Ed, perhaps you remember Alice's Restaurant and the line about how "if a hundred people did it, they would call it a conspiracy". Well, I suggest to you that's the answer to spam.

First, send a polite email to anyone who might be in a position to pass real anti-spam legislation, or prosecute existing spam. That means your state and federal representatives, legislators, Congresscritters, and even president@whitehouse.gov.

Then take all those email addresses and stick them in one "LIST" address in your email client. Add the UCE@FTC.GOV address to that list.

Now every time you get an email, CC: it to that list. Make sure that every politician gets every copy of every spam that you get, so they can study the real problem.

And if that simply happens to deluge them with so much spam that they can do no other legitimate business...Gee, isn't that a shame. Maybe they'll understand the size of the problem, and maybe they'll address it.

Also learn to read the basics of email headers, and complain to the ISP that really sent the email (it isn't THAT hard to guess, write to them all) and the ISP that is hosting the web site the spam is pushing. Make sure they ALL get overloaded, it is sadly the only way to motivate them all.