$50,000 In Your Trash Folder

California Senator Deborah Bowen (D-Redondo Beach) has introduced legislation intended to put more bite in the state's anti-spam laws. Included in SB 12:

This bill would authorize the recipient of a commercial e-mail advertisement transmitted in violation of any of these provisions to bring an action to recover the greater of actual damages or $500 per individual violation, and reasonable costs and attorney's fees. The bill would authorize the court to increase the award to up to triple this amount if the violation was willful or knowing.

Says Senator Bowen, "Contrary to the wisdom of Monty Python, not all kinds of spam go good with eggs." The bill seeks to govern unsolicited commercial email advertisements sent from California or to a California email address. Want to help? Take Senator Bowen's spam survey.

Shedding Water

Blawger Chuck Hartley might just be this year's Blogwhore. Don't worry, that's a good thing, as Chuck puts it, "one of the true watershed events in the evolution of blogging." You can see his game posts to date here, and follow the game here. Much luck, Chuck and Pongo!

Out Shouts

Apologies for the slow start this week. I never expected to see two space shuttles and their crews go up like roman candles in my lifetime. It has lowered a pall on my enthusiasm, as well as the knowledge that anything much I might say at the moment is terribly trivial. But the blawgs do go on, and there are a number of things worth mentioning on that front.

The Blawg Ring should usher in its hundredth member any time now. Seems like we should be able to come up with some sort of appropriate commemoration for the lucky blawger... In the meantime,
be sure to acquaint yourself with Berkman affiliate Derek Slater, who writes A Copyfighter's Musings.

Speaking of Berkman, I've been much too tardy in welcoming Donna's and Dave's boss, John Palfrey, to the festivities.

Dr. Karl-Friedrich Lenz, Professor of German and European Law at Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo writes the Lenz Blog, and has a number of recent posts with an IP focus. [via Blawg.org, to which Bag and Baggage says "Thanks!" for being noted as this week's "featured feed."]

In other blawgy news, Bob Ambrogi highlights legal weblogs in his January column (Lawyers As Pundits, By Way of the Web), and the George Mason University School of Law has included several of your favorite blawgers in its class outline for Internet Research (via Howard). Finally, lots of gratitude, good feelings and therapeutic referrals to all who have dropped by Bag and Baggage since February 13, 2002, when I added the Site Meter; at some point this weekend, the blog had its 100,000th page view.

That Was Quick

Shuttle debris on eBay. It's a strange world. [via The Washington Post, Wired News, c | net News.com and ILN]

no, no, no

Columbia space shuttle disaster. CNN's news as of 10:25 EST is here. [Via Dave] Glenn Reynolds has been monitoring since NASA lost contact and the shuttle missed its scheduled landing time at Kennedy Space Center.