Just had a long conversation with Michael Hastings, who served as Newsweek's Baghdad correspondent for several years and also covered the 2008 elections for them before eventually leaving to write his book contribute to other publications such as GQ; he's very enthusiastic about the project and has agreed to join up and do whatever he can to advance it. We're going to meet up before he heads over to Afghanistan late next month; he's got some interesting ideas on certain approaches we can take.

I may have mentioned that I'm setting up a secondary network as a sort of legislative body to take over from me in terms of running the project at some point in the mid-term future. Do you think you could make a post at some point asking your readers to get in touch if they'd like to participate? Let me know, and I'll provide you with more specifics; joining the network won't require any commitment from anyone, with each individual who joins being free to participate as much or as little as desired, so anyone who thinks he might be interested in influencing the project by "voting" (although the dynamic is different than standard voting) or even contributing proposals for consideration.

Thanks,

Barrett Brown

Brooklyn, NY

512-560-2302