1 I hate to be a smartass...well, ok, that's a lie, let's face it. But isn't "political scientist" sorta like "jumbo shrimp", Microsoft Works" or even "head butt"? Wouldn't we expect bias out of someone who calls themself political, and complete objectivity out a scientist? Yup. You guys are oxy-morons. Note that the word is even a mix of science and politics.

2 After reading Mr. K's comment it makes me wish we had already developed and innoculated the masses with a d u m b a s s vaccine. But, that would not protect those who are already afflicted. Alas, there is no d u m b a s s vaccine. I hope this makes it past the filter. Seems like having to register to leave a comment is a pain in the a s s, but I have not been afflicted with comment spam. I say it's UP2U! Just a thought though, if your writings contain euphemisms, why shouldn't your comments? Perhaps I just don't understand the Typekey concept and what you are trying to accomplish by invoking its usage.

3 Rusty...at this point you may want to just go commit Sioux-a-sighed. Besides, Mrs Shackleford apparently wants more private time with me :^D

4 ahh hell, just noticed this was post was by the demosopharce and not Rusty. Man don't I feel like a political scientist..erm I mean butt head.

5 I like moderated comments - registration is a pain. My blog, Serendipity has a neat solution. Comments are accepted for posts under, say three or four days old per normal. Those over that age require the entry of an alpha-numeric code. This works very well against spammers.

6 Wouldn't we expect bias out of someone who calls themself political, and complete objectivity out a scientist? Yup. You guys are oxy-morons. Note that the word is even a mix of science and politics. Smartass. Actually, political bias is one of the things we study "scientifically," or systematically, because you know... somebody has to. For instance, there's an excellent study done by Tim Groseclose that uses an ingenious method to determine the political bias of mainstream media. Instead of using "self reported" political leanings, or party affiliation, which many have objected to, he uses references to "think tanks" (which produce studies and reports) that have already been scaled in terms of political bias by ADA, etc. (Two measures actually. One counts the total number of left vs right references, while the other counts the average bias of all the organizations cited.) Using these new measure he was able to demonstrate rather conclusively that the network news sources were about as left-partisan as the average democrat serving in Congress (or about a standard deviation more liberal than the public). He also showed that FOX and Drudge, although still biased toward the right were about half as conservative as MSM was liberal. In other words, they were less biased. Call me crazy, but I figure stuff like that is important for the public to know, don't you? By the way, the first real "political scientist" was probably Alexis de Toqueville, who wrote Democracy in America. Fairly good book. You ought to read it.

7 Still will not take the American translation of the Deutsch acronym N.A.Z.I.

8 Anyway, back to the topic. It may be possible to adjust the filter so that it catches only isolated versions of the taboo words, which would be the way to go if you're going to deploy a filter to deal with spam. I don't mind registration with Typekey, but I can see why others might. What I do mind is the system that LGF apparently uses, where they have their own list of approved commenters and subscribers, but where the list always seems to be closed to new members. I don't know what's up with that, but every time I've tried to register with LGF I've gotten a message to try later because the list is "temporarily closed." There are other ways of dealing with spam, but comment spam on popular blogs is only going to grow worse... and probably a lot worse.

9 Yes, Demosophist, I do think it is important to point these things out, and I am glad there are blogs like these that do that...Unbeleivably, I actually read the study you refer to, I think it was linked on Drudge a while back....and being a smart ass, well, that makes me an oxymoron too...

10 Demos, The problem is that I don't control the spam filter. Because we are all (mu.nu) sharing a single MT installation, it means that about 100 people control the spam filter. I guess you get what you pay for...........

11 Rusty: Well, I'm going to suggest the possibility that the filter may have been hacked somehow. I've never before had the problem with spelling "sozialism," but I have run into this sort of filter problem on internet forums that had been hacked as a kind of harassment. Either that, or someone who doesn't know much about filters has inadvertently screwed this one up a little. Sorry I haven't been posting much. I've been over my head in work and family issues lately. Hope Shackleton clan is doing well, from little to big.

12 If you go to TypeKey, will I still get those great advertisements for Ci@|is and p3ni|e 3nl@rgm3nt? Because I only buy stuff if it has already been approved by the spam gods.

13 http://www.creartec.com.ar/wwwboard/messages/1572.html higherloosertaste

14 http://bentleywine.com/wwwboard/messages/2286.html robertslicedsoiled

15 http://public-voyeur.op-dhs.org/realityvoyeurcontest/paraphilias.html talentstitillatedtusk

16 http://persadel.descom.es/fetishes/partys.html chromelimitedmultilingual

17 http://www.tomkobeer.com/wwwboard/messages/72091.html clubsmarketpinched

18 http://iamsuccess.com/wwwboard/messages/9797.html complimentwhosewondered