Matthew Shugart

Limited carbon sequestration potential from global ecosystem restoration - Nature Geoscience The maximum carbon sequestration potential from global terrestrial ecosystem restoration efforts until 2100 is 96.9 Gt, which is equivalent to 3.7–12.0% of anthropogenic emissions until then, accordin...

This paper is getting attention for suggesting ecosystem restoration won't help with mitigation, but restoration is still *critical* for adaptation.

Restoring coastal wetlands helps reduce risks from sea level rise and hurricanes, restoring urban forests helps reduce risks from extreme heat, etc...

Tisha b’Av 5784 and the Temple Mount In the question of whether Jews can visit the Temple Mount, we have a controversy that is significant within the orthodox Jewish world and within Israeli politics, let alone the controversy with re…

Re-posted from a year ago because, as always, there is so little context provided in your mainstream media.

fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2025/08/03/t...

El Salvador lengthens future presidential terms, abolishes term limits Constitutional changes have been approved in El Salvador that will increase the length of the presidential term from five to six years and remove (any pretense) of presidential term limits (AP news…

On constitutional changes to presidential terms, electoral rules, and the electoral cycle in El Salvador.

fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2025/08/01/e...

A genocide is under way — but it’s not in Gaza Accusing Israel of trying to annihilate the Palestinian people is a luxury belief. Liberals should call out Hamas and Russia instead of carping about Zelensky

Excellent clear-eyed piece by Niall Ferguson.

www.thetimes.com/article/997a...

starting to break through
www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

Matti Friedman: Is Gaza Starving? Searching for the Truth in an Information War. When I asked a former senior government official if there is mass hunger among Gazans, he answered me honestly: ‘I don’t know.’

One of the more balanced and sober reports you’ll see.

www.thefp.com/p/matti-frie...

Now updated with the promised labeling of the key districts.

Again, he's not really the person you're angry at, though. Those people are all (supposedly "moderate" and "pro-democracy") Republicans and keep getting constant free passes, as they have for a decade now, while everyone yells at Democrats.

Branding California Olive Oil: Legislative Adaptation to an Emerging Industry Assembly Bill (AB) 535, which passed and was signed into law in 2021, specified that any olive oil produced, processed, or offered for sale in California and labelled as “California” oil needed to …

Branding California Olive Oil: Legislative Adaptation to an Emerging Industry

A post on political adaptation of agriculture to climate change and changing market conditions.

#AgClimAdapt

fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2025/07/28/b...

The nations are not being helpful: FMs’ statement on Gaza War can only embolden Hamas The goyim are getting impatient with the yehudim. On 21 July, the foreign ministers of twenty-five democracies (later joined by three more) issued a scathing statement against Israeli conduct of th…

On the foreign ministers' statement. Many of you won't like this, but there were things I needed to say at the end of last week. So I did.

fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2025/07/25/t...

I don’t come to Bluesky often, but I when I do, it’s to be disabused of cherished legends.

British minister says recognizing Palestine not as pressing as securing ceasefire * * *

UK science & tech minister: “…we want to make sure the circumstances can exist where that kind of long-term political solution can have the space to evolve.”

But a ceasefire that leaves Hamas able to rebuild makes that long-term evolution only longer.

www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_ent...

Macron adviser says Oct. 7 ‘wouldn’t have happened’ had there been a Palestinian state * * *

Seriously? This is the best Macron’s people can do to explain themselves? It’s utterly delusional to claim that Hamas acted on 10/7 because the “two state solution” wasn’t implemented in the face of Palestinian terror decades earlier.

www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_ent...

Separating yourself from the incumbent of your party whom you faithfully served is pretty hard. I’d guess not very credible. Of course if she chose not to because Biden said “don’t” that’s bad. But I don’t think she had much real choice here.

* collecting (not collective).

This site will only truly have arrived when it has an edit button.

This site has finally truly arrived.

Today I have an email inviting me to register for a course in “collective, cleaning, and analysis” of Bluesky data. We are all research subjects again.

The first round result had the leader over 46% and the next candidate at 33%. The runoff was unlikely to favor the runner up. So we should expect turnout to drop.

results.sos.ga.gov/results/publ...

Elsewhere I read that they are resigning their committee *chair* positions. So I’d call that leaving the coalition as a whole (even if they won’t actively vote against it).

There should not be any reason they’d be expected to give up their committee *seats*.

Shas minister decries government’s ‘terrible persecution’ of yeshiva students * * *

Still means it’s a minority govt, but the approaches of Shas, UTJ differ.

“Despite quitting the government, Shas did not follow fellow ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism’s example and exit the coalition… and will retain its seats on Knesset committees”
www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_ent...

Right.

Yes, this is possible. I actually like minority governments for this reason.

And of course it doesn’t take 61 to pass ordinary legislation, due to the absence of a quorum requirement.

And the Knesset is going out of session soon till after High Holy Days anyway and these parties were already boycotting most govt bills.

It creates delays and headaches over what Knesset biz was going to happen while still in session. But that’s all it does (for now).

It takes 61 voting for a specific alternative government in order for a no confidence motion to pass (“constructive”). Shas and UTJ have made it clear they don’t intend to bring or support such a motion.

A minority govt can be stable in Israel. It might not pass any legislation but it can last.

Party Personnel Published in 2021: Party Personnel Strategies: Electoral Systems and Committee Assignments.

We have Economy Committee in Israel coded as the Knesset’s sole “distributive” committee, whereas State Control is one of several “administrative” committees. fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/party-person...

My recollection is that this committee in Israel is usually not controlled by an opposition party, even though it sensibly should be. Normally the only opp-chaired one is Economy (a far less important committee than its name implies).

State comptroller pressed to investigate rabbinical court appointments over reported nepotism * * *

It’s a good day for examples of committee chair allocations! Here’s a case of an opposition-chaired committee, State Control.

It’s what in the Party Personnel Strategies book we call an administrative committee.

www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_ent...

Committee assignment patterns in fragmented multiparty settings: Party personnel practices and coalition management - Reut Itzkovitch-Malka, Matthew S Shugart, 2023 This paper addresses the way parties assign members to parliamentary committees in fragmented multiparty settings. Thus, it analyzes how the two most central in...

On that topic see:

Reut Itzkovitch-Malka and Matthew S. Shugart, “Committee assignments in fragmented multiparty settings: Party personnel practices and coalition management,” Party Politics. October, 2022.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Netanyahu, Smotrich said to be arguing over pick to chair Knesset Finance Committee * * *

The PM’s Likud and the Finance Minister’s Religious Zionism parties are arguing over “stacking” vs. “keeping tabs on partners.”

(Also over keeping a seat warm for Gafni)

www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_ent...

The last point is the key. Yes, there is domestic politics. It’s a sorry substitute for a real foreign policy, but it is what it is.

A Letter from General Gallant to Supreme Leader Khamenei Your Nuclear Dream Has Failed. Now You Must Choose.

open.substack.com/pub/generaly...