Year: 2009

Where’s the truth about our economy?

There are many commentators out there who are doing a great job in challenging the drivel that is being put out by governments.  There is Simon Johnson and James Kwak of The Baseline Scenario, two very expert guys albeit with a tendency to be a little too technical for the masses.

And then there is Karl Denninger who Blogs as Market Ticker.  He is blunt and brave, clear and courageous.  His latest video is typical of the man.

It’s the reason that there are links to both sites on this Blog.

By Paul Handover

Is it me?

It’s very fashionable to attack politicians for showing a lack of integrity. Or is it the whole political apparatus? But slowly over the years, as more and more water flows under the bridge, it’s becoming more difficult to come to any other conclusion than that politics is corrupt, dysfunctional (in terms of societal needs) and motivated by the need to gain and maintain power.
Is there any evidence to the contrary? It would be great to see it.

It all seems a very long way from:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

By Paul Handover

Bighorn Sheep in the Coachella Valley Mountains

Integrity is the parent of Trust and having friends that you trust is one of life’s great riches.  (Indeed, isn’t a friend, by definition, someone you trust?)  Anyway, nearly 30 years ago I met this great Californian, Dan G., at a dealer meeting being held by Commodore Business Machines in New Jersey where their headquarters used to be.  I was giving a sales pitch extolling the virtues of my word processing program that Commodore had agreed to market through their dealer network.  I used the word “‘fortnight” which every good Englishman will know means two weeks.  Dan interrupted me by calling out, “Hey Handover, what’s a fortnight?”  The rest of the talk seemed to descend into a very funny expose of all the differences between our two versions of the English language.  George Bernard Shaw is attributed as describing the Americans and the English as ‘two nations divided by a common language‘ which seems to me a very apt observation.

Anyway, this is a complete digression to the point of this posting.  In my email box this morning is a most beautiful description of Dan coming across Bighorn Sheep.  I can do no better than to reproduce it in full.

Read the rest of the Post

Parenting lessons from Dogs!

Much too late to make me realise the inadequacies of my own parenting skills, I learnt an important lesson when training my GSD (who is called Pharaoh, by the way).  That is that putting more emphasis into praise and reward for getting it right ‘trains’ the dog much quicker than telling it off.  The classic example is scolding a dog for running off when it should be lots of hugs and praise for returning home.  The scolding simply teaches the dog that returning home isn’t pleasant whereas praise reinforces that home is the place to be.  Like so many things in life, very obvious once understood!

Absolutely certain that it works with youngsters just the same way.

Despite being a very dominant dog, Pharaoh showed his teaching ability when working with other dogs.  In the UK there is an amazing woman, Angela Stockdale, who has proved that dogs (and horses) learn most effectively when being taught by other dogs (and horses).  Pharaoh was revealed to be a Beta Dog, (i.e. second in status below the Alpha Dog) and, therefore, was able to use his natural pack instinct to teach puppy dogs their social skills and to break up squabbles within a pack.

When you think about it, don’t kids learn much more (often to our chagrin!) from other kids than they do from their parents.  Still focusing on giving more praise than punishment seems like a much more effective strategy.

As was read somewhere, Catch them in the act of doing Right!

By Paul Handover.