To all readers -
You may have noticed that Depleted Cranium has been a bit light in posts recently.   It’s been a few days since the last one and that one was a few days after the one before that.  Sorry about that!

My personal life has just been very busy recently.  On top of that, I’m working on a couple of posts that are going to be rather long and highly researched.   Please bear with me while I get things updated.  New posts will come soon!

Also, please don’t tell me it should be “bare with me,” because it is actually bear.  Bear is the animal, but it also means to hold, carry or stay.   Bare means naked.

Thanks

-Steve (AKA DrBuzz0)

Like most blogs, this site gets its share of spam comments.  Most of them are from various sites looking to get traffic or try to use the comments for free advertising.  Others are from various malicious individuals who simply want to cause trouble or harass readers and blog authors.

It is the policy of this site not to block or restrict comments simply because they disagree with a premise or express an opinion that is not wanted.  Only comments that are entirely for such advertising are blocked along with repeat offenders who only want to repost the same thing over and over or harass readers.  That said, the right to editorial control is reserved.

As a reader, you have probably seen spam comments from time to time.  However, the vast majority never show up on the public side of this website.  In fact, the comments are spammed multiple times per day, but well over 95% are caught by filters, which flag spam comments and prevent them from showing up.   These filters use several methods, including blacklists of URL’s and common phrases along with banned e-mail addresses and IP ranges.

The filters are not perfect, and in addition to sometimes allowing spam to make it through, they also sometimes flag legitimate comments as spam and send them to the spam folder, rather than posting them.  This is not intentional.  It is simply an unfortunate reality that compromises must be made to balance the effectiveness of the spam filters with the problem of false positives.

Over the past few years, one particular spammer has been of particular difficulty in dealing with.  In addition to deluging the site with repetitive, often incoherent comments, this spammer is very tenacious and responds to having comments blocked with the use of different ISP’s and alternate e-mail addresses.   Because of this, they sometimes manage to slip through.  When this occurs, the filters are updated.

This spam usually comes from the province of Quebec Canada, but more recently, has been traced to ISP’s in Chicago, Illinois, USA.  It’s not clear if this is the origin or if proxy servers are being used.  Some of these comments have managed to get past all the automated filters and show up in the comment feed.

As a result of this, it has become necessary to tighten the rules for comment filters.  Unfortunately, this does increase the risk that legitimate comments will be flagged and not show up.  I do periodically check the spam folder to see if any comments have been miss-identified as spam.   These comments are not lost, and I do correct this when I find them, thus restoring them to the site.   Due to my busy schedule, this can sometimes take a couple of days.  If your comment does get flagged, you can contact me by email.

Also, be aware that despite these measures, it is still possible some of the unwanted comment spam will slip through.

Gee… I wonder who could be responsible for this???

Some time ago, I wrote a post about coal miners and the danger of “black lung disease.” The assertion and content of the post was accurate and I stand behind it.  Indeed, miners, even in modern coal mines do face an alarmingly high incidence of respiratory illness due to their work conditions.

However, one of the images and the caption I added were not accurate.  Here is the image as it appeared:

The image in question is one which I found on several websites using Google’s image search.  As it appeared in many non-cited examples, I believed it was likely an image that was either public domain or for which the original copyright owner was not attempting to control its distribution.   I also believed it was a West Virginia miner, as it was cited as such on more than one page.

This does not seem to be the case.  It has been brought to my attention that the miner in question is probably from Poland or elsewhere in Eastern Europe and that the image does not depict mine work as it normally is practiced in the US.  Also, he is not wearing a two-way radio, but more likely has a battery pack for a helmet-mounted lamp.  Thus, the picture could easily be decades old.

While I cannot verify the original source, I now accept that this is not a picture of a recent US miner and does not depict how coal mining typically occurs in the US.   United States miners do indeed have much more protection than this, although it is not adequate to stop all cases of respiratory disease from occupational exposure to coal or rock dust.

I apologize for this error and for the sloppiness in verifying the image.  I have been critical of the press for using inaccurate images before, and clearly I should not be doing so myself.   I take full responsibility for failure to exercise appropriate skepticism and verify all information.

I would like to say that this will never happen again, but I can’t do that with 100% certainty.  As a human, I am certainly prone to making such mistakes from time to time and I do not have the benefit of fact-checking editors.   However, I will certainly make an effort to avoid future errors.   Should I make one, please bring it to my attention in the comments or by e-mail.

Sorry again.

Many apologies!

For those who don’t know, I’ve been running for the US Congress.   I’ve been so ridiculously busy that when the site was taken down (due to my failure to update my credit card on the host) I didn’t notice for a week.  By the time I noticed, the host had deleted my files.   Thankfully, I was able to restore them from backups which were made only four days before the site was taken down, so nothing was lost, except a few comments.

The reason it took so long is I had to manually rebuild the SQL database from the log files and that was rather involved.  Being so busy, I had been unable to set aside the few hours it took to do so.   However, now I have and the site is back.

Sorry again for the service interuption!

I’d like to make something clear:  No posts or opinions expressed here are bought.   In fact, you can’t buy them because they’re not for sale.   I’m willing to post guest content from time to time, but only if I consider it to be something I can stand behind.  Furthermore, it’s always labeled as such and attributed to the proper creator.

That is why I am so downright offended by this e-mail:

Subject: Guest editorial on depletedcranium.com

Hi,

Could we purchase advertising on depletedcranium.com?

We could pay you $195 for a guest editorial about my client’s site (http://www.NAME OF A MEDICAL PRODUCT SITE.com/) and payment can be made by PayPal (or check delivered via FedEx US/Canada only).

I know time is valuable these days and I appreciate yours.

Sincerely,
NAME REMOVED
Marketing Assistant

Yep, that’s what I got. Of course, it had the actual name of the site and the name of the marketing assistant.

Obviously I did not actually accept this offer, but when I declined I was then responded to with another e-mail explaining that they understood that I was declining but then offering me $315 if I should happen to change my mind. Well, honestly, I could use $315, but not bad enough to take a blatant advertisement and pass it off as an editorial.

As for the site, it was not a blatantly quack-related site. It was basically a site about cosmetic surgery which would be used to find cosmetic surgeons in an area for those looking for cosmetic procedures. I suppose it could have been worked into this site and looked believable, perhaps by starting off by saying how some surgeons are quacks and then stating that people should go to this site for referrals to qualified ones.

However, if I did that, I’m not sure I could ever feel clean no matter how many showers I took.

So I must pose the question to any others who have blogs: Has anyone else ever gotten this kind of solicitation? Is this a common way of advertising?

Finally, I should add that while I’ve never actually published anything here for money and have no intention of it, I have to admit that it’s not impossible that I could be bought off – but it’s going to take a real real real lot of money.   So I’ll give this warning: if ever you see an article posted here that seems questionable and the next article posted is about my personal experiences in shopping for a private jet, moving to a private island or becoming a space tourist, you may assume that I have sold out

If you have been reading this blog for any period of time you have probably noticed that recently there have not been as many posts as normal.   There’s a reason for this:  I recently moved into a new place, and, as tends to be the case with moving, it’s turned out to be a bigger job than I thought.   First it was signing the lease and finalizing the documents.  Then it was moving stuff in.  Then came putting up blinds, hanging pictures and rolling out rugs.   After that I had to deal with the gas company, the cable company (who had to come twice because the junction box was in an area that required the building maintenance guy to access), and other service providers.   Then I had to go change my address at the DMV, the bank, the insurance company and everyone else who had my address on file.

Finally, I have recently been feeling like most of the work with moving was over and I could get back to posting as often as I normally do.

Now this…

Hurricane Irene is predicted to arrive in my area early Sunday, although tropical storm force winds and heavy wind may be here by tomorrow (Saturday).   All computer models and forecasts now predict a direct or near direct hit for my area (Southern Connecticut).   By the time it gets here it will likely be a strong category 1 or possibly a category 2 storm.  This will be the first hurricane to strike this area since Hurricane Bob in 1991.

I really do not expect anything catastrophic.   I’m reasonably near the coast, but well above sea level and there are no dikes or pump stations required to keep my area dry.   My building is well built of masonry and my family’s house is reasonably strong and sheltered.   Everything is insured and there’s nothing too fragile outdoors.

Still, it’s likely that there will be power outages and some roads may be impassable.   Internet is likely to be down (although I can get it by my wireless phone, as long as service is not interrupted).   The ground is fairly saturated so flooding is highly likely.  There’s always the chance that things could be worse than that.

Therefore, I’ll be spending the next day or so making various preparations for the possibility of extended power outages or other contingencies.

Thus, probably not so many posts for the next day and after that, we’ll see how things play out…

Note:  I’m trying something new here.   Thus far all the posts you’ve seen on this site have been written by me, Stephen Packard.    Recently I got an email from someone interested in authoring a post on the production of gasoline.  He thought this site would be a good venue for such an essay.   So here it is.

How it’s Made – From Pipeline to Pump

by, Jeremy Fordham

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Only on rare occasions do I ever take down a post that I have made on this site. This is one of them.

While I continue to stand by the conclusion of the post, that workers at Fukushima face a small risk of increased cancer and that there is a low likelihood that any will die as a result, I had to reconsider the quality of the post.

Simply put: There was at least one basic mathmatical error in it, and many of the estimates and numbers given were just too hazy.  Too many of the “best guesses” were not good enough and the avaliable data was too sparse to go very far with.  

Upon giving the issue more thought, I simply decided that the post was too speculative, too vague and not of a high enough quality to put out there, especially with the potential that it could be cited by others and spread information which may ultimatey be proven false.

I apologize to readers for publishing something that, upon better consideraton, probably should never have been published.  I have been quick to critisize the media for over-speculation in areas where there is not enough data avaliable.

That said, I hipe to have a similar post on the risks to Fukushima workers in the near future.  It will require substansially more research and consideration than the previous one.

Do you want your comments respected? Well then you better say something respectable, because here the policy is that your words can be used against you, your facts can be checked and your point of view can be debated.  If it isn’t worth respecting it won’t be respected.

Many people are fine with that, they don’t mind defending their side when called to task.   Not all are.

If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen!

That said, once you bring the heat on yourself, that’s it.   I own this site and if I like the fact that you made a fool of yourself, then it stands.

I say this because I received the following e-mail:

From: Abi Abbott
Subject: libelous comment

This is Dr Abigail Abbott

Please remove the libelous comment directed at me in regards to Jenny McCarthy/vaccination stream.

Depleted Cranium » Blog Archive » Jenny McCarthy Explains the …

- 7:57pm
11 Apr 2008 … You are Dr Abigail Abbott, an Australian Osteopath and as I suspected, a quack. You have no standing and no expertise

I engaged in this thread whilst under the naive impression that my opinions would be respected.

Well, Abigail Abbott, you’re more than welcome to respond to this comment and continue the discussion (although I’m not sure why you suddenly brought it up after three years). Or you can leave it alone. If you think you have been treated unfairly then you can follow up the comment with whatever refutation you like and readers will have the opportunity to decide whether or not to buy it.

The comments stay.

Every once in a while a comment is flagged as spam despite not being spam. I try to check out the spam folder and correct comments that are flagged as spam when they should not be, but it can be hard, because the spam folder often contains dozens of comments.

It’s something I had not anticipated about blogging. Many of the spammed comments are simple bot-created advertisements for services and attempts to drive web traffic to various sites. Occasionally some will slip through, but by and large filters can catch these by collecting reports from around the web of the addresses and text used.

There’s another kind of spam that is much harder to deal with and causes the most headaches when it comes to misidentifying legitimate comments. A few people (well one especially) take it upon themselves to repeatedly send me email and comment on this website about their own warped beliefs in Nostradamus or their religion and their belief that I represent some kind of evil in the world. This can be a bit difficult to stop when the individual is constantly creating new email addresses, refreshing their IP address and skipping between ISP’s, proxy servers and locations to login to comment. The best way to deal with it is to block key phrases as well as IP ranges and common links, but it’s far from perfect and all too often it catches legitimate comments.

That said, it has proven important to block these comments because when these do eventually get through they seem to encourage the wacko who sends them to send even more.

Here’s just part of what my spam folder looks like:

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