With respect to the Italian elections, there’s still only one thing certain - it’s going to be a long night, and, possibly, not the last one. There have apparently been, if my rudimentary understanding of Italian news broadcaster Rai News 24 is correct, unjustified delays in data processing. Thus, given the closeness of the race between the center-left and center-right coalitions, Italian expatriats may be the ones who cast the decisive votes for both lower and upper chambers of the Italian Parliament, since a law, introduced in 2001 formed four “overseas constituencies.” They will, accordingly, choose 12 of the 630 MPS in the lower, and six of the the 315 senators in the upper house.

So, instead of news, just some more context. At wwitv.com you can find a whole page full of web streams provided by Italian tv stations. Electionresources.com features a long explanation of the Italian electoral systems, both old and new. As the author, Manuel Álvarez-Rivera explains, the system has been altered in numerous ways for this election -

It is widely anticipated that in the event of an Unione victory under the new PR systems, the resulting center-left majorities in both houses of Parliament would be considerably smaller than under the previous systems, and the leader of the Unione, former Prime Minister (and former President of the European Commission) Romano Prodi has promised to undo the changes if the center-left returns to power in this year’s elections.

Finally, here’s the google-translated election website provided by Italy’s interior ministery, which, hopefully, is, where you can find the eventual election results as soon as they are released officially.

Tom Spurgeon reports:

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is filing an appeal of the Penguen decision that went against him; Erdogan has been extremely aggressive about using the courts against cartoonists who portray him in unflattering fashion.

The Mirror, on the latest bizarre twist of the Italian election campaign :

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi yesterday confessed to calling sex chat lines - to ask women what they thought of his policies. (…)

He called the girls to ask what they thought of him and Mr Prodi.

He told party workers at a briefing: “Seven out of the nine young ladies I called said they preferred me, which is very good news indeed.”

One aide said: “He was delighted that the women were in favour of him. It certainly perked him up.”

But a member of Mr Prodi’s camp said: “These women say anything to please the desperate men who call them.”

(via Yglesias)

Viktor and Yulia, together again.

April 6 (Bloomberg) — Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine party will team up in parliament with an alliance led by former premier Yulia Timoshenko and the Socialists, said Our Ukraine spokesman Valentyn Mondrievsky.

The Regions Party, led by Viktor Yanukovych, which won the most votes in March 26 elections, will remain in opposition, Mondrievsky said in a telephone interview today in Kiev. Our Ukraine party was third in the elections, behind Timoshenko’s bloc and the Regions Party.

Timoshenko had been demanding reinstatement as Prime Minister. It’s not yet clear whether that demand has been met.

Sadly, No!: What’s The Phrase I’m Looking For?

The real concern to neocons is that the democracy in question is pro- or anti-American (or -Israel). And whatever new excuse they come up with to finesse their latest instance of double standard-bearing with regard to democracies, it will rest on the same nationalist underpinning as the Kirkpatrick Doctrine, disguised with a new false distinction (maybe the new “authoritarian vs totalitarian dictatorships” will be “liberal vs. illiberal democracies”).

One thing is certain: what is guaranteed to continue is neoconservative war-mongering.

Although in the days of detente neoconservatives often attacked Henry Kissinger (and always from the Right; he was never quite bloodthirsty enough for them, which is all you really need to know), they greatly resemble him in basic morality. The essential difference between neoconservatism and Kissingerian realism is not due to some high-minded idealism of the former, but rather due to neoconservatism’s greater love of aggression and its gift for manufacturing intellectual veneer. If Kissingerian realism can be described as pragmatically amoral, neoconservatism can be defined as aggressively immoral[.]

European Tribune - How not to govern

But what is certain is that these decisions make a mockery of our institutions. It undermines the rule of law (”ignore the laws we pass”), it shows that thos government is such a lameduck that legitimacy for negotiations must come from the outside (the UMPparty), it turns the prime minister (for being sidelined for a junior minister) and the president (for being unable to get rid of his reckless prime minister) into objects of ridicule, and it shows, if ever proof was ever needed, that the interests of France are the last thing on these people’s minds, who are focused only on their personal prospects at the next election, still a year away.

A Depression Switch? - New York Times

Finally, a satisfying biography of Franz Kafka

Robert Alter reviews ‘Kafka: The Decisive Years’ by Reiner Stach.

What’s the Matter With Kiev? By Scott MacMillan Sunday’s vote wasn’t a rejection of the orange revolution, it was proof of its success.

The pre-election media coverage was entirely useless, and the post-election stories weren’t so great either, so thank god for Scott, who’s written a great piece in Slate.

Something worthwhile on the new Guardian blog: A post by Daniel Davies.

Economic “protectionism” is back in the news with a vengeance, with France objecting to takeovers in the steel sector, Spain putting together national champion utilities and the USA crying blue murder over Dubai Ports World’s proposed acquisition of P&O. James Surowiecki had an article in the Saturday Guardian painstakingly setting out the conventional wisdom on this subject (ie that it’s very bad). Trouble is, this isn’t really what “protectionism” means.

Via Atrios.