Nothing to see in Uzbekistan

Unless you think watching a human rights activist being tortured with mind altering drugs is a problem.

Stuff on Uzbekistan from Amnesty

And a chance to do something about it

People to meet, things to do

There was a veritable cavalcade of interesting folk through the office last week. In no particular order we met with

Zimbra, they of the fantastic email demo thing. It should be noted incidently that the demo is staggeringly feature rich, and does far more than I realised. One of the best bits is a thing that picks regular expressions out of messages (say invoice numbers, or addresses) and can then interrogate other internal or external sources for more information, and display it as a tooltip within the email.

We also met with CivicActions, a very interesting bunch of people from the States, who seem to be mapping out a new way of working for an IT company. One that is much more about relationships, people and communities than it is about contracts and specifications. We're keen to do more with them (and have told them so).

One immediate fruit of talking to CivicActions was talking to Driess, the chap behind the Drupal content management system. Like all good software developers he's still finishing his Phd. which does lead to slightly odd meetings. He's also Belgian, which is odd only because Drupal adoption seems to be a largely American affair.

We also met with an IBM partner (I've forgotten the name) to talk about a possible outsourcing options (v interesting) and I think that was it. On top of all that I've just finished running my first ever tender process from the buyers side (I've been on the sales side a lot). Always nice to hear that you've written 'the best RFP document we've ever seen' - from three different firms. I wonder if that's a sales trick I should have been using back in the day...

The end result is a fantastic developer lined up for a fantastic project. ThoughtWorks are a company I was amazed to find were actually interested in the project on offer, and they were able to convince us that while they're not cheap - they're very very good. Also means I have to get to grips with the all new, shiny Agile Methodology. Should be fun.

Things to see and do

If a tree falls in Papua New Guinea (because it's been cut down by an illegal logger) is shipped to China, made in to furniture and then shipped into Europe as having been legally logged and you complained would anybody hear it?

Find out

Voting on the Iraqi constitution

The voting on the Iraqi constitution has apparently gone well, in that many people voted. I'm trying to find figures to compare turnout in this election and the previous one, but it's not easy.

This is mostly because the provisional figures released so far seem a bit all over the map. This morning Juan Cole was blogging about possible fraud in Nineveh because of the allegedly strong yes vote in a province that was expected to split roughly 50/50.

His comments seem to be based on the numbers given by Yahoo

NINEVAH (Mosul)

• Yes: 326,774, (78 percent)

• No: 90,065, (21 percent)

• Disqualified votes: 2,965 (less than 1 percent)

• Votes counted: 419,804 votes, from 475 of the 500 polling stations counted so far. (Turnout percentage unknown.)

CNN however are reporting a different set of numbers

"A senior Iraqi official said on Monday that while 424,00 of the province's 778,000 voters said "No" to the charter, this fell short of the two thirds necessary to reject it."

These numbers could both be accurate, but only if the uncounted 25 polling stations Yahoo reported had 300 000 voters between them or 12 000 each, which seems unlikely.

The basic point I'm trying to make is that the numbers coming out of the preliminary counts are not reliable. The same sort of thing happened during the first election. In the circumstances it's probably better if officials on the ground keep their mouths shut until they have some solid news to report.

The rumour mill will inevitably lead to allegations of vote rigging when the revised numbers are reported, especially if (as looks likely) two provinces have voted no by more than 2/3rds with Nineveh more or less tied. The extremists will find plenty of people willing to believe the ballot in Nineveh was rigged.

One thing that does seem to be suggested by the numbers is that the pattern of voting has changed significantly. Continuing with Nineveh province... The Wikipedia states that there were 165 000 voters in January (assuming those who voted in the national election also voted in the local one). This suggests that the residents of Nineveh have become much more likely to vote.

However even with what is widely reported as a surge in Sunni participation the overall turnout is apparently barely higher this time than in January. Since Sunni's make up 20% of Iraq it seems that for every ten new Sunni participants the process has lost about eight other Iraqi's. This could be because in provinces where the overwhelming majority are going to vote yes many people feel they're not going to bother. Or it could be because some people have lost faith in the government. I expect it's a bit of both.

Problems and Perspective

Now terrorists and criminals aren't really like for like. But it's good to see the Dutch police cracking down on both. Compare and contrast

Grenades and Flamethrowers

Attacks on the Government

All of which makes me think that

a) Islamic radicals aren't the only worrying people at large in Holland
b) The Dutch police seem to be doing a decent job

Great Books for Children

Well OK, so far there's only one. My former housemate and great friend Frances' Fly By Night but I promise you it's great.

And she's got a contract for another three. But don't take my word for it, try reading this

Football Finance

By and large I've been impressed by Simon Jordan's columns for the Guardian. His latest though doesn't make much sense. Here are a couple of key quotes

"'fans pay the players' wages', but fans need to know gate receipts don't come anywhere near doing that. This whole debate needs to refocus on one thing: salaries and their effect on club budgets. It's an unsustainable business structure - you wouldn't see it anywhere else - but it's a situation clubs created, and one we have to deal with."

He then gives three main points to explain the position.

1. If you've got a bigger stadium you can charge less. That's why Real Madrid are cheaper than Chelsea (their stadium is twice the size)

2. Football is good value compared to theatre

3. If you buy a season ticket things get cheaper. Those who want to pick their matches should pay for the privilege.

None of these points explain why football clubs need to charge so much, when they could be trying to cut wages. To address the points in the easiest order

2. Football is good value compared to theatre
- but lousy value compared to the Cinema or a Playstation 2. The point is that's not the market they're in. Few people say 'Crickey, £45 to see Chelsea vs West Brom, I think I'll nip down the West End and see what's on at the Old Vic'. A football club's competition is a) football on TV, b) other leagues of football c) rugby, cricket, athletics - and it's lousy value compared to all of them.

3. If you buy a season ticket things get cheaper
I have a certain sympathy for this one, right up to the point where he writes "If Selhurst Park held 80,000 and I knew I was going to fill it every week I could charge £5 for an adult. But it doesn't: we hold 27,000, and it never fills."

Right. So the walk in, casual fan isn't wanted because he wants to pay less than the current price. Never mind that the marginal cost of an extra fan is presumably close to 0 (the amount of cost incurred when attendance rises from 21345 to 21346) and any money earned is additional profit (or lower losses). Easyjet have made clear how easy it is to sell tickets at variable prices. I'm sure football fans would do the same - x on the door, a bit less a few days in advance, a lot less some months in advance and so on.

1. If you've got a bigger stadium you can charge less
Or to put it another way. If you've got a bigger stadium you can afford more in wages, which brings better players which fills the bigger stadium. It's a virtuous circle which starts by 'playing good football and winning games'. If Madrid charged £45 a stadium their attendances would fall. If attendances fall by more than the price increase they lose money and the circle goes into reverse - falling receipts, lower wages, worse players, lower attendances, falling receipts... They don't charge £28 out of the goodness of their own hearts, they charge £28 because after that profit starts to drop.

The point Jordan doesn't want to make is that entire divisions of clubs pushed wages up to ridiculous levels and no-one wants to be the first to cut them. I was impressed that Southampton had massive pay cuts written into their players contracts in the event of relegation. If they manage to come back up they should make sure they use the opportunity to keep the wages lower.

Sunderland hammered their wage bill after their relegation as an alternative to bankruptcy. They're now back in the Premiership with an awful squad and will probably go back down. But if they start spending big money they'll probably be down anyway, and they certainly won't be making a profit. Better a few years of profitable yo-yoing while they wait for reality to catch up with a few more clubs than a season or two of mid-table survival and the arrival of the recievers.

It's no coincidence that 'big clubs' tend to have big stadiums. At clubs like Newcastle or Liverpool it's not true to say that ticket sales don't cover the wages. Wages at these clubs tend to be around 50% of costs while ticket prices are close to 50% of revenues. They're still too high, if I was in Jordan's position I'd be pushing pay for performance, share options and schemes like EVA payments which delay payment for a few years to increase loyalty. It might mean settling for a weaker aquad in the short term, but if the game keeps going the way it is there will be few clubs with strong balance sheets around in 3-5 years (there aren't many now) and a well run profitable business could clean up - at the bank and in the transfer market.

Good stuff in Chile

In the absence of any other information on this than this article I'd say this sounds like a fine idea.

Become a multi-millionaire, buy vast amounts of land, let it return to it's natural state.

I'll try and find out if anyone at work knows any more about this. Seems like our kind of guy.

The media stirs

The BBC has picked up on the UN's decision to try and talk the Iraqi government out of changing the rules ahead of the referendum. Full story here.

Meanwhile on CNN filed in the 'other things happened in Iraq' section of this story we learn that the rule change may have happened last week.

"Parliament voted last week to change how that law would be interpreted. The new rule would require opponents to get two-thirds of registered voters to vote no, instead of two-thirds of ballots cast, the source said"

Come on guys, it's not like this happened in one of the bits of Iraq it's hard to report on. It happened in Parliament, which I'm pretty sure announces it's decisions.

Meanwhile I still don't understand why they even tried this in the first place. Most of the smart money seems to think that the Sunni will only manage a no vote in two provinces, not three. Or maybe the constitution isn't as popular as the western media have been suggesting. I have no idea.

Zimbra

Got shown the Zimbra demo at work today.

One of those web changing moments, when you see a technology and realise that you know what things are going to be looking like for the next few years.

Return of the Phantom

Despite yesterday's events in Iraq the major media outlets have spectacularly failed to cover it. Odd, since it seems to be the biggest thing to hit the country since the constitution was drafted - and that got loads of press.

Anyway, on the constitution itself I found my way to these posts by Riverbend who highlights the fact that an awful lot of the constitution is made up of grey areas.

It seems inevitable that the constitution will immediately be followed by a merger of the three Kurdish provinces (this has effectively happened already) who will then be able to produce their own constitution and raise their own army (these things have pretty much happened too). During the first round of elections in Iraq the Kurds organised a parallel referendum on independence which passed resoundingly. I wonder if they'll decide to stay inside Iraq in the near term, or immediately seek to break free and whether they'll claim Kirkuk if they do.

In exchange for not having to fight *another* war it's possible the resulting government in Baghdad might let them go, but whatever happens it's unlikely to be pretty.

The odd thing is that as far as I know a Kurdish state would be a pretty secular place - the kind of Islamic democracy that was originally envisaged for Iraq as a whole. On the other hand, it will be potentially ethnically riven depending on how the Arabs and Turkmen living in the three provinces feel about it - probably not good.

The flip side of this is the possibility of large, heavily islamic provinces emerging in the South of Iraq. These areas would come to resemble Iran, with the big losers being women, secular moderates, non-Islamic groups and perhaps most worryingly the Sunni minorities in these areas.

That leaves the rest of Iraq as Baghdad plus the Sunni provinces. A weak centre surrounded by antagonistic regions, the North having declared virtual independence and the south exercising a theocratic hold over what was once a secular city. The economy will suffer until the oil revenues start flowing creating the kind of narrow industrial base that makes elites rich and keeps the rest poor.

Not too clever really. Especially if any of these traumatic uphevals make the violence worse.

The Phantom Election

Maybe it's just me, but I've heard barely a whisper of the coming Iraqi referendum on the news. Odd, because there's a chance that the whole assembly > constitution > referendum > elections > democracy process could fall apart.

I'm going to leave that opening paragraph because I thought it was true I've just gone to check for news updates and I find this (posted about an hour ago)

I was planning to write a much longer post on this, but this kind of throws things into the air. It is in effect a coup by the Parliament against the law it operates under. Having done this, there is nothing at all to stop the Parliament passing the constitution by itself, or cancelling forthcoming elections or well anything it feels like. It's a powergrab, by which the ruling parties have pushed through their constitution in a move clearly intended to disenfranchise those opposed to it.

Now there is the point that the Parliament was elected, but Parliaments exist by the sufferance of the people and are expected to do what they're entrusted to do and no more. The Transitional Adminstrative Law deliberately kept the Parliament weak by limiting it's term (till the November elections) and it's remit (agree a constitution, reconstitute government). This certainly isn't what it was elected to do.

So what is this likely to mean for the aforementioned assembly > constitution > referendum > elections > democracy process ? My ten cents is that it makes it much less likely that the process will result in peace, or even a curtailment of the insurgency. I can't believe that there will be anything other than a boycott of the constitutional referendum in the Sunni provinces now. Their only remaining option is to deny the vote legitimacy by witholding their support. When you agree to a political process you assume that all parties will play by the rules - that seems to have gone out of the window with this.

I suspect that this sets Iraq onto a longer and darker course than it was on previously, if such a thing is possible. If the Iraqi Parliament see this through it will deepen the insurgency, providing a legitimate grievance to a vast swathe of the nation who so far have not sympathised with the armed opposition.