FYI - I have changed the settings for comments so you have go through an authentication step - just type the word that you see and that should be all you need to do. The blog was being hit by a lot of "bots" - hoping this cures the issue. Let me know if you experience a problem.
You'll notice that I added back the world map showing real time and historical blog hits. There was a bug that has been fixed and it seems to be working o.k. now.
Thanks for visiting!