winch gargoyle

The above is the title of a (suspected) spam caught today by Pobox’s filter. I’m almost tempted to find out what the content could be.

In other news, I was passed on the highway by a sport Audi moving at high speed; its plate was CAFIN8D.

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it’s a day for anniversaries

Several important things happened on April 19, but here’s one of which I was unaware: Charles Darwin died on this date in 1882.

It came to my attention because the bookmark of the hour happens to be the Darwin-L archives. Darwin-L (1993-7) was a forum devoted to the historical sciences, full of tasty wide-ranging discussion. I was very sorry to see it close down.

How many list-servers, I wonder, still use the -L tag?

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fixin to rumble

Pillow can generate a remarkable volume of purr when he puts his mind to it. I thought of asking him, “Is that a frog in your throat or are you just happy to see me?” but it could so easily be misconstrued.

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ReadTheBill

This looks like a good idea:

ReadtheBill.org invites Americans of all political views: Help stop Congress from passing bills in the dead of night that nobody has read. . . . we will persuade Congress to adopt the 72 Online rule — to require posting bills online for 72 hours before floor debate in Congress.

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all roads lead

I spent most of yesterday transcribing a police interrogation related to a murder on Sunnydale Avenue, which could be why after work I had an urge to watch Buffy.

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spam magnets?

I had a look at the Trash folder in which I archive notices of attempted comments on the blog (most of which are spam). Since I last cleaned it, 164 posts have received two or more, and #1301 has had eighteen. Why? 1301 is not obviously a magic number.

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give me liberty or give me subsidies

Will Wilkinson spanks someone or other at The New Yorker for worrying too much about income inequality and disregarding the psychological benefits of autonomy.

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