Comment spam is a PITA (look it up) for most bloggers. I have tried several solutions to comment spam with varying degrees of success and have most recently tried to simply moderate all comments. This is far too time consuming to actually continue, so I looked again for a solution to the problem.
I have been able to disable comment moderation on Elegant Code thanks to the Askimet plugin for WordPress.
The Askimet plugin submits comments to a web service back at the Askimet ranch which checks the comment against known spam patterns. This is essentially harnessing the power of community of spam victims to combat the aggressors. Awesome.
Thank you, Askimet.