Dogs are animals of integrity. We have much to learn from them.
Year: 2009
A gift from a friend of the Blog
Some of you may have noticed that at the head of the right-hand column on the Blog we have a new image. This arrived the other day and is from the ‘drawing board’ of Neil Kelly who is one of nature’s more creative fellows. Anyway, here’s the image in a slightly larger format. Thanks Neil!
By Paul Handover
Sometimes we think that we know nothing and feel that we having nothing to contribute; then, on reflection, we realise that, in fact, we do know something and that maybe it is worth sharing. This is perhaps the opposite of the paradox that the more we know, the more we realise that there is to know. Is a little knowledge a dangerous things? Possibly, if used with a cavalier attitude. In the end you, the reader, will decide.
A couple of months ago, Paul Handover described on this blog some details of his Piper Cub aircraft. Although I knew of his post, having skimmed it at some time, I had missed a coincidence which now triggers me to think about my limited knowledge and experience of the Piper Cub!
This makes me proud to be human!
As their website explains:
Operation Migration has played a leading role in the reintroduction of endangered Whooping cranes into eastern North America since 2001. In the 1940s the species was reduced to just 15 birds.
Operation Migration is a founding partner of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP), the coalition of non-profit organizations and government agencies behind the project to safeguard the endangered Whooping crane from extinction.
Want to get involved? Here’s how.
Remember the film ET? Just look at this next picture …
Red-letter weekend?
Dimitry Medvedev, President of Russia, hitherto regarded as something of a stooge for “Czar” Vladimir Putin, recently made an extraordinary attack on those trying to rehabilitate Josef Stalin, who has strong claim to be the greatest mass-murderer and originator of human misery in history.
On the face of it, it seems extraordinary that anyone in their right mind could possibly seek to rehabilitate such a monster, but for many Russians he represents “the good old days”, when Russia was “great”, and in particular the dark days of WWII, when he is supposed to have “saved” Russia from the Nazis.
This last of course ignores the small detail that those who saved Russia were mostly young boys in Red Army uniforms who faced down the Wehrmacht in Stalingrad and elsewhere in unimaginably-terrible conditions.
However, despite being an “international communist”, Stalin “saved” Russia by appealing to nationalist sentiments. As this great country is once more going through tough times, the Russian conservatives, headed by Putin (“the loss of the Soviet Union was the greatest tragedy of my life”) have been seeking to play upon nationalistic sentiment by rehabilitating Stalin.
Now, nationalism is the most destructive of forces (apart perhaps from those inspired by “God”), and so we have a lot to fear from the extreme Russian version. But Medvedev has pricked the bubble in an act of considerable courage, for many enemies of the Kremlin have died for less – witness Alexander Litvinenko in London …
So, hats off to Medvedev.
Is he deliberately distancing himself from Putin? We should follow these events closely. We need Russia as a friendly partner on the world stage, and not just because of her resources.
By Chris Snuggs
Do the last US 3rd Quarter GDP figures stand up to inspection?
The press recently celebrated the 3.5% annualized rise in the third quarter in reported U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The figures were widely reported with, for example, CNNMoney, carrying the following headline and opening remarks:
Economy finally back in gear
Government says GDP grew 3.5% in third quarter, ending a year-long string of declines and coming in better than forecasts.
I urge caution in interpreting these figures at face value. After all, the current GDP of the U.S. economy is simply the intersection of aggregate demand with aggregate supply.
As the figure below shows, GDP increases with increases in either the demand or supply curve, although increases in demand are accompanied by rising price levels while increases in supply push prices down and real incomes up.
The quarterly figures make clear that the increase in demand was driven almost entirely by the expansion of government spending; the other three components of demand – consumption, business spending, and net exports, were either flat or falling.
Government spending is inherently short-term; it does not create wealth or enable sustainable growth. In fact, neither consumption nor net exports create sustainable economic growth either. Only business investment in new productive equipment (which includes business fixed investment, new residential housing and additions to inventory) has the potential to create sustainable growth in U.S. GDP, and then only when the investment leads to a permanent increase in the productivity of the business, namely a rightward (increased output per input) or downward (decreased cost) shift in the Aggregate Supply curve.
And there was little chance that the reported increase in GDP resulted from a long-term increase in the productive capacity or efficiency of the U.S. economy, as Business Investment was soundly negative in the 3rd quarter of 2009.
By Sherry Jarrell
[P.S. Karl Denninger at Market Ticker also raised big question marks about these figures. Ed.]
Many ideas are more complex that we appreciate.
One of the great bonuses in being part of the author group of Learning from Dogs is that we are all having to dig in deeper on issues than we might otherwise do. Part of the weakness of our modern busy lives is that we run the risk of forming or reinforcing opinions ‘on the fly’. The modern media tends towards this approach. But on a Blog that strives to write about integrity it behoves us all to be more careful about what is correct if, indeed, there is a correct answer.
John Lewis first posed the idea of whether financial products should be regulated in terms of consumer safety, like your toaster! Sherry Jarrell then replied to that as a comment which was worth being made a separate Post. That Post then attracted comments and, again, in amongst them was another detailed reply from Sherry that has been made the subject of this Post. As implied, many of today’s issues are far too important to be left to the headline writers. Here’s Sherry:
When is a National Interest not in the national interests?
“The Guardian”, a British newspaper, ran a story on October 30th quoting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown as 
saying:
“If you have the chance for that to happen, it is in Britain’s national interest. But of course it may not happen, and there are other candidates as well. …“
This was in relation to the possible nomination of former British Premier Tony Blair as the first President of Europe as prescribed by the Lisbon Treaty, the EU’s attempt to rationalize its processes and – according to critics – take the EU forward on its seemingly-inevitable path to political union.
Now, a couple of things stuck me forcefully about this statement.
First, WHAT EXACTLY has choosing the first European President got to do with Britain’s national interest? Should we not be first of all concerned with EUROPE’S interest? Is a preoccupation with OUR national interest in the spirit of European partnership at all?
Secondly, HOW exactly could Britain’s national interest be supposed to benefit from the President being British? Would he somehow be expected to favour Britain? Perhaps swing lucrative aerospace contracts our way?
In other words, what Brown said was ridiculous, betraying a narrow, partisan view of what European cooperation is all about. Now I have many problems with the EU, but that doesn’t mean I like to see Britain taking such a parochial and frankly selfish standpoint.
I would feel no pride whatsoever just to see a Brit as President, nor would I expect or indeed wish any particular aspect of British national interest to be furthered just because the EU President was British.
On the contrary, I believe Britain’s image has immensely suffered with the current shenanigans involved in Whitehall’s lumbering attempts to push Blair’s candidacy, including reportedly sharp exchanges between Brown and other leaders 
at the current summit. It was – to me if apparently not to Blair and his advisors – blindingly obvious that the only way for Blair to have any chance of getting this post was to be humble, discreet, lofty and statesmanlike. Instead, we have seen reports to the effect that he would take the job “if it were big enough” and that various political worthies have been “sounded out” about whether they would serve under him in Brussels.
A large dose of hubris is in order I am afraid, and in any case Blair’s chances seem to be fading fast, not least because German Chancellor Angela Merkel is said to have become aware of how “unpopular Blair is in his own country”, in contrast to his international image as globe-strutting statesman.
Blair’s future does not interest me overmuch; I am more concerned by the current PM’s lack of judgement and statesmanship.
By Chris Snuggs
If there’s a strategy behind Karzai’s ‘win’, it’s pretty difficult to spot!
AFGHANISTAN: News from the Press on November 2nd revealed that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had phoned Hamid Karzai to congratulate him on winning the recent Presidential election.
“Yes,” I hear. “He is our ally in a war and has been re-elected. Quite normal.”
Yes, but, but …. the election was very seriously flawed – indeed rigged – mostly by supporters of Karzai.
In “The Telegraph” we read: “An inquiry by a UN-backed watchdog this week confirmed staggering levels of fraud, most of it in favour of President Hamid Karzai. It declared more than one million ballots suspect – a quarter of the total cast..”
So, many in Karzai’s party CHEATED. To what extent Karzai himself orchestrated all this is unclear, but HE IS THE LEADER, and if the Leader is not overall responsible, who is? Mr Brown and the UN have also called on Mr Karzai to “end corruption”.
To summarize, A) the Karzai regime is corrupt and B) it cheated in the recent elections.
Given this, WHAT ON EARTH are we doing CONGRATULATING him? Do we usually congratulate corrupt cheats, or only when they are Presidents?
Or perhaps this is traditional, accepted “Diplospeak”?
For us, the world needs honesty, which includes above all speaking the truth. The truth is, there is NOTHING to congratulate Karzai for and so it should NOT have been done. If this is “diplomatic convention”, then CHANGE the convention in the interests of honesty.
We are stuck with Karzai for the moment, but if the corruption continues, then we will lose the fight; the Afghan people will simply no longer support our presence propping up a corrupt regime. But being stuck with him does not mean grovelling, or that honesty has to go out of the window. Too much is at stake.
On Sunday, November 1st, a British bomb expert was killed defusing his 65th bomb on his last mission. The truth is (that’s what we seek, isn’t it?) that we are paying a heavy price to support a corrupt cheat; many will soon start to say “too heavy a price”.
By Chris Snuggs
[PS. Interesting article in the Financial Times advocating that the US shouldn’t commit to a surge. PPS. Another 5 UK soldiers killed in Afghanistan brings this year’s total to 92. Ed.]
Alan Carlin’s response to Patrice Ayme.
Learning from Dogs is very grateful for having Alan and Patrice argue this very important issue through the medium of this Blog. Because if there is one thing that has the power to overturn our way of life over the last 50 years, it is climate warming (as a result of man’s activities).
On the 26th October there was a Post published that contained Patrice’s reply to an earlier article containing Alan Carlin’s hypothesis. Learning from Dogs invited Alan to reply to Patrice and this is his contribution.
With one exception the recent comments by Patrice Ayme are typical of what climate alarmists/warmists so often say when presented with serious climate science by skeptics. They presumably do this in order to try to distract attention from their inability or unwillingness to respond to the scientific issues raised by skeptics or a desire to hide the weakness of their science. They appeal to alleged authority; they attack the opposition, often personally–anything to avoid discussion of the science.
In this case, the only exception is Ayme’s weird contention that there should not be a tropospheric hotspot in the tropics IF the UN GHG hypothesis should be correct. This is weird because there is actually rare agreement between most informed alarmists/warmists and skeptics that such a hot spot should be present IF the UN hypothesis is correct. So his contention that it is an “absurdity” puts him at odds with his much favored UN reports and with his views on the science of warming. For further information see Evans here (which is a link from the link I originally gave–but perhaps Ayme did not bother to read it before responding??)
As Evans points out this alleged hotspot predicted by the UN climate hypothesis is actually crucial to the UN hypothesis “because the same water vapor feedback that produces the hotspot in IPCC climate theory also doubles or triples the temperature increases predicted by the IPCC climate models. If the IPCC climate modellers just turn down the water vapor feedback in their models enough so their theoretical signatures match the observed warming patterns, then the predicted temperature increases due to projected carbon emissions are greatly reduced and are no longer of much concern.” So Ayme apparently did not realize that his statement that there should be no hotspot means that he believes that one of the crucial features of the UN climate hypothesis is wrong and hence that his views of the science are wrong.
I note that except for his weird statement on the hotspot, he makes no serious attempt to respond to or analyze my four fundamental scientific tests of the UN GHG hypothesis.
For a different view as to the objectivity (or lack thereof) of the IPCC see here.
Most of the remainder of Ayme’s comments are best ignored as attempts to distract readers from the fundamental (and telling) scientific tests discussed in my post.
Alan Carlin
By Paul Handover
Here in San Carlos, Mexico, we have good sunrises most mornings. But this one made me grab my camera. The picture is unedited. Very simple things can provide a huge amount of pleasure.
Taken at 06:15 local time (GMT -7hrs) Camera is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ8
By Paul Handover
Learning from Dogs 