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Vachss wrote about just this situation, way back in 2000 in his novel, Dead and Gone:

Lune tapped a few keys, pointed an immaculate fingernail at his computer screen. "You know what that is?" he asked me, as what looked like a string of auction bids popped into focus.

"A bunch of dope dealers talking in code?"

"No. It's the IRS."

"Huh? I don't get it."

"It's a pattern," he said, spinning on his chair to face me. "You know all this talk about America's 'underground cash economy'?"

"It's not just talk."

"Exactly! It's authenticated fact. And that's where the real money is. Not in cocaine cartels or topless clubs; it's in flea markets, garage sales, all the 'hobbyist' stuff that's being trafficked back and forth every second."

"Flea markets? How much could--?"

"You have to watch the patterns," he said, reciting his mantra.

He turned back to the screen, beckoning me to look over his shoulder. "Look! Here's one, right there on the screen. He's selling a signed copy of a first-edition book by--Martha Grimes. See it?"

"Sure. The highest bidder is--forty-five bucks so far, right?"

"Right. And what this guy--I mean the seller, okay?--what he did was, he bought maybe twenty copies of that book when it was remaindered. You know, you've seen the tables where they sell them in bookstores, haven't you?"

"Yeah," I said, knowing that everybody pays, and that the currency I needed to pay Lune's tolls was patience.

"First, you have to understand that all books get remaindered. It doesn't matter if they sell a million copies, there's always some left over. Well, the publisher isn't going to throw them away, so they sell them, in bulk, very cheaply. A book you spent twenty-five dollars on when it was new, a couple of years later, you'll see it for a dollar ninety-eight."

"Yeah--?"

"Now the guy has all these books, so he waits until this Martha Grimes is doing a book-signing someplace. Then he ambushes her, gets her to sign as many copies as he can get away with. Some writers will just do it, some will limit the number of copies. But this--merchant, his story is always what a huge fan he is and how he's going to give the books away to all his friends as Christmas gifts or for their birthdays or something. See?"

"I--guess so. But --"
"Look at the pattern, Burke. Come on. This guy buys a book for, say, less than two dollars. He gets it signed. Then he sells it for forty-five dollars on this Internet auction site. Do you think, for one single solitary second, that he declares that profit as income?"

"Of course not."

"Good. Now multiply by--oh, ten million transactions per year."

"Are you serious?"

Not a brilliant question to ask Lune. "Come closer," he said, pulling back from the screen so I could do it. "Take a look as I scroll through for you. See how every single seller and every single buyer has to provide information just to participate? Their e-mail, a credit card, a street address--a ton of authentic data. What you see here is the clearest, cleanest audit trail that any IRS agent could ever dream of."

"Damn!"

http://www.vachss.com/updates/040605.html

Vachss is a rather undersung fortune teller.

Dogs that bite often do it from a fear reflex. A dog that is sufficiently abused will bite at strangers, and will look impressive snarling on your chain, and will make you feel like a big man walking your beast around. But a sibling of that dog, raised in a caring environment by good owners, will be a sweet and hefty lapdog.

Some breeds are made for fighting. Changes are made to the breed to make the dog harder to damage (more muscular necks, etc), but the personality needed to fight is usually brought about by abusing the puppies. A pit bull raised as a family dog usually behaves as a loving member of the family.

For more information on the innate nature of Pit Bulls, see http://www.badrap.org/rescue/myths.cfm. (In a recent study of 122 dog breeds by the American Temperament Testing Society (ATT), pit bulls achieved a passing rate of 83.9%. That's as good or better than beagles ... 78.2%, and golden retrievers ... 83.2%.)

For information on links between animal abuse and spousal/family abuse, see here.

That the same Disney as this or this?

Child porn is illegal everywhere I am aware of. Why block the websites when they can be taken down like they should be?

Because some countries, like France, let child pornographers and rapists go free.

James P. Hogan, James P. Hogan, James P. Hogan. Great hardcore SF. Might not be new to you, but if you've been out of it for a while, you've missed a few books.

If you want to try some stuff that isn't SF, try Andrew Vachss for some really dark, hard crime stories with a message (more on the web site). I recommend his Burke series (too many books to list) or Graphic novels (if you can find them) to anyone. He's done a Batman or two, too, I think.

Harry Turtledove's Colonization series (I don't remember the names) -- taking place after his "WorldWar" series, are very good reading, but the series kinda "ends" leaving too much hanging, IMHO. Again, not completely new, but if you haven't read it, you might like to.

I'm probably the only one that will tell you this, but I tried reading Neal Stephenson/Stevenson/However you spell it, and threw it out less than 100 pages in. Not just put it away, THREW IT OUT. Neal is apparently the James Joyce of SF, That is to say, he uses too many freaking words and doesn't really ever gets to the damn point, nor does he tell all that great a story. It's an "emperors new clothes" kind of book. The sophists will tell you it's great, but only because they think they *have* to in order to stay in the "in" sophist crowd. Well, I'm that little boy telling his daddy that the king is walking around naked. Not a good book.

A few years ago crime-fiction novelist Andrew Vachss searialized his first unpublished novel called A BOMB BUILT IN HELL on Amazon. Amazon posted a few chapters a day and gave the thing away for free.

Shortly after, Vachss posted the entire novel on his website in PDF format for free download.

Vachss certainly seems to embrace the give-em-something-free and they'll buy something too model. His website is full of short stories, novel excerpts and years worth of his non-fiction writing. [Samples: short stories & novel excerpts]

From what I've read in interviews and heard him say at book signings, he's been really pleased with the reaction others have to the free stuff. He also feels it gives him a wider audience, because novels are slow to be published overseas. So he can build new, loyal readers for when work is available for them to buy there.

A few years ago crime-fiction novelist Andrew Vachss searialized his first unpublished novel called A BOMB BUILT IN HELL on Amazon. Amazon posted a few chapters a day and gave the thing away for free.

Shortly after, Vachss posted the entire novel on his website in PDF format for free download.

Vachss certainly seems to embrace the give-em-something-free and they'll buy something too model. His website is full of short stories, novel excerpts and years worth of his non-fiction writing. [Samples: short stories & novel excerpts]

From what I've read in interviews and heard him say at book signings, he's been really pleased with the reaction others have to the free stuff. He also feels it gives him a wider audience, because novels are slow to be published overseas. So he can build new, loyal readers for when work is available for them to buy there.

...I mean prison with Bubba and all of his sexually frustrated cell-mates. These guys deserve to someone's prison-bitch for the better part of a decade.

Yeah, there's nothing funnier than rape. Oh, it's prison rape, so I guess it's okay.

the childraping poet ginsburg dealt with it too.

check for more info on modern pedophiles.

The internet ISN'T taking care of this problem by itself. And people are making money off of the rape of children. This is wrong. and if you think this is acceptable (i don't care what Ginsburg did) then YOU are wrong.

this isn't a "but what about the CHILDREN" sort of thing. We don't let children drive because given the time of development for the human mind, it's a crapshoot risk. we don't allow children to make sexual decisions with adults for the same reason. Yes, in the roman period, women and men were often married in their teens. guess what, this isn't the roman period. deal.

go to andrew vachss site for more info about predatory pedophiles.

check out Andrew Vachss' site.

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