I'm not sure what the niche is. It is completely not clear what the blog is about. I would also remove the "Digg" sidebar, it is too generic and has nothing to do with the content - it just takes a lot of page space. I'd make "archives" a 2-column in size, so it would be more "flowing" ui. Considering this is a new blog, I'd remove rankings, as they make an impression that there's nothing interesting going on.