Comment spam

Some !#^%&% jerk, or rather a computer program run by some !#^%&% jerk, has been posting comment spam here. Comment spam is when comments with links to other sites are placed on a web log as a means of increasing the search engine ranking of those sites. Normally, that's done by an automated computer program so that hundreds or thousands of blogs can be easily spammed many times per day.

I'd rather not have to manually delete comment spam. I could (1) turn on comment moderation, so that comments don't appear until I approve them; or (2) turn on comment verification, so that someone who wants to post a comment needs to type in a string of numbers and letters in order to post a comment. Both of these options are annoying.

Anyone have an opinion?

Update 8/5/06: I've enabled comment moderation.

Update: 8/7/06: I was wondering how long it would take for this post to get comment spam. Four days.