Author: Brian J. Noggle

CNN reports on the latest Congressional Zero-Intolergence law, which will throw spammers in jail for up to two years for a non-violent offense. That’s right. Send an unsolicited e-mail to someone, go to JAIL! I’ll have to watch my step when it’s time to send out next year’s Atari Party invitations.

The story says:

The bill also won praise from law-enforcement officials, who said spammers who now shrug off civil penalties as a cost of doing business may think twice when faced with a jail sentence of up to two years.

“We believe criminal sanctions will make a big difference in Virginia,” Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore told the House subcommittee on crime.

1. How many spammers have been identified and penalized civilly? Not many, but hey, if you’re going to fire aimlessly and not hit anything, it’s best to have a full quiver of punishment arrows so you can just keep firing.
2. “law enforcement officials“? But Jerry Kilgore is an elected politician, undoubtedly only stopping by the Attorney General’s office on his way to bigger and better elected offices.

Undoubtedly, unsolicited e-mail is annoying, but it’s a stupid target for legislation and law enforcement with the current state of deficits and the continued existence of violent crime which, you know, actually hurts people.

An op-ed piece in the Washington Post, written by a former police officer, argues that as long as drugs are prohibited, neighborhoods will be torn up and will occasionally riot against police.

He’s right, of course, but we’re a long way from any repeals at this point, I fear.

Best of the Web Today links to a press release announcing a study by the Cato Institute. The report’s entitled Economic Freedom of the World: 2003 Annual Report, and the press release summarizes the report with the headline Report: Wealthiest Nations Have Freest Economies.

I think this title doesn’t capture the causal link between the two. Instead, perhaps it should say Freest Economies Create Wealthiest Nations.

But I am no economist, I am just a dude who takes the meaning and order of words seriously.

Drudge links to a story in USA Today headlined Report: Feds lacks bioterror experts. The lead goes something like this:

The government will have an increasingly hard time hiring and retaining biologists and others needed to prepare for bioterror threats, a report concludes.

The report, according to the story, shines its light on the usual suspects: government pay contrasted with private pay, the decline of science graduates, and retirements.

On the other hand, it doesn’t seem to mention the interest the government lavishes upon persons that it hires in this capacity.

Maybe they need a new hiring campaign slogan, such as, “Work on Bioterrorism for us, and we’ll take care of you.”

CNN reports: Last ship in Mars-bound armada begins risky trip.

Couldn’t that warmonger keep his ambitions planetary? No! Instead, he and the martial NASA send an armada, literally a fleet of warships, to Mars to conquer another undefended desert!

For certainly, the CNN headline writer was conscious of the ramifications of the word he, she, or it chose, right?

The Federal Trade Commission, an appointed and not elected body, has determined that individual states do not have the right to pass laws regulating commerce within their borders when it comes to the Internet.

In a move my newly-Federalist friend El Guapo might approve, the FTC would lift bans on Internet wine purchases. Some states think it’s too easy for minors to get liquor off the Internet, so they want to prohibit Internet vendors from selling wine to consumers in those states via the Internet.

The FTC, however, has found another way to abuse the powers granted under the ill-conceived interstate commerce clause of the United States Constitution. Instead of letting the individual states handle moral issues (alcohol consumption) and logistical issues (keeping wine out of minors), Uncle Sam must be listening to the last lobbying dollars from vino dot coms.

“By allowing interstate direct shipping, states would give consumers the opportunity to save money on their wine purchases, and would let consumers choose from a much greater variety of wines,” the FTC said in its report.

It’s all for the betterment of the consumer, and it’s at the expense of the states, who lose more power appropriately left ot them and, ooops, lose all that sales and excise tax money which they cannot charge on Internet sales.

It’s oh so wrong in oh so many ways, I will leave it at that before I start foaming Les Bourheois Jeunette Rouge at the mouth and stain the keyboard.

Professor Reynolds links to this story by Erica Jong wherein Ms. Jong dispenses some advice for married people and their sex lives. Unlike her books, this article seems to present the idea of preserving a marriage.

I guess I shouldn’t be so quick to generalize. I’ve only read How to Save Your Own Life (the sequel to Fear of Flying), and since I was not a neurotic, repressed adultress-waiting-to-happen, I didn’t feel empowered by it.

The New York Post proves once again about how Stephen King is a good guy. Apparently, he bought out a show of 28 Days Later and gave the tickets to other people who wanted to see it.

Lileks mentions the story in a Bleat.