Best Reviews of Amazon Bullshit, Pt. 1
Amazon sells a lot of bullshit. These are a couple of my favorite reviews.
Best Review For a Book of Bullshit
The internet turned everyone into a broadcaster, and Amazon turned everyone into a publisher. One book, Moon Sapphire Spiritual Guide to Happiness defies description. One reviewer took a swing at it though:
I’m telling you that you *should* buy this book, though according to the author I should not., August 26, 2008
This review is from: Moon Sapphire Spiritual Guide To Happiness Book One: Foundation (Paperback)
On page 83 the books says “I am concentrating on what I should do and not telling others what they should or should not do.” That’s a paraphrase, but pretty close. If that’s the case, then what’s the rest of the book about? The whole book tells you what you should and should not do. It doesn’t criticize you for not following it (not explicitly) but it *does* tell you what you *should* do and implies you’re immoral if you don’t follow what it says and yes, it does advocate killing anyone who tries to harm an animal. While I would probably beat someone senseless for needlessly hurting or killing my pet I wouldn’t kill them: that would be the act of an insane person. Human life, even a really rotten human life, is more precious than animal life. Call me a racist; I prefer to be called a Darwinist. It strikes me as just crazy to think a cat is worth more than a human being. Actually, it’s more than crazy. It’s completely immoral. It’s selfish to hold your property as worth more than another human being’s life. Even a drug addicted leper with AIDS. If God really thinks an animal’s life is worth a human’s life, then it’s time to throw out the whole bible with its animal sacrifices dating back to Abel.
The book uses the term “cruelty free” a lot. The term, used by vegans, A.L.F. terrorists and other anti-animal-product people does technically include the use of sweatshop labor, though that point is only stressed on the wikipedia definition. Everywhere else I looked it focuses entirely on animals. Usually it means only food that is free of animals who suffered, meaning animals confined to spaces or separated from their families. By this definition some groups including PETA (whom the author mentions)use this to mean anything using any animal product. However to go on about the potential of buying products that are made at the expense of animals while there are vastly more products made at the expense of human suffering underscores how naive the author (God presumably) is about the business of manufacture. Just recently the largest kosher food producer in the US and possibly the world was brought under investigation for using illegal immigrant child sweatshop labor right here in the US. So just imagine how your Nikes are made. Neither of these points is made in the book though. It suggests that most of the world’s suffering is due to the alleged mistreatment of animals. While anyone can see there are places animals are mistreated one can hardly blame such things for the genocides and wars happening right now. Did the Somalis abuse animals? Or the Jews Hitler killed? Or the Native Americans? Or the Tibetans? Or the Georgians? In a strange dichotomy, the author says that animal suffering is the karmic reason for the suffering of the human race but he also says that animals in their kindness towards humans will absorb our bad karma. So is he saying that animal abuse is the fault of the animals for absorbing the bad karma of the abusers?
The author signs the introduction “Sincerely, God” claiming the whole thing was channeled directly from the Divine, like the bible. Even the Pope doesn’t sign his letters like that! And the Pope explicitly says he’s God’s voice on Earth. I couldn’t find one person who signed “sincerely, God” until I stumbled upon one unlikely subject. The Zodiac Killer. I’m not saying Sage is the Zodiac Killer. I’m just saying that Sage has something in common with him.
The book talks about how on the Sabbath, the author allows God to replenish him, his soul, etc. I guess no one told him God has the day off.
The book says Moses made up that stuff about eating the lamb, I guess because Moses hated those little bastards from then he was chasing them around the desert before his first encounter with God. With regards to having a shank on the Passover Seder plate, Sage says you can “follow Moses or follow God.” The author takes a lot of biblical passages and Jewish customs out of context and reinterprets them using the PETA edition of the Talmud, the one edited by Madonna and Shmuley Boteach. Only the Ancient Egyptian Order writes more overtly wacky books.
The book is rife with inconsistencies, brutal ignorance and clearly a lot of bad writing. In the many books I’ve read of religious philosophy, I’ve never come across anything that makes so many assertions without backing a single one of them up with something other than the claim itself. I guess when you’re channeling God, you don’t need an explanation. The combination of language (I don’t think it even reaches 3rd grade reading level- the New York Post is harder to penetrate) and the total lack of any understanding of religious exegesis combined with the impression that the author didn’t listen to any opposing ideas creates the image in one’s mind of the author bashing his face into the keyboard, creating a random mass of letters, then strategically deleting to form sentences. At least the author apologizes for it in the introduction.
Honestly there are a lot of other things wrong with the form and content of Moon Sapphire but writing them all here would eliminate one’s need to buy the book to see it for oneself. It’s like a ten in one; you just have to see it with your own eyes.
Hysterically funny, though I doubt it’s on purpose. Buy it for your next airplane flight, you’ll have a good laugh. Or you’ll gouge out your eyes with a pencil.
Of course, not all reviews were negative. Two reviewers, both of whom I believe are the author, really loved it:
4.0 out of 5 starsMoon Sapphire Spiritual Guide to Happiness Book One: Foundation
By Louis Obyo Nelson on August 28, 2008
I was looking for a book to provide some spiritual direction. The Moon Sapphire Spiritual Guide to Happiness Book One is a suitable result for my search. I do not have to agree with everything said in the book, but I do find more than 90% acceptable. I do not plan to convert or change my religious inclinations as most of the directives in the book is applicable to christian believes. I am using the advice and intructions and may not be able to immediately tell of the changes the book makes to my life; however, I know that following the guideline I will definitely live a better life for myself, family and society. I do not wish to jump to conclusion this early. I am begining to feel a renewal in my life. My dreams are more positive — a move from nightmerish to a more pleasant scenes.
5.0 out of 5 starsThis is an amazing book.
By DREXAR on April 7, 2008
This book is incredible, I have been using it for only a month and already my life has improved. The book is composed of all these guidelines and mantras that you say in your mind every day and they make your life better. They have been working wonders for me so far. The most noticeable thing is that my stress levels have significantly reduced and I have a greater feeling of purpose and overall joy of living. Amazingly, and the book says this will happen when you follow some of the guidelines, I got a raise and started earning a lot more money! I didn’t actually think that part of it would come true, but when it did, boy was I happy!
Best Review Ever For a Bullshit Tactical Pen
EDC has become the byword for the OCD collection of stuff YOU MIGHT NEED ON YOU IN AN EMERGENCY. It stands for “every day carry”. Some people go nuts and festoon themselves with every possible item that falls into this category, until every day carry involves prepping for nuclear war. William Gipson, an Amazon reviewer (this is really not me, I should emphasize, though I wish it were) wrote the following:
This review is from: It’s not just a pen; it’s a tactical pen
By William Gipson on Oct 28, 2016I will update this review with a follow up sit-rep as fluid situations unfold. Yesterday I was at a convenience store filling up the 1986 VW Jetta (Wolfsburg Edition) with 89 octane fuel. There was a suspicious looking character pretending to look through the waste disposal bin for discarded aluminum beverage containers. I could tell from the way he disguised his motor skills that he was trying to lull me into a false sense of security by pretending to be inebriated. That is when I noticed that the shoelace was broken on my left Altima brand jungle boot. Maintaining my situational awareness, I knelt down and extracted the nonfunctional shoelace from the speed lace eyelets and replaced it with a replacement lace I improvised using six feet of paracord from the bracelet I keep on my left wrist as part of my EDC load out. Just as I was finishing this task the gas pump automatically kicked off and made a noise that caused me to instinctively reach for my BOKER PLUS Carbon Tactical Pen and jam it into the nearest terrorist ear hole. Realizing the sound emanated from a source that did not meet the ROE, I moved to the interior of the convenience store to procure a pack of tic tacs, some beef jerky, and a tactical gun magazine. The clerk asked if I would be paying with debit or credit. Realizing that I could maintain the tactical advantage by paying with a credit card instead of debiting it out of my bank account I responded with “credit”. He printed out the receipt for me to sign. I know that using the store pen to sign the receipt can make me vulnerable to nuclear, biological, or chemical agents on the pen so I whipped out my BOKER PLUS Carbon Tactical Pen and signed the receipt. The ink came out on the receipt evenly and with a resolution comparable to a Zebra F-301 .7mm fine tip roller ball point with a pressurized ink well. The Boker tactical pen has a pressurized ink well too. This will prove useful should I decide to write on a vertical surface or go to astronaut school.
