Amazon Pulls All McMillan Books Over E-Book Price Disagreement

Amazon Pulls Macmillan Books Over E-Book Price Disagreement -NYTimes.com:

To make a long story short, Amazon decided to play hardball with McMillan in negotiations over e-book pricing, so you now cannot buy from them ANY books, e- or otherwise, which are published by McMillan or its imprints. Those imprints include my publisher, St. Martin's Minotaur.

So...

Powell's Books

Park Road Books

Murder By the Book

Barnes & Noble

Seattle Mystery Bookshop

Quote of the Day

From the New Yorker profile of writer Neil Gaiman:

If he had not been a writer, he says, he would have wanted to design religions. “I’d have a little shop, and people would phone up or come into the shop and they’d say, ‘I’d like a religion,’ ” he said. “And I’d say, ‘Cool, O.K. Where do you stand on guilt, and how do you want to fund it? And would you like sort of a belief in the universe as a huge beneficent organ? Or would you like something more complex?’ And they’d say, ‘Oh, we’d like God to be really big on guilt.’ And I’d say, ‘O.K., how does Wednesday sound to you as a sacred day?’ ”

You gotta love this guy.

For The Flashman Fans

Flashman's Retreat provides a daily meditation from the pen of Brigadier General Harry Paget Flashman, VC, KCB, KCIE, (aka Flash Harry), George McDonald Fraser's beloved anti-hero. A typical selection:

I know these beauties, you see, and it don’t matter whether they’re queens or commoners, when they start to play the cool, mocking grande dame it’s a sure sign that they’re wondering what kind of mount you’ll make.

And:

I told him I had ambitions, too – to live as I please, love as I please and never grow old. He didn’t think much of that , I fancy; he told me I was frivolous, and would be disappointed. Only the strong, he said, could afford ambitions. So I told him I had a much better motto than that…“Courage – and shuffle the cards”.

No Principles Whatsoever

Talking Points Memo

...every Senate Republican today voted against reestablishing "pay-as-you-go" budgeting rules that mandate that any new spending must be paid for. The rule passed on a 60-40 party line vote.

So when Senate republicans talk about being worried about the deficit, they don't really mean it.

...And I Feel Fine

I'm blogging today over at Murderati about e-books, cavemen, and why the sky is not falling. Y'all come!

Why We Fight

South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer Compares Poor to 'Stray Animals' - Sphere News

"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed," he told an audience in the town of Fountain Inn on Friday. "You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that."

You want to know why I'm so hard on Republicans? It's shit like this. Comparing poor people to stray animals who shouldn't be fed, lest they breed.

These people are vicious, thuggish assholes, and they want to rule the country again.

Jesus, is every SC politician out of his damn mind?