Monday, September 12, 2005

Political Comment Spam?

I checked my personal (i.e. blog-related) email this morning on my phone - a small first. A comment had been forwarded by Enetation to me (they all are) which goes as follows:

Comment: Al Gore Says Global Warming is Causing Solar Outbursts



Washington DC - An ongoing series of seven major solar flares, including two on Saturday, could disrupt communications on Earth and generate colorful sky shows for people at high northern latitudes for the next several days. The spate of activity from the Sun is being generated by a large sunspot named 798. Sunspots are cooler and darker regions of pent-up magnetic activity. When they unleash their energy, it\'s a bit like the top coming off a shaken champagne bottle.



In a talk given by Al Gore Friday, he noted, \"the recent disruptions to communications as a result of these solar flares is just another indication that the Bush/Cheney administration is ignoring the facts of global warming. These outbursts from our Sun are the direct result of heightened temperatures here on Earth. If our planet was cooler, then the Sun would be more efficient in generating it\'s energy.\"



Congressw!
oman Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi echoed Gore\'s ideas claiming that \"the Bush administration has ignored global warming. The lack of action by the administration has resulted in increased sunspots on the Sun which caused the increase of energy in Hurricane Katrina. Then, as a result of the hurricane striking the Gulf Coast, the administration failed again.\"



According to NOAA\'s Space Environment Center (SEC), \"there is no correlation between sunspots and activities here on Earth.\" When we asked Gore to respond to that statement, he said, \"Of course the SEC would say that! The NOAA are people that support and answer to the Bush administration. As everyone knows, I invented sunspots and I can tell you that they are definitely caused by increased carbon monoxide here on Earth.\"



Greenpeace also claims a direct correlation between the recent sunspot and solar flare activity and global warming. Greenpeace, through their spokesperson commented that problems i!
n electrical power generating equipment caused by the flares further increases emissions here on earth. \"This circular case and effect will have a huge negative impact on Earth. As greenhouse gasses increase, sunspots increase that results in increased flare-ups that further disrupt electrical power on earth. It is quite possible that the damage done to our Sun is irreparable.\"



While scientists around the world claim there is absolutely no correlation between global warming and solar activity, environmentalists and politicians are quick to claim that the scientists \"don\'t know everything\" and that \"they are most certainly wrong this time\" said Gore.



Not to be left out, Hillary Clinton noted that sunspot activity always increases when Republicans are in office. \"This can\'t be a normal,\" she said. \"Bush claiming that this is the \'will of God\' and a \'natural phenomena is just more of the religious right using faith and nature to explain awa!
y their mistakes\'.\" Senator Clinton said that she will \"demand a full congressional investigation and will subpoena God to testify before the Congress.\" Pelosi agreed stating, \"this is just another reason why we need to rid this country of religion.\"



DNC Chairman Howard Dean issued the following statement, \"Today we\'re faced with the hard facts that the Bush Administration\'s lax attitude towards global warming is now reaching farther than our home planet, Earth. The Sun is now suffering and will have a direct financial impact on all of our planet. If we don\'t get control of these rapidly increasing solar flare-ups, then the whole of humanity may suffer. It\'s no longer just a global problem -- Republican actions are now impacting the entire solar system."
The weird formatting is original. Now, this hunk of wingnut fantasy turned up in the comments on a post from not far off two years ago that mentioned a solar flare. Google tells us that indeed there are some solar flares coming up, and a couple of crazy-right blogs are going on about "who will blame them on the Bush administration?" etc etc. So how did it turn up here - when I've only mentioned solar flares once before, two years ago. Typically, no email address or website was given, but the IP address is logged.

WHOIS returns a netblock belonging to Adelphi Communications, a US internet service provider. I'm not quite unpleasant enough to contact them and demand the billing record associated with 70.33.44.232 (it's a direct allocation, too). But I might. Anyway, I'm deeply suspicious of this. Has someone rigged a spambot to look for posts containing "solar flare" and drop off a payload of Powerlinesque wankology? Note the way it's written to sound like a typical US newspaper lead. The name given, "Peter Perez", is clearly nonsense - either a Spanish movie detective or a minor New Jersey politico who went to jail over a corruption scandal.

Anybody else encountered similar spam?

Anyway, he/she/it has 12 hours from 0900 today to substantiate or be IP-blocked.

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