It's one thing when the spam filter inconveniently blocks that invitation to dinner, but quite another when it eats a half-million-dollar telecom bid, as happened in Georgia's Cobb County recently. TechDirt this morning ponders the story, originally reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, of Elite Telecom Services, who's would-be winning bid to provide telephone services to the Cobb County school system allegedly never made it to the superintendent's inbox thanks to an overeager spam filter. TechDirt readers are divided on whether to blame the vendor or the school system, though the specifics of this case seem suspicious. The AJ-C reports that ETS boss Mike Russell suggested the spam filter isn't at fault: "Every e-mail sent by me was received except this one," he told the newspaper. Meanwhile, The Inquirer notes that "It would be a good 'dog ate my homework excuse,' but the school is also being investigated by a grand jury at the moment for writing a failed contract with Apple to provide laptops for students and teachers." Moral: It's a poor workman who blames his tools.