Amazon BIGLY FUCKED UP

I don't often post reviews to Amazon, but occasionally, when a new book is so new there's been little good or bad, or if it's bad and way overhyped, even if there's been massive reviews, I will.

A week ago Sunday, I was going to do just that: post a copy of my Goodreads review of Susan Cain's "Bittersweet." Well, I first went to my Amazon personal profile page.

And was stunned, shocked, then ... pissed off that there was ONLY ONE review there, likely my first, I presume, from back in 2004. Given that I've got 900-plus reviews on Goodreads, and didn't transfer every Amazon review when I joined Goodreads, and had some non-books reviews on Yellow Satan as well, I had probably 1,500 reviews trashed.

So, first I hit Twitter. Amazon, suckingly, has no open DMs there, though I eventually got a response. Like other capitalist corporate whores, it doesn't have a contact email form, so you work through a chatbot before you get to a real person, eventually. Real person first thought I was talking about orders, not reviews. They eventually understood, and said the issue would be forwarded up the food chain, to likely be addressed in 72 hours.

A "Nick" then answered on Twitter. Suggested I had violated community guidelines, when he tossed me this link. I first told him that was a lie, because I'd never engaged in promotion or solicitation, never posted anything sexual, etc.

I then realized I had gotten an email from Amazon the Thursday before, making similar claims. I knew it was actually from Amazon, not phishing, but didn't think it was "real." I fished it out of my deleted items recovery folder and:

You have repeatedly posted content that violates our Community Guidelines (available at http://www.amazon.com/review-guidelines) or Conditions of Use ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=508088). An initial warning has been sent to you. Because of your repeated violation of our Community Guidelines we've removed your ability to participate in Community features.

That's an even bigger lie.

First, I've never participated in any community discussions to be warned about. Second, I've never been warned about anything before, period. Third, I've never engaged in intellectual property theft.

And, third, unlike either the chat bot or Twitter, got ZERO immediate response.

So, I updated my public profile. It read, as of Sunday, Sept. 4:

Where's the 1,500 or more reviews that fucking Amazon deleted as of Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022? That fucking Amazon deleted without warning, and for which I had never done anything to warrant deletion per its community guidelines? 

Politically lefitist (for America) as in specifically a contradistinction to "liberal," iconoclastic, an environmentalist, a freethinker. 

I march to the beat of my own drummer, and so do my reviews. 

Update: Since we can't comment on reviews here anymore, and can't downvote unhelpful ones, I report wingnuts who have pseudoscience based reviews on books that cover things like COVID and climate change. Deal with it.

Boom!?

Well, 30 seconds later, "boom" back. Even though an actual human hadn't responded via email to my response earlier a week ago Sunday, when this went down, a bot immediately didn't like the word "fucking." So, I changed it to "flock" and otherwise modified the first graf a bit.

I had, a few months ago, added that last paragraph. Maybe Amazon hated on me for that. If so? Fuck it. If that's "abuse," then they, like places like Quora in the past, are allowing other abuse to run rampant and it's time to leave anyway. That's what you get when humans, not algorithms, even before removing comments, decide to remove thumbs-down/unlike buttons. Thank doorknobs Reddit still allows downvotes.

Fucktards at Amazon then got worse.

Bot messaged me Monday, Labor Day mind you, that my profile still didn't meet standards.

AND THEY HAD DELETED ALL THE BIO INFO!

So, this:

So now Amazon has deleted all my changes? Good thing I copied them all yesterday, Amazon, because I've already started blogging about your flock-ups.

Fuck you even more.

But, why leave one review instead of deleting all? Is this a Mafia-like Amazon version of a horsehead on a pillow? So I suspect.

I am of course deleting my account entirely. Not letting them do that type of bullshit.

I don't need Amazon for any personal orders I can think of. Last two cameras, and last several lenses, have come from either KEH or eBay. Filters I can get elsewhere as needed. Office products, the modest amount I have ordered there for my company? Will go elsewhere the next time I need printer toner. 

I also didn't like Amazon storing my credit card online. And, it seems to have done that even after I toggled that off. Given that my Red and Yellow Satan national bank (think about it) contacted me not too long ago about a credit card issue, that's another reason not to like Yellow Satan. (Not that I totally like Red and Yellow Satan either.)

Russia-Ukraine Week 21: Putin's on "planet of pink ponies"; still true, Putin tankies?

That, in the header, is the claim of Russian ultranationalist Igor Girkin. He's pessimistic about the war so far, thinks Putin's been lying to the Russian people about some problems, and wants more of a total war. And, per this piece, he's far from alone among Russian nationalists.

This all makes me laugh, because on Substack, Twitter and elsewhere, I've run into Russian apologist stable genyuses who claim that Generalissimo Putin is also a stable genyus as leader of the war effort. In reality, it's just another bit of twosiderism and tribalism. One can, like Pope Francis, talk about NATO barking at Russia while not endorsing Putin's invasion. One can oppose Warmonger Joe Biden's arms bazaar for Volodymir Zelenskky while also rejecting the idea that Putin knew what the fuck he was doing even before Ukraine got US-NATO resupply.

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Of course, Putin has now ordered a partial mobilization. And, outside of Putin tankies (which I have never been one of) he's screwed the pooch on his referendums. Just Luhansk and Donetsk might pass half muster. But, the other two sites? Adding Kherson and Zaporizhzhia? Laughable. And, given international parsing of what Xi Jinping said at Samarkand, it looks stupid for that reason. Also, given recent Russian fighting efforts, trying to bite off referendum lands you can't chew also looks stupid. 

So, Putin Tankies, like the "Volkish" idiot I blocked on Twitter, or others I've seen on Substack? Stupid is as stupid does.

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Speaking of? Zelenskyy wants Warmonger Joe to give him some long-range missiles. So far, Biden has said nyet. Will that stay the same after the election? Next spring in Ukraine, after the thaw ends and the mud dries, assuming fighting is still lingering? Or, will Putin's partial mobilization change his mind? If so, will Zelenskyy then ask for tactical nukes or something?

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Will General Winter, exported westward, lead to an eventual Russian victory, as this author claims? I think he's being overly optimistic; at the same time, as I noted last week, Biden's plan to import liquified natural gas eastward to Europe also sounds overly optimistic.

Coronavirus week 121: Vaccine losers — and new Platonic noble lies?

I remember that, more than a year ago, people more knowledgeable than me in fields like immunlogy and even more importantly, warned there would be vaccine losers as well as winners as the race narrowed and government funding and other support picked winners and losers.

Well, as the not-quite-omni but more widely targeted anti-Omicron boosters that Pfizer and Moderna roll out ...

Where's Johnson and Johnson? Ever since the US government paused the administration of the J and J adenovirus based vaccine in April 2021 over what were likely overstated concerns about blood clotting, it's scrambled to stay in the game. And, the FDA since then largely shunted J and J aside. As a result, it had no incentive to work on a COVID booster and instead turned its primary factory in Europe into working on a new experimental non-COVID vaccine.

As a result, we're left only with mRNA vaxxes for boosters. (For the first of a set of updates to this piece, now almost as long as the original, that talk about why this is an issue, go here, though the whole thing isn’t that long.)

Yes, Novavax exists, and it, like older antiviral vaccines against other viruses, directly targets a COVID spike protein. That said, right now, there's not official approval for a one-dose booster, nor do we have information yet on how Novavax performs against Omicron.

I'm not a nutter who believes mRNA vaxxes alter my RNA, or DNA.

I am someone who notes the relatively rapid falloff in mRNA protection. And, while J and J allegedly had less degree of protection, there's been no reports about the same degree of falloff.

I got it, the first chance I had in my rural area, both because it was a one-shot vax and because it was based on more traditional vaccine technology.

IF I were to want a booster (not old, but not young, either, and I've gotten none so far), I would go Novavax. It and the mRNA vaxxes both themselves have rare coronary side effects, it seems. But, Novavax is a more traditional technology, like J and J, and I venture it has a slower dropoff period than the mRNA vaxxes, like J and J. And, eventually, the more times you get shot, even if they remain very low, the more your chances of some side effect.

AstraZenica is also an adenovirus vax. It, like Johnson and Johnson, also known as Janssen from its Euro subsidiary, has also had very small numbers reported of people with clotting. But, it was never shelved, here or abroad. It and Novavax both have the down side of being two-dose vaxxes in non-booster situations. Other adenovirus vaxxes are Russia's Sputnix and a newer kid, Convidecia. It's one-shot; Sputnik is two. Convidecia, like Sinopharm, which uses dead virus, is Chinese.

There are other "viral vector vaccines" that use vector viruses besides an adenovirus.

And, there's the Indian nasal vaccine (China and others have similar in the pipeline) but based on attempts at nasal flu vaccines here in the US, William Haseltine is highly skeptical.

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Update: Another version of "vaccine loser" is going to be "we the people." Per recent reporting, new subvariants have popped up since the start of work on the bivalent booster that was originally billed as an omnivariant. It looks pretty lokely that the booster won't have full effect against them. That will likely further undermine public trust in mRNA vaxxes, which in turn will bring up further questioning of Biden's COVID policies, questions from his left and his non-wingnut right as well as wingers. And, he'll have "earned" them. Between a focus on mRNA vaxxes as boosters being the latest version of COVID Status Quo Joe putting most of his eggs in one basket, and "we the people" being on the hook for these new vaxxes ourselves, he's richly earned skeptical questioning and more.

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Update 2: Per Pro Publica, it ain't just me saying this. When a Paul Offit raises questions, you know you have problems. Offit cites bad framing over "breakthrough" infections as the cornerstone issue early on. But, on the new bivalent boosters? He's a skeptic and bases it on scientific, empirical evidence, or rather, lack thereof. More here from one of the links in the Pro Publica article. Interestingly, neither it nor any of its links talk about the delay in non-mRNA vax boosters, only the possible rush in mRNA boosters.

For the “Platonic noble lies” expansion of the subheader, as reflected by the latest of these updates, go here.

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Update 3: Tweeted by Offit, this piece from Science Mag pretty much says that mRNA vaxxes by themselves aren't the long-term answer. They need another approach added to their mix. Could be in-vaccine, as the story indicates, but by themselves? Not the best answer. And, the issue of T-cell immunity may tie to the issue of mRNA vax falloff.

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Update 4: Walker Bragman keeps tweeting about various actual or alleged failures of Biden's vaccine policy, but I have yet to see him talk about this. Is he afraid of giving fuel to vax deniers? Offit wasn't. I wonder if, in addition to tribalism, that's why Orac won't talk about the lab leak. Wonder what he'll do if enough people bring up the likes of Offit.

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Update 5: Your Local Epidemilogist hasn't read Offit. And thus, saying "science update"? Kuff, didn't run her in the roundup.

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Update 6: Here's my COVID next post from a week later, following up on some of these issues, mainly the issue of whether we're at least getting nearer to post-pandemic. More to the point, here's my piece from the week after that, more explicitly tackling mRNA vaxxes again and taking a first small look at whether tribalism isn't involved with the likes of Bragman. And, I'm going to keep doing it.

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Update 7: I think it's a new version of Fauci's Platonic Noble Lie for people like Tom Frieden and Peter Hotez, who know better, to be telling all Americans, whether over 50 or under 50, contra Updates 2 and 3, to "go get your bivalent boosters," as both were on Twitter over Thanksgiving weekend.

I quote-tweeted Hotez with this post, and he quote-tweeted me back.

I’m confused by this tweet: 1) actually at our @TexasChildrens vaccine center we developed one of the most commonly used non-mRNA primary immunization and boosters globally. Also 2) the bivalent mRNA is indeed indicated for both adults and children in the US? https://t.co/ElrO8V4E6e

— Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD (@PeterHotez) November 27, 2022

I in turn did another quote-tweet, which noted that's "global" not American and there's no non-mRNA vax here in the USofA, and added that I was aware of his global work. (Either Pro Publica or the Trib, or the two together, wrote about it several months ago.) We'll see if he does another quote-tweet back talking about WHY we don't have this in the US. And, that's the issue, Dr. Hotez, is that we don't have it here. And, that's true of initial-line shots as well as boosters. We're pretty much being peddled mRNA and nothing but. AND, you're connected enough to DC insiders on this issue, that you could, in my opinion, "push" more on this issue yourself. Saying, "oh, look, we've got non mRNA boosters globally is not the US.)

As far as the last part? Maybe CDC finally indicated it, but that was NOT its original plan, Dr. Hotez, and I have no doubt that you, like Offit, know that CDC originally planned to "indicate" the bivalent booster for only those 50-plus.

I should add that Hotez has gone Twitter radio silent since my last quote tweet.

AND ... proof that he's a tribalist and twosider? He's also a tribalist and twosider on the lab leak. Bigly, starting with attacking non-wingnut Richard Burr over the Senate minority committee report by Pro Publica over the lab leak theory, which it has now reviewed and strongly defended, despite the pushback by #BlueMAGA like Hotez, who comes off as a kinder, gentler Orac:

Bottom line: the lab leak GOF is all political theater, designed to cripple our national biomedical infrastructure. All so a few uneducated chuckleheads in the US Congress can flex their muscles, exercise authoritarian control. It will make us more vulnerable to future pandemics

— Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD (@PeterHotez) November 1, 2022

And this isn't new from Hotez, as his Twitter feed and stories will show.

Not at all. As I said in quote-Tweeting that first tweet, he's lost some serious credibility in my book. I noted that Alina Chan, Scott Gottlieb and Jaime Metzl, among others, are not members of Congress (and by extension, not chuckleheads or uneducated). May blog just about that.

And, I DID just blog about that, calling him a gaslighter.

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Update 7, Jan 1, 2023: STAT talks about lessons from COVID so far. One is how public health measures have both been imposed, and to some degree, opposed, without nuance either way. It also notes the rapid dropoff of mRNA effectiveness.

In that piece, re the one big issue above, Nancy Messionier notes there's still no accepted definition of Long COVID. That's one of many science-tentative issues around COVID, she says.

Texas Progressives talk George Floyd, social media, more

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles continues to politicize the case of George Floyd.

Let's assume that Strangeabbott and DeSatan are indeed engaged in human trafficking, by criminal law definition. Let's also assume that at least one of the Ill Eagles being trafficked by them entered the US before and thus has themselves committed a criminal law violation. On the latter, are Abbott and DeSantis themselves potentially guilty of aiding and abetting, or whatever the federal statute is? I tagged Popehat (Ken White) and Greg Doucette on Twitter, but nether responded. On the former? If they are trafficking by definition, where's Merrick Garland? I mean if, as alleged, DeSatan lied to these people about jobs waiting for them in Massachusetts?

Texas' social media "publish these shitty, racist, crime-incentivizing comments" law has been put back into place by the 5th Circuit. Shock me.

Big biz wants Chapter 313 renewed by the Lege next year. I oppose the idea in general and doubly oppose school districts in general handing out any property tax breaks.

SocraticGadfly offers up a number of thoughts on the death of Ken Starr.  

Off the Kuff has another poll to dig into.

Reform Austin would like to dial down the rhetoric about which cities are "dangerous."

The Texas Signal lists all the ways that having a Democratic Attorney General would make things better.

In The Pink Texas is ready to start reading all of Matt Krause's banned books.

Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje counts the ways that Texas fails its kids.

Jessica Shortall resorted to quoting Sid Miller to rebut Greg Abbott's nonsense about the border.

Amanda Marcotte explores the deeply racist roots of shipping migrants to other states under false pretenses.

Becoming less interested in politics at times ...

First, it took me four years later than Mark Lause, but I too have reached the point that I see the Green Party nationally being past its best-by date. I was already having doubts in 2016 over Stein's second run; the nature of her recount only increased that.

Then, Hawkins 2020 actually got Russia more than half correct, angering some Greens. But, he went totally Aaron Maté, or should I say, totally Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, on Xi Jinping's China, and I just couldn't vote for him.

In Texas, that's followed by 2022 Green gubernatorial candidate Delilah Barrios being a Second Amendment absolutist and also playing footsie with COVID antivaxxers, and I saw more than enough antivaxxer footsie out of Stein.

Add in Twitter on politics becoming ever more #BlueAnon bullshit vs #MAGAts bullshit and I get tired of that.

Meanwhile, related to the first three paragraphs, or especially the second? Twitter is also ever more populated by non-skeptical leftists, or maybe we should just call them pseudoleftists. They sign blank checks for Xi on the Uyghur workers' camps, on the Chinese version of Coca-colonialism with the Belt and Road Initiative and more. Like Hawkins, Flowers and Zeese, they either can't, or won't, step out of the twosiderism box and accept that one can criticize both the US and China. Per LBJ on Jerry Ford, it's really no harder that farting and chewing gum, or farting and walking, at the same time.

That said, I suspect that some of the pseudoleftists on Twitter are paid to not step outside of the twosiderism box on China.

Whether paid shills or not, the one other problem I have is that there is just about NEVER any nuance with China. It's not that China is less wrong, or even a lot less wrong than the US says it is, or than the US is itself. It's that China is NEVER wrong. Of course, among the religion of Marxism, doctrinaire absolutism is part of the game. of course, doctrinaire Marxism is pseudoscience. Hegelian dialectic is crappy as a philosophy and by definition pseudoscientific when used as the basis of any scientific theory, especially economics, arguably in both Marx's time and ours the least scientific of the social sciences. (The replication problem and cheating in behavioral economics only underscore that.)

Add in that, in early August every year, non-skeptical lefists repeat the canard on August 6 and 9 that we dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki just as a warning shot across Stalin's bow. Surprisingly, neither city trended on Twitter this year. Maybe those willful lies or idiocies are starting to fade.

I'll still participate in snarking on Twitter, but, I'm working to move away from electoral and quasi-electoral politics to broader issues. And, that said, Twitter's infosec allegedly sucks donkey dongs.

Uvalde tensions transect race and creed

Tensions, not just over the Robb Elementary shooting, but fanned yet further by it, are splitting Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Uvalde, whose own history reflects Anglo-Hispanic tensions and others. A big portion of it, the piece notes, is a wingnut Anglo deacon. (For the unfamiliar, at diocesan level action, parish priests are rotated every four-five years. However, deacons, who are lay leaders and consecrated but not ordained, generally come from the local populace and hence aren't going anywhere.) BUT? The current priest, per the story, is himself also a Uvalde native — and Hispanic. And, that said, the tensions are not all Anglo-Hispanic. A Hispanic deacon, while not a wingnut, apparently thinks Hispanic activists in the parish need to stand down. And, the author said "Father Eddy" has indicated the same. Both have preached to that end. 

I first thought that part of the problem might be that the church functions as a de facto community center as well. Wrong! Per City-Data, there's at least nine non-Catholic churches there. (Interesting, there's a Spanish Protestant church, but it's Methodist, not Baptist or Pentecostal. Weirdly, Sacred Heart's school is listed but the parish is not.) And, although the church has four Sunday masses, by per-grade attendance, its parochial school is not that much bigger than Sacred Heart-Muenster. AND, the Episcopalians (interesting them, not Baptists, on a place like Uvalde) have a K-2 parochial school, too.

More background, assuming City-Data is half right? The county as a whole, of which Uvalde is about 60 percent, broke 60 percent Trump in 2020. That's while being 75 percent Hispanic. So, Fr. Eduardo Morales and the unnamed deacon aren't alone among Hispanics in their political sensibilities or even close. That said, this is nothing new. Uvalde County, like Anglo places with "Blue Dog" Dems, first shifted Republican at the presidential level in 1996 and hasn't looked back since.

So, Michael Luis Ortiz shouldn't be so disappointed. His expectations should have been lower all along. I mean, I blogged a full decade ago about how Texas Democrats should stop assuming demographics is destiny. And, a year ago, I said similar to national Dems on youth demographics.