[Voting will be open on Sunday for 1.5 hours from 10:30 am to 12:00]

A new parliament will be elected in Liechtenstein this Sunday.

The 2 main parties are

* Fatherland Union (Vaterländische Union, VU)
* Progressive Citizens Party (Fortschrittliche Bürgerpartei in Liechtenstein, FBP)

Both of them are conservative, even though the VU is the more liberal one.

In this election there will be 2 other parties:

* The Free List (Freie Liste, FL) - Social Democratic/Green
* The Independents (Die Unabhängigen, DU)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtenstein_parliamentary_election,_2013

Usually, in the past 75 years, the VU and FBP have always formed a Grand Conservative Coalition, with the exception of 1997-2005, in which they governed alone.

The results in 2009:

47.6% - 95.219 votes - VU
43.5% - 86.951 votes - FBP
  8.9% - 17.835 votes - FL

Eligible voters: 18.493
Total turnout: 15.650 (by absentee/postal ballot: 80.4%)
Turnout in %: 84.6

http://www.landtagswahlen.li/resultate.aspx?eeid=7&ukid=14

Voting will be open on Sunday for 1.5 hours from 10:30 am to 12:00

That has to be a record.

Burgenland doesn't like the draft much...

I've looked up and calculated a few more municipality results and some interesting conclusions can be drawn. Regarding Varna, it was indeed the city that was least supportive of Belene, with about 52.2% "yes", while the rest of the province voted about 63.8% in favor, but due to almost 75% of the votes being in Varna, it averages it out to 54.99% overall.

Franknburger's suggestion that areas with rival power plants might be opposed turned out to be right in some cases, though not where he expected it. For example, the municipality of Radnevo where the Maritsa Istok Complex, Bulgaria's largest coal-fired power plant, is partially located, voted against the Belene plant with about 53% of the votes. On the other hand, the municipality of Kozloduy, where Bulgaria's current nuclear plant is located, voted 79.2% in favor, despite the recent scare tactics to claim that their plant would be closed sooner if Belene were built (then again, having the former prime minister Kostov carry out this campaign was probably not the brightest idea).

Regarding the idea that  Danube settlements downstream of Belene would not like the plant, the evidence is not conclusive, though Svishtov, the town where 100 people died in an earthquake in 1977, supported it only by a narrow margin (53% yes).

Bit surprising that Coburn also didn't vote no.

Alright, since the referendum is over, I think we can stop the nuclear debate now - we will most likely not come together anytime soon. Neverthelees, I enjoyed the debate, as well as various of tyour posts on other threads.

Thanks too for the debate, it was very informative.

Thanks for the map. Sofia and Plovdiv are obvious, but the coastal district looks too large to just be Varna. Could it be that some residents on the coast have been speculating on benefitting from wind energy development, if Belene fails? Or, maybe, some were afraid that news of Belene construction might scare away tourists.
Another lighter green district is a bit downstream from Pleven. Is it Ruse? And, if so, just the urban vote making the difference, or are their other factors in play?

The light green coastal province is not just Varna of course, but the city constitutes over 70% of it's population. Considering that Varna is usually a stronghold for right-wing parties, it's probable that the "no" votes are mostly concentrated there. Most of the installed wind power seems to be in the province north of Varna, where it doesn't seem to have much of an effect. I checked the municipality which contains most installations (Kavarna) and it voted 64.4% yes.
The other province is indeed Ruse. This one is also dominated by its main city (64%), though Ruse is generally not as right-wing as Varna.

Not really eugenics even if not so great.

In the minds of the people doing it, it is probably eugenics.

Obviously, this is a deeply unethical practice.  It isn't clear how widespread this is, but it certainly seems indicative of the larger problem of racism and identity in Israel.  But, I would just like to point out that people fixate on these negative stories in Israel.  Nobody cares for example what the human rights abuses of the Ethiopian government.  Nobody cares about racism in Jordan.  Nobody cares when Africans are victimized by other Africans or Arabs by other Arabs.  But, when the Jewish state does something wrong, people overreact and say ridiculous things like:

It's not a deeply unethical practice, it's a crime. And if Israel wants to present itself as the only democracy in the Middle East, it should certainly be held up to the same standard as other democracies.

BTW, how do you create those Atlas-like maps with scales and Atlas colours ?

And is there one for Austria as well ?

The Atlas colors are easy - you simply copy the Atlas Master Key.
Regarding the maps, you'll probably can find them on the Internet.

And how do I get the color shades ?

These are the original color shades. I left out a few intermediate ones to provide better contrast.

Ok, but how do I get the exact colors in Paint like on the Atlas and how do you put the "master key" into the map ?

Or do I need a different program for making those maps ?

Copy the Master Key image into Paint, then use "pick color" to copy colors. You can copy parts or whole of the Master Key with the "select" tool.
Of course you can use another program, but Paint should be sufficient for this kind of maps.

Thx. But are you sure this works with Windows Vista Paint ? I can only choose "define color" and then I have put in some values or "guess" the shade of the color in the master key ...

I don't use Vista, so I can't be sure. But according to this page, it should be available.

BTW, how do you create those Atlas-like maps with scales and Atlas colours ?

And is there one for Austria as well ?

The Atlas colors are easy - you simply copy the Atlas Master Key.
Regarding the maps, you'll probably can find them on the Internet.

And how do I get the color shades ?

These are the original color shades. I left out a few intermediate ones to provide better contrast.

Ok, but how do I get the exact colors in Paint like on the Atlas and how do you put the "master key" into the map ?

Or do I need a different program for making those maps ?

Copy the Master Key image into Paint, then use "pick color" to copy colors. You can copy parts or whole of the Master Key with the "select" tool.
Of course you can use another program, but Paint should be sufficient for this kind of maps.

BTW, how do you create those Atlas-like maps with scales and Atlas colours ?

And is there one for Austria as well ?

The Atlas colors are easy - you simply copy the Atlas Master Key.
Regarding the maps, you'll probably can find them on the Internet.

And how do I get the color shades ?

These are the original color shades. I left out a few intermediate ones to provide better contrast.

BTW, how do you create those Atlas-like maps with scales and Atlas colours ?

And is there one for Austria as well ?

The Atlas colors are easy - you simply copy the Atlas Master Key.
Regarding the maps, you'll probably can find them on the Internet.

While my math may not be the best, yours sometimes also leaves room for improvemt . 

Just as I did, you conveniently forgot to consider that also nuclear reactors do not always run at full capacity (somebody told me that they can be regulated ..), and they reguire regular shutdown over several weeks for nuclear fuel rods replacement.

By the way - it might be interesing for you to look across the Danube into neighbouring Romania. Ever heard of the Cernavod Nuclear Plant? It was envisaged to construct two new blocks (750 MW each) there. Joint venture of the national energy company with large European investors (RWE, SUEZ, Enel etc.). In January 2011, the investors withdrew due to "economic and market-related uncertainties". Sounds familiar?

Now comes the clou: Some 10 km from Cernavoda, the Czech utility company CEZ (partner of the original Cernavoda consortium) has just completed , Europe's largest wind farm, with an installed capacity of 600 MW, and a projected 30% yield. Costruction lasted 4 years (2 phases, @ 2 years), total cost was 1.1 bn €.

So, yes, I was wrong - It takes 5 wind farms to replace one Belene block, and they could actually be up and running within 4-5 years. So don't be too frustrated about the referendum, lights will not go out in Bulgaria.

I admit that I forgot about the capacity of the nuclear plant, which would make the years required about 8 and a half (and under very optimistic conditions). In reality, twenty would be probably more realistic and that if their current efficiency is considerably improved.

Regarding your example with the Romanian wind farm, let me correct you - it takes 5 of Europe's largest wind farms to replace one of Belene's reactors and this if they're running under the most optimal conditions. And constructing five of those would cost 5.5 bn €, which is about half of the price claimed for Belene by the government while it was trying to find excuses about abandoning the project.

So in conclusion - under the most optimistic conditions, assuming substantial technological advances and continued availability of good spots for wind farms, producing enough wind farms to replace the whole plant would only take 17 years. Realistically, my asertion that the wind farms would ready by the time Belene would have closed is not too far of.

And no, lights won't go out. We'll just have to import electricity from countries, whose governments make decisions without checking with the American embassy first.

Btw: You only posted exit polls, but not the actual outcome of the referendum (regional breakdown or map would also be nice).

Full results were not available until late yesterday, but here is the map by province:



It's based on these results, but I've recalculated them to exclude invalid votes. The final results, after this calculation are 61.49% "yes" and conversely 38.51% "no".
The map seems to confirm my earlier observation about the breakdowns following the usual pattern, with some exceptions. Most visibly, Pleven Province (the one in the central north) which generally leans to the right, has among the highest percentage of "yes" votes (73.64%), which is not surprising considering that this is where the Belene plant was to be built. As I mentioned above, MRF voters (which are practically synonymous with Turks in most of the country) had low turnout, but voted nearly four to one for Belene, which explains why some of the best results for the referendum were in provinces with a Turkish majority or large percentages of the population. The highest result for the "yes" side was in fact in Kardzhali (in the southeast), which is over 60% Turkish and had 74.12% voting yes.
The lowest percentages for the "yes" side where in the three biggest cities of Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna. The lowest result was in the second Sofia district (52.22%), where the old UDF had once its greatest stronghold.

Sorry. I have not learned anywhere near enough Polish to get a word of either. I'm just working on being able to produce very simple greetings and functional questions. And I'm having a great deal of trouble with the word for excuse me, przepraszam. My neurons do not like that word at all Aside from vocabulary, African American English does have some key grammatical differences, but I've grown up hearing them and I'm not sure how they would affect the comprehension of somebody unaccustomed to them. I am curious as to how the Brits find the language in youtube video I posted earlier. As I mentioned earlier, I have a great deal of trouble understanding people from the North of England.

You can't get a word of either language, yet you presume to lecture others that they're practically the same and to say otherwise would be a "nationalist language thing"? Considering that the general stereotype of Americans in this part of the world is that they are arrogant, your efforts to look less American doesn't seem to be going very well

I hate to be in the PC team, but yeah, words like "nigger" just have to go.

Did you actually read the thread before posting here? "Neger" certainly doesn't have the connotations that "nigger" has, so it can't be treated the same way.

It's more a "some people seem to think so and others certainly don't" thing.

Aren't the later more common, though (and you mean the general public)?

I hate to be in the PC team, but yeah, words like "nigger" just have to go.

Did you actually read the thread before posting here? "Neger" certainly doesn't have the connotations that "nigger" has, so it can't be treated the same way.

I think I know, since French has "nègre" which seems to have roughly the same connotation (meaning, it used to be neutral 100-150 years ago but nowadays it is markedly negative).

The English term nigger has been offensive pretty much for centuries. The German "neger" apparently was used in scientific literature a few decades ago and even today is apparently not that offensive. So yes, they're not quite comparable.

[

Well, from 2010 to 2011, Bulgaria's installed windpower capacity increased from 177 to 500 MW. At that rate (330 MW per year), it would need six years to reach Belene's capacity. How long did you say would it take until Belene becomes operational?

I'm afraid that your figures are incorrect. According to the Bulgarian Wind Energy Association, the installed capacity by the end of 2011 was 516, up from 488 in 2010. The capacity did grow in 2012 to 684, but this is obviously not a regular growth rate. And of course as this growth continues, it's likely to increasingly hit diminishing returns.
Also, unlike with other type of electricity generation, there is of course a significant difference between installed capacity and actually produced energy. For 2010, for example with a capacity that could produce theoretically nearly 3.6 TWh (taking the average capacity at the end of 2009 and the end of 2010) while the actual electricity generated was nearly twelve times less than that. The source is here (in Bulgarian), showing 0.8% of the 41 TWh produced by Bulgaria in 2010 was from either wind or solar energy. So presuming a growth similar to the one shown last year, the actual electricity produced by wind should be comparable to that produced by one of the proposed Belene reactors by the time it is to be decommissioned in 2079. Of course, this is wildly optimistic, as it presumes no diminishing return, and if it was done, our mountains would probably be the noisiest part of the country.

My figures on installed windpower capacity came from the European Wind Energy Association, which may have used a different method (e.g. including projects still under construction), but I am fine with takking the Bulgarian Association's official data.

 I am irritated by two things: First of all, while you are right that theoratical capacity is not actual production, wind power in Germany yields some 16-19% of theoretical output, ins spite of partial grid access problem that cause producers to reduce output.  Note that the German yield is based on a much higher installed capacity, so it shoukl already have diminsihing returns factured in.
Your figure of only some 8% yield in Bulgaria sounds by all means too low - either because you are comparing apples with oranges (i.e including solar, which only hais half the yield as wind, in your analysis), or because many of the plants are fairly new, and as such have not produced over the whole year. As a matter of fact, actual yield shold be higher than in Germany, as Bulgaria's installations are comparatively modern, and there have been significant yield gains over the last years. While 1990 installations still ran below 15% yield, the latest wind plant generation achieves more than 30% yield under optimal conditions (Wind park Stadlum on the German North Sea cost, 2012 actual: 37%) .
For maintenance reasons, nuclear plants, btw, also only yield 80-90% of their theoretical output (calculated for Germany, again). So, yes, you need around three to five times as much installed windpower capacity compared to nuclear plants. Replacing Belene would require 6,000 -10,000 MW installed wind power capacity, or some two- to three thousand mid-sized plants @ 3 MW  That is one plant every 40-50 km², or, more realisticly, a 5-6 unit wind park every 250 km². Not something I would call extremely dense, destroying all of Bilgaria's mountains, etc..

Now here is the second thing that puzzles me: While you deem the 2011-2012 growth of 180 MW of Bulgaria's wind power as irregular (above average) growth rate, to me it is rather low (some sixty  new installations per year). Germany, with a land area three times as large as Bulgaria) achieved around ten times of that. Bad comparison? O.k, what about Romania (500 MW / year), Portugal (377 MW in 2012), Poland (450 MW / year) or Ireland (239 MW in 2012, two-thirds the size of Bulgaria) [All data from the IWEA link above]. I would say, 400 MW / year is well achievable, and that would be sufficient to replace one of the two Belene blocks before it goes into operation.

Why are you irritated? I have only made some logical conclusions from the data available. I think I was the one who should have been irritated, considering how you neglected to mention that the figures you gave for wind power capacity were only the potential capacity.
As for my figures for electricity from wind power, I gave you a source for this. And it's pretty clear that 0.8% from 41 TW works to about 8% from the theoretical 3.6 TW. Though I have to admit that I was indeed comparing apples with oranges - I was comparing the theoretical capacity of wind power with the actual power produced by both wind and solar. So it's probably less than 8% actually.
As for your assumptions, there is no reason to assume that the plant have actually been installed under the most optimal conditions. And your optimistic calculations do not far well under scrutiny, either. Comparing Bulgaria to the most simmilar countries, shows that 200 MW is a reasonable assumption (2.5 times less than Romania, which is also similar to the area ratio, for example). Also, even under the most optimistic assumption of 400 MW growth per year and nearly 20% power generation, it would take 11 years to produce the energy produced by even one reactor in Belene (which would have been opened in 2019, presuming the original plans) and using the more realistic 200 MW (though even that has been never achieved), 22 years. And that of course ignores diminishing returns due to decline of good places for wind power, so achieving those 20% might become more difficult with time even with better technology. So my estimation might not be far off.
Of course, this whole discussion is completely academical. With the failure of the referendum, it's pretty obvious that no nuclear power plant will be build. So we better hope that the climate will become windier in the future...

Since the whole point of Nabucco is to deliver natural gas from Azerbajian and Central Asia while avoiding Russia, why would any interchange be allowed?

Because the point is not avoiding gas delivery from Russia, but making sure there are alternative sources so Russia cannot use its gas to exert political pressure. Same thing as Germany does - buy Russian natural gas, but also have pipelines constructed for British and Norwegian North Sea gas.

One would think that allowing Russia to sell gas through Nabucco undermines this purpose, since this gas would be competing with gas delivered from other sources (especially considering the problems with those other sources). In fact, even without an interchange, building one of those will making building the other unprofitable.

Unless, of course, there is a major consumer, e.g. a natural gas-fired power plant, on the western shore of the Black Sea ...

Bulgaria's demand for natural gas would certainly not be enough to justify building a pipeline that is supposed to reach Western Europe.

The nationalist language thing in Eastern Europe is getting absurd. If I speak the same language as people in Yorkshire, than so do the Czechs and the Poles, and ditto for a lot of the people in former Yugoslavia.

Correct regarding parts of Yugoslavia, incorrect regarding the Czechs and Poles. Have you actually spent some time comparing to those languages? Perhaps you should at least learn the actual speakers of those languages think instead of making stereotypical assumptions.

Are you familiar with how different various forms of English are? I needed subtitles for much of Billy Elliot
Here's a good video of the local African-American dialect here. It's still English, but it's nothing like the standard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hv8NIj2cBM

I had difficulty understanding this, but then again I'm not a native speaker of English. But still these are mostly differences in pronunciation. There are no substantial lexical differences, like there are even between close languages like Polish and Czech. And even similar words can have quite different meanings in different languages. For example, I don't advise you to use the Polish word Szukac ("search") in the Czech Republic, as it might have quite a different effect than the one you were expecting.
Again, I don't think you have actually compared even how the two languages sound, because the differences are pretty obvious.  So here is a sample of  Polish and Czech. As you have learned some Polish, you can see how much you understand the Czech one. Incidentally, as a speaker of a Slavic language, though very distant from both Czech and Polish, I can tell you that I can understand quite a bit more Czech than Polish, so at least from my point of view, they're not practically the same.

IA would not like that map. One of their important rules involves minimizing the east-west to north-south differences in the districts. Your district 3 on the south, and to a lesser degree district 5 through Cedar Rapids would create large differences in dimensions. You could make a better district 3 by linking Keokuk to Iowa City.

I had heard about the rule but I was concentrating more about the rule about no county splits. As a result there is little flexibility in the east, where there are a few very large counties, which all have to be in separate districts (you can't place almost any significant county together with Linn or Scott with Johnson, for example) and this seems to lead these elongated districts. Your suggestion may avoid district 3, but there will probably still have to be a elongated Lynn based district.

What programs do you use to make these?

This one:
http://gardow.com/davebradlee/redistricting/davesredistricting2.0.aspx

The nationalist language thing in Eastern Europe is getting absurd. If I speak the same language as people in Yorkshire, than so do the Czechs and the Poles, and ditto for a lot of the people in former Yugoslavia.

Correct regarding parts of Yugoslavia, incorrect regarding the Czechs and Poles. Have you actually spent some time comparing to those languages? Perhaps you should at least learn the actual speakers of those languages think instead of making stereotypical assumptions.

Further south, Oval ward in Vauxhall is known throughout the world as the location of the [insert sponsor's name here] Oval cricket ground, home of Surrey cricket club and traditional location for the final Test match of the English cricket season.

Pro hint: The vast majority of those people who don't care about cricket have never heard of it. Most people around the world have barely even heard of cricket. 

That's not exactly true. Around here, no one cares about cricket, but it's still reasonably known as a weird sport played by Englishmen.

3,400 MW is very, very small in the scheme of things. I don't know the numbers but I'm sure Bulgaria's consumption is many times that.

The two current nuclear reactors in Bulgaria have about the same power and they produce about 35% of Bulgaria's electricity.

It's very hard to advocate a green energy program if the major energy sources- nuclear and hydroelectric- are slandered as being dangerous, while wind, solar, and etc are deemed to be degrading to local biospheres. Something's got to give- we need to put people first.

The main problems with wind and solar are really the fact that they're strongly depended on external factors, which means they can rarely reach their full capacity.

Iowa.



That turned out more difficult than I thought it would be, as I tried to keep the no county splitting rule except Polk (De Moines), which is considerably bigger than one district, while keeping deviation within 1%.

DISTRICT 1: NORTHEAST IOWA: 58% Obama, 40.4% McCain. Probably Lean D. Obama's margin in 2012 was considerably narrowe (11%)

DISTRICT 2: DAVENPORT-MUSCATINE: 56.7% Obama, 41.8% McCain. About as Safe D as the two current eastern districts. Unlike the first, didn't change much in 2012.

DISTRICT 3: SOUTHERN IOWA: 50.7% Obama, 47.2% McCain. Should be a toss-up district. Still won in 2012 by Obama, though only by a narrow plurality.

DISTRICT 4: NORTH CENTRAL IOWA: 56.3% Obama, 42.1 McCain. Lean D, considering how the 2012 Obama victory was only about 7%.

DISTRICT 5: CEDAR RAPIDS: Name is due to Linn county being about 70% of the district. 57.3% Obama, 41.2% McCain. Lean D, though probably safe in practice. Margin narrowed quite a bit (11%) in 2012.

DISTRICT 6: IOWA CITY-MARSHALLTOWN: 58.7% Obama, 39.5% McCain. The reduced 2012 margin is still higher than that of the two eastern districts. Safe D.

DISTRICT 7: DES MOINES: 60.5% Obama, 37.7% McCain . Also the least white district (only 80.4% of the VAP). Safe D.

DISTRICT 8: DES MOINES SUBURBS: 50.3% Obama, 47.8% McCain. May have gone for Romney in 2012. Should be Lean R for Iowa Republicans.

DISTRICT 9: SOUTHWEST IOWA: 47.6% Obama,  50.8% McCain. Lean R. 2012 Margin was about 7%.

DISTRICT 10: NORTHWEST IOWA: 42.2% Obama, 56.3% McCain. Safe R.

So it should be usually 6D-4R, with an occasional 7D-3R.

Czech is basically the same as Polish.

In the same way that Dutch is basically the same as German.

No, Czech and Polish are mutually intelligible in many cases, while Dutch and German (or High German at least, I'm sure there are some northwestern dialects that are similar) are not at all.

"Mutually intelligible in many cases" (and those cases often have favorable factors behind them) is very far from being practically the same. You could make the case for Czech and Slovak being practically the same, but then many Czechs claim nowadays that they don't really understand  Slovak.

Czech is basically the same as Polish.

In the same way that Dutch is basically the same as German.

I hate to be in the PC team, but yeah, words like "nigger" just have to go.

Did you actually read the thread before posting here? "Neger" certainly doesn't have the connotations that "nigger" has, so it can't be treated the same way.

Exit polls show about 60% voted yes, which seems close to the few polls made before the referendum. The distribution seem to be similar to national elections - older and rural voters have voted with a greater margin, similar to how they usually vote for BSP, the main supporter of the "yes" side. Conversely urban and younger voters, who lean towards rightists parties - opponents of Belene, have voted yes by a much smaller margin (though even in Sofia the "yes" side apparently won). Ethnic minorities have practically ignored the referendum, though the few MRF voters, the Turkish ethnic party, voted "yes "by a large margin.