AMAZON, den of thieves and a-holes

Many alternatives to Amazon, including BandH Photo, WalMart, Sam’s Club, Costco, Home Depot, Lowes, HayNeedle, WayFair, Fry’s Electronics, Etsy, NewEgg, Your local hardware store, etc., etc. Use product name, SKU, ISBN, model number to search for alternatives.

Google Shopping

Use reddit: best canopy reddit

amazon scammers – Google search

“PopSockets CEO calls out Amazon’s ‘bullying with a smile’ tactics,” Jan. 17, 2020

“You Might Be Buying Trash on Amazon — Literally,” Dec. 18, 2019

“Uploaded Ring footage reportedly provides location to the square inch,” ArsTechnica, December 10, 2019

“Hey, Bezos: Check Your Privilege, Sith Lord,” by Mytheos Holt, American Spectator, November 29, 2019

“Amazon Probed by U.S. Antitrust Officials Over Marketplace,” by Spencer Soper and Ben Brody, Bloomberg, September 11, 2019

“Amazon Has Ceded Control of Its Site. The Result: Thousands of Banned, Unsafe or Mislabeled Products,” by Alexandra Berzon, Shane Shifflett and Justin Scheck, WSJ, August 23, 2019

“Amazon ‘Brushing’ Scam Indicates a Serious Problem for Victims,” BBB, August 16, 2019

“Why Amazon pays warehouse employees to tweet about their jobs: It’s part of the e-commerce giant’s ongoing public relations campaign to quash unions and rewrite the narrative around its workforce.” By Rani Molla, ReCode, August 8, 2019

“Amazon Is Coaching Cops on How to Obtain Surveillance Footage Without a Warrant,” by Caroline Haskins, Vice, August 5, 2019

“Amazon Squeezes Sellers That Offer Better Prices on Walmart,” by Spencer Soper, Bloomberg, August 5, 2019

“Amazon drivers part of $10 million theft ring, FBI says“, NBC News, August 1, 2019

“Amazon Told Police It Has Partnered With 200 Law Enforcement Agencies,” by Caroline Haskins, Vice, July 29, 2019

“Cord-cutters beware: Amazon’s TV antenna listings are rife with dubious claims,” by Jared Newman, TechHive, July 22, 2019

“I Worked at an Amazon Fulfillment Center; They Treat Workers Like Robots,” by Emily Guendelsberger, TIME, July 18, 2019

“Why Is Amazon Blocking Reviews Of The No. 1 Best-Selling ‘Justice On Trial?’” by Sean Davis, The Federalist, July 11, 2019

“Road-tripping with the Amazon nomads: To stock Amazon’s shelves, merchants travel the backroads of America in search of rare soap and coveted toys,” by Josh Dzieza, The Verge, July 10, 2019

“College student was late returning a textbook to Amazon, so the company took $3,800 from her dad,” by William Bender, The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 9, 2019

“Amazon can be held liable for third-party seller products: U.S. appeals court,” by Brendan Pierson, Reuters, July 3, 2019

“Amazon Is Watching: The Internet giant is wiring homes, neighborhoods, and cities with cameras and microphones, and powering the nation’s intelligence services. Are we sure we can trust it?” by Will Oremus, Medium, June 27, 2019

“I Was Called A KKK Member For Asking Amazon To Support Ideological Diversity,” by Justin Danhof, June 24, 2019

“Amazon Is Poised to Unleash a Long-Feared Purge of Small Suppliers,” by Spencer Soper, Bloomberg, May 28, 2019

“Why Some Merchants Are Avoiding Amazon,” by Kiri Masters, Forbes, May 22, 2019

“Amazon hit by extensive fraud with hackers siphoning merchant funds,” by Bloomberg, The Mercury News, May 8, 2019

“Amazon accused of using Echo Dot Kids to illegally collect data on children,” by Craig Timberg, The Washington Post, May 8, 2019

“When Your Amazon Purchase Explodes,” by Alana Semuels, The Atlantic, April 30, 2019

“5-star phonies: Inside the fake Amazon review complex,” by Zachary Crockett, The Hustle, April 13, 2019

“Don’t Just ‘Buy Now’! When Shopping on Amazon, You Need to Pay Attention,” by Katherine Bindley, The Wall Street Journal, March 26, 2019

“What is Amazon?,” by Zack Kanter, March 13, 2019

“Amazon Lobbied More Government Entities Than Any Other Public U.S. Company Last Year,” by Renae Reints, Fortune, March 13, 2019

“Where does a tip to an Amazon driver go? In some cases, toward the driver’s base pay,” by Johana Bhuiyan, LA Times, Feb. 7, 2019

“Amazon has finally admitted to investors that it has a counterfeit problem,” by Marc Bain, Quartz, February 5, 2019

“How to Lose Tens of Thousands of Dollars on Amazon,” by Alana Semuels, The Atlantic, Jan. 2, 2019

“Is It Really Five Stars? How to Spot Fake Amazon Reviews,” by Joanna Stern, WSJ, Dec. 20, 2018

“Amazon Prime is getting worse, and it’s making me question the nature of reality,” by Mark Wilson, FastCompany, Dec. 19, 2018

“Prime and Punishment: Dirty Dealing in the $175 Billion Amazon Marketplace,” by Josh Dzieza, The Verge, Dec. 19, 2018

“Amazon Announces 2019 Fee Changes for Sellers,” by Ina Steiner, eCommerce Bytes, December 19, 2018

VIDEO: “How Scammers in China Manipulate Amazon,” by Jon Emont, WSJ, December 17, 2018

“Amazon Targets Unprofitable Items, With a Sharper Focus on the Bottom Line,” by By Laura Stevens, Sharon Terlep and Annie Gasparro, WSJ, December 16, 2018

“Amazon ran a sting to root out counterfeit textbooks, but some small sellers say they were unfairly targeted,” by Ari Levy, CNBC, December 13, 2018

“An Amazon revolt could be brewing as the tech giant exerts more control over brands,” by Jason Del Rey, ReCode, November 29, 2018

“New Parents Complain Amazon Baby-Registry Ads Are Deceptive,” by By Rolfe Winkler and Laura Stevens, WSJ, Nov. 28, 2018

“The Caesar Of The Amazon Jungle,” by Rod Dreher, TAC, November 15, 2018

“Amazon’s Golden Fleecing,” by The WSJ Editorial Board, Nov. 14, 2018

“Amazon’s Great HQ2 Swindle,” by Daniel Kishi, TAC, November 13, 2018

“Amazon’s HQ2 was a con, not a contest,” by Eric Johnson, ReCode, November 9, 2018

“Amazon’s own published books are quietly taking over the site,” by Thu-Huong Ha, Quartz, October 26, 2018

Amazon Investigates Employees Leaking Data for Bribes – Employees, through intermediaries, are offering internal data to help merchants increase their sales on the website, WSJ, September 16, 2018

Amazon is investigating claims that employees deleted reviews and sold sales data to sellers, by Andrew Liptak, The Verge, September 16, 2018

Markets in everything, Marginal Revolution, September 17, 2018

“Amazon’s Antitrust Antagonist Has a Breakthrough Idea,” by David Streitfeld, NYT, September 7, 2018

Amazon wants a key to your house. I did it. I regretted it. – Duluth News, Dec. 17, 2017

Amazon demonetizes conservative website (us), Legal Insurrection, May 23, 2018

IBPA’s Fall 2017 Update on the Amazon Buy Button Policy Change – IBPA, Oct. 5, 2017

How Sellers Trick Amazon to Boost Sales, WSJ July 28, 2018 (On MorningStar)

On Amazon, Fake Products Plague Smaller Brands, WSJ, July 19, 2018

To cash in on Kindle Unlimited, a cabal of authors gamed Amazon’s algorithm, July 16, 2018, The Verge

Just How Bad Is the Fake Reviews Issue on Amazon? Here’s an In Depth Example, reddit, June 2018

FakeSpot – Tired of fake reviews?

Amazon Says More Than a Million U.S. Small Businesses Sell on Its Site, WSJ, May 3, 2018

Update On My Stolen Book (and Job) on Amazon, ExtremeTech, April 25, 2018

Why All My Books Are Now Free (aka A Lesson in Amazon Scams and Money Laundering), Meb Faber Research, April 18, 2018

Someone Stole My Entire Book (and My Job) and Is Selling It On Amazon, ExtremeTech, April 13, 2018

The Book Thief, Amazon Edition, WSJ, Feb 26, 2018

How an Amazon Self-Published Book May Be the Latest Money Laundering Scam, Fortune, Feb 23, 2018

Amazon warning: Beware of deliveries you didn’t order, Clark Howard, Feb 23, 2018

Going Off-Topic – Amazon made me a victim of tax fraud & potential money laundering and I want answers!, CTRMCenter, Feb. 23, 2018

Money Laundering Via Author Impersonation on Amazon? Brian Krebs, Feb. 20, 2018

“Why Amazon Is Raising Third Party Seller Fees for Apparel & Select Categories,” by Tara Johnson, CPCStrategy, January 23, 2018

Amazon tries to snuff out a bunch of Kindle publishing scams, CNet, Sept. 7, 2017

Amazon Scams On The Rise As Fraudulent Sellers Run Amok And Profit Big, Forbes, Jan. 2, 2017

Amazon – Amazon report listing abuse or violation

Amazon- Claim Copyright Infringement

email: copyright@amazon.com

Amazon Search Inside – Look Inside

email: insidethebook-submission@amazon.com
sitb-pdf-team@amazon.com

Kindle Direct Publishing KDP
https://kdp.amazon.com/

Author Central
https://www.amazon.com/author/tcn

https://1cr.us/9-2/amazon-den-of-thieves/

Your President (I’m Canadian, I get to say “your”) has a Twitter account that sometimes comes to my attention. And this, although I try to ignore all the world’s tweeted expostulations. But they make news, sometimes; in Mr. Trump’s case, as a matter of course. And as I have confessed before, I’m still reading news.

I understand why he does it. Which is to say, I understand that Mr. Trump wouldn’t be president today if he had not availed himself of every opportunity to end-run the media gatekeepers. Contrary to the received view, I think he is very good at it; often brilliant. I’m not commenting yet on the morality of the operation, only on its efficacy. He knows how to “troll,” and to the audience of his supporters, trolls deliciously.

He has a vulgar but adept satirical sense, and can expose the hypocrisy of his opponents in ways that will “make their heads explode.” And since many of his enemies also happen to be mine, I have often giggled – in a mean-spirited, “gotcha” kind of way.

. . .

We are told free speech doesn’t extend to gratuitously yelling “Fire!” in a cinema, or uttering plausible physical threats. But in a self-described “free society” it is assumed that, short of such acts of criminal mischief, those who disagree must cope. Extreme sensibilities will have to be abraded.

I have been coping myself, for as long as I can remember. It comes with the territory Christians have occupied these two thousand years; and those with any sort of opinions, since time out of mind. One learns to ignore the goad, or deflect it. Why let another decide whether I should forfeit my good humor? Better to reply with something droll.

Alas, this doesn’t work as it used to. Rather than matching wits, or just laughing, one’s opponent may burst into hysteria. (Never be droll with a feminist, I advise.)

“Never complain, never explain,” is the counsel of the seasoned professionals. But this hardly works anymore, either. Your opponents then mount smear upon smear. As Mr. Trump learned – partly, I suspect, from the experience of Mr. Bush Junior – the refusal to “dignify that with an answer” requires a milieu from which gentlemen haven’t been extracted.

In our rat-pack world of social media, suavity is impossible, let alone gentlemanly behavior. Alas, Mr. Trump understands this. Our Lord was accused of consorting with sinners, but He did not “accompany” them into sin. Will the returning Christ have a Twitter account? I seriously doubt this.

Nor do I think He would be carrying a gun, though I would not make this ground for banning firearms. He never proposed to disarm soldiers. He accepted the claim of Rome to be Rome. He gave no political advice at all, even on marginal rates of taxation.

On the other hand, He said things most provoking. Even the Beatitudes were an (obviously intended) surprise for the comfortable. Each was the reverse of long-received opinion. At no point in the Gospels do we find Our Lord “going along to get along” with the gatekeepers of those days.

A rule to prohibit provocation would, as a consequence probably quite intended, prohibit Christianity in every day and age. It would also prohibit the telling of truth, with or without religious connotations. It would finally achieve a deathly silence; for anything said is potentially controversial. There is no statement so soft that someone could not take offense at it, if only for being too soft.

Therefore let us affirm some things, starting plainly with our Faith in Christ. Let us follow this up with every Christian teaching, as those ancestors did who converted the heathen.

We know at least the Devil will be offended, though he may be clever enough to conceal it and work with the persisting vanities of those who now believe.

Provocations

Freeze your credit reports, register for your own account on Social Security, and keep an eye on your bank and credit card statements. And if your identity is stolen, file a report with your local police department, the FTC at IdentityTheft.gov, and the IRS so your tax refund can’t be stolen.

And think about using Two Factor Authorization (2FA). See Two Factor Auth (2FA).

For more, see:

• Identity Theft Information for Taxpayers and Victims – from the IRS
• The Equifax Breach: What You Should Know – from Krebs on Security
• Everything You Need to Know About a Credit Freeze – from LifeHacker
• Equifax aftermath: How to protect against identity theft – from MalwareBytes
• Credit Freeze Guide: The best way to protect yourself against identity theft – from Clark Howard
• I Think My Data Was Hacked in the Equifax Breach: Now What? – from The Simple Dollar

[T]here will never be technology to make us any wiser. We’ve tried drugs, and they don’t work; we already have innumerable devices to make us quicker about our tasks. We have invested electronic mountains of money in “leaving no child behind.” But nonsense remains nonsense at a hundred times the speed.

On “The Land of Lunatics”

Ozymandias

In January 1488, Bartolomeu Dias, a Portuguese explorer, rounded Africa’s southern cape and put to shore to take on food and water. There he found a group, smaller and lighter-skinned than the other Africans he had encountered, who, mystified by the odd men appearing out of the infinity of the sea, chased them back to their boat under a hail of arrows.

The exchange, notes James Suzman in his new book “Affluence Without Abundance”, was a meeting of two distant branches of the human family tree: Europeans descended from ancient tribes that migrated out of Africa, and people commonly known as the San, who had called southern Africa home for at least 150,000 years. Just as important, the meeting represented the collision of humanity’s most ancient and durable form of economic organisation with its most powerful. The latter, wielded by Europeans, has dominated the half millennium since that scrape on the beach. But modern capitalist societies may have something to learn from the ways of their ancient forebears.

. . .

Life spent hunting and gathering, while occasionally trying, was not a tale of constant toil and privation. Food could run short during droughts or annual lean periods, but reliance on a broad range of food sources typically afforded such tribes a reliable, well-balanced diet. Even around the arid Kalahari food is plentiful (at least when the tribes are not forced to share the land with farmers and ranchers)—so much so that the typical adult need work less than 20 hours per week.

Living off the land: Hunter-gatherer economics

“Affluence Without Abundance: The Disappearing World of the Bushmen,” by James Suzman

Each year in my Christianity and Mass Media class at Benedictine College, we cover pornography — the 21st-century mass media juggernaut.

And each year the pornography problem grows worse. The latest: The two most popular online video streaming services are featuring pornography-friendly marquee programs — a documentary and a biopic.

. . .

Pornography militates against freedom. The science of it is well known: The human brain, when aroused by erotic images, dumps chemicals into the bloodstream that push the throttle of the viewer to full-speed “give me more” mode. Idle online curiosity quickly becomes addictive obsession.

Dabbling with pornography is like opening the window of a pressurized airplane at a high altitude. It pulls you in and spits you out.

The same thing happens to women involved in the pornography industry. Women seeking modeling careers, or a brief injection of cash in tough times, quickly find themselves in the clutches of a degrading industry, with images of themselves that they regret circulating forever online.

A recent pornography scam is not unlike what happens anyway to “legitimate” pornographic actresses: Lured by money, they find themselves in the clutches of men who only want to use them.

. . .

Using pornography churns a vortex of sin that Satan uses to drag whole groups of people — performers, programmers, sellers, and unsuspecting bystanders — down to his lair.

. . .

When the apostles argue who is the greatest in the 18th Chapter of Matthew, Jesus places a child in their midst. Then, a few verses later, he adds that anyone who causes a child to sin would be better off thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck.

The demons have already chosen the millstone. Now they want to cause as many children to sin as possible.

Along with abortion, history will condemn our times most, I think, for our refusal to protect children from pornography. Even a notorious male pornographic actor is disgusted at how children experience pornography.

The reason for our failure here is obvious: Adults want easy, anonymous access to pornography. We care more about protecting that access than we do about protecting our kids.

5 Reasons Satan loves pornography

Over the last week, many users received the “Get Windows 10” app on their devices. In a previous article we’ve shown the steps required for you to reserve a free Windows 10 upgrade for your device. However, there are also many users who don’t want to do that, or just don’t want to see the app’s icon and notifications. This article will show you how you can remove the “Get Windows 10” icon from the notification tray or even how to completely disable it.

If you don’t want to see the “Get Windows 10” icon displayed in the system tray, you can hide it, disable it or even uninstall the app. Here are all the methods we found:

How To Disable The “Get Windows 10” Icon And Notifications

This manic need to get girls into science and technical fields is just wierd to me anyway, is there something inherently superior to these fields, or something shameful if girls just don’t care to go into them? Where’s the PSA bemoaning the lack of girls in welding and digging ditches?

The entire exercise is part of the latest feminist jag to get more women into fields they don’t seem terribly inclined to be part of, even if they have to be forced to. The idea that maybe, just maybe girls aren’t as interested in these areas seems to completely elude the people behind this stuff.

THE FRAGILE PRINCESS

Feminists seem to believe that girls are fragile and delicate little flowers, because they have apparently not been around real girls. Because the feminists who write are concentrated on the coasts, where your education pedigree and credentials are the most important thing EVER, most feminists have no clue about the real world.

Girls and young women who are interested in science and math pursue those as vigorously as they want, and indeed are encouraged far more than boys with similar inclinations.

And anyone who has spent any time around girls knows that they are not fragile and delicate little flowers. Go watch a co-ed soccer game played by talented teenagers and you will see that the girls are just as physical as the boys, but the girls are slower. Slower doesn’t make them any less physical or competitive.

Let’s encourage more girls to become welders where they can make real money. And ask the feminists to confine their moral preening and elitist perspective and advice to the wealthy neighborhoods where welders are way down the social scale.

Let’s encourage all boys and girls to Work Smart And Hard.

Who, us?!?

Nevertheless, every time feminists complain about normal women who refuse to identify themselves as feminists, it is claimed that “the negative view of feminism” as being an anti-male lesbian advocacy movement is a false stereotype rooted in ignorance. The same feminists, meanwhile, insist that one cannot oppose their radical gay agenda “unless you are part of the extremely extreme extremist right wing.” One almost wonders if these feminists have ever read any feminist literature, or even if they are capable of comprehending the logic of their own words.
. . .
A man who expresses romantic interest in a female has dehumanized her as a sex object, feminism tells us, and if this male expression of heterosexuality occurs in the workplace, the man is guilty of sexual harassment — he has violated her civil rights.

No such condemnation can be made of women expressing their lesbian interest in other women. In fact, any woman who objected to a lesbian’s sexual advances could be accused of homophobia — possibly violating the civil rights of her lesbian pursuer!

Sex Trouble: Radical Feminism and the Long Shadow of the ‘Lavender Menace’

Feminism to me was a lot of very unhappy women telling stories to each other about how they had been hurt. They were getting ready to change the world and I didn’t want to be in front of that train when it started rolling.

Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Son Describes Abuse by Feminist Pagan Fiction Author

Continue reading ‘Feminists Seem To Believe that Girls are Fragile and Delicate Little Flowers Not Suited for Welding’ »

Five rules I learned from 7 years of coaching Launch Festival & TechCrunch50

Dormi Turns Old Android Phones into Internet-Connected Baby Monitors

Rand Paul’s Republican revolution

Oh yeah, this will work out well….

The “War on Drugs” has attracted numerous rent seekers, including the DEA, police, prosecutors, brewers, distillers, prison guards, and more. Prohibition didn’t work in the 1920s and 30s, and it isn’t working today.

Federalism appears to be on the rise. About time.

But in the meantime, we just don’t have enough no-knock raids.

Continue reading ‘Misc Stuff’ »