I am not going to weigh in on the censorship or first amendment issues. Most
of these arguments have been made before. Since I am neither an expert in
constitutional law nor a believer in my ability to be the arbiter of taste,
decency or morality, I probably have nothing new to add anyway.

 My question is on the whole issue of web/catalog sales and what it is doing
to our society. Someone pointed out that they got the book the same day at
COSTCO. That is the whole point.
Look at the resources spent to get the book delivered to 3,000,000
households. Compare that to the effort to deliver it to 3,000 bookstores.
What a waste of time and energy. So what if some kid didn't have bragging
rites that he got the book before his/her comrades? There are legitimate
uses for this type of sales, shut-ins, people in far away places etc but a
created need is not one IMHO.

The fact that some venture capitalist has poured good money after bad to
support a losing proposition like AMAZON.COM is interesting enough. That
fact that nobody seems to be winning in this situation, i.e. AMAZON is
hemorrhaging money like a person with AB- at a Red Cross office and small
"brick and mortar" shops are closing at an alarming rate, is even more
interesting. The fact that if AMAZON sold every book  sold in the world this
year its stock price would still not be justifiable, is the most interesting
of all.

FWIW my final comment on the whole subject is *keep on reading.* Read the
bible, read new books, read the classics, read fiction and non-fiction, read
newspapers and magazines, read internet sites when all else fails read the
ingredients list on you bag of survival rations. Just like the 3000's we
service we are only as good as our input data.

Joseph Rosenblatt

-----Original Message-----
From:   HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Denys Beauchemin
Sent:   Tuesday, July 11, 2000 8:32 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: [HP3000-L] e-commerce in hype-rdrive

Speaking of which, please refer to this URL and see how Amazon has fared
this
past weekend.

http://www.nypostonline.com/business/7574.htm

Kind regards,

Denys. . .

Denys Beauchemin
HICOMP
(800) 323-8863  (281) 288-7438         Fax: (281) 355-6879
denys at hicomp.com                             www.hicomp.com


-----Original Message-----
From:   Jerry Fochtman [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Tuesday, July 11, 2000 7:23 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: e-commerce in hype-rdrive

At 05:54 PM 7/10/00 -0700, Doug Becker wrote:
>I believe that "In God We Trust" is a misprint! It should read: "In This
>God We Trust"!

Open your wallet and look at the back of a $1 bill.....it's "In God We
Trust".