I regret to announce that instead of doing my actual job or enjoying my Friday evening, I've built an R model to simulate how ALBA performance in the lists would affect the distribution of seats conditional on SNP performance in the constituencies and Green/SNP transfers to ALBA.
A snippet (clean code and more stuff tomorrow): on a good night for the SNP (in which they'd win 62 constituencies: uniform swing on latest BMG poll), ALBA would waste pro-indy votes as long as it stays between 1.5 and 5%. After that 'slump', ALBA starts benefiting the indy camp.
I think there's more to this: ALBA could do some real damage if they split pro-indy list votes with the Greens or if the SNP has a bad night in the constituencies and needs list votes. Will think about it and let you know :)
Here's another one. This is how ALBA could do real damage to the independence cause: if they start eating not only into the SNP but also into the Scottish Greens' (strategic) list vote, fragmentation in the indy camp brings down the overall number of seats the bloc can hope for.
To be clear, what I've plotted above is not the indy majority - it's the net *change* due to ALBA. In both cases, assuming uniform swing and latest poll figs, pro-indy parties get over half (69) the seats, though in the "Green leakage" scenario, it can get quite close, see below:
There seems to be some confusion as to what effect ALBA will have on the distribution of seats in the Scottish Parliament. As teased yesterday, I’ve built a toy model to illustrate that the answer is unambiguously “it depends”. 🧵🏴 /1
Depends on what? On a number of things, but specifically (1) on the performance of ALBA itself, which may be either a drag or a bonus for the pro-indy camp, (2) on *where* ALBA is getting list votes from, and (3) on the overall performance of the indy camp. /2
As a premise: I’m not a Scotland specialist. I’m interested in electoral systems and I think this example shows key points about the mechanics of strategic coordination in mixed-member systems. I.e. that coordination is (1) possible, (2) consequential and (3) really hard. /3
56% of French and 17% of Italians have used homeopathy, which is considered a medication under the law in those countries. There is no evidence, anywhere, in the scientific literature that homeopathy is any better than a placebo.
Glyphosate was declared non-carcinogenic by the EU's EFSA and ECHA, as well as the US's EPA. It's the most used weedkiller in the world and it's crucial to ensure reliable food production. It's banned in France, the Netherlands and Austria.
GMO crops are the linchpin of agricultural modernisation in the developing world, and they're credited with saving millions from starvation. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that existing GMO food poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food.
Ogni giorno in Italia muoiono ~2000 persone. La probabilità di morire per un individuo in un giorno è quindi 2k/60m in media. Se 150k persone ricevono il vaccino in un giorno, ci si aspetta che 150k*(2k/60m) = 5 persone muoiano nello stesso giorno in cui vengono vaccinate.
Le morti di infarto sono circa 120k all'anno, quindi circa 330 al giorno. Quindi ci si dovrebbe aspettare che 150k*(2k/60m) = 0.825 ≈ 1 persona muoia d'infarto nello stesso giorno in cui viene vaccinata.
Questo è senza contare che c'è una relazione positiva fra rischio d'infarto e priorità di accesso ai vaccini (dovuta, per esempio, all'età). Quindi non solo non c'è prova che gli incidenti isolati riportati dalla stampa non sono in rapporto di causa-effetto con il vaccino...
On a first read of Worlds of Welfare, students often have troubles figuring out what it means that the conservative (continental European) welfare systems are hierarchical and status-differentiating. The Italian vaccination programme is set to become the new canonical example.
In Tuscany, university lecturers and admin are being vaccinated, but doctoral students are up in arms that they were excluded. pisatoday.it/cronaca/precar…
I am terrified at the potential mess they could make of House of Dragons. The Dance of the Dragons is great raw material, but it doesn't come with extensive source dialogue, and lends itself to the temptation of going full-on CGI at the expense of the (highly complex) plot.
The fact that the two main characters - Rhaenyra and Alicent - are Strong Female Leads™ also comes with the risk of repeating the mistakes of the Dornish plot, where insistence on the Girl Power stuff is just one-note and results in flat, unlikeable characters.
Another way of screwing it up could be just overimposing the Starks/Lannisters boring goodies-vs-sexy baddies dynamics on the Blacks-vs-Green civil war. No. The Blacks are not the goodies. Give us two sides of deeply flawed characters to cheer for.
A word of caution: many aspects of the social, political and informational mess that led to extremists storming the US Capitol are present in Western Europe too. (1)
I. Political Violence
Wednesday didn’t happen in a vacuum: it happened in a context of rising right-wing terrorism, aimed at their adversaries in the elite (pipe bombs mailed to Obama, Biden, Clinton, DNC) and among the public (Charlottesville, El Paso, Pittsburgh, Charleston).
Europe has seen its share of the same violence.
Against parliamentarians: Jo Cox, Labour Party MP, and Walter Lübke (CDU politician in Hesse) have been assassinated. Plots against other politicians, in Germany and the UK, led to further convictions. (3)