10k. And a request of a blog partner.

Either tonight or early tomorrow I will be going over 10,000 hits since I started tracking in September. I guess this is supposed to be some sort of milestone or something. To celebrate I installed Site Tracker. It's at the very bottom of the page. It looked like it gave more detailed data on who was coming by so I stuck it on. We'll see.

I was looking at my TTLB ranking and noticed that the system just did another major flip flop. It just pushed me from around number 200 to number 131. If this keeps up I'll be battling it out with Instapundit and Daily Kos by next month...nah, didn't think so either.

By looking around at the blogs that are close to mine in ranking I noticed that many of them are blogs I am rather familiar with. I've used the TTLB to check out other similar sites and I guess this is what happens. We've all sort of grown up in the blogosphere together. Go to the TTLB and look around at the blogs that are close to yours. I'd be willing to bet that you've seen or heard of a few of them. Maybe you've even linked to a couple of them. These are the people that live in your blog neighborhood and are probably familiar with your blog as well. Go over and say hi. Go make a blog friend today.

Looking at the number 131 something has dawned on me. I don't blog near as much as I would like. I don't put out as much as I could. In fact, most days I'm asleep. All of my stuff comes at night, once the sun goes down. (No, I'm not a vampire.)

So here's the deal, I've been thinking about adding someone who can cover the current events that go on during the day while I'm asleep. I've been watching my sitemeter pretty closely and have noticed that by the time I get to something the window of cutting edge bloggertunity has already passed me by.

I've seen how a lot of blogs have tried to take in "guest bloggers" only to have people quickly lose interest in favor of their own blogs. Eventually, the original blogger is left holding the bag again with none of their guests doing much posting. For an example, go look at The Left Right Debate and tell me what has happened since the 23rd of December. Yes, I'm supposed to be a guest blogger there. I'm not asking for that.

What I'm asking for is someone from either the right or the left...or a different country, that would be cool, who is willing to surrender his or her own blog in favor of becoming an equal partner in this blogdeavor. Any proceeds from the Google Adsense, should it ever turn a profit (HA!) will be split down the middle. The last time I checked it was up to just over a dollar so it won't happen any time soon. In addition to that I will be willing to surrender one of the sidebars to whatever this person would like to put up. Remember, all of this is negotiable as well.

Okay, so what type of person am I looking for?

I'm looking for someone who is willing to give up their blog. I think that may be the biggest hurdle so I'm putting it up there first. I know that I would have a hard time putting this blog away if someone like Glenn Reynolds or Andrew Sullivian wanted me to assist at the price of my unique identity. Well, I'd be giving up my unique identity as well. I believe in this project of centralism strong enough to ask for a brother or sister in arms. Ultimately, I would like to retain creative control, but I'm normally a pushover if there's something you want to do. You'd just do it. It's always easier to beg for forgiveness than for permission.

As for this individual's demeanor:

I would prefer a Christian or believer in God, devout or not, that expresses similar views to my own or closer to center. That's the ultimate direction I'm trying to head anyway, center. Do you want to find out how close you are to center? Go take the quiz at Political Compass to see where you fall.

As a reference point, I'm:
Economic: -0.75
Social: -1.59

If you fall within plus or minus 3 on either you should be within range. Remember though, this is not exactly a prerequisite, only a self assessment. If you feel you're a centrist on either side of the fencepost I'll consider it.

Remember that your blog is being considered your submission so don't delete it quite yet. I only want to join with one person, preferably an undiscovered blogger with not a lot of blog space to lose. I'm not about to point to any examples because I'm not sure exactly who I'm looking for. When I see him or her I'll know. God will guide me, I hope. God could tell me to pack sand and do it myself, but that's not what I'm feeling right now.

If for some reason you put your name up and I don't pick you it doesn't mean that you're not a good or great blogger. It simply means I felt someone else's blogging more closely matched my own. If you feel like that would be too much responsibility but know someone that might fit the bill please approach them about it. I'm not a tiny blogger but I don't have a huge reach either. I'm sort of an "upper-middle class" blog.

Please don't take this as an arrogance piece. I'm not trying to say I'm a better blogger than anyone else. I'm not. I've written several pieces on how I'm not a better blogger. I'd rather not relive them. I'm trying to ask for help with an idea in political blogging, not a protégé. I'm asking for a blog partner.

Jeremy H. Bol
http://americanwarmonger.blogspot.com
jeremy.bol@gmail.com