Don’t know if you’ve been checking out Jim Treacher’s new blog, The DC Trawler, but the guy does not like pandas. You can rail against pandas all you want, though, and they’ll just sit there eating bamboo and eventually look up at you and be like, “You say something?” And they know you said something and are just saying that to piss you off further.

Gah! I hate pandas too!

Good news. Captain America is taking on the Tea Party. With all the problems in the world, Captain America is going after people who disagree with the government’s fiscal policy. On the plus side, the issue got the look of downtown Boise correctly.

I started reading Captain America just a little bit ago (after the original one was killed, though he’s kinda back now, I think), but it never really felt like Captain America. It’s like the liberal version of an America hero, i.e., self-loathing. The left are always embarrassed by their patriotism, so instead of having Captain America righteous take on America’s enemies like terrorists like Captain America once took on the Nazis, he instead… we’ll I’m not even sure what his point is. He’s like an angsty Batman, I guess, taking on problems in America.

People seem to like Ed Brubaker’s run on the series, but how long until we have an actual American Captain America? One who is sure of himself and America’s principles and merciless beats actual enemies of America and it’s way of life, like Islamic terrorists. If you’re kinda on the fence about America and Americans, then don’t write for a character called Captain America. How hard is that?

So my dad’s birthday is coming up, and SarahK says we should get him some Joseph Finder books. We of course first go to Amazon as we usually order stuff through there and have a subscription to Amazon Prime. Except Amazon won’t sell us the books. All of a sudden, they don’t list any of Finder’s books in stock and they’re only available through third-part sellers.

It ends up, since Finder’s publisher, Macmillan, wanted to charge more for ebooks through Kindle, Amazon pulled all of their books for its site, including the physical books. So because of some ebook dispute I don’t care about, Amazon is throwing a little tantrum and won’t sell me the paperback book I want. I guess Amazon is just panicking because of the iPad, but this little hissy fit really bothered me. And it was just weird having my self-published book available while books by authors people actually want to read like Finder and John Scalzi were unavailable.

Amazon says it has already given in (though the books are still available), but in their statement they actually use the word “monopoly”… but directed at Macmillan. Yes, the biggest online store is trying to bully a publisher by not selling their product — inconveniencing me, their customer — and has the gall to call the publisher a monopoly and act like they’re the victim. I was a neutral party in all this — I don’t even read books, as I’m barely literate — but now Amazon has gone out of their way to insult my intelligence and call me stupid. And I love how they justify removing all of a publisher’s books from their site as saying “We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles.” That’s like saying, “We expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our agreement by killing their cat and leaving it on their doorstep with a note saying their family is next.” Yes, what a normal, ordinary thing to do.

I like Amazon. I buy tons of things through there through Amazon Prime. And SarahK loves her Kindle (and in fact only found out about the author Joseph Finder because one of his books was available for free on Kindle). But this is a big strike against them. Another incident like this where Amazon tries to get what it wants by bullying and treats its customers like imbeciles, and I’m gone.

UPDATE:

Here’s an effected author’s reaction (John Scalzi) which pretty accurately represents my reaction as a consumer. We first found out about this because suddenly we couldn’t buy a book we wanted from a site we pay $80 a year to for special service.

UPDATE 2:

Apparently Amazon is the Ron Paul of online stores in that some people feel the need to defend it in annoyingly obtuse ways.