I just got a spam with this tag:

. . . This message is sent in compliance of the new email Bill HR 1910. Under Bill HR 1910 passed by the 106th US Congress on May 24, 1999, this message cannot be considered SPAM as long as I include a valid return address and the way to be removed. . . .

Traditionally the ‘law’ cited is Section 301 of HR 1618, if memory serves, and I hadn’t seen it given a date before.

This gives me a fab idea for a business: produce trinitite for collectors by setting off nukes on the Moon. (It wouldn’t be the same as the original trinitite, because Lunar soil has more aluminum, if memory serves.)

Bob’s Cartoons “I later discovered that, of all the disciplines at CMU, material science is the only one with no cartoons at all in their hallway.”

It’s a guilty pleasure to watch James Lileks devote his awesome talent to shooting fish in a barrel.

Philip Stott on l’affaire Lomborg.
(Link from Andy Kashdan, from John Cole.)

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

Necessity is a dangerous plea for the privilege of power; especially when the sole judge of it is the power pretending it.

Samuel Johnson 1768 (by way of the Future of Freedom Foundation)

They make a rout about universal liberty without considering that all that is to be valued, or indeed can be enjoyed by individuals, is private liberty. Political liberty is good only so far as it produces private liberty.