Kurt Cagle wrote:

One idiot has set their vacation e-mail system to replay about once every five minutes or so -- something I found much to my chagrin when I opened up my email this morning. I've removed him from the mailing list. It should be safe to get back in the water now.

No, no. Anyone's vacation reply will do this, not just an idiot's. Since every reply to your list is sent out to everyone, including the sender, the vacation reply gets sent to this same person and the vacation reply is sent out in response to the vacation reply, etc. It is what you would expect with a broadcast interactive list like yours. I assume there is a standard way to handle this other than chucking the poor user who was being so helpful in telling senders that they are on vacation.
  Scott