Sekimori has some sage words of advice for Ben Affleck regarding “Little Miss Thang” aka J-Lo... not that he's going to listen. (Via VodkaMan.)

• Building Phoenix is a royal pain in the butt. But I think I've figured out the magic to create a new Xft-enabled build... if it works, it'll be up shortly.

• Patriot II (the Wrath of Ashcroft) is a monumentally stupid idea. Of course, so was Patriot I. (Having said that, I echo Tacitus' position; I consider myself under no obligation to blog about every topic under the sun. That's why there are lots of blogs out there; I talk about what particularly pisses me off, or pleases me, or whatever, and let other people talk about things they want to talk about. It's called agenda-setting; deal with it.)

• I'm debating what I'm going to hack into LSblog next; it'll probably be behind-the-scenes stuff so I don't have to (always) write raw HTML into the text area widget. Probably something on the order of UBBCode or its various ripoffs, or maybe something more sophisticated. I'll probably add a preview, too. Maybe also something to translate HTML entities on-the-fly too.

No dice on Phoenix; it built, but then it segfaulted when I ran it. On the other hand, I did put together a a page of information about Interstate 555. While I realize these aren't perfect substitutes for each other, something's better than nothing, no? (Today's other big project will be the position statement I promised below...)

Well, the Toshiba's given up the ghost again. At this rate, Best Buy may be taking it back as a lemon before Toshiba gives me a refund for its half-of-advertised performance. Grr.

Dave Hyatt is asking for more feedback on the GUI for Safari, Apple's new Mac OS X web browser based on KHTML. Here's what I'd find most useful:

• A “Page Info” dialog like that in Mozilla and Phoenix; I'd like to be able to see the Modified and Expired times for the page, at least. Bonus points if you show the last time the page was locally cached (which Mozilla doesn't do).

• Import for Mozilla/Phoenix bookmarks. One thing that keeps me on Phoenix under OS X is that I can use the same bookmarks file on every platform I use (Windows, Linux, OS X).

• There's no way to accept SSL certificates that aren't signed by a trusted registry. (I've reported this as a bug already.)

• I'm not a huge fan of tabbed browsing, but I think a large chunk of people think it's needed.

I'm not sure these things would get me to convert to Safari completely — cross-platform capabilities are a big plus in my book, which is why I'm very enamored with Phoenix (which manages to be cross-platform without being too bloated, thanks to the unofficial OS X build) — but they'd probably be enough to make it the autostart browser on the very low-end (Beige G3) OS X box I use as my work desktop.

I know I'm breaking the First Commandment here (“Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican”), but North Carolina GOP representatives Howard Coble and Sue Myrick are both saying deeply idiotic things; Coble apparently thinks the internment of Japanese-Americans was just dandy, and Myrick's not happy about the ownership of convenience stores in this country.

Ah well, at least the Mississippi GOP doesn't have a monopoly on idiots.

About two weeks ago, I outlined here why I can't be a member of the Libertarian Party any more. Today, I'm going to talk about how I'm going to advance libertarian ideas another way.

Mississippi has historically been a one-party state. Post-Reconstruction, the Democrats dominated state politics, and even the “Southern Strategy” of Richard Nixon produced relatively little movement to the Republican Party. At the state level, the Democratic Party dominates most offices. If there has been a realignment in the South, it skipped Mississippi's state offices completely, or at the very least has been delayed by over 30 years.

Part of the Republicans' problem in Mississippi politics is that most Republicans offer little that is different than the Democrats. Both parties are socially conservative, by and large. About the only meaningful difference that can be discerned, other than the fact the Democrats are far more inclusive of Mississippi's blacks than the Republicans are, is that Republicans want a somewhat smaller state government. The conservative coalition agenda is hardly earth-shattering in its scope, discussing a rather bland array of issues. This is hardly surprising, since most of the states' Republicans are just Democrats who have figured out which way the wind was blowing.

Yet Mississippi does face serious problems. Legislators are spending 2003 playing games with the budget so they can put off a tax increase into 2004. They have passed a massive increase in education spending, with nothing to increase accountability — no vouchers, no school district consolidation. They have failed to provide meaningful oversight of spending from Mississippi's anti-tobacco lawsuit proceeds.

We need to stop the budget games. Mississippi is a relatively poor state, and we can't afford more taxes to pay for an uneeded Labor Department, or to throw more taxpayers' money at higher education that could, instead, come from higher tuition. We need a more accountable, smaller state government.

So, rather than simply complain about these things in my blog, I'm going to do something. On Monday, I sent my $15 qualifying fee to the Mississippi Republican Party to be a candidate for the 10th House District in the 2003 statewide election. The 10th District has a population of nearly 23,000, representing parts of Lafayette, south and eastern Panola and northern Tallahatchie counties in northern Mississippi, including parts of Abbeville, Batesville, Courtland, and some of the suburbs surrounding Oxford. The district is about 75.4% white, 23.4% black, and 1.2% persons of other races, and is currently represented by Warner F. McBride, a three-term Democrat from Eureka Springs in Panola County (Mississippi legislators serve four-year terms).

I'll set up a campaign web page in the next few days, with a proper announcement and issue statement (a preview: you'll see the phrase “Taxpayers' Bill of Rights”); it will be linked from the LordSutch.com web page. I'll write some about my experiences on the campaign trail here, but there probably won't be a substantial shift in the general melange of topics that come up.

Thanks to Bill Hobbs for some extra publicity with a link from his blog. I'm hoping to have everything ready to roll (the website, platform/position statement, and bank account) in the next couple of weeks. However, up front: I will be endorsing a TABOR Amendment like Colorado's to the state constitution, as well as continuing the direct election of our supreme court (my opponent has proposed legislation that would change to Tennessee-style elections where public input would be greatly reduced). I think this is a winnable district — it went heavily for Bush/Cheney in 2000, even though Batesville's own Ronnie Musgrove will be at the top of the ballot in November.

Thanks to Greg Wythe and neo-conspirator Jacob T, Levy for additional linkage. Now, if I could just get some bloggers to move here; it'd save a bundle on campaign ads.

It's someone's blog anniversary!

Noah Millman thinks Shinui's leader, Tommy Lapid, is “making an ass of himself” by still refusing to sit in government with the ultra-Orthodox (and Sephardim) Shas, while willing to sit with the ultra-Orthodox (and Ashkenazi) United Torah Judaism. Shas accuses Lapid of racism, while Millman just accuses Lapid of rank stupidity. I don't understand all the policy and religious distinctions in play here, but it's pretty clear that a whole bunch of people are going to have to tone down their rhetoric and get to the business of running the country.

At least, that's the emerging consensus among the free people of this planet about what will be on the UNSC's epitath if it fails to authorize military force against Iraq. Consider:

• Statement of the Vilnius Group Countries, 21 November 2002: “We support the goal of the international community for full disarmament of Iraq as stipulated in the UN Security Council Resolution 1441. In the event of non-compliance with the terms of this resolution, we are prepared to contribute to an international coalition to enforce its provisions and the disarmament of Iraq.”

• George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 28 January 2003: “[L]et there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.”

• Statement of the “Gang of 8”, 30 January 2003: “The U.N. Charter charges the Security Council with the task of preserving international peace and security. To do so, the Security Council must maintain its credibility by ensuring full compliance with its resolutions. We cannot allow a dictator to systematically violate those resolutions. If they are not complied with, the Security Council will lose its credibility and world peace will suffer as a result.”

• Statement of the Vilnius Group Countries, 5 February 2003: “The clear and present danger posed by the Saddam Hussein's regime requires a united response from the community of democracies. We call upon the U.N. Security Council to take the necessary and appropriate action in response to Iraq's continuing threat to international peace and security.”

• Fred Kaplan, Slate: “[I]f the Security Council does not now take action against Iraq, it might as well disband.”

• Eugene Volokh: “If the Security Council members took the view that the evidence is not damning, and that Iraq is cooperating, they would be (as best I can tell) completely wrong and irresponsible; but at least then if they persuaded the public of these facts, the recommended consequences would make sense. But if they acknowledge that there should be no meaningful consequences for gross violations of the Security Council's resolutions — then what's the point of having the Security Council?”

OK, that's what a goodly percentage of the world's democracies think. Well, the ones that aren't called France, at least. Now, let's review what the French want to do again:

Let us double, let us triple the number of inspectors. Let us open more regional offices. Let us go further than this, could we not, for example, put up, set up, a specialized body to keep under surveillance the sites and areas that have already been inspected? Let us very significantly reinforce the capacity for monitoring and collecting information in Iraq.

Wow. Saddam must be quaking in his boots. Defy the Security Council for a dozen years, and we'll sick more UN bureaucrats on your country! This may work in the European Union, where quel dommage! a farmer might have to face down an evil minion from Brussels if he's exceeded his milk quota, but outside the fantasy universe of Eurocrats (and the EU), nobody gives a damn. This isn't just more lard for the butter mountain, this is international peace and security we're talking about here.

The truly sad thing (well, at least if you're a Gaullist) is that the U.N. Security Council is about the last place on earth they have even the illusion of real political power. The Franco-German partnership in Europe is starting to look more like the German partnership with Vichy France. French military power is no match for a few malcontents on the streets of Abidjan. And French diplomacy was just emasculated by two editors at the Wall Street Journal's European edition.

Without the Security Council, and the ability to veto legislation there, France's relevance to the world order is rien. Last month, they handed the keys to Europe to the hollowed out regime of Gerhard Schröder. This month, they handed over all of their credibility to Saddam Hussein's. And, before the year is done, neither will remain in power and France is going to have a hard time getting Europe's keys back from the Christian Democrats and its credibility back from the interim civilian government of Iraq.

OxBlog's David Adesnik has a lengthy post that explores what public opinion polling means — both in general and in terms of the coming war with Iraq. My guess: the numbers are going to go much higher in the next few days, partly because of questions that better reflect reality and partly because the debate isn't about “unilateralism” versus “multilateralism” any more. Serious evidence is now on the table that the so-called “multilateral” approach doesn't work, and won't work. David concludes:

Saddam, if you are reading this, I advise you to disarm very, very soon.

At this point, I don't even think disarming would save him.

I could sit here and blather on about how the considerations being evoked by various frames and primes are changing (in part because the political environment has shifted), but (a) few people other than David would understand it and (b) I feel like I'm about ten minutes away from losing consciousness.

Kathy Kinsey has links to transcripts of Powell's presentation before the UNSC. I only got the audio version, and started partway in (due to having a late breakfast at McDonald's), but what I heard was pretty convincing — and, to echo what Stephen Green says, much more than I expected.

As for the French: either they are “slowly retreating,” as Irving Kristol put it on Fox News, or they're burying themselves in a deeper hole — as Tacitus says, de Villepin's prepared statement favoring “tripling” the number of inspectors was refuted before it was even given.

Having said that, I don't think it swayed many minds among the hardcore anti-war group. However, I suspect it will make a difference among the undecided part of the electorate here and in Europe — Powell's discussion Saddam Hussein's links to terror groups like Al Qaeda were clearly not (mostly) aimed at his immediate audience. More than anything else, American and European voters are looking for a clear, convincing case against Saddam Hussein and for war — and I think Powell made it very effectively.

Michele has a very apt analogy for the situation the French are in; it's in the realm of “too little, too late.” Chuck Simmins has some reaction, while VodkaPundit Stephen Green has a letter to anti-war protesters — albeit one I'll be very surprised if they read. As he puts it:

"Nothing new..." "I'm not convinced..." "Powell's heart isn't really in it..."

These familiar refrains, plus, as the ads say, many, many more are all over the no-war side of the blogosphere today.

For you idiots -- and I won't supply any links because I like some of you idiots -- no amount of proof is compelling, the bar can never be set too high, and no amount of reason can ever convince.

<Teal'c Voice>Indeed.</Teal'c Voice>

Steven Den Beste reacts, suggesting that Powell's use of Republican Guard communications may have been also intended as psyops against the Iraqi regime.

VodkaPundit and Dean Esmay reminded me that Conrad's dug up some interesting German links to Iraq's WMD programs in the Asia Times. If verified, this would be very disturbing news... and probably the end of Gerhard Schröder's rule in Germany.

Stephen Green blogs, you decide. Start at the bottom, scroll up. (I'm listening to it on Fox News Channel via XM Radio in the office.)

Meanwhile, additional material has been revealed that should increase support for the war effort at home.

James Lileks' genius is on full display. Today's Bleat is a must-read; he dissects a local Green councilwoman's response to the State of the Union address. My burst-out-laughing paragraph (from James):

Ah yes. Selected, not elected. It rhymes, so it must be true. I’ll still take him over Clinton, whose impeachment trials could be described as ERECTED, NOT EJECTED. But tarry if you will over that line: Perhaps it is unfair to expect George W. Bush to understand democracy. The Greens have entered the territory previously occupied by the right-wing fringe who thought Clinton would use Y2K to suspend the Constitution and use FEMA to institute martial law.

Oh yeah, it's also all about the oiiiiil. But you knew that already.

Incidentally, I'm surprised nobody ever comes up with something original — like we're trying to repeat the invasion of Japan so we can introduce baseball in Iraq to help out W's old friend Bud Selig. I mean, don't we all know that Harry Truman really nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki so we'd eventually enjoy the baseball prowess of Hideki Irabu and Ichiro Suzuki? Just think of all the olympic-calibre athletes we could recruit...

Found via VodkaPundit.

Andrea Harris comments (with a new skin!).

N.Z. Bear (pro-war) and Stand Down (pro-peace) are coordinating a debate on the possibility of war with Iraq. I may or may not actually participate (it depends, at some level, on how silly the anti-war side's questions seem to be), but if you have a question or two you'd like to see the other side answer, nominate it at the appropriate blog — N.Z. Bear is coordinating the pro-war side (so submit questions for the anti-war folks there), and Stand Down is doing likewise for the pro-peace contingent (vice-versa).

Hopefully the exercise will be enlightening for all concerned.

Amygdala has some thoughtful comments on the prospect of war today, well worth a read.

Eugene Volokh has a great post in response to some linkage he didn't find very appealing:

NO, THANK YOU: Visitors from StormFront, which linked to this site as a sample of what Web logs are -- please go away. There's nothing technical I can do to stop you reading my page, but since you want to spread your "pro-white and anti-Jew message," would my being a Jew help persuade you to just close the window? That's right, Jew. In fact, of the nonanonymous bloggers on this site, the great majority are Jews, and the others -- well, they're only worse, because they're Aryans who seem to like Jews, no?

Look, if you're still reading, don't you get it? We call ourselves The Volokh Conspiracy. That's obviously an allusion to the International Jewish Conspiracy, no? One of the creators of the Internet was Leonard Kleinrock -- coincidence? I think not! We control the banks; we control the media; we're sleeping with your daughters; now we're controlling cyberspace. What's the point of resisting, really?

See, this is why I run my own server; a little bit of hacking in index.cgi will send unwanted visitors elsewhere on the web. Say, somewhere like the Lieberman 2004 Yarmalke Store. But then again, why let the denizens of StormFront miss out on a post like Eugene's?

And there's probably some JavaScript that would do this as well, but I don't speak JavaScript.

I hacked into MasterCard's global systems* to look at South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung's last few credit card statements. It was a real eye-opener:

• Two tickets to The Hours: $15.

• Double-breasted suit, purchased in Hong Kong: $35.

• Plane fare for last ASEAN summit (first class): $2,600.

• One Nobel Peace Prize: $1.7 billion.

• Handing North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il money to buy more weapons to threaten its neighbors: priceless.

Needless to say, Conrad isn't impressed.

* Actually I didn't, but it's a cool conceit for the story, no?

The Jerusalem Post reports (registration required) that Likud is looking to form a coalition with Shinui, UTJ (United Torah Judaism), and the NRP (National Religious Party), excluding Shas. UTJ apparently would not be represented in the cabinet, and the coalition would have 64 seats in the Knesset. The article also discusses the possibility of a Likud, Shinui, the NRP, and Yisrael B'Aliya coalition (with 61 seats), described by Shinui MK Avraham Poraz as likely to be “both homogeneous and stable.”

Perhaps it's fitting that Sunday was Groundhog Day; as Daniel Drezner points out, “it's déjà vu all over again” when it comes to Iraq:

The current cycle of opinion seems like a replay of September/October all over again -- publics/pundits feeling queasy about aggressive action, antiwar activists decrying U.S. imperialism, European leaders either categorically rejecting the U.S. position or calling for more time for "the process" to sort itself out, Russia constantly hemming and hawing, China shrugging its shoulders, and Iraq flipping the bird to anyone and everyone.

Then -- presto! -- Bush makes a compelling speech that points out the implications for the security of the U.S. and the prestige of the U.N. if no action is taken.

It's now clear President Bush was wrong when he said that “this looks like a re-run of a bad movie”; Groundhog Day was a pretty good one...

Somewhat lost in the shuffle today has been the Wall Street Journal's editorial and comments on how the so-called “Gang of 8” letter came about. Money quote from the editorial:

The notion that France and Germany speak for all of Europe is especially absurd, akin to assuming that New York City and Washington, D.C., speak for all of America. Down in the polls, German leader Gerhard Schröder barely speaks for a majority in his own country. The fact that France's Jacques Chirac threw him some anti-American political cover is news, but still a dog-bites-man story of Gallic hauteur. The vote in NATO on helping the U.S. in Iraq was after all 15–4 in favor, with the other opponents being the global powers of Belgium and Luxembourg.

The commentary by Michael Gonzalez, who along with Terri Raphael, solicited the letter, meanwhile contains this choice statement:

The Journal is an independent newspaper and doesn't carry water for any government.

Unlike certain other New York-based newspapers we could mention.

I'm serious. He's like my evil twin or something. Take his comments on Avril Lavigne for example:

I hate saying it, but she has the best pop record of the year. I like every single one of these songs. Everyone who I’ve pushed to listen to this disc grudgingly agrees this is a great album, even if “Complicated” generates a nervous tic in their eyes (it’s recently replaced “Blurry” by Puddle of Mudd for the “Livin’ La Vida Loca Overplayed Song of the Year” Award). Great record, great hooks, non-wince inducing lyrics...it ain't gonna change the world but as disposable musicianship this ranks pretty high.

So, if you want to know what I'd write in my blog if I watched Buffy and was fixated on Jennifer Garner (as David Letterman would say, she's easy on the eyes), read Wading in The Velvet Sea.

This post brought to you by the Department of Having Nothing Worthwhile to Post.

Susanna, Jane Galt, Kevin Drum (CalPundit) and the Volokh Conspiracy (principally Eugene) have been posting about the Texas Tech professor, Michael Dini, whose policy is not to write letters of recommendation for students who refuse to acknowledge the Theory of Evolution. Or, as Dini explains:

If you set up an appointment to discuss the writing of a letter of recommendation, I will ask you: "How do you think the human species originated?" If you cannot truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer to this question, then you should not seek my recommendation for admittance to further education in the biomedical sciences.

Now, there are a few questions to be asked here:

1. Does Dini have the right to set this condition? Yes. He's a professor, and he has the sole right to decide who he wants to write letters of recommendation for; it's not like he's promising to go back and give the students an “F” in the class.

2. Is it a valid condition? Well, the Theory of Evolution is pretty fundamental to modern biology. On the other hand, I'm not convinced you need subscribe to the Theory of Evolution to be a successful doctor or dentist. But, it's Dini's condition, not mine, so he's the appropriate judge of the relative merits.

3. Is the Theory of Evolution a “belief”? I don't think so, in the sense that like all scientific theories, it is falsifiable; the presence of evidence to the contrary, like evidence that humans existed before other mammals existed on Earth, would show it to be invalid. Creationism, however, isn't falsifiable; any piece of evidence against it can simply be rationalized as something created by God (to what end, however, is a mystery: why would God deliberately create evidence that would place doubts in the minds of men about the biblical account of creation?).

The bottom line, for me at least, is I'm glad I don't teach biology; it's hard enough trying to explain the scientific method when you're talking about political science, which has no theories anywhere near as politically controversial as evolution. (We have our own internal debates over whether or not people who call themselves “political scientists” ought to use the scientific method, but nobody outside the discipline cares.)

I somehow forgot to link to Mark Kleiman's excellent discussion. And my personal policy on the matter — not that I get a lot of requests for recommendations — is equivalent to that expressed by Mark:

My job as a teacher is to supply my students with the facts, the skills, and the ideas required for them to be able to form serious opinions on whatever it is I'm trying to teach them about. It's not my job to make their opinions coincide with mine. That's the difference between a university and a fundamentalist seminary. And I happily write enthusiastic recommendations for students whose political beliefs differ radically from mine.

It also happens to be representative of my teaching policy in general. I've shot down students who've spouted pure ignorant drivel on essay exams (I vividly recall a particular student who alleged that blacks were treated equally in the U.S. before the 1960s, but then started demanding all sorts of special privileges), but only because they've been factually wrong.

I've been playing with the stylesheet a bit recently. The most visible change is probably the background on the sidebar, which should show up as a light gray (on my laptop's LCD, it actually has a bluish tint). I've also set the stylesheet to just use your default sans-serif font (which probably means Verdana or some Helvetica variant), rather than the first font it could find in the long list of possibilities that was there before. (You can also choose the Serif look in some browsers, but it doesn't seem to stick so it's not very useful at present.) Of course, you can override the stylesheet rules if you like. Also, there's a printing stylesheet that most recent browsers recognize; the main thing it does is remove the sidebar when printing.

As you may also have noticed, I've simplified the TrackBack links; they're the links to the right of the Permalink icon that look like « (X), where X is the number of trackbacks to that entry. (The link is bold if X is non-zero.)

Finally, I've debated about whether or not to post a blogroll. Since I wouldn't use it myself, the value to me would be minimal; plus, I'd rather not be in a position to be accused of “playing favorites.” There are plenty of great blogs out there, and you don't need me pointing you in the right direction. (I have put some links to some services I've found useful, however; GeoURL and Janes' Blogosphere are both neat tools that I recommend heartily.)

Another brief note: I've fiddled some with the headers of the pages, so Internet Explorer should finally understand that this blog is in UTF-8 encoding. Grrr.

Bill Hobbs passes on word from the Nashville Tennessean that Gov. Phil Bredesen is considering using gas tax dollars to balance the general fund budget. While I don't share Bill's enthusiasm for raiding highway funds, and think it would be counterproductive to start accruing debt to pay for highway construction and maintenance, I'll reiterate my position that it would be reasonable to fund the Highway Patrol out of the gasoline and diesel tax. TDOT also should seriously consider using its dormant legal authority to build toll roads in rapidly-growing areas.

Bill has a longer post at the Political State Report.

Kevin Raybould also has a post at PolState.com. Also, a minor correction: the Tennessee Tollway Authority was sunsetted on 30 June 2000 after the legislature failed to pass legislation to reauthorize it for six more years.

Amygdala links to this fascinating New York Times Magazine piece on al-Jazeera journalist Yosri Fouda, written by Peter Maas.

Matthew Yglesias, back from blogging haitus, briefly looks at Shinui's possible role in an Israeli coalition government. The case of Israel's 120-member unicameral parliament, the Knesset, is particularly interesting because of its abnormally high number of political parties — 13 parties received Knesset seats in the January 2003 election because they received over 1.5% of the popular vote. (The Knesset uses pure proportional representation within one, nationwide district.) Leaving aside the question of why such a low threshold was chosen — Israel's is the lowest in the world — the large degree of fragmentation leads to serious barriers to coalition formation.

Michael Laver and Norman Schofield's Multiparty Government discusses this problem, although it mainly concentrates on European countries where the major parties are larger. In the most recent Israeli election, by contrast, no party received more than 30% of the total vote, and the Likud only received 38 seats — 23 seats short of a Knesset majority. This makes coalition formation particularly problematic because no single party can provide an overall majority — even a coalition with second-place Labor, with 19 seats, is too small to win an investiture vote (Israel's laws require a Knesset majority to vote in favor of forming a coalition, which makes a minority government exceedingly unlikely). So, what sorts of coalitions are possible?

Some theories suggest that the most likely coalitions to form are “minimal winning” coalitions — coalitions that involve the least number of parties while still gaining a majority of seats; i.e., where the loss of one party would make the coalition a minority. William Riker goes further to predict that the most likely coalitions to form are “minimum winning” (or bare majority) coalitions: ones that produce the smallest possible majority. Looking at the incoming Knesset, the following 3-member minimal winning coalitions are possible:

• Likud + Labor + Torah Judaism (62)

• Likud + Labor + NRP (63)

• Likud + Labor + Meretz (63)

• Likud + Labor + National Unity (64)

• Likud + Shinui + Shas (64)

• Likud + Shas + Labor (68)

• Likud + Labor + Shinui (72)

There are actually 3,615 possible minimal winning coalitions (out of 4,044 possible majority coalitions, most of which, unsurprisingly, involve the Likud). Furthermore, there are 92 minimum winning coalitions, with the coalition holding 61 seats; most of them involve large numbers of parties. The smallest minimum winning coalitions involve 4 parties:

• Likud + Labor + Yisrael Ba'aliya + United Arab List

• Likud + Shas + Meretz + NRP

• Likud + Shas + National Unity + Torah Judaism

• Likud + Shinui + Meretz + United Arab List

• Likud + Shinui + Meretz + Yisrael Ba'aliya

• Likud + Shinui + NRP + United Arab List

• Likud + Shinui + NRP + Yisrael Ba'aliya

• Likud + Shinui + Torah Judaism + Am Ehad

• Likud + Shinui + Torah Judaism + Balad

• Likud + Shinui + Torah Judaism + Hadash

However, from a policy standpoint, few of these coalitions make much sense; Arab parties (Balad and UAL) aren't going to be part of a Likud coalition, and neither is the communist Hadash. Meretz is unlikely to join with Shas and the NRP. The only coalition here that seems remotely plausible from a policy standpoint is Likud + Shas + National Unity + Torah Judaism.

A 61-seat coalition is unlikely simply because of the instability of the parties in general; Sharon probably wants a strong coalition that can withstand a few dissident members (despite the plethora of Israeli parties, party discipline is relatively low). This suggests a policy-based coalition involving the larger parties, to reduce the number of parties involved and the risk.

The “ideal” coalition for this task would be the widely-mooted Likud + Labor + Shinui coalition, which with 72 seats is the largest possible three-party coalition (and which might accrete some additional members from the smaller parties). However, widespread reports that Labor is not willing to join a Likud coalition leave only a Likud + Shinui + Shas three-party coalition, with a more tenuous 64 seats and serious policy differences (Shinui's support is attributed to opposition to excessive patronage to the ultra-Orthodox; Shas is the largest ultra-Orthodox party). Therefore, other possibilities may be considered:

• One option would be a minority coalition, with Likud + Shinui in the government but with investiture support from Labor. This could allow Labor to keep its promise to stay out of a coalition without necessitating a new election (or a more right-wing coalition).

• Likud + Shinui + Yisrael Ba'aliya, with support from some defectors from Labor.

• Likud and Shinui could cobble together a coalition with some of the religious parties (with or without Meretz). Alisa suggests that Shinui is fairly open to working with most of the religious parties, barring Shas.

• Finally, Likud could fail to form a government, presumably leaving Labor, Shinui, and Meretz to try to cobble together a coalition involving the Arab parties and the Am Ehad (One Nation).

The bottom line: throw the coalition theories out the window when it comes to Israel — at least until they get a sensible threshold on the books.

Ha'aretz has a page with some charts showing some possible alternatives (thanks to The Talking Dog for the link).

Noah Millman, Michael Pine, JB Armstrong, and SharkBlog have some interesting coverage as well.

My theory: Likud + Shinui + Yisrael Ba'aliya + NRP, with either a lot of Labor defectors (probably to Shinui or a new group) or a new Labor leadership.