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What I only guessed to be a possibility on Tuesday night, and repeated as a guess here on Wednesday, has now been officially confirmed:
Jamaican police today confirmed that British-born Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer was murdered.
Next question, as Michael Jennings commented here yesterday, and which he also copied-and-pasted to his own blog: How about Hansie Cronje? Just to remind you of what Michael said:
I have always been very suspicious about the death of former South African captain Hansie Cronje in a plane crash in 2003. When someone as mixed up with gangsters as Cronje dies mysteriously, one tends to think the worst. I wouldn’t have thought that Woolmer was mixed up with gangsters. However, nobody would have believed it of Cronje (who had a reputation for being honest, upstanding, and God-fearing) until he was caught red handed. Secondly, perhaps the situation is that to enter the Pakistan dressing room is to be mixed up with gangsters.
I don’t think that Woolmer was mixed up with gangsters if by that is meant that he was personally involved in match fixing. More probable is that he was about to publish in a book what he had merely observed. But, who knows?
If this was a Poirot murder mystery on TV, the real killer of Woolmer would turn out to be someone entirely unconnected with cricket or with cricket betting, who killed him or who had him killed for entirely different and perhaps purely personal reasons.
But this is not Poirot on TV. This is for real, difficult though many are now finding all this to believe. Today, the entire Pakistan team was questioned and finger-printed by the Jamaican Police.
International cricket matches involving Pakistan now become more than somewhat ridiculous, and are likely to remain so for quite some time, even supposing that cricket’s administrators permit them to continue. It makes no sense at the moment to shut down the entire Cricket World Cup. What purpose would that serve? (At least Pakistan are now out of it.) Nevertheless, Ireland’s ‘surprise’ win against Pakistan on St Patrick’s day now looks more like a gift than an achievement.
England are looking well below what it would take to get very far in this competition, even if they do get past lowly Kenya tomorrow. Yesterday New Zealand thrashed Canada, and Holland were far too good for fellow minnows Scotland. Commentators will want to avoid words like “murdered” when describing such games.
Make Ken Livingston carbon neutral… stop him breathing
– Overheard at a Samizdata party the other day
Just thought I would share an extract from a letter I wrote to someone asking if I was ant-war or not:
Not all the contributors to Samizdata support the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is not an ‘editorial policy’. Some of us do and some of us do not.
I am no more anti- or pro-war than I am anti- or pro-knife. It rather depends what it is used for. There are justified wars and there are unjustified wars and in this imperfect world in which we live there are wars which are shades of both.
I am not a neo-con who supports anything the US or UK state does overseas because it is the US or UK state doing it. I spent a considerable time in Croatia and Bosnia in the 1990’s observing the war there at very close quarters indeed. That experience well and truly cured me of any residual pacifism or squeamishness about the fact there are many truly evil people in this world who need to be confronted with violence. In fact there are some people with whom the only reasonable form of interaction is to put 8 grams of copper jacketed metal through their skulls at 710 metres per second.
However I suspect that is not what you are asking me…if you want to know do I have a problem with just shrugging my shoulders at the fact a homicidal mass murdering tyrant with a history of invading neighbouring countries had controlled Iraq for two decades with some help from my tax money … well, I do have a problem with that and so I did support the drastic remedial action of ejecting Saddam by force on the basic and rather non-purist notion “the bastards are going to tax me to fund the volunteer military regardless, it might as well be used for something that actually reduces the sum total of evil in the world even though that is going to be messy as hell”.
Afghanistan on the other hand was a no-brainer: the Taliban governed state supported a direct attack on the USA, ergo the Afghan state was the one who actually initiated the war, not the USA.
Unlike many, I did not expect the aftermath in either Iraq or Afghanistan to be pretty but I did not (and still do not) see that as an excuse for giving the Ba’athists a free pass to keep gassing entire villages and feeding people they do not like into wood-chippers feet first.
Ideally the Iraqis themselves should have done for Saddam, but of course when they tried immediately after Gulf War Episode I, the wonderful George Bush senior left them hanging out to dry after having previously openly encouraged them.
So yes, I supported the war in Iraq (for rather different reasons to the US and UK govts, it must be said) because I find nothing libertarian about drowning out the screams of two decades of tortured Iraqis by holding a couple copies of Murray Rothbard’s ‘The Ethics of Liberty’ over my ears.
Who (approximately) said this?:
“Most people have no interest in liberty. The limit of their desires is a tolerable overseer.”
I ask not because I know and wish to show off, but because I do not but am curious. I found it here, and he would like to know too, but has so far had no suggestions.
AA Gill, the Scottish columnist and restaurant reviewer, has always come across in my eyes as a man who wears chips on his shoulders like military epaulettes, which for an upper middle class lad seems a bit odd. He does not like the English much, does he? Even so, read the article, as it contains some painful truths as well as some unfair bile. He makes the point that the English/British are not always great adopters of life in New York. I have been to the city many times and saw this clubby sort of behaviour a few times. We Brits do not seem to realise how rude we can strike Americans. When I read of Americans being cut short at dinner parties or insulted by Brit tourists, I cringe, even though I tell myself that I am not responsible for the behaviour of my fellow countrymen and women. I feel much the same way when I overhear some idiot in Paris or Milan refusing to speak the local language and assuming that everyone speaks English rather than French or Italian.
I would be interested to know what Jim Bennett, the Anglosphere man, makes of this sort of behavioural friction. It may be just a matter of Gill being an arsehole. But he may also have a point.
Today is ‘Budget Day’, when the UK government lays before Parliament the amount of money it needs to raise to pay for its spending. Since the days of William Pitt, Robert Peel and William Gladstone in the late 18th and 19th centuries, the length of the tax code has grown at a terrifying pace. I came across this from a firm of accountants commenting on today’s performance by Gordon Brown:
Since 1997, the UK tax code runs to more than 8,300 pages, twice as long as it was 10 years ago, and the second-highest in the world’s top 20 countries apart from India , according to the World Bank and PriceWaterhouseCoopers
(Wall Street Journal, print edition)
No wonder accountants love Gordon. There is a sort of unhealthy symbiotic relationship between the whole financial services sector and Brown’s tax morass: the finance minister increases the complexity of the tax code; the accountants make money explaining this to their clients and helping some people to avoid it where possible. This in turn creates a whole industry of people with a vested interest in complexity. A flat-tax, for example, would put a lot of these financial whizzkids out of business and force them to do something more useful instead.
At a recent discussion with City types about this, this point was made very clear to me. Assuming we have taxes at all, they should be summarised on two sides of A4 paper, tops. The cost savings to business and individuals would be enormous.
Today, Brown grabbed superficial headlines by cutting the standard tax rate to 20p from 22p and cut the rate of corporation tax to 28p from 30p. It sounds like a good step and there will be some net winners from this. Good. However, as is always the case with this sly and driven character, the details are less flattering. The removal of the 10p rate for low earners, adjustments to National Insurance and corporate capital allowances means the overall balance is neutral rather than towards a smaller state. The state will take about 45-46% of UK GDP, compared with 37% in 1997 when Ken Clarke was in Brown’s job (it is worth remembering that Clarke is regarded as a leftwing Tory, but in certain respects his record is pretty good, or at least not as bad as it might be).
Watching the House of Commons debate on Brown’s speech, several things struck me. Tory leader David Cameron was plainly rattled by Brown playing the tax-cut card – however bogus a ploy Brown’s is. It might – just might – be enough of a shock to the Tories to realise that competing over which party can push up taxes the most and not get caught might not be a smart strategy with the voters. Brown is trying to pose as a tax-cutter. How odd it is that the Labour Party is now trying to make the running in this direction. Even though it is all hooey, it is interesting to see how Brown’s gambit may pay off.
The whole point of this budget, as far as I can see, is in Brown trying to squash Cameron: stealing some of his ‘Green clothes’ while also trying to persuade middle-income voters that Labour is actually more of a tax-cutting party than the Tories.
Even if this is utter rubbish – it is – the very fact that Brown wants to create such an impression is interesting. I am increasingly coming round to the view that libertarians and free-marketeer Tories should let Cameron realise that they prefer to keep in Labour than let the Tories win on a Big Government agenda.
Yesterday, I came across this story, about the late and much lamented former England international cricketer and cricket coach for Pakistan, Bob Woolmer:
Speculations are rife about foul play being involved in Pakistan coach Bob Woolmers death. Reports indicate that some current senior Pakistan team members might have fixed both matches, against West Indies and Ireland.
It is being debated in cricketing circles that he could have been killed to cover up match-fixing by the Pakistani team. The Pakistan team would not be allowed to fly back home till the investigations are over.
And, although I never blogged about this yesterday, I did talk about this yesterday, while surrounding by Iain Dale who at least pretended to be interested, and by three young Conservative ladies who almost went to sleep with excitement. This was on DoughtyStreetTV last night, by way of mere introduction to saying how very much I had enjoyed reading this short but sweet recollection by Peter Briffa, about how Woolmer was one of his teachers at prep school. We have not, I said, heard the last of this story. I also said there would be a tax cut, although I cannot recall if I actually said it might be income tax. So, I had a pretty good night of it.
Because, the Woolmer story has now erupted from the recesses of the internet and gone global:
NEW DELHI: Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer, found dead a day after Pakistan’s shock defeat at the hands of Ireland, was murdered, police have confirmed. Although the Pakistan Cricket Board has been claiming that the autopsy conducted on Woolmer was inconclusive, sources, according to Times Now, have confirmed that investigators have indeed said the coach was murdered.
In fact, the Jamaican Police is said to be already ascertaining the whereabouts of some of the Pakistan players at the time the murder could have taken place. Sources confirmed to Times Now that further questioning of Pakistan players is on the cards as well.
The confirmation comes soon after allegations by former Pakistan pacer Sarfaraz [wrong spelling – should be “Sarfraz”] Nawaz that Woolmer was murdered by the betting syndicate. The outspoken Nawaz has said that almost everybody in control of the game is involved in betting and Woolmer was perhaps about to reveal all in a book.
Since they spell Sarfraz Nawaz wrongly, I cannot help wondering if they have any other of their facts wrong, such as little details like: “police have confirmed”.
For, on the other hand, there is this, from Woolmer’s wife:
“No I don’t see any conspiracy in his death. I am aware that his death is being viewed as a suspicious death. He had nothing to do with the match fixing controversy and any such person being involved is highly unlikely. We never got any threats as far as I know.”
I await developments with extreme interest. Not least because, whatever the truth of these now very noisy rumours, they do rather put this ruckus in a somewhat different light, do they not?
As for the mere cricket, try reading this.
UPDATE: The BBC now confirms that Woolmer’s death is being treated as “suspicious”.
“I love you, and I am a socialist”
This is what I, via the wonders of television, watched being said to David Cameron.
A young doctor made this comment to Mr Cameron when this leader of a British political party turned up at a demonstration of doctors and, whilst denouncing the Labour party government for not providing jobs for all qualified young doctors, promised “every single one of you” a job (or words to that effect).
To some people the above proves that Mr Cameron is a good leader of the Conservative party, to other people, such as myself, the above shows that David Cameron is not the leader of a ‘Conservative’ party at all.
We see the same facts but interpret them differently.
I recommend the Institute of Economic Affairs latest publication, Patricia Morgan’s ‘The war between the State and the Family: How government divides and impoverishes’.
This is a work in the tradition of such writers as Charles Murray showing how the combination of various government benefits and schemes (rather than any one benefit) have helped undermine the traditional family and increased welfare dependency and poverty, both in Britain and in other countries.
One of the important elements of this little work is that it shows that many of the very people who denounce the increase in inequality (for whilst there has been no great increase in absolute poverty, as the income of a person on benefits today is at least as high as that of many working people in the 1940’s, there has been an increase in inequality) in various Western nations have supported the policies that have undermined families and increased inequality.
Also the work shows how the targeting of the ‘truly needy’, something done by Conservative governments from the start of the 1980’s onwards by, contrary to media reports, increasing government support for such people, had very bad consequences.
Many libertarians may be wary of someone like Patricia Morgan who clearly supports the old style family of wife looking after the children and husband bringing home the money: the dream of the Victorian working class which, by the end of the century, they had largely achieved, and this suspicion may be increased by Dr Morgan’s support for favourable treatment of the traditional family by the tax system; which was something that was only important in a few decades after the World War II – as before the war the majority of families did not pay income tax. But her arguments should not be dismissed out of hand simply because she is a “reactionary”.
Patricia Morgan argues that what has happened over the last few decades in Britain and some other nations (the vast increased in the percentage of births out of wedlock, the growth in one parent households, and the vast growth of dependency on money from the government) is not some ‘natural’ example of ‘social evolution’, but has been driven by government policies – policies of governments of parties of both “left” and “right”.
Certainly Dr Morgan may be attacked for implying that everything was O.K. with the family before the state became involved (as I have stated above the situation where the vast majority of families earned a decent income and were free of government support and abject poverty was an achievement of economic and social development over the Victorian period, it was not always so).
Also Patricia Morgan can be attacked for a Chicago school style ‘economic man’ approach where human beings react to monetary incentives almost (although not quite) to the exclusion of other factors.
However, one does not have to believe that the growth in government support has caused all the negative developments, in Britain and other lands, over the last few decades to believe that it has helped cause them.
With the advance of technology and economic development over the last few decades families should be stronger and poverty should be much less. Just as family life was vastly better in 1901 than it had been in, for example, 1837. Yet who would argue that families are stronger now than they were in say 1960?
Also the changes in behaviour (not just in Britain, but in such nations as the United States, Australia and New Zealand) can often be dated back to the specific years in which there were changes in the benefit structure, and (in the case of the United States) certain changes in benefit structure can be argued to have achieved the ‘impossible’ task of, in certain respects, turning the clock back.
Whilst this does not prove Patricia Morgan’s case beyond all doubt, it does mean that the case of this lady is worth a look.
The webcast has not yet started but will be here when it does.
2218 GMT: T minus 0 seems to have been pushed back to 2330 GMT. I will report as I get news.
2225 GMT: T minus 0 is now set for 0005 GMT; webcast is to begin at approximately 2305 GMT.
2300 GMT: There will be two burns of the second stage, separated by about an hour. The second burn is strictly a test. In operation it would be a correction or plane change or circularization burn. Most importantly, this will prove they have an engine that is restartable in microgravity. This is not as easy to do as you might think…
2307 GMT: Web cast is now live.
2317 GMT: Fuel and oxidizer loads of the first and second stage are in progress. The video signal is having some problems however, as I am sure any watchers will have noticed!
2328 GMT: First stage LOX fill completed.
2331 GMT: First stage fuel load completed.
2336 GMT: This just in: “Media call note that the webcam problems are unknown and this is what you all may be stuck with.”
2339 GMT: Both stages fully loaded with Kerosene (RP1), LOX and Helium tank pressurization .
2348 GMT: T-218 now, Helium top off. The are having some telemetry probs with the stage 1 recovery ship… which has just now been solved.
2350 GMT: All operator stations report ready status for terminal countdown. Cleared for launch!
2356 GMT: Entering terminal count! T-10.
0006 GMT: Terminal count abort after engine ignition. Impressive that they could stop it here, sad that they had to. Will report as I here more.
0016 GMT: This is amazing. They are recyling to T-10!!! I have *never* in my life seen such a thing! Ignition has always been the point of no return or at least a full scrub. I stand in awe.
0021 GMT: Shutdown was due to chamber pressure being 1% low. There was apparently a fair amount of swearing going on… they may still try for a launch. Range is okay with a recycle.
0044 GMT: They are well into the recycle for a second try. Count is still in a hold at T-16 while they recycle.
0056 GMT: The clock is running again. T-14:30!
0057 GMT: Cleared for launch again.
0101 GMT: Into terminal count again at T-10.
0112 GMT: Launch successful! Passing through Max Q. Now the big one coming up is Stage sep…
0114 GMT: THEY DID IT!!!! SECOND STAGE SEP AND FIRE: FARING SEP CONFIRMED!!!!! 117km altitude!!!!
0126 GMT: There is some discussion as to whether the first stage sep bumped the second stage engine bell. There were some signs of oscillation of the engine before it got out of range and the webcast terminated. So they made it into space but we will have to wait to find out if this test flight made orbit.
The Kwajalein launch abort of the SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket yesterday was caused by a minor timing problem that would not have affected the launch. According to Elon Musk:
The abort that occurred a few minutes before T-0 was triggered by our ground control software. It commanded a switchover of range telemetry from landline to radio, which took place correctly, however, because of the hardware involved, this transition takes a few hundred milliseconds. Before it had time to complete, our system verification software examined state and aborted.
I remember the first Space Shuttle launch attempt (STS-1) being scrubbed on first try due to… a software timing glitch between the redundant onboard computers. Certain classes of problems (like LOX valve freeze ups) are just in the nature of the beast, part of the learning curve of a new vehicle and launch control system.
The software fix has been uploaded and a launch attempt is scheduled for 1600 Pacific time today. As I type it is 17:37:32 UTC (GMT) and 10:37:32 AM PDT putting the launch about 5 hours from now. I will return about an hour before launch and give commentary as I did last night.
See you all later!
You have all heard excerpts from Khalid’s testimony… now you can
read the transcript.
Personally I think burying him up to his neck in a pig sty and leaving him there until he dies of excrement ingestion would be the minimum level of punishment he deserves.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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