Conflict of Interest: Applies or not?

Here's a NYT editorial that deals with an issue that is, in my view, relevant to Amazon's running a reviews system reviewing what Amazon sells.

... New York State’s attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, and UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation’s largest health insurers, have agreed to set up a new system for calculating out-of-network payments. [...] Typically, when patients use non-network doctors, their insurance company agrees to pay 70 percent to 80 percent of the “reasonable and customary” charges [...] That calculation for most of the industry is made by a company called Ingenix, which conveniently is owned by UnitedHealth. [...] UnitedHealth neither admits nor denies any wrongdoing, but the company does acknowledge the inherent conflict of interest [...] UnitedHealth is planning to close its Ingenix databases and shift responsibility to an independent nonprofit organization ...

Check it out.

Harriet is Star Struck (Sorta)

Harriet seems to be gob smacked with Hollywood and celebrities like most people toiling away in Georgia. Thus, when she knows the author is a screen writer she invariably says that what has been written should be produced. She has an affaire de plume with Lee Goldberg that you can understand more fully only by reading her 10 reviews of his books. At the end of the one book that has not been filmed (the rest are adaptations of TV shows), our Queen writes

"The Walk is an exciting action packed thriller that would make a fantastic movie because it focuses on the protagonist who undergoes a metamorphosis from an uncaring selfish man to a heroic figure. The trials and tribulations he undergoes allows the real Marty Slack to shine as he proves he is no slacker. Lee Goldberg always entertains his audience with a gripping drama and The Walk is certainly that."

Another book, Debatable Space, perhaps the worst piece of trash I have ever had the misfortune to read, and which gave me my introduction to Her Highness, was also penned by a screenwriter. So Harriet stroked him by observing

"Philip Palmer writes a terrific space opera and DEBATABLE SPACE would make a great marquee movie in the tradition of Star Wars. Alien races co-exist with humanity and the aliens are major characters so readers feel as if they actually exist. Readers ride an orbital roller coaster that takes us to various planets in the galaxy, making the audience realize how enslaved the human race is if they don't live on Earth."

If the writer is a screenwriter Harriet will probably nominate his book for celluloid (or videotape).

Please welcome S. McDonald, our new Friend Top Reviewer

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Check this out: this reviewer, S. McDonald "Library World", posts exact copies of "Product Description" as his reviews. Verbatim or near so. I think he deserves a place in our select group of Top Reviewers like Harriet Klausner, W.Bouville, Gunny, and the rest.

For example, here's his review of Living God's Politics: A Guide to Putting Your Faith into Action by Jim Wallis; let's quite a bit:

After fifteen weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list, this book not only changed the conversation about faith and politics in this country, it began a movement. All across the country, wherever the author spoke, people were frustrated by tax cuts and budgets that widened the gap between rich and poor, aggravated by the government's lack of response to natural disasters, wearied of misinformation and the ongoing war in the Middle East, and exasperated by the impractical political rhetoric about sexual abstinence in lieu of policies that would strengthen more broadly family values and community health.

And here is the book page itself, scroll down a bit to "Editorial Reviews", "Product Description":

After fifteen weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list, God's Politics not only changed the conversation about faith and politics in this country, it began a movement. All across the country, wherever Jim Wallis spoke, people were frustrated by tax cuts and budgets that widened the gap between rich and poor, aggravated by the government's lack of response to natural disasters, wearied of misinformation and the ongoing war in the Middle East, and exasperated by the impractical political rhetoric about sexual abstinence in lieu of policies that would strengthen more broadly family values and community health.

Find three differences between these two excerpts. Or, let's make it easier: find just one.

PS. Believe it or not, apparently there's been people voting his stuff "helpful" :-(

"Gunny" is back. How nice.

After a long hiatus, our old friend topreviewer John Matlock "Gunny" has posted a five-star review that reads, every bit as before, like a hunk of jacket copy. Well, welcome back; we're looking forward to his reviewing some dozen two-thousand-page scientific tractatuses per day, every review five-star and clueless.

Knol vs Wikipedia: Corporatism vs Nature

Here's a curious article (from Slate) that, I think, is directly applicable to the pullulating woes of the Amazon "reviews" system. Another failure of an attempt to sell shit-faced corporate skull-duggery as, um... like Amazon would say, "helpful" (despite the obligatory fake friendliness and even an openly stated promise of some cash). Check it out.