Comments have been down for a few days due to killer comment spam. Hopefully this problem will be resolved within 24 hours.

The comments feature is not working, due to comment spam overload.

This and other persistent problems lead me no choice but to put out a "help wanted" sign. The hardworking but HTML-illiterate staff here at danieldrezner.com needs to remote hire someone for a quick fix for the blog. In particular, we need someone who will:

1) Install vigorous anti-spam measures
2) Restore trackback features
3) Fix the comments feature so that they are a) more legible; and b) time-stamped

UPDATE: All should be well now. New posts to follow soon!

The good folks at danieldrezner.com are experiencing technical difficulties which make it impossible for comments to be posted right now. Profound apologies, and I hope to have this problem fixed soon.

UPDATE: Comments should now be working.

I'm having two difficulties with the blog right now, and I'm appealing to the techies in the crowd for help:

1) The comment spam has become unbearable since upgrading my Moveable Type software, because it required me to get rid of MT-Blacklist. It's been suggested that the only way for me to fix this is to use Typekey, but I'd rather not foce my commenters to register. Is there an anti-spam plug-in I can use?

2) The New York Times' Opinionator has apparently linked to my post on income inequality, but since I don't subscribe, I have no friggin' clue what they've said. Will someone with a subscription please post what was said in the comments?

I bleg you, good people -- help out this poor, befuddled blogger.

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone for the assistance. Tthere may be some technical difficulties as I try to install some of these spam blockers.

Sometime in the next 24 hours I'll be making a few upgrades to the site, including but not limited to an upgrade of Movable Type from the prehistoric version I currently use.

If everything works perfectly, you'll just be impressed by the redesign. But everything might not work perfectly -- so tomorrow's blogging may be light.

UPDATE: OK, looks like things are coming back on line -- let me know if you like the (mild) redesign

I'm on vacation with the family this week. Joseph Britt -- a.k.a., the commenter also known as Zathras -- has been tasked with the job of guest-blogging.

In a former life, Britt did policy work in the Senate as well as with a couple of state governments. He's now a freelance writer; last spring he guest-blogged at Belgravia Dispatch.

Enjoy!!!

For the last few weeks the trackback feature on the blog has been out of order. My apologies -- it should be working now.

For those who only click onto danieldrezner.com every once in a while -- this week I've outsourced the blog to David Greenberg and Suzanne Nossel. Click here to see their bios.

Regular blogging by yours truly will commence on Monday, May 16th.

For the past week there had been some difficulties with the trackback feature on the blog.

Everything should be working properly now.

Apologies to one and all for the inconvenience.

Apologies for the lack of comments over the past 24 hours -- there was a massive spam attack that caused the good people at Hosting Matters to shut things down temporarily.

Comment away!!

Apologies for the disappearing sidebar -- there are some technical difficulties that the good people at Hosting Matters are checking out.

Hopefully everything will be back to normal soon.

UPDATE: Fixed!! Thanks to Stacy and Annette!

As the blogosphere keeps growing, competition has become cutthroat and civility seems to be on the wane. Although we are proud of our association with Professor Drezner, we have decided for the next week to launch a pilot project: outsourcing to two temporary guest bloggers. The fact that they're both Indian and willing to work for free should not be construed to lend any credibility to rumors of danieldrezner.com relocating its offices to Bangalore.

With that out of the way, meet your two quest bloggers for the week -- Reihan Salam and Siddharth Mohandas!! Their biographies:

Siddharth Mohandas is a doctoral candidate in Government at Harvard. His research interests include U.S. intervention and nation-building efforts and Asian security issues. He has worked previously as an Associate Editor at Foreign Affairs magazine and interned as a speechwriter for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Siddharth holds an A.B. from Harvard and an M.Phil. from Cambridge, both in international relations. He was born in India, raised in Singapore, and is an American citizen.

Reihan Salam is a native of Brooklyn, New York. For a brief, shining moment, he served as Generalissimo of the All-Brooklyn People's Revolutionary Army, the militant wing of the Most Serene Popular and Revolutionary Democratic Republic of Brooklyn. The forces of reaction were on the run, and enemies of Brooklyn were being liquidated (figuratively, to be sure, and very humanely) at a prodigious, blood-curdling clip. Because Salam's bold and incorruptible leadership was too much for certain 'girlie-men' to handle, he was deposed in a bloodless officers' coup. Salam then spent several harrowing years on the underground Lubavitcher cabaret circuit as 'the One-Eyed Wonder,' in light of his penchant for wearing a bejeweled eye patch, complete with monogrammed 'R', over his left eye. But as they say, all good things must come to an end: 8th grade beckoned, and in a stunning upset, Salam, the dark-horse candidate, was elected president of his middle school. Charged with organizing a dance for the hormonally hyped-up youths, Salam, in a decidedly unpopular and undeniably courageous move, refused: 'Dancing,' he said, in a stirring speech worthy of Honest Abe, 'leads to fornication, and this I cannot abide.' He is, simply put, an inspiration to us all. Like all decent, God-fearing people, Salam has been an avid reader and admirer of Daniel Drezner's weblog since the early days, though he prefers the stunningly gorgeous Morena Baccarin to Salma Hayek.

(During his adult years, Reihan has also worked at the Council on Foreign Relations and The New Republic). Enjoy!!

[A brilliant cost-cutting maneuver!! This will triple your blog profits!!--ed. Happy Meals for everyone!! Oh, and did I mention that you've been outsourced indefinitely? You labor-hating bastard!!--ed.]

Over the past 24 hours I've been inundated with a few hundred spam comments. This is forcing me to do something I should have done a long time ago -- download MT Blacklist to deal with the problem.

However, given my lack of html-savviness, this may not take place in a completely smooth fashion.

So, if there's no posting for a while, you know the reason.

UPDATE -- Oh, man, this is awesome!! I should have done this ages ago. Thank you, Jay Allen!!

There are so many books worth reading, I've decided to highlight two books each month: one "general interest" book, and one dealing specifically with international relations.

The general interest book for October is Virginia Postrel's The Substance of Style, which I was inhaling right up until the quarter started, and I'm aching to get back to it. [Good thing you're hawking the book -- looks like she's having real trouble selling copies!--ed.]

Geek confession: I mark up every book I read, fiction and nonfiction. The Substance of Style is so stimulating that I find myself underline 50% of every page. Go go buy it and mark up your own copy.

The international relations book is considerably older, and, I'm sad to say, depressingly relevant for our times: Stephen D. Krasner's Structural Conflict. This 1985 book chronicled how, in the wake of the developing world's efforts to create a New International Economic Order, the major economic powers protected their own interests by shifting resources and authority to decision-making fora they controlled.

In the wake of the Cancun meetings, I strongly suspect this trend will repeat itself in the near future. In contrast to their agenda from 30 years ago, I have some sympathy with some of the developing world's current aims, particularly the elimination of all agricultural subsidies.

Go check them out!!

A few minor changes:

1) For the eight of you that care, I've finally downloaded some pictures of the boy and the beagle. You can access all of them here.

2) It's come to my attention that after a while, accessing my TNR Online essays on TNR's web site requires a subscription. Now, while subscribing to The New Republic is an excellent decision and should be encouraged, this is a bit unfair. So, I've posted all of them on the website -- which means the links to the right will take you there.

3) I've updated the book recommendations page to include a section on intellectual history [Boy, you really now how hip up the site!!--ed. Oh, shut up].

Those of you prowling around the rest of DanielDrezner.com have probably figured this out, but for the rest of you, I've added a few bells and whistles to the site. [You've added?--ed. Good point!! A big thank you to Robyn for all of her help in getting everything fixed up. My apologies for occasionally marring your beautiful design with some slapped-on code of my own.]

In no particular order:

1) On the right, you'll notice a book recommendation page, which contains some classic and recent books on international relations and political economy that are worth checking out.

2) Also on the right, you will also notice a Book of the Month selection. For the rest of August, it's Meghan O'Sullivan's Shrewd Sanctions, which I've mentioned in the past. [What's the deal with the Amazon ad?--ed. Buy the book via my site, I get a small cut. Trying to make a profit on the blog?--ed. More like trying to recoup sunk costs.]

3) The rest of the site is now up. This includes research and teaching pages for those interested in my day job, and a personal interests page for those who are yours truly. Highlights from the rest of the site include my academic cv*, my paper-writing advice, and a small photo of me skydiving.

If you want to see anything else within reason, let me know and I'll see what I can do. Otherwise, enjoy!!

*WARNING: Those of you more comfortable with the word "resume" will be flabbergasted at both its length and the extent of piddling stuff that's included on my cv. That's not me being vain; that's just the nature of academic resumes for those without tenure.

As this blog has climbed in popularity and added a comments feature, my e-mail traffic has shot up dramatically. This is all to the good. Indeed, since the comments feature has been added, the blog has garnered kudos from the blogosphere and the mediasphere about the "articulate, thoughtful & balanced' quality of the readership.

With the demands of the day job not going away, I'm just going to apologize now to those of you who don't receive a response either via e-mail or in response to a posted comment. This doesn't mean I'm not reading your mail or your comments. It means I just don't have the time to write thoughtful responses all the time, and I'm leery of writing quick, flippant replies. So, my feedback policy is simple:

1) I read every e-mail sent about the blog and every comment posted on the blog.

2) I won't necessarily reply to every e-mail message or respond to every posted query.

3) The likelihood of my replying has a lot more to do with how busy I am than with the content of your message.

4) I'm truly sorry for the non-responses.

5) Unless otherwise indicated, I will not attribute any quote from any e-mail on the blog.

6) When it comes to the comments feature, remember that I control the horizontal and the vertical. I will delete comments that I think are personally insulting, completely off-topic from the post, or so incoherent as to pass all understanding. My space, my rules.

7) When you're posting your comments, bear in mind that the government is watching and recording -- but not in a malevolent way.

8) Don't make me angry -- you wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

UPDATE: I feel a bit churlish posting this, since compared to InstaPundit my e-mail/comment traffic is small potatoes.

[This is because of hate mail, isn't it?--ed. Knock on wood, no. I've received some angry e-mails, a few trolls, and a few individuals that are spoiling for an intellectual fight, but over 99.5% of the feedback has been polite. I can count the number of true hate-mails on one hand. I just want to lower expectations about getting a response to any query sent my way]