May
6
2009

URLs du Jour

2009-05-06

  • [Penny Black] It's the 169th anniversary of the world's first postage stamp, the "Penny Black". It bore the profile of Queen Victoria, then merely a year into her reign. Trivia that might win you some cash on Jeopardy!: because they invented stamps, the United Kingdom (unlike any other country) does not need to put its name on its stamps. It's assumed. And all UK stamps to this day contain a picture or silhouette of the current monarch.

    The great innovation of the Penny Black was the sender-pays concept for mail. The Penny Black image here was filched from Microsoft's Penny Black research project page, which is devoted to making senders incur additional costs for e-mailing, thereby making mass-spamming a less attractive economic prospect. As near as I can tell, this is going nowhere.

  • [44-cent yellow] Here in the US, postage rates are going up (again) in a few days. Instead of the Penny Black, we have the 44-Penny Yellow; since we don't have a reigning monarch, we make do with the next best thing.

    Consumer note: you can buy Forever Stamps now that will continue to work after the price increase. This Slate article contends (probably accurately) that Forever Stamps are not a good long-term investment. But these days, what is?

  • Further consumer note: As someone who once took an actual chemistry course, I recommend you avoid buying carbon-free sugar.

  • In continuing news, Jonah Goldberg points out that, gosh, the Democrats, having been swept into power largely on the perception of GOP corruption, are themselves pretty corrupt.

  • And Jacob Sullum points out that, gosh, the Obama Administration, having been swept into power amidst perceptions of Bush Administration lawlessness, is itself operating with little respect for the law.

  • And the indispensible Geraghty points out that, gosh, Obama has tasked Democratic tax cheats in the Executive and Legislative branches with going after "overseas tax cheats". (And for more datapoints in this particular vein: here and here.)

  • Fearless prediction: over the next few years, we'll be having an ongoing fascinating debate on what most typifies Democratic rule: corruption, lawlessness, or hypocrisy. It's gonna be a tough call.


Last Modified 2012-10-08 5:39 AM EDT