What are we going to do about Amazon?

I was reading a summary of Amazon’s bullying of Hachette — basically, Amazon used it’s near-monopoly power to shut out an independent publisher — and that, on top of it’s labor practices, tells me I need to find a way out of the Amazon trap before they become a full monopoly.

But here’s the catch: I live out in the boondocks. The nearest bookstore is a 50 minute drive away. I am addicted to the Kindle app — I can use my iPad to click on a title and get it zapped into my hands in 30 seconds, like magic. So I went searching to see if any other bookseller has similar functionality. Barnes & Noble has an app that will let you search their inventory and find a nearby store (I looked. Two hours away.) Powell’s is even worse: it assumes you will show up at their door in Portland, Oregon, and their app provides an interactive map to help you find your way around their store.

These are not useful for me.

Does Amazon already have an effective monopoly on e-books? To rebuke Amazon, am I going to get off my e-book addiction and start reading those old-fashioned things with ink and paper again?

He’s not a racist!

It’s another review of Nicholas Wade’s A Troublesome Inheritance.

Nicholas Wade is not a racist. In his new book, A Troublesome Inheritance, the former science writer for the New York Times states this explicitly. “It is not automatically racist to consider racial categories as a possible explanatory factor.” He then explains why white people are better because of their genes. In fairness, Wade does not say Caucasians are better per se, merely better adapted (because of their genes) to the modern economic institutions that Western society has created, and which now dominate the world’s economy and culture. In contrast, Africans are better adapted to hot-headed tribalism while East Asians are better adapted to authoritarian political structures. “Looking at the three principal races, one can see that each has followed a different evolutionary path as it adapted to its local circumstances.” It’s not prejudice; it’s science.

In addition to going over some of the sloppy science and devious distortions, the review links to other negative reviews of the book, too, but I appreciate its even handedness — it also cites at some length the positive reviews.

“Wade says in this book many of the things I’ve been saying for the last 40 years of my life,” said David Duke, the white nationalist politician and former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, on his radio program on May 12, 2014. “The ideas for which I’ve been relentlessly villified are now becoming part of the mainstream because of the irrepressible movement of science and genetics.” Duke devoted his “blockbuster” show to a discussion of A Troublesome Inheritance and celebrated how Wade bravely took on the “Jewish Supremacists” and their “blatant hypocrisy over race and DNA.” There have also been multiple lively discussions about the book at Stormfront.org, the online forum Duke created and one of the most visited white supremacist websites on the net with about 40,000 unique users each day.

Over at The American Renaissance, which the Anti-Defamation League identifies as a white supremacist online journal, dozens of articles have been published about the book over the past two months. “People who understand race are clearly rooting for this book,” wrote Jared Taylor, founder and editor of the publication. Other white power advocates see the book’s arrival as a call to battle. John Derbyshire, a self-described white supremacist and former columnist for the National Review, wrote triumphantly, “Wade’s calm, brave assault on the enemy’s lines will likely be repulsed, but not without enemy losses, making the next assault more likely to break through.”

See? Glowing reviews! Doesn’t that just compel you to rush out and buy the book?

“Coming Out Atheist” is coming out now

Greta Christina’s new book, “Coming Out Atheist”, is now available. Get yourself a copy!

I’m hoping there will be some at the American Atheists convention this weekend in Salt Lake City. I’ll be speaking there, Greta will be speaking there (as will Sikivu, Matt, and Maryam) so I should be able to track one down, right? And get it signed?

And everyone else is going too, I presume? I’ll see you all in Salt Lake City, I arrive tomorrow afternoon!

(Warning: I’m doing one of my science talks. Don’t get too bored.)

I get mail

Another one today? I just had to offset the lunacy of the earlier post by sending my thanks to Leo from Texas, who sent me a nice long letter telling me about all the things he liked in The Happy Atheist. Yay! Fans!

Also, the audio book is in the works, and I’ll let you know when it’s available. I didn’t read it, though: Aron Ra did the honors. So another Texan…maybe that state isn’t so bad after all.

When the phrase “out-of-touch” is too mild…

We need a measure of just how far out into space a commentator has launched themselves. I propose that we use the unit, the TomPerkins.

Last week, he sent a letter to the opinion page of the Wall Street Journal, and they published it, despite the fact that it is certifiably nuts, because Tom Perkins is an obscenely rich venture capitalist. Never mind what he says, he’s rich. Yet this letter blithely compares the fate of obscenely rich venture capitalists to that of European Jews in World War II.

Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich."

Whoa. He kind of red-lined my TomPerkins meter there.

But now you have to go read his book. Yes, he’s written a whole book, and it’s not what you think it is: he was once married to Danielle Steel, and this book is pure one-percenter porn. Go read the excerpts and gag, or you can buy your own copy on Amazon. The latter is not recommended; while the article says it’s available for 1 cent online, it doesn’t seem to be true any longer — there has been a run on Tom Perkins literature, no doubt driven by aficionados of awful writing.