The Atlantic Council is sending a delegation of us out to the USS Eisenhower for the next couple of days.

Barring unforeseen access to a computer, the Internet, and free time that means no posting from me until Saturday morning.  My OTB colleagues will, however, be slavishly posting away as usual if not at a slightly higher opstempo.

After long contemplation and discussion with my family, I have decided to continue working.  Further, I will not be attending training camp with the Minnesota Vikings.

I had to be careful not to commit for the wrong reasons.  I’m 43 with a lot of time in front of the computer.  The problem with going to work every day for twenty-odd years is that they think there’s nothing wrong with you and you can work forever.  The things that bothered me, bothered me a little more.  It takes longer to recover — if you do recover.

Ultimately, though, continuing to earn a living was something that my family and I wanted to do.  So I’m going to commit 110 percent for at least the next year.

OTB crossed the 35 million unique visitor mark, as measured by SiteMeter, a few minutes ago.

As always, thanks to all who visit, link, and comment.

Previous milestones:

• 30 Million – October 14, 2008
• 29 Million – August 26, 2008
• 28 Million – July 11, 2008
• 27 Million – May 20, 2008
• 26 Million – April 5, 2008
• 25 Million- February 16, 2008
• 24 Million – December 31, 2007
• 23 Million – November 15, 2007
• 22 Million – October 3, 2007
• 21 Million – August 19, 2007
• 20 Million – July 15, 2007
• 19 Million – June 12, 2007
• 18 Million – April 28, 2007
• 17 Million – March 31, 2007
• 16 Million – March 9, 2007
• 15 Million – February 19, 2007
• 14 Million – January 29, 2007
• 13 Million – January 7, 2007
• 12 Million – December 23, 2006
• 11 Million – December 3, 2006
• 10 Million – November 8, 2006
• 9 Million – September 18, 2006
• 8,000,000 – July 19, 2006
• 7,000,000 – April 28, 2006
• 6,000,000 – January 18, 2006
• 5,000,000 – October 15, 2005
  
• 4,000,000 – June 8, 2005
• 3,000,000 – February 27, 2005
• 2,000,000 – November 8, 2004
• 1,000,000 – June 19, 2004
• 500,000 – May 13, 2004
• 300,000 – February 17, 2004
• 250,000 – January 17, 2004
• 200,000 – November 14, 2003
• 150,000 – October 17, 2003
• 100,000 – August 14, 2003
• 50,000 – May 19, 2003
• 25,000 – March 30, 2003
• 10,000 – March 22, 2003
• 5,000 – March 21, 2003
• 1,000 – March 4, 2003

Via @JonHenke and Rick Klein, I see that OTB is ranked as the 57th most widely referenced political blog for the month of June.

Like Henke, I am skeptical of the validity of these things (which are apparently based on links found in RSS feeds.)   I would note, however, that Ross Douthat is ranked 56th and got a sweet column writing gig with the NYT.

So close!

Of course, OTB was ranked 49th in May with Douthat at 42 and his last post was written April 17. So his blog’s retirement may account for the closing of the gap.

We’re back from vacation and normal blogging should commence shortly.   In addition to barely blogging over the past week, I’ve paid only scant attention to the news.

Did I miss anything?

I’ll be on BBC’s “The Takeaway” with John Hockenberry from approximately 7:45 to 7:59 Eastern tomorrow morning discussing my recent New Atlanticist piece “NATO Afghanistan Mission Risks Repeating Russia’s Mistakes.”  BBC analyst Olexiy Solohubenko and Sergei Khrushchev, son of Nikita, are tentatively scheduled to appear in the segment.

You should be able to hear live at the site or at major NPR stations including Washington’s WAMU and New York’s WYNC.  Otherwise, the podcast should be available later in the day.

UPDATE (April 2 – Bumped to top):  After a little more than 24 hours of testing, it seems that the system has some quirks.  I’m going to disable it for now and either spend time trying to deal with said issues or perhaps look for another plugin.

As one who reads most of the comments on the blog (I don’t get auto-sent emails on posts written by my cobloggers), there are a handful of regular commenters who simultaneously don’t qualify as trolls yet tend to derail the discussions.   So, in theory at least, I like the idea of both a user rating system and threaded debates.

Readers: What did you like about IntenseDebate vice the organic commenting system?  What didn’t you like?

_______________________________

I’m trying out IntenseDebate, a new hosted commenting system that allows threaded comments — i.e., conversations within the conversation — and user ratings that I saw over at The League.

If it turns out to be better than the old system, I may or may not get around to importing old comments.  If it turns out to suck, I’ll disable it and go back to the old system.

Feel free to comment on the new commenting system in the comment section below, using the new commenting system.

Note: For now, at least, the new system displays if you either go to the permalink or click “Discussion.”  Clicking “Show comments here” on posts which already has comments, however, will generate the standard WordPress comments.

Looking for the Colonel Jessup discussion I referenced in my last post, I came across the post “GOOD MOVIE, WRONG LESSON,” written on January 31, 2003 and imported over from the original blogspot site (unfortunately, owing to then-existing vagaries, sans comments).  It was the fourth substantive post and fifth total post ever on the site, written on my first day as a blogger:

Jonah Goldberg’s column today is an excellent example of how you can agree with someone’s conclusions but strongly object to their argument. Yes, the Tom Cruise character in “A Few Good Men” was a smart-aleck pretty boy (as he is in all of his watchable movies; he’s dreadful when he tries to go against type). Yes, the Jack Nicholson character (Colonel Jessep) had some great lines and it was easy to cheer for some of them. But Jessup was a villain in the flick. However well intentioned, he believed himself above the rules of his society and ordered his subordinates to break the law, with the tragic result of killing one of the men under his command. And then covering it up rather than taking responsibility. Not exactly heroic. I’d hate for Jessep to be the role model for American foreign policy. And, getting to Goldberg’s direct point, while it’s true that the US provides the lion’s share of the NATO defense burden, that doesn’t mean the Europeans have lost all right to dissent. They’re sometimes (okay, usually) annoying, but they aren’t our subordinates; they’re sovereign states with a rather different set of interests. Indeed, that’s the reason we need to preserve the option to act “unilaterally” rather than having all our actions subject to a NATO or UN veto.

I’d stand by every bit of that still, except for the jab at Cruise.  He’s subsequently done quite well in other types of roles. I’d also use paragraph breaks.

By popular demand, more Katie pictures.

These were taken a little more two weeks ago, when Katie was 13 days old.

You can see the whole set at Jill Thomas Photography clicking this link and password “joyner.”

Mom and baby were given the all clear this morning and released from the hospital.  Katie has met the rest of the family — dogs Miniver and Molly and cats Henry and Scamp — and has adjusted remarkably well.

Katie's outfit for the ride home.

Don’t worry — this won’t be turning into a Daddy blog.  I’ll ease back into politics blogging over the weekend, although it may be a while before my customary pace resumes.

I’ve secured the katiejoyner.com domain for the next decade and will likely set something up there for photos and updates.  She also has a G-mail account but since her reading and typing skills are not great, it’ll be awhile before she uses it.

Here are two pictures of Katie, age one day, taken today.

Kim Joyner and Baby Katie, New Year 2009

James and Katie Joyner

Mom and baby are doing great. Katie’s been given the green light to go home but, alas, her mother has not. Kim’s been up and about all day and would have happily gone home this morning if they had let her. With a C-section, though, two overnights is non-negotiable. We expect to be discharged at 11 tomorrow morning.

My wife Kimberly woke me a little before 2 yesterday morning to inform me that her water had broken and that it was time to drive her to the hospital. After 12 hours of trying naturally, another 14 of trying with the aid of an inducing drug, and two hours of hard labor, Katharine Webb Joyner was ultimately delivered by Caesarian section at 6:40 this morning.  She was 7 pounds, 6.44 ounces and 18.5 inches at birth.

Mother and baby are fine.  More to follow, including photos.

Needless to say, posting will be light for a couple of days.

UPDATE:  Some early photos.  I’ll post more to Flickr in the coming days.   Given the lack of sleep and the ordeal, there aren’t yet any pictures of mom and baby that she’d authorize for public consumption.

Katie Joyner in ER

Katie Joyner with Dad, Minutes After Delivery

I’m in the process of preparing some 2009 predictions, in the hopes of providing a good opportunity for embarrassment. While I was doing that, though, I thought I’d go ahead and look back at my predictions for 2008 and see whether I should even bother. Here are my results:

Predictions that came to pass

• Barack Obama will win the Democratic nomination, and proceed to defeat John McCain in the general election.

• President Bush will not be impeached by the House of Representatives’ — nor will any past or former administration official be tried for war crimes.

• Ron Paul will take at least third place in several primaries, much to the surprise of many, and will not drop out of the race until the last vote is counted. His candidacy will lead to no lasting change in the Republican Party.

• The United States will have 100,000 or more troops in Iraq at year’s end. The trend toward lower body counts will continue but civil society will remain an elusive goal.

• Pervez Musharraf will not be President of Pakistan by the end of the year.

• London will continue to surpass New York City as the financial capital of the world.

• Osama bin Laden will remain at large.

• Iran will not possess any nuclear weapons at the end of the year.

• Roe v. Wade will not be overturned, even if there is an opportunity to do so.

• The Dark Knight will be the highest grossing motion picture of the year.

Predictions that did not come to pass

• The New England Patriots will beat the Dallas Cowboys in the Super Bowl, becoming the first 19-0 team in NFL history.

• At least one Division I NCAA or NFL football team currently in the middle of the standings will stop punting on fourth down and consequently will end up as one of the top five teams by the end of the season.

• The writers’ strike will last at least until the Screen Actor’s Guild contract expires.

Half-Right / Half-Wrong

• Prominent Republican politicians will buck the conservative orthodoxy and take climate change seriously, relegating anti-climate change forces to the political fringe.

Obviously, anti-climate change Republicans are not in the political fringe, though John McCain backed a cap and trade system quite strongly during the election and earned some GOP establishment kudos for doing so.

Not Enough Data

• In many localities, more law enforcement resources will be directed to locating and detaining illegal immigrants. Violent crime will rise as a result.

Trying to decide whether this is true would probably take a doctoral thesis, which made it a rather stupid, unquantifiable prediction.

Final Tally

Well, I had 10 right, 3 wrong, and 1 half-right. I’m going to throw out the illegal immigration prediction because it’s impossible to quantify right now which gives me a final score of 10.5/14, or a 75% accuracy rate. That and a nickel will leave me scrounging for 70 more cents to buy a can of soda.

The fine folks at BlogAds are running their annual survey to assess readership trends around the blogosphere. Please take the Blog Reader Project survey and indicate that you got there from OTB.

We’ll publish the aggregate results for OTB readers once the survey has completed.

Last year’s results can be viewed here. Let’s just say the modal reader is an affluent middle aged white guy with a graduate degree, a passport, a dog, and who never attends church. Honestly, I don’t get it.

Bumped to top with corrected survey link.

BONUS TRACK: German version