On January 27, 2020, Game Stop was caught in a classic short sellers squeeze which forced the stock price of Game Stop to soar and the market to "crash" as short sellers covered their positions. I'm not going to go into any of the details concerning this. Its very complex. What I will touch on, is the reaction of a financial pundit. In exacerbation he sarcastically remarked (paraphrased): "Where where the fact checkers"!!!
The financial pundits reaction was monumental. First, in publicly recognizing that the social media platforms can be utilized for market manipulation. Second, that a person who would normally be considered "outside" the world of hypercritical political hysteria would actually reference the atrocious use of "fact checkers" by social media platforms to suppress conservative thought, even to the point of de-platforming Parler.
The financial pundit's remark was sarcastic. I speculate that it was an extension of social media platforms use of questionable "fact checkers" repressing conservative speech under the claimed auspices preventing, as some examples: "fake news" and "misinformation". "Fake news" and "misinformation" are the "bread and butter" of those participating in stock market manipulation. In conclusion, the financial pundit was highlighting the absurdity of social media platforms using "fact checkers" to suppress conservative thought, but then allowing stock market manipulation to occur through the use of their platforms without "fact checking" content control supervision. A double standard.
Civil Rights as a concept has been corrupted. Originally Civil Rights was about achieving "equality". Martin Luther King, in his "I Have a Dream Speech" proclaimed: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." (emphasis added). Today, "equality"
is not the objective anymore for achieving Civil Rights. Instead, the
objective is now to use race (the color of their skin) under the concept
of "equity". King would be very disappointed.
Biden through his inaugural address and his recent Executive Orders has essentially legitimized this race based "equity" approach and made it official government policy.
I watched the Presidential debate last night between Trump and Biden. The debates are supposed to inform the viewer of what the candidates stand for so that the viewer can make an informed decision on who they will vote for.
So even though, I watched the debate, it turns out that I missed a lot. Sometimes it takes a bit of time before partisan points surface that
demonstrate that last night's debate once again proved to be another blatant anti-Trump forum.
On Tucker Carlson Tonight, Tucker played a video clip where the moderator (Kristen
Welker) pointed out that Trump had made a derogatory comment concerning
Dr. Fauci and asked Trump to explain. Fair enough.
It turns out that both Biden and Harris had also made derogatory remarks
concerning Dr. Fauci in the past that I was unaware of. Tucker showed these illustrative video clips. How come the moderator never pointed out to Biden his derogatory
remarks concerning Dr. Fauci and asked him to explain?
The video clips Tucker showed, since they spanned several months, had
Dr. Fauci making inconsistent statements: like wear a mask, don't wear a
mask. I don't have a problem with those types of inconsistent
statements since how we approach the virus changes over time as we learn
more. What I do have a problem with, is that Biden has insincerely claimed
to strictly follow "the science" and used that "hammer" to vilify Trump, by saying that Trump has not been following "the science" and is therefore unfit to be re-elected. Seems that it is Biden, by misusing facts who is unfit to be elected.
Last night, the vice-Presidential debate occurred. It quickly became obvious (as it did with Chris Wallace being the moderator of the Presidential debate) that the moderator, Susan Page, was a Democratic sympathizer. She asked, if you can even call it "asking", adversarial questions of Mike Pence, the Republican vice-Presidential candidate. In asking these (fake) questions, Ms. Page was asking Pence questions which he and Trump had previously answered. It is as if Ms. Page appeared to be reading from an assumed Democratic playbook were each moderator and media must continuously ask these questions over and over again, despite the fact that they were previously answered numerous times. Seem to be a case of repeating the same lie over and over again so that the electorate will eventually accept the premise that Republicans are bad.
That Trump won't accept a Biden win and will attempt to remain in office.
That Trump won't condemn the false claims by Democrats that he supports White supremacy.
Charlottesville.
On point #1, Pence did a very effective response to Ms. Page where he highlighted how the Democrats abused the power of the state to spy on the Trump campaign in 2016, the Russia collusion hoax, the Mueller report, and the attempted coup of Trump through the impeachment process. It has been the Democrats who have refused to accept the results of the 2016 election. The Democrats are now trying to disrupt the 2020 election process. Hillary Clinton even said that if Trump wins, that Biden should never concede.
Katie Pavlich, of Fox News, concerning the debate moderators, noted that
one needs to also examine the controversial questions that the
moderators are avoiding to ask. She noted that the moderators are not asking questions related to public controversies that would make Democrats "uncomfortable". Examples, gun control, illegal immigration, health care for illegal immigrants, eliminate Electoral College, abortion, defunding the police, and Hunter Biden. The electorate deserves answers from the Democrats to these questions so that they can make informed decisions.
As an interesting aside on Democratic illogic, the Democrats contend that the approval of Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court be delayed to after the Presidential election to give Americans a voice in selecting the President who will make the nomination. Absurdly, the Democrats refuse to release the names of potential Supreme Court nominees or to address the issue of court packing thereby depriving Americans of the ability to know what they are voting for.
Should there be a third debate, it will be interesting to observe whether the three topics posted above don't somehow magically re-appear as fake adversarial "questions". Will the moderators ask Biden any of the "uncomfortable" questions? The electorate deserves to know. It is the Democrats who are the threat to democracy.
A side notation concerning the unthinking unrelenting avalanche towards "social justice": Newsom signs law mandating more diversity in California corporate boardrooms.
Where is the concern that we have diversity over all aspects, such as
having 50% of the players of professional teams (football as one example) be
women or that a certain percentage of players on a basketball team be
short? Seems that most persons grandiosely advocating "social justice"
are really full of empty hot-air. First, they don't seem to comprehend that they are disingenuously fostering discrimination under the ludicrous proposition that they need it to end discrimination. Very Orwellian. Second, they don't really mean what they say
and they simply make gratuitous meaningless gestures to mislead the
public. Unfortunately, the public has yet to loudly call-out the likes of Newsom for this travesty.
Martin Luther King in his "I have a Dream Speech" proclaimed: "I
have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation
where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the
content of their character." Indeed, that was what the Civil Rights
movement of the 1960s was about; bringing equality. Consequently, a whole series of laws were passed to create a "level playing field". Today, that "level playing field" is being dismantled. The Civil
Rights has been corrupted, it is now about obtaining
preferential treatments that are now to be "entitled" based on alleged past "identity" grievances ("social justice"). King's dream of equality is being ruined.
"Proposition
16 seeks to repeal the provision of the California Constitution that
prohibits discrimination and preferential treatment on the basis of race
and sex in public education, employment and contracting. That provision
was put there by Prop 209 in 1996.
Little has been
said about how this repeal effort could have the unintended consequence
of furthering discrimination against women in college admissions."
The significance of this article is that there is a finally a degree of recognition (however small) of "unintended consequence"
in the media resulting from allowing the selective application of the law.
Usually, the media simple pushes the one-sided politically correct dogma
of the unrelenting need for "social justice" to end so-called "white male privilege". Now, through this article, we can begin to see the emergence of what could happen if we allow decisions based on "color of their skin" or other ambiguous criteria. Each "identity group" will begin to demand its so called "just share" and "protection" from the perceived adverse effects of any law. "We need a law to protect our XYZ community from the evils of ABC". Recall Orwell's: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
Should this downhill trend of allowing decisions to be based on arbitrary capricious vague
undefined rationale to achieved a vague undefined societal objective
continue, in the end, the rule-of-law will cease to exist.
Trump's performance at the Presidential debate held on September 29, 2020 was awful. He kept interrupting and would not let Biden speak. One of the quick immediate takeaways that others made was that Trumps constant interruptions actually helped Biden, as Biden was not provided the opportunity to make his infamous gaffes. Unfortunately, that is now water-under-the-bridge to Trump's detriment.
Time makes a difference. In reading the reviews following the debate, it emerged that the this "debate" was a continuation of the incessant barrage of pejorative "questions" by the anti-Trump media. Lou Dobbs, of Fox News, recently put together a montage of times where Wallace (the supposedly neutral moderator) started asking (four years ago) Trump about so-called White supremacy only to once again repeat that question at the debate. Trump had answered Wallace then, nevertheless Wallace went down the road of adversarial interaction demanding "clarification" from Trump. So it is quite unbelievable at the number of times Wallace had previously asked this question, yet he could not seem to "comprehend" Trump's response. Seems to be an example of Wallace playing stupid. Of course, at the time of the debate, I missed this as Trump was too busy interrupting.
Wallace also had the opportunity to insist that Biden answer the question of who he (Biden) would nominate to the Supreme Court. Biden told Wallace, in his face, that he would not answer that question. Essentially "kicking sand" into Wallace's face. Wallace never followed-up on that. Clearly, Wallace should have asked aggressively for "clarification". This same issue appeared with fracking. Biden one day says the is against it the next that he is for it. Yet Wallace fails to ask for "clarification". The purpose of these debates is to provide the voter with an opportunity to understand what the candidates for President plan to do. Biden, essentially stiffed the voters and Wallace failed to do his job, as moderator, of getting an answer from Biden.
Concerning Biden. Before the Presidential debate, Biden held several small scale interviews with reporters, where Biden only took a very very limited number of question. One such interview was absolutely appalling. It appeared as if the persons asking the questions were not real reporters but Democratic Party "operatives". None of the "questions" asked of Biden concerned issues such as fracking and/or the Supreme Court. The (fake) questions were soft-ball opportunities for Biden to condemn Trump. Biden disclosed nothing of substance. Wallace should be censured by Fox News for this lack of
journalistic integrity and outright bias against Trump.
---------------
The Wallace attack on Trump video has once again been deleted. That makes two times that the video has been subsequently "disappeared".
Video unavailable
This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.
Turkey is not a US ally. The Middle East is politically unstable. Consequently, the US needs to terminate its (unfortunate one-sided) alliance with Turkey so that the US is not "forced' to come to the aid of Turkey, a country which has not demonstrated any recent support for US interests. Furthermore, when ISIS was running rampant, Turkey refused to participate in bringing down ISIS. Now that ISIS has been largely defeated, Turkey amazingly finds the military capability to attack the Kurds. The Kurds recently were US allies. A very dishonorable act by Turkey.
Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote:
Why is the U.S. still an ally to Turkey? This is an excellent article, so I would encourage you to read it as I won't be highlighting it. The quick summary by Hanson: "Country opposes American allies in the region and befriends almost every U.S. enemy." I will however highlight the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. The US, in 45 years has failed to get Turkey to withdraw from Cyprus. That is a major failure in US foreign policy and also highlights Turkish disregard for world peace.
It may be even possible to compare the Turkish invasion of Cyprus with the current Turkish attacks on the Kurds. The Turks are demanding a "safe zone" in Northern Syria. Since the Turkish invasion of Northern Syria has just occurred, it would be premature at this time, to assume that Turkey would continue to perpetually occupy Northern Syria. But given Cyprus, it may happen.
In an earlier post I reviewed the baseless and unsubstantiated accusations leveled at Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh - US Supreme Court Nomination, Ford's Baseless Accusations. That post focused on the lack of evidence presented by the Democrats to support their vile unsubstantiated claims. I didn't delve too deeply into the Democrats lies, smears, bullying, and intimidation. Since then, I ran across an editorial that highlighted the extreme moral corruptness of the Democrats. That editorial appeared in the November/December 2018 issue of "The Philadelphia Trumpet". The Kavanaugh Hearing Reveal America's Lawless Spirit.
Mr. Flurry, in his editorial, wrote:
"Democrats in the Senate demonized Judge Bork in 1987 because he was a constitutionalist. In 1991, they falsely accused Judge Clarence Thomas of sexual assault for the same reason. Their smears against Brett Kavanaugh are more of the same.
Democrats opposed Kavanaugh and began vilifying him from the moment his name was announced. They tried and failed to fault his judicial record. Then they smeared him personally. Three weeks after President Donald Trump nominated him, a California Democrat named Christine Blasey Ford wrote a letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct at a high school party 36 years ago. Feinstein, rather than immediately informing the Senate Judiciary Committee and the fbi, waited until hearings with Kavanaugh ended. The day before the confirmation vote was to be held, she unveiled the accusations in a last-minute ambush.
Ford did not claim that Kavanaugh raped her, or even came close. Still, Democrats insisted that incident should disqualify Kavanaugh from ever serving on the Supreme Court. After a public prosecutor determined that Ford’s account was inconsistent, vague and uncorroborated by the people she said were at the party, Democrats looked for other accusers. They found three more women who accused him of sexual misconduct during high school and college, including absurd allegations of his being involved in gang rapes!
In decades of public service, this man’s moral character had never before been called into question. With zero proof that Kavanaugh was involved in any sexual assault, because of unsubstantiated accusations, Democrats demanded that his name be withdrawn. Senators and citizens insisted that everyone simply “Believe women!” They accepted everything his accusers said at face value and presumed his guilt—even though America’s entire justice system is based on presumption of innocence until proof of guilt. Democrats piled on Kavanaugh, universally treating Ford’s uncorroborated account as proof of a career-ending crime, and ripping this man apart! usa Today sports reporter Erik Brady wrote that Kavanaugh shouldn’t even coach basketball, let alone join the Supreme Court: “[C]redibly accused sex offenders should not coach youth basketball, girls or boys, without deeper investigation. Can’t we all agree on that?
It was astounding to watch the left act like strict moralists, appalled by any whiff of indecency—when they have been dragging America’s morals into the gutter for generations! Their hypocrisy is so monstrous, shameless and bold, it is shocking!"
...
"Hillary Clinton defended this viciousness in an interview with cnn. “You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about,” she said. “That’s why I believe, if we are fortunate enough to win back the House and/or the Senate, that’s when civility can start again.”
What a revealing statement! She says that until the left is back in power, there should be no civility in America! The left should protest, agitate, accuse, confront, scream, fight, kick—whatever it takes to reclaim power!
This woman almost became America’s president! What would have happened if she had? The radical left doesn’t control some of the biggest levers of power right now, yet it is still successfully sabotaging many aspects of American life, morally, culturally, intellectually, educationally and politically! It is astounding!"
The obvious conclusion is that for the Democrats, the ends justify the means. They will literally do anything, no matter how immoral or unethical to win.
The caravan of potential migrants seeking to enter the US has reached the US/Mexico border resulting in a spurt of news activity.
One major concern that I have had is that Democrats appear to act like the Borg from Star Trek. They spew only the party line no matter what. Independent thought, for Democrats, seems to be dead and gone. But there is always hope.
So I was hopeful the other day when I heard an interview between Trish Regan and Democrat Rep. Jim Himes. Ms. Regan introduced Mr. Himes as a "moderate" Democrat from a Northern state well away from states bordering Mexico. So I thought; goody, maybe I will hear some diversity of opinion concerning illegal immigration. Boy, was I wrong. In typical fashion he spoke of "undocumented" immigrants. Mr. Himes, as with all Democrats, refused to acknowledge that the immigrants were entering the country illegally. Mr. Himes, once again documents that the Democrats are like the Borg. Incapable of independent thinking that is divergent from Democratic talking points.
Switching to another thread now. This past Sunday there was some migrant activity near the Tijuana entry point into the US. The Washington Times and the Washington Post had two radically different takes on this rush to the border and the tossing of some tear gas canisters. The Washington Times had the picture of a bunch of men obviously moving towards the border, but no tear gas was visible. The Washington Times wrote: "The march, however, was dispersed by tear gas after some in the group
tried to force their way into the U.S. The Mexican government described
Sunday’s events as “acts of provocation” that were “far from helpful”
for the migrants’ objectives." Note the reference to “acts of provocation”.
In contrast, the Washington Post ignored the provocation. Instead they had a picture of a mother and crying child with the sob-story caption: "A little girl from Honduras stares into the camera, her young features
contorted in anguish. She’s barefoot, dusty, and clad only in a diaper
and T-shirt. And she’s just had to run from clouds of choking tear gas
fired across the border by U.S. agents." Nevertheless, the Washington Post is clearly seeking propaganda to generate emotional outrage
But why react to the Washington Post's obvious propaganda? The reason is that Amanda “Mandy” Ferguson Weyant was killed by an illegal immigrant on Thanksgiving day. The Washington Post has apparently ignored this story and the story of others who have been killed by illegal immigrants. So the Washington Post wants us to be concerned about this woman and her child being tear gassed while attempting to enter the US illegally, but has no concern over the emotional wreckage that illegal immigrates may generate in the US should they commit heinous illegal acts.
The progressive left maintains that it represents the people. I have always been amazed at this arrogant assertion since the people don't always vote for them. Should the people not for them, the progressive left cannot accept the reality of the people rejecting them. They whine (with great heart-wrenching anguish) that something must be wrong since the people could not possibly reject them.
The 2018 midterm election is over, the Democrats will soon assume control of the US House of Representatives. While watching the TV, a commercial came on. In that commercial the claim was made that the Congress now represents the people. What?
The Congress, when under the control of the Republicans somehow did not represent the people? It was the people who elected a Republican Congress. An unbelievable refusal by the progressive left to accept that the people could have voted for a Republican Congress in 2016.
The 2018 midterm election has also resulted in the progressive left actually making the claim, that if they didn't win; that the election was stolen. Take the case of Stacy Abrams who ran for Governor in Georgia. CNN ran a headline: Stacey Abrams says 'democracy failed' Georgia as she ends bid for governor. CNN quoted Abrams as saying:
"So let's be clear -- this is not a speech of concession, because
concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper," she
said. "As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede that. But,
my assessment is the law currently allows no further viable remedy. Now,
I can certainly bring a new case to keep this one contest alive, but I
don't want to hold public office if I need to scheme my way into the
post. Because the title of governor isn't nearly as important as our
shared title -- voters. And that is why we fight on."
...
"Make no mistake, the former secretary of state was deliberate and
intentional in his actions," Abrams said. "I know that eight years of
systemic disenfranchisement, disinvestment and incompetence had its
desired affect on the electoral process in Georgia."
Even Hillary Clinton made the very public assertion that if the election was "fair" that Abrams would have won. The Hill had the following headline: Hillary Clinton: Stacey Abrams would've already won ‘if she'd had a fair election'. However, sanctimonious Hillary (when running for President and expecting to win) publicly declared that anyone questioning the 2016 election results would be a "threat to democracy". See my post: Hillary Clinton - The Threat to Democracy. So when Hillary believed that she would win, the election process was fair and sacred. Now that Abrams has lost, Hillary's position (and by extension, the Democrat's position) is that the voting process was corrupt and that democracy has failed. The obvious conclusion from this is that the only fair democratic elections are those where the progressive left win.
Since the Republicans took control of the government in 2016 the Democrats have been making sanctimonious prostrations that every vote counts and that the integrity of the voting process needs to be protected. That has continued into the 2018 midterm election. The Democrats have now regained control of the US House of Representatives.
Of course every vote counts. However, what we have seen and continue to see are the Democrats aggressively pushing an agenda that creates opportunities for fraudulent voting. Whether fraudulent voting is a problem or not, is not known. However, my point is that the Democrats (despite their smug language) really do not want voters to be appropriately vetted and the voting process to have verifiable integrity.
Democrats routinely use the court system to stop the clean-up of the voter registration roles. The resulting inability to clean-up the voter registration roles makes the integrity of the voting process questionable.
Democrats do not want the citizenship of the potential voter to be questioned. Since posting point #2, I ran across an article where the Democrats are in the process of suing the Department of Commerce to have a proposed Census question on citizenship status deleted from the Census, even-though this question has histrionically appeared on numerous Census questionnaires. Deleting this question would obscure who is and who is not a citizen. The elimination of this question potentially hides citizenship status so that uncovering the illegal voting of non-citizens would be difficult and would reduce the integrity of the election process.
Democrats are opposed to voter ID requirements which obviously they should be in favor of based on their pious claim that every (legitimate) vote should count. If the potential voter is not properly vetted, the integrity of the voting results are suspect.
Democrats push for same day registration and voting, which makes voter verification difficult.
Democrats push for long periods of early voting and liberal policies concerning absentee ballots. On the surface this sounds great. After all everyone is being given an opportunity for easy voting. A commendable goal.
However, with the 2018 midterm election there were a couple of Republicans who "won" based on in-person voting at a brick and mortar voting location. They were even declared the winners by the media when the poles closed. Later, these Republicans eventually lost when the early voting, provisional ballots, and absentee ballots were counted.
Without going into extensive why-did-it-happen research, it would seem logical that the early voting and absentee ballots results should match the percentage results derived from in-person voting. It didn't. So one has to question why? I am not going to get into the "why" question, that would make for a lot of research. The quick easy (non-conspiracy) answer is that Democrats won in this manner because they had the better get-out-the-vote organization. Consequently, the Republican need to learn from this and to adapt.
Hurricane Micheal is relentless bearing down on Florida's Panhandle. A weather disaster is about to happen. The Washington Times reports: "Fla. Dems sue to extend voter registration period as hurricane approaches". Sounds reasonable on the surface considering the disruptions that hurricanes can create. But it is not.
The role of the court system is to interpret the law, not to modify it. It is up to the Florida State Legislature and the Governor to establish the voter registration period. Considering the adverse effects of the hurricane to disrupt the voting process, the Florida State Legislature and the Governor need to have an emergency session to extend the voting registration period. It is unknown if a Florida court has or has not acted to extend the voter registration period. Judicial activism needs to be extinguished.
Update 10/11/2018: According to CBS news: "Judge rejects Florida voter registrationextension- A federal judge rejected a push to extend Florida's voter registration deadline
because of Hurricane Michael, saying there's "no justification" to do
so. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ruled late Wednesday against the
Florida Democratic Party, which called the Republican-led response to
the storm's disruption confusing and inadequate."
The Washington Times recently published the following story: "George Soros-funded network drives anti-Kavanaugh activism". In reading that story it occurred to me that the Democratic Party has numerous resources available to it, such as contributors, money, private investigators, lawyers, etc. These resources could have been put to use by the Democratic Party to find "dirt" on Kavanaugh. Given the significance of the Kavanaugh nomination and the wild cacophony of the Democrats, it would seem to be a no-brainer that all these available resources would have been put to use. Whether they actually were or were not put to use is not known by by me. Nevertheless, the logical assumption would be that the Democrats would have put these resources to use and were unable to find any "dirt" that would otherwise corroborated Ford's (false) accusations. Since the Democrats were unable to find "dirt" it would appear that Ford's allegations were false. (Of-course the absence of corroborating data does not mean that there couldn't be some proof somewhere.)
Moreover, the Democrats have whined and howled in indignation that the FBI and/or Senate Judiciary
Committee investigations were incomplete. Do not be fooled. Soros and
the Democrats, as explained above, had the time and resources to find the supposed "dirt" on their own, if any
existed. They failed.
Since posting, another thought came to mind. This post focused on the Democrats inability to find supposed corroborating evidence that would add legitimacy to Ford's unsupported accusations even though they had that capability. Since this kerfuffle exploded onto the national stage, the media has also become involved in investigating the legitimacy to Ford's unsupported accusations. So far, to my knowledge, they have also not uncovered any new "dirt". Given the media's extensive capabilities in digging up "dirt" and their inability to do so, this would add further credence that Ford's allegations lacked substance.
Seems that it is somewhat difficult to find a simple solid color wallpaper for an Android tablet. I just bought the ASUS ZenPad and I was unable to find a simple one color wallpaper to replace the default wallpaper. In looking for how to replace the default wallpaper, it appeared that many others also had the same frustration. Given that, one would think that having a no wallpaper option would be easily available. Well it wasn't.
After doing some searching, I was able to find a plain black wallpaper at this website: Black Solid Color Background. This website also offers other solid colors. Of course I need to add the disclaimer that what worked for me, might not work for you.
Raqqa, the erstwhile capital of ISIS, has been liberated. Here is the New York Times article reporting on the event: Raqqa, ISIS ‘Capital,’ Is Captured, U.S.-Backed Forces Say. Good news one would think. But think again, this is the Middle East that we are talking about. The pending defeat of ISIS means that the "shifting sands" of current alliances will shift. That process appears to have started.
One would have hoped that the defeat of ISIS would be a step towards a more peaceful Middle East. Instead it appears that Iraq, Iran, and Turkey may begin to take coordinated military action to prevent the emergence of an independent Kurdistan. The Kurds deserve world support for an independent Kurdistan.
The recent election of Trump as the next US President has re-awakened the issue of military spending. Back in December 2010, I wrote: Casual Observations on Military Equipment/Deployment. Since the issue is once again current, I will re-summarize my casual observations.
My casual thoughts concerning the design and deployment of military equipment:
Following the Christmas mayhem, I decided to take a quick look at my Amazon wish list. In doing so, Amazon provided me with a list of games that they believed I would like to buy. Surprising, as I did did not research any games on Amazon. Then I remembered that Amazon monitors your internet traffic to feed you desired results. (That was one of the prescient take-a-ways of the film: Minority Report. Anyway, I digress.)
My post Christmas wish is that retail companies such as Amazon and Target implement one or more of the following retail policies.
Inform the customers (in big bold print) on the companies retail website of the product deficiencies. For example that the product will no longer work with the current version of MS Windows.
Allow customers to return products, no questions asked, for a full refund.
Withdraw from sale products that no longer function.
The underlying product manufacture should also provide a method for the customer to obtain a full refund in the event that the customer does not accept the odious "terms of service". Retail companies should refuse to sell any products that do not provide such an refund option.
In this case, it was recently revealed that some of the standard features included with TurboTax Deluxe have been disappeared. As in removed without informing the customer that these features where no longer available. I had just bought TurboTax Deluxe. Neither the box nor the installation process disclosed that Intuit had downgraded TurboTax Deluxe. Today, I received the following notice.
Even more incredulous is the duplicitous gobbledygook statement that: "Here's why we made the change. Over the years, we have worked hard to make it easy for you to choose the TurboTax product that is right for you and your unique tax situation. We want that choice to be clear and confidence inspiring. However, as new online and mobile technologies emerged, our products, and the tax scope and features they included, began to differ, leading to customer confusion. These differences also impeded our ability to introduce new innovations across our entire product line." Mr. Goodarzi seems to believe that Intuit customers are both confused and stupid.
Mr. Goodarzi goes on to state: "But good intent must be matched with great execution, and that is where we let you down. We have heard from many of you that you were surprised when you discovered the change. No one likes this kind of a surprise, so we are taking immediate action to make things right and help you through this transition year." Obviously the "surprise" was trying to pull a fast one on the customer. Well, there are two simple actions that Intuit could have done that would be customer friendly assuming that Intuit was actually ethical.
Restore the features that were secretly removed though an on-line update.
Allow the customer to upgrade to the Premier version for free.
Instead of a simple pro-customer solution Mr. Goodarzi proposes a "bait and switch" style solution where the customer must now pay an additional fee to upgrade to then get $25 back. Intuit apparently has difficulty with the concept of ethical behaviour. Getting your $25 refund. Also review this web-page: More information about the $25 cash back offer. Technologically, both Quicken and TurboTax are excellent products. The problem is that the marketing arm of Intuit is despicable.
Update: I actually ended up getting a $35 dollar refund after complaining that the on-line upgrade cost more than the offered $25 refund. So Intuit gets a +1 positive point. Hopefully, next year there will not be a repeat of this year's snafu.
