Having heard complaints about how hard it can be to read the admittedly bizarre and often-unreadable word verifications that Blogger uses, I've once again removed the requirement. (I have nothing to do with the nature of the word verification, only the ability to activate or inactivate it.) I'll still be moderating, which I've been doing a little more actively lately. As some have noticed.
Anyhow, like unplugging a sewer, I've been getting spam comments again, dozens, and it's really annoying. It's not that it's hard to mark them as spam and delete them forever; I think it's that I get all excited to see a new comment (I do like them, you know), only to find, when opening it, that it's ridiculous bogosity. And, typically, poorly constructed, plainly bullshit stuff. Blogger claims to have spam detectors, and indeed they do. But any program that lets this crap through ain't worth the electrons its printed on.
I don't know how spambots work, but I'm sure no one -- not even a person of teabagger mentality -- is stupid enough individually to send out this stuff, expecting it to get through.
So. Know how much I care, you too-few readers (numbers do steadily increase, but it's still nothing compared to Surgeonsblog, of which I was rightly -- so I'd argue -- proud.) I'm making it easier for you at the cost of my own columnar epithelium.
