From reader MF:

Thanks for your newsletter. It would be funny, if it weren’t so serious, that [Sen. Richard] Pombo’s name, with the addition of just an ‘i’ after the P, becomes Piombo, which is Italian for Lead. There’s a town on the otherwise idyllic coast of Tuscany called Piombino which has mined and shipped lead and other metals since Etruscan times and I can tell you that driving through it – which is all one would ever want to do unless you are one of the poor devils who has to live there – is one of the few depressing things in that region! So I think you should ‘accidentally on purpose’ refer to him as Mr Piombo in future!

Hmm…