negotiated two-state solution in Israeli politics today. You might be thinking “oh hey the election is in less than two months” but yeah that’s how elections go in Israel. In the two days since she’s announced, polls show Livni has attracted basically the same amount of support she already has in the Knesset - around six or seven seats, out of 120. This is not super encouraging, but bear in mind that these polls were taken within 48 hours of the new party being formally announced. Expect some movement in the next couple weeks, probably. Previously: Polls up to 26 November Polls up to 17 November

So there’s a new party in Israel - Tzipi Livni has founded Hatnuah, which is basically a resurrected version of the Kadima she used to run. This is kind of cool, as she’s probably the most high-profile advocate of a realistic negotiated two-state solution in Israeli politics today. You might be thinking “oh hey the election is in less than two months” but yeah that’s how elections go in Israel.

In the two days since she’s announced, polls show Livni has attracted basically the same amount of support she already has in the Knesset - around six or seven seats, out of 120. This is not super encouraging, but bear in mind that these polls were taken within 48 hours of the new party being formally announced. Expect some movement in the next couple weeks, probably.

Previously:

3 notes

Nov 26 2012 ∞
Over a one-week period the Israeli military launched an attack on Gaza that left over 160 Palestinian and six Israeli civilians dead and destroyed a substantial fraction of Gaza infrastructure before agreeing to a ceasefire with the Hamas-led government in Gaza that has so far held up pretty well. As this attack occurred right in the middle of an Israeli election campaign where a newly amalgamated hardline nationalist party is trying to keep its top spot in the Knesset, it looks awfully like this whole attack was intended primarily as a campaign move. How well has this worked out for the governing coalition? Here are all the polls I could round up from the Israeli media since the merger of Likud and Yisrael Beitenu to form a single amalgamated party. It’s directly comparable with this graph I made right after the attacks started, although now I’ve lumped in Strong Israel with the nationalist parties because one poll showed them getting seats. (If you’re totally unfamiliar with how Israeli politics works, possibly read this post to get some sense of who’s who.) The two black vertical lines represent the start of the attack (the killing of Hamas commander Ahmed Jabari) and the ceasefire. During the attack, Likud Beitenu (the newly-merged governing party) saw a jump in their support. This is pretty standard right after Israeli military actions as voters perceive the new campaign to be likely to be effective in stopping armed groups in from launching missiles or other attacks aimed at Israeli civilians (but this increased support doesn’t generally last, because of course the attacks don’t produce any kind of lasting stable peaceful arrangement). In this case, the bump was way smaller than during other military campaigns, and in both polls since the ceasefire Likud Beitenu has seen their supporters defect, primarily to more hardline nationalist parties. It’s likely that the new government after January’s election will be another nationalist coalition, and that coalition could include up to twice as many National Union, Jewish Home, and Strong Israel MKs than the current one. So that’s not a good place to be, from the point of view of the peace process (or continued political liberties for Israeli Arabs and Bedouin). On the left, the formerly dominant Kadima (currently the largest party in the Knesset) looks likely to be totally wiped out after shedding most of its original high-profile leadership and a brief entry into the governing coalition. There’s a 3% threshold for representation, and Kadima is constantly hovering around that level. Independence (a more military-oriented offshoot of Labour, currently a governing coalition member) is hovering near the threshold too. It seems that voters aren’t really keen on parties that support traditional leftist institutions like unions and government transfers and secularism but also extensive military conflict with Palestine. Most of the support is going to Labour, which looks likely to triple its seats in the Knesset to become the second-largest party and by far the largest left-wing party.  So after the election, it looks most likely that the Likud/Yisrael Beitenu-led bloc is going to be back in power. This is a pretty uncomfortable arrangement, because while these parties are generally united on the military approach in Gaza and are suspicious of political rights for Israeli Arabs, they have hugely different positions on the role of religion in government, special privileges for Haredi Jews, and standard economic issues like taxation. So it’s going to be difficult to get much done, and this obviously has really negative implications for the peace process. But with the most likely possible Labour-led coalition not getting more than forty seats, unless a whole lot changes, that’s the government Israel is stuck with.

Over a one-week period the Israeli military launched an attack on Gaza that left over 160 Palestinian and six Israeli civilians dead and destroyed a substantial fraction of Gaza infrastructure before agreeing to a ceasefire with the Hamas-led government in Gaza that has so far held up pretty well. As this attack occurred right in the middle of an Israeli election campaign where a newly amalgamated hardline nationalist party is trying to keep its top spot in the Knesset, it looks awfully like this whole attack was intended primarily as a campaign move. How well has this worked out for the governing coalition?

Here are all the polls I could round up from the Israeli media since the merger of Likud and Yisrael Beitenu to form a single amalgamated party. It’s directly comparable with this graph I made right after the attacks started, although now I’ve lumped in Strong Israel with the nationalist parties because one poll showed them getting seats. (If you’re totally unfamiliar with how Israeli politics works, possibly read this post to get some sense of who’s who.) The two black vertical lines represent the start of the attack (the killing of Hamas commander Ahmed Jabari) and the ceasefire.

During the attack, Likud Beitenu (the newly-merged governing party) saw a jump in their support. This is pretty standard right after Israeli military actions as voters perceive the new campaign to be likely to be effective in stopping armed groups in from launching missiles or other attacks aimed at Israeli civilians (but this increased support doesn’t generally last, because of course the attacks don’t produce any kind of lasting stable peaceful arrangement). In this case, the bump was way smaller than during other military campaigns, and in both polls since the ceasefire Likud Beitenu has seen their supporters defect, primarily to more hardline nationalist parties. It’s likely that the new government after January’s election will be another nationalist coalition, and that coalition could include up to twice as many National Union, Jewish Home, and Strong Israel MKs than the current one. So that’s not a good place to be, from the point of view of the peace process (or continued political liberties for Israeli Arabs and Bedouin).

On the left, the formerly dominant Kadima (currently the largest party in the Knesset) looks likely to be totally wiped out after shedding most of its original high-profile leadership and a brief entry into the governing coalition. There’s a 3% threshold for representation, and Kadima is constantly hovering around that level. Independence (a more military-oriented offshoot of Labour, currently a governing coalition member) is hovering near the threshold too. It seems that voters aren’t really keen on parties that support traditional leftist institutions like unions and government transfers and secularism but also extensive military conflict with Palestine. Most of the support is going to Labour, which looks likely to triple its seats in the Knesset to become the second-largest party and by far the largest left-wing party. 

So after the election, it looks most likely that the Likud/Yisrael Beitenu-led bloc is going to be back in power. This is a pretty uncomfortable arrangement, because while these parties are generally united on the military approach in Gaza and are suspicious of political rights for Israeli Arabs, they have hugely different positions on the role of religion in government, special privileges for Haredi Jews, and standard economic issues like taxation. So it’s going to be difficult to get much done, and this obviously has really negative implications for the peace process. But with the most likely possible Labour-led coalition not getting more than forty seats, unless a whole lot changes, that’s the government Israel is stuck with.

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Nov 18 2012 ∞

Poll finds almost blanket support for Pillar of Defense

Six days into the aerial attack on Gaza, 84 percent of the Israeli public supports Operation Pillar of Defense, with 12 percent opposing it, according to a Haaretz-Dialog poll taken yesterday. The poll surveyed proportional samples of Jews and Arabs, indicating that Jewish support for the war stands at upwards of 90 percent.

At the same time, however, only 30 percent of the public supports a ground attack in Gaza.

Israelis also give a clear nod of approval to the political leadership that ordered and leads the operation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Netanyahu and Barak now have much higher level of approval ratings than in previous surveys before the operation - a jump of about 20 percent.

But they still fall short of the approval ratings of their predecessors, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Defense Minister Amir Peretz, at the beginning of the Second Lebanon War. Olmert and Peretz had 85 percent approval ratings for the first week or two of that war; Netanyahu and Barak now have 55 percent and 52 percent approval ratings, respectively.

So this is the first poll that I’m aware of since the beginning of the current Gaza attacks (referred to here as Pillar of Defense). Insofar as the Israeli government’s primary motives are to win re-election in January (by making plans for a peace deal infeasible, by attracting support from hardline nationalists, and by making it difficult to criticize government officials) it’s important to s how the assault is being perceived by the Israeli population. The key points:

  • Ground assault isn’t going to happen. Like other industrialized countries (think NATO in Yugoslavia and the US in Pakistan) there is a perception that airstrikes are more technical and efficient and result in fewer casualties. I’m not sure how accurate this is, but at any rate ground assault is really unpopular.
  • Support for the government is very high right now. However, this is always how things go early in the process of Israeli military assaults. This poll compares the current poll results to the 2006 Lebanon War. In that case, approval for the Israeli military to attack Lebanon (ostensibly to terminally weaken Hezbollah) started out really high but within four to six weeks of the conflict two-third of voters thought the Prime Minister should resign immediately and his party was polling in the low single digits. (This is also not dissimilar from all the support for the initial “shock and awe” campaign on Baghdad in the US in 2003.) So that’s not much indication of how much support the attack will have in the future.
  • Right now leftist parties are doing poorly because no one knows whether high-profile politicians like Tziporah Livni and Ehud Olmert are going to re-enter politics. If they did, their bloc would very likely dominate the polls (although it’s hard to get people to evaluate a hypothetical).

Obviously none of this is going to cause government changes quickly enough to stop the current massive civilian casualties, which is horrible and unconscionable. But at least ground assault looks extremely unlikely. Not sure what else to say about this poll.

21 notes

Nov 17 2012 ∞
[This post is about the Israeli election. If you’re unfamiliar with the Israeli political system, maybe read this post to get acquainted?] Right now Israel is in the middle of an election campaign for a Knesset (national legislature) election in January. As many people have pointed out, the Israeli motivation for the current series of assaults on Gaza should probably be considered from the perspective of Netanyahu and Lieberman’s plan to stay in power by attracting the support of hardline nationalists, making any plan for a peace deal by the opposition totally non-credible, and making it difficult to criticize Lieberman’s likely upcoming indictment for bribery and/or forgery charges. What do the polls for the upcoming election look like? Firstly, a rundown of how the Israeli election system works: the 120 seats are awarded in direct proportion to vote share to any party that gets at least 3% of the vote. This means a massive profusion of political parties. In the graph above, I’ve grouped together Shas and its offshoot Whole Nation as “Haredi”, National Union and Jewish Home as “Nationalist”, and United Arab List-Taal, Hadash, and Balad as “Arab”. This is a massive oversimplification but it was necessary to come up with a legible graph and also compare polls over time.   The graph starts on 25 October with the merger between Likud and Yisrael Beitenu to form a single electoral list with a secular, pro-military, anti-negotiation policy agenda. These parties currently run a coalition government backed up by the religious and extreme nationalist parties as well as the centre-left Labour. The parties near the bottom of the graph in brown are the more nationalist wing of the Knesset; the parties near the top of the graph in blue are the leftist wing. The three Arab parties in light orange are generally not members of any coalition government and tend to attract support from a constant bloc of voters (especially among Arab and Bedouin Israelis) over time. Right now, it looks like the nationalist coalition is likely to be able to form government again. There’s substantial tension between the very secular Yisrael Beitenu (whose supporters generally don’t consider themselves to be Jewish) and the Haredi parties and UTJ (who want way more religious influence in Israeli politics) but this coalition basically all favours harsh restrictions (backed up by military attacks) on Palestinian self-determination and is willing to tolerate global isolation to see this happen.  The left is really disorganized right now, with uncertainty over how to deal with the split of Independence from Labour and also over whether Tziporah Livni or Ehud Olmert will re-enter politics. (Both are popular enough to attract a big share of votes and likely to engage in negotiations with the Palestinian government.) Also, Etish Atid is a brand-new party that is attracting a big share of votes with a really positive and ambitious reformist agenda. So for now it seems unlikely that these parties will be able to form a majority coalition. Anyway there hasn’t been any new polling released (to my knowledge) since the most recent set of attacks on Gaza started. When there is, I’ll re-post an updated graph. Almost certain to be some big movement.

[This post is about the Israeli election. If you’re unfamiliar with the Israeli political system, maybe read this post to get acquainted?]

Right now Israel is in the middle of an election campaign for a Knesset (national legislature) election in January. As many people have pointed out, the Israeli motivation for the current series of assaults on Gaza should probably be considered from the perspective of Netanyahu and Lieberman’s plan to stay in power by attracting the support of hardline nationalists, making any plan for a peace deal by the opposition totally non-credible, and making it difficult to criticize Lieberman’s likely upcoming indictment for bribery and/or forgery charges. What do the polls for the upcoming election look like?

Firstly, a rundown of how the Israeli election system works: the 120 seats are awarded in direct proportion to vote share to any party that gets at least 3% of the vote. This means a massive profusion of political parties. In the graph above, I’ve grouped together Shas and its offshoot Whole Nation as “Haredi”, National Union and Jewish Home as “Nationalist”, and United Arab List-Taal, Hadash, and Balad as “Arab”. This is a massive oversimplification but it was necessary to come up with a legible graph and also compare polls over time.  

The graph starts on 25 October with the merger between Likud and Yisrael Beitenu to form a single electoral list with a secular, pro-military, anti-negotiation policy agenda. These parties currently run a coalition government backed up by the religious and extreme nationalist parties as well as the centre-left Labour. The parties near the bottom of the graph in brown are the more nationalist wing of the Knesset; the parties near the top of the graph in blue are the leftist wing. The three Arab parties in light orange are generally not members of any coalition government and tend to attract support from a constant bloc of voters (especially among Arab and Bedouin Israelis) over time.

Right now, it looks like the nationalist coalition is likely to be able to form government again. There’s substantial tension between the very secular Yisrael Beitenu (whose supporters generally don’t consider themselves to be Jewish) and the Haredi parties and UTJ (who want way more religious influence in Israeli politics) but this coalition basically all favours harsh restrictions (backed up by military attacks) on Palestinian self-determination and is willing to tolerate global isolation to see this happen. 

The left is really disorganized right now, with uncertainty over how to deal with the split of Independence from Labour and also over whether Tziporah Livni or Ehud Olmert will re-enter politics. (Both are popular enough to attract a big share of votes and likely to engage in negotiations with the Palestinian government.) Also, Etish Atid is a brand-new party that is attracting a big share of votes with a really positive and ambitious reformist agenda. So for now it seems unlikely that these parties will be able to form a majority coalition.

Anyway there hasn’t been any new polling released (to my knowledge) since the most recent set of attacks on Gaza started. When there is, I’ll re-post an updated graph. Almost certain to be some big movement.

27 notes

Nov 15 2012 ∞

regarding the Israeli election and Gaza

Okay so this post is going to be based on the premise that the sudden and vicious attacks in Gaza by the Israeli military are prompted primarily by domestic political concerns - that is that the military campaign is intended first and foremost to impress domestic voters. Those of you with US-heavy dashboards might remember when 75% of the tumblrs you follow were reblogging gifs of Obama announcing bin Laden was dead and gloating about it and predicting how helpful it would be in the 2012 election, right? Think something like that.

Israeli politics is kind of difficult to understand because of the profusion of parties and electoral coalitions. This arises predominately from the unique electoral system the Knesset uses - the whole country is allocated 120 seats, and then any party who gets more than 2% of the vote nationally gets a proportional share of those 120 seats. Then there’s a pretty formalized negotiation process to ensure that a majority coalition happens. 

This system encourages a massive profusion of parties, because Israel has a huge diversity in terms of culture and wealth/development levels and has a whole lot of high-stakes political decisions in terms of Palestine. There are also domestic political issues, like the separation of church and state (or I guess shul and state) and recently the right of Haredim (uber-Orthodox Jews) to get out of national military service. Anyway, the current breakdown in the Knesset looks something like this (the number of seats is in parentheses):

  • Likud + Yisrael Beitenu (27+15) - So historically Likud was the main centre-right party with a more pro-business orientation and a really reluctant and hawkish stance on the Palestinian peace process. Yisrael Beitenu is the party of non-religious Russian Israelis who have been opposed to religious influence, the Palestinian peace process, and most of all rights for Israeli Arabs. Both parties are more pro-business than the rest of the big parties, and recently they’ve been very closely linked on the inexplicable policy of vigourous and brutal military action against Palestinians, particularly in Gaza. Last month, Likud and Yisrael Beitenu agreed to merge to form a single electoral list. This is a big deal, because Yisrael Beitenu is drastically more hawkish and opposed to rights for Israeli Arabs than Likud (or, really, any historical Israeli government). Anyway, these are the people running things right now.
  • Kadima (28) - Kadima formed from a bloc of Likud and Labour members to support Ariel Sharon’s unilateral disengagement plan - so, this was basically a party founded expressly to gain some traction on the whole peace process. Then Ariel Sharon had a stroke, and the rest of the party’s platform (i.e. all domestic policy) turned out to be a bit of a muddled mess. This party has the best showing in the last election, but will be basically wiped out this time as voters defect to Labour, Yesh Atid, and Meretz.
  • Labour (8) - This is the main historical centre-left party in Israel. It’s softly centre-left and probably the most pragmatic about the peace process. Historically Labour governments have been the ones willing to give up settlements or other occupied land (e.g. the Golan Heights) in exchange for peace deals. Labour has done very poorly in the last couple elections, which has culminated in the emergence of the separate Independence party - but they’re likely to regain much of their support in the coming election.
  • Shas (10) - This is the party of extremely religious Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews - particularly the Haredim. They want greater rights for Haredim, they want all Separdhi and Mizarhim to be encouraged to adopt Haredi lifestyles, and they have been hit by more fraud, forgery, and bribery scandals in the last decade than the rest of the Knesset combined. They’re part of the current governing coalition.
  • Independence (5) - This party was formed from a split in Labour since the last election. It’s basically like the New Labour movement in the UK in that it was formed as a more centrist (and Zionist) wing of the existing Labour party. (But because of the Israeli system it’s of course forming its own list.) Currently they have four Cabinet positions but it’s not clear whether they’ll even make the 2% threshold in this coming election.
  • United Torah Judaism (5) - Just what it sounds like. Guided by rabbis. In favour of more religious legislation. Not super helpful in terms of the peace process.
  • United Arab List + Taal (4) - This party list primarily represents Israeli Arabs - that is, the majority of the pre-Israel non-Jewish population who didn’t end up in Palestine. It’s also supported by something like three-quarters of Bedouin voters. Unsurprisingly it supports expanded political rights for Israeli Arabs and a sovereign independent Palestine with a capital in East Jerusalem. In the past this party has been the target of attempted bans by the Israeli Central Elections Committee but fortunately the Supreme Court quashed this.
  • National Union (4) - This is a group of far-right religious Zionist nationalist parties which formed an electoral coalition. They want to maximize the immigration of Jews to Israel, aggressively settle the West Bank of Palestine, and basically treating the Palestinians like a minority within a bigger Zionist Israel as opposed to their own nationality with a right to sovereignty. Together with Jewish home, they’re part of the right-wing nationalist bloc in the Knesset.
  • Hadash (4) - This is a joint Israeli-Arab socialist party. It supports shutdown of all the settlements, rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, and hard-left stances on environmental and social issues. Along with UAL-Taal and Balad, it’s part of the left wing of the Knesset and probably the closest to what North Americans would identify as a left wing.
  • Meretz (3) - This is basically a European socialist party. They’re all about peace with Palestine, human rights, environmentalism, religious pluralism, and so on. They’ve had the first Israeli Arab woman MK, the first openly queer MK, and they identify as Zionist but supporting withdrawal from most settlements for a two-state solution. Their current showing (three seats) is way off from their historic support.
  • Jewish Home (3) - This is a rebranded version of the old National Religious Party, but the name basically describes their priority pretty well. Jewish Home is a religious Zionist party that likes the idea of Israeli as a religiously Jewish homeland. Together with National Union, they’re part of the right-wing nationalist bloc in the Knesset.
  • Balad (3) - This party shares many of its goals with UAL but focuses more on the rights of Israeli Arabs within Israel; rather than having a Jewish state and an Arab state Balad prefers to think of having a “binational” Israel and a separate Palestine.
  • Yesh Atid (0) - They don’t have any seats right now, but I’m including them because they’re likely to break in to the Knesset at the next election. This is a brand-new party based on a principle of sweeping reform. They want to write a constitution, reform education and labour markets for Haredim (who need to work more) and Israeli Arabs (who need to be discriminated against less), and go for a two-state peace deal. Personally I’m really interested to see how this goes. 
  • Whole Nation (0) - This is another new party that will likely get seats. It’s a breakaway party from Shas that wants to see the Haredi enter the workforce and society. (Right now Haredi men generally don’t work because they are too busy trying to be as religious as possible. They also don’t do the military draft. And they have like six kids per household. In case you needed confirmation that this was a badly broken system.)

So at this point you are probably thinking “holy eff that’s a whole lot of parties” and yeah that’s a big problem with this kind of massively proportional electoral system. It encourages lots of fringe parties and makes any long-term commitment difficult because a future coalition could very easily arise to undo any promises. This is almost certainly the biggest barrier to any sustainable Palestinian peace deal.

So what can this tell us about the recent attacks on Gaza? Right now, the coalition government in Israel consists of Likud, Yisrael Beitenu, Shas, the Jewish Home, Independence, and United Torah Judaism. So, that’s three secular centrist-to-pro-business parties (Likud, Yisrael Beitenu) and three religios parties (Shas, Jewish Home, and UTF). And note that Yisrael Beitenu is super uncomfortable with the notion of religious institutions controlling government. So this is a super unstable coalition government. Basically the only issue that unites them is the concept of “nationalism” in the sense of really hardline military action against Palestine. 

For the next election (which happens in January), Likud and Yisrael Beitenu have doubled down on this one big issue to combine as Likud Beitenu. This is likely to cost Likud much of their traditional support; working-class Mizrahi and Sephardi voters tend to support Likud but not Yisrael Beitenu. The editor of Haaretz framed the pivot in Likud’s priorities really clearly:

With Lieberman as second in command and heir to the throne, and his supporters in prominent spots on the joint ticket, Likud will become a radical rightwing party, aggressive and xenophobic, that revels in Israel’s isolation and sees the Arab community as a domestic enemy and a danger to the state.

At the same time, polls show this joint list losing a lot of support to religious nationalist parties, especially Jewish Home and National Union. Yisrael Beitenu is also likely to take a big hit in the near future over their leader Avigdor Lieberman likely being indicted for corruption. This is obviously super contentious right in the middle of the election campaign, but it’s looking pretty likely that the indictment will happen. Anyway, recent polls show the bloc losing six or seven of its 42 seats, which is problematic for dominating any future coalition government.

So far, the nationalist coalition that currently runs things looks likely to keep their majority by winning around 63 seats total. But this depends in a big way on how much Whole Nation and the other small parties do; anyone falling below the threshold would throw off the entire coalition. And while currently the centre-left is pretty disorganized, but big jumps in support for Yesh Atid and Labour over the time since the last election means they might be able to block the nationalist coalition. (Note that because Hadash, Balad, and UAL generally don’t get invited to participate in governing coalitions, it’s totally possible to have a situation where neither the right nor the left can really get a majority.) There are also rumours that Tziporah Livni and/or Ehud Olmert (former centre-left party leaders) might return to politics to start a new centre-left bloc which would likely also siphon off Likud voters who like the idea of centrist Zionist government with competent domestic policy but are uncomfortable with Beitenu Yisrael and the religious parties. (No idea how likely this is considering that the election is two months away.)

So right now the government’s ability to maintain power is in trouble on all fronts; the Likud base is leaving the party for more hardline religious parties, Yisrael Beitenu’s leader is facing a big corruption scandal, and traditional centre-left parties are polling well. By attacking Gaza, the Israeli government scares the Likud base away from voting for the more religious parties, because At the same time, attacks on Gaza makes it basically impossible to pursue any peace deal with Palestine, which makes it way more difficult for the centre-left parties to present any kind of coherent plan in this regard. Also, during wartime it’s way more straightforward to label any criticism of the government or the military plan as criticism of the state itself, which obviously helps the incumbents.

In conclusion, I’d suggest that the best way to think about the Israeli attacks in Gaza over the last couple days is not as some kind of coherent long-term plan to destroy Hamas or block Palestine from seeking further recognition at the United Nations, but rather as a vicious and bloody campaign strategy by Likud and Yisrael Beitenu to centre the whole election debate around Israeli nationalism and ensure that their party remains the dominant bloc in the governing coalition. No argument that this is an absolutely horrible tactic they’ve adopted.

115 notes

Oct 21 2012 ∞
Hey so ichannel is putting on a series of interviews called FAQMP and voting closes tomorrow and it’s pretty tight so you should go through and vote. I’d be happiest to see Joyce Murray because she’s my old MP and she’s possibly running for Liberal leadership and I’d REALLY like to see this show interview more MPs who aren’t young tech-savvy males. But go vote anyway because ichannel deserves support and eyeballs for what it’s doing here.

Hey so ichannel is putting on a series of interviews called FAQMP and voting closes tomorrow and it’s pretty tight so you should go through and vote. I’d be happiest to see Joyce Murray because she’s my old MP and she’s possibly running for Liberal leadership and I’d REALLY like to see this show interview more MPs who aren’t young tech-savvy males. But go vote anyway because ichannel deserves support and eyeballs for what it’s doing here.

1 note

Oct 12 2012 ∞

Hey so now that the US election is less than a month away I figured it was time to do some more election prediction maps. Click to enlarge!

Here I’ve used state-level polling to predict what would happen if the election were held today. Uncertainty is simulated based on the poll margins of error and the degree to which different polls disagree. Note that the colour of each state corresponds to the probability of a win, rather than the share of the vote - for example, Obama generally wins Wisconsin by a relatively narrow margin but he does generally win it.

Right now Obama is a relatively strong favourite. Even with the recent decline in polling in states like Florida and Colorado, he still has a 93% chance of winning. This almost entirely depends on the tight races in six states:

  • Colorado
  • Florida
  • Iowa
  • Nevada
  • Ohio
  • Virginia

If Obama loses 1.5 points and Romney gains 1.5 points in these states, then the election basically flips and Romney becomes a 60% favourite to win. (The odds of a tie also get really high in this scenario - like, on the order of 10%.) Conversely, if Obama gains 1.5 points and Romney loses 1.5 points in these states, then Obama is pretty much guaranteed to win.

Obviously a whole lot can happen in the last month. And this is assuming polls are more or less accurate; this is a problem for states like Iowa which have seen relatively few state-level polls. But for now, it looks like Obama is in a pretty good place despite falling a bit in the polls.

Anyway, I’ll keep updating this every few days up until the election. As we get closer there will hopefully be more polling so the results will get a little more robust.

40 notes

Oct 11 2012 ∞

Solar shutdown: China, the United States, and Rising Trade Barriers

This week, the US Department of Commerce will announce its final decision on the level of tariffs on the imports of Chinese photovoltaic cells. What do these trade barriers mean for the future of the solar energy industry?

So I wrote this a few days ago (the Commerce Department has already made its decision and the tariffs are a little lower than the preliminary levels, if you’re wondering) but forgot to post it on here. Anyway, in case you’re interested in what the US government is doing in terms of solar energy policy, you should read it! (TL;DR it’s kind of suboptimal)

5 notes

Sep 19 2012 ∞

Obama's Lead Looks Stronger in Polls That Include Cell Phones

joestanley:

jakke:

shewalkslikethunder:

scoldylox:

[…]

[…]

[…]

My understanding from that post, and from similar ones Nate Silver has previously written, is that this difference is not eliminated in demographic balancing by the pollsters.

It’s not clear that’s not quite what the evidence says. Nate Silver repeatedly cites this Pew report that finds a difference between cellphone and landline voters holding all else equal, and then points out that different polls use different methodology in terms of robocalling and following other industry practices, and that’s correlated with whether they include cellphones. Moreover, turnout is low across the board in a midterm election compared to the Presidential election.

So I’m unconvinced that this adjustment doesn’t represent overfitting that wouldn’t be covered by adjusting for robocalls versus human operators, and so on. And more importantly, the argument the OP presented totally missed the distinction.

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