Day: January 11, 2020

Protests in Iran & Trump’s Response Hitting Democrat Narratives Hard

This is Incredible

And then there’s this

Michael Moore would be horrified by this but even more by this:

here is the translation:

To the brave and suffering Iranian people: I have stood with you since the beginning of my presidency and my government will continue to stand with you. We are following your protests closely. Your courage is inspiring.

Two reasons why this is important.

Lefties constantly call Donald Trump a dictator, however the only thing that people protesting against him risk is an invite on CNN or the other MSM outlets, particularly if you are republican, and the only thing a celeb risks by protesting Donald Trump is having too many job offers.

By contrast every single one of those Iranians protesting is risking their life

That’s what living under an “actual” dictator is like vs defining yourself as doing so.

2nd Point.

I’d like to remind everyone that early during Barack Obama’s presidency there were large scale protests against the regime. He could have sent a tweet like Donald Trump did.

He didn’t Barack Obama didn’t say a word, didn’t lift a finger instead he let the regime crush the protests and later sent them cash by the pallet.

Why you might think that he was not anti-war but just on the other side or something?

Closing thought. Let the record show that Pam Geller saw this and was willing to say this 10 years before anyone else dared.

Preserving freedom of reviews

There is a lot of debate on controlling free speech on the internet, specifically when that speech is hateful or controversial, and not surprisingly when it relates to a Presidential election. But free speech is also under assault when it comes to business, specifically bad business. The internet is increasingly where we research, conduct and review business, and when that business isn’t good, our bad reviews can carry significant weight. In the past, if a business wronged you, unless you were willing to file a lawsuit, the most you could do was tell your friends not to go there. The internet, and specifically reviews left on Google, Yelp, the BBB, and other websites, has changed that.

Because reviews have a lot of power, they can do a decent job changing behavior. This summer I hired a contractor to level out a low area of our property and cut up a bunch of trees. He came out, leveled the area, and finished about half of the tree work. Because he had another pressing job, and because I was not rushed on the trees, I said he could come back the next week to finish the job, and I paid him in full. Big mistake. I came back from a short underway five weeks later and the job still wasn’t done.

After trying to get him to respond via email and phone, I left a sharp, 1 star review on Yelp. I got a call the next day, we setup a time to finish the project, and I changed the review to 4 stars once the job was complete. Lesson learned: reviews are a good tool, and never pay in full for uncompleted work.

I just solved another dispute that took 2 months. I made a reservation for military travel, but a week before I had to change due to a change in our mission. I called the hotel to cancel, and was told they would give me a credit, as in, I could come back and visit them in the future. I asked for them to reimburse the government credit card instead, because I didn’t know when I would travel there. The gentleman on the phone said he would try.

Three weeks later, and no reimbursement. Calling them again, they said they would try. No change. I called the government credit card company, who called them asking for a refund. Still nothing. I paid the bill (government cards are linked to your personal credit, so you owe regardless) and filed a dispute with the card company. Still nothing.

Online it is then! First a 1-star review on Google. Then Yelp. Then filing a grievance with the BBB. After they ignored the BBB, the BBB rating plummeted from A+ to C-. Yay for me, but I was still out 100 dollars. Then, last night, an email appeared from the manager, apologizing for the issue and refunding my money. I’ll write him back tonight and update the reviews.

This is how reviews should be: opening a dialog to solve a customer grievance. It forces business to improve customer support, and if they ignore it, it warns others to avoid them at all cost. Amazon understands this, and the review system on Amazon is one of the huge drivers behind its now almost ubiquitous use in America. This free speech is under assault by businesses seeking to squelch reviews, in most cases with lawsuits. As there is an awful lot of trolls and others that leave negative reviews for no good reason, this is understandable.

I would offer a different take. Negative reviews are an opportunity for good customer service. They give business a chance to evaluate themselves against an exterior standard. Any reader of Peter Drucker knows that business must use external standards to evaluate their performance, and a negative review, even if unjustified in the business’s eyes, is that external standard. Rather than trying to squelch it via the justice system (something that will become increasingly harder with current legislation), businesses should relish the opportunity to turn an angry customer into a happy one.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Mr Prager’s Faulty premise

Today in my spare time every thing that I was about to tweet out (except for lame elephant jokes) are going to be posts instead

Just saw this from Prager U on twitter

I took the time to watch the video as all Prager U videos are generally worthwhile. Its argument that people don’t want to confront evil because it’s too painful to see is pretty good as is the comparison between the Iran Deal with the Munich Pact.

That being said it has a fatal flaw. I have to disagree with the premise of the That the Iran deal was one of the worst deals in history. This makes an assumption, and a rather ironic one.

It assumes that the weakening of the west, the empowering of Iran was contrary to the goal of Barack Obama and those who made this deal.

I submit and suggest that this assumption by Mr. Prager is due to the same blindness that he describes at the start of this video because I further submit and suggest that to Barack Obama and his team all of the consequences of the Iran deal Mr. Prager describes were features, not bug

Closing thought If you told me I would be writing that sentence about a US president 10 years ago I wouldn’t have believed you.

Boy George: Voice of Reality

It’s very difficult to predict things, particularly the future

Boy George, the lead singer of the eighties band Culture Club, is being accused of transphobia following tweets blasting those who adopt personal pronouns. “Leave your pronoun’s [sic] at the door!” he tweeted.

George’s tweet was met with outrage by many, and Boy George responded to some of the criticism.

“Do you not know what the **** pronouns are?” asked one user, to which Boy George replied, “A modern form of attention-seeking?”

If you told the me on the 80’s that Boy George would be the voice of reason in the 21st century I would have laughed till I had a rupture

Unremembered Gratitude, Gatez Misdemeanor, Occam on Iran, Manslaughter vs Murder Williamson goes under the fedora

There is a running gag in the TV show Maverick when both Brett or Bart Maverick after a long trip in a stagecoach or horse or whatever invariability when they get to a hotel they want a tub and hot water. As soon as it’s drawn invariability whatever lady they are paired with whether it is Connie Stevens or Kathleen Crowley appropriate the full bath from this which angers them to no end as a bathtub of water costs a dollar (the equivalent of $21.18 today) for it since someone has to haul the water, heat it and then haul it again to the tub one bucket at a time.

While California is doing it’s best to return their state to a land where a hot bath or shower is a luxury that most people can’t afford, which has been the norm the rest of us can be grateful that we live in an age and a land where such comfort is so common that it never occurs to be grateful for it.

Rep Matt Gaetz is getting a ton of flack for his vote with the Democrats on their Iran resolution in the house.

I can’t see the point of it, this resolution was symbolic, has no chance of becoming law and was about as meaningless as any that Pelosi has pushed.

After all we don’t throw Rand Paul or Mike Lee off the bus because their principles on foreign policy are different, perhaps Gaetz believes that on principle congress should not cede this power to the executive as a rule.

When he abandons the President or the Pro-life movement on something that actually matters I’ll worry but for now I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. After all people have the right to be wrong.

Had a bit of a twitter debate with a fellow who was insisting that we shouldn’t trust the US government info on the downing of that Ukranianian jet.

While there is nothing wrong with doubt Occam’s razor suggests that this was all about some panicked at the thought that Donald Trump would follow through almost at once, a perfectly reasonable explanation made more reasonable by Iran’s ducking and dodging on the investigation. Particularly with Iran doing all it can to obscure the site.

I’m wondering if those who are seeing a conspiracy here think that the pickets who shot Stonewall Jackson were actually Union spies under deep cover, after all they had the most to gain by removing him before Gettysburg…

One more thing about the jet business. I object to the use of “Murder” in describing what happened. Manslaughter or involuntary homicide would be more accurate. I suspect if the gunners knew it was a passenger jet they would not have shot it down, but given the situation it was irresponsible for Iran to let the jet go up.

Of course if you subscribe to the idea that Iran tipped us off and knew we weren’t hitting back because of it the command might have assumed they gave the battery folks a heads up. Very bad idea if so.

Finally Marianne Williamson has dropped out of the presidential race. A lot of people laughed at her but I am very relieved that she is gone.

In my opinion she was one of two candidates who had an actual chance against President Trump, not a great chance, but a chance.

You might ask why, and once all the candidates I think have a shot are gone I might give it, but until then I’ll just be satisfied that the President’s chances have improved considerably.