Not blogging has been interesting; on the good hand, I have more time – and TG has been really, reallyhappy about it. On the other I feel the fur building up in my brain as I relax and don’t try and think about things, and worse, don’t have my thinking challenged on all fronts. I have come to realize that I like blogging a lot most of all not because I get to write, but because I have to respond.

That goes to the core of what will happen with the new site. It’s taken a little longer than it should have – the holidays, a change in vendors (evariste stepped in and bailed my a** out), and my own spread attention delayed it.

But it ought to be ready to launch at the end of this week, along with a work blog that I hope to keep up as well.

So let’s talk about what will change.

First, and foremost, the ground rules will change. Commenting will require registration; the mix of writers may change. I’m hoping (a lot) that the tone will change.

We – like many blogs – got dragged into the “Bush sucks/no he doesn’t/yes he does” that passed for political thinking for much of the last few years. It was tiresome when it started, and it’s doubly tiresome now. Winds is not the place for that, and my profound hope for the next cycle of Winds is that we can avoid the “Obama sucks/no he doesn’t” which will be going on through much of the blogs. Obama is President. Let’s all deal with that, and try and figure out what real-world facts, issues, policies, and values we ought to be encouraging – I’m just not interested in wasting my hosting costs on “Impeach him!!” or “Convict Bush!!” There are lots and lots (and lots) of places to go have those discussions.

Winds will not be one of them.

What we will focus on are the changes in the world that will affect all of us – a kind of less dogmatic version of John Robb’s ‘Global Guerillas.’ All the problems that were here in 2001 are still here. The question is whether we’re better or worse off (and there’s a valuable debate to have…) in dealing with them.

Bad things will happen in the next year. The economy is shaking (I’m changing jobs because my old one was eliminated), our politics are fragile and centrifugal when we need them to be robust and centripetal, and the clash of civilizations that the late Samuel Huntington predicted is still tectonic in scale.

Our soldiers – including my son – will be in harm’s way, and risking their lives, well-being, and moral compass.

And what kind of polity will we become? And what can we do to make our polity stronger, and the world a better place?

Those are the kind of things I hope we’ll debate, and debate vigorously. I’m not looking to limit who can write or comment here in the hopes that we can create a choir. I like it when people disagree with me, and when I have to sit back and think about whether I’m right based on a comment or another author’s post. Remember, what this exercise is about for me is learning.

I hope to learn a lot from you in the coming year.