Hey, when I was still fairly new to blogging, I thought I was a bit over the top (if in line with the ancients) when I called for crucifixion of spammers.

Well, this guy's spam-fighting program makes me look like a total wuss:

Booher threatened to send a "package full of Anthrax spores" to the company, to "disable" an employee with a bullet and torture him with a power drill and ice pick; and to hunt down and castrate the employees unless they removed him from their e-mail list, prosecutors said.

In a telephone interview with Reuters, Booher acknowledged that he had behaved badly but said his computer had been rendered almost unusable for about two months by a barrage of pop-up advertising and e-mail.

(via Eugene Volokh.)

What must I do to keep up with the Joneses?

Maybe I should up the ante, Marcus Aurelius style:

[T]he flesh of the martyrs of Christ, by many scourgings and stripes, was lacerated and torn loose even to the inmost veins and deepest sinews, so that their entrails and the most secret parts could be seen moving; and that the torturers then strewed potsherds, sea-shells, and even caltrops on the ground, over which they rolled, dragged; and on which they pressed the Christians thus. tormented, with their naked bodies; and that at last, when they, on account of the previous torments, could scarcely live or draw breath any longer, they cast them before the wild beasts, to be devoured by them...

Will Spammers become martyrs evocative of sympathy? I know the idea sounds silly, but believe it or not, someone has already written Haiku poetry about it:

Sad sow seeks meaning
Religion found, she gives all
Now proud SPAM martyr
--Gladta B. Spam

Make 'em proud!