Hi, Tim-
Thanks for getting in touch. You'd be a great asset to Project PM. I'm particularly happy to see that you did a pro-vaccination piece for HuffPo, for which I also write pretty regularly and which is unfortunately notorious for running pseudo-science regarding autism/vaccines and every bit of nonsense that Deepak Chopra puts out (he actually apologized on his Twitter stream for causing the California earthquake the other day, having been meditating on Shiva or some such and clearly being so powerful that he's capable of damaging California more than he has already; fucking douchebag). I've also skimmed your most recent HuffPo piece on conservatism, and I'm very impressed with the specificity of your prose when discussing semi-abstract issues; I try to use similar techniques, particularly lately as I compile the framework for Project PM. I'm similarly happy that you understand what's actually wrong with conservatism and present the case that many conservatives' stated concern for individual rights is disingenuous, to put it mildly; there are quite a few bloggers whose criticisms are far less logical and thus do damage to the anti-conservative cause by giving those folks something to be correct about when they attack back. Anyway, you should consider blogging a bit more for HuffPo on political and social issues as well as cross-posting any such diaries to Daily Kos or whatever other outlets in order to increase your influence; if you do so, I can help bring you additional readers.
As for Project PM, I'd like to have you at the very least on the legislative network, which will eventually take over from me in most respects and will otherwise be charged with incubating, examining, and "voting" (or something similar to it, more accurately) on new ideas by which to advance the project itself, particularly as we expand the scope of it; as things have gone far better than I'd expected in terms of early recruitment and the quality/skill sets of the non-bloggers who have joined up so far, we've decided to incorporate such projects as a charitable fund to be overseen by the legislative network, with the idea being that an initially hand-picked group of erudite people chosen for their competence and operating under this superior schematic for collaboration could do a better job of overseeing a charity than could, say, a charity. In addition, you could be of great help as one of my direct advisors - so far, I have a person with 15 years of experience advising governments on information security and risk assessment, a programmer who headed up software development for Hearst's upcoming Digital Paper device and now works for Deutschbank [sic?], the head of a reform group that opposes the Democratic machine in Brooklyn, a former Newsweek Baghdad correspondent who's now based in Afghanistan but writes for less amoral publications, etc., all providing their expertise as needed. You seem to have a number of skill sets, and I'm not entirely sure what I need most at this point (we're still a couple months from launch and I've been inundated with so many volunteers that I haven't had a change to organize them into lists and whatnot, so perhaps you have some suggestions?
In addition, I'd like to have you on the blogger network connected directly to me and a few other of our starting line-up. Note that both the legislative and blogger networks are designed in such a way as that failing to actually participate will not cause any problems whatsoever, so there is no real commitment in terms of time for anyone who joins in either capacity. Conversely, participation by clever and intellectually honest people such as yourself is of great assistance, so I hope you'll be willing to join in both of these capacities in addition to whatever advisory role you may take on (which itself doesn't entail any real time commitment either insomuch as that you're free to tell me to fuck off if I ask too many questions or otherwise take too much of your time).
Another thing you can definitely help with is recruiting other intelligent and reasonable people you may know for the legislative network. The main requirement for participation is honesty and erudition; I don't want people who are knee-jerk anti-Republican, as looking down on the modern GOP is akin to looking down on a mentally disturbed vagrant who vomits on your floor and lies to you about it, which is to say it does not necessarily mean that the person doing the looking down is anything special. But based on the work of yours that I've seen, I would assume that you know other people of high caliber who might be willing to assist; if so, please forward this e-mail to them and have them get in touch with me.
Anyway, let me know what you think thus far, and thanks again for reaching out.
Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302
On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 9:16 PM, Tim Ellis
<dynamic@nocturnalcommissions.com> wrote:
Hello,
I'm writing in response to your request for interested people to connect with you regarding your upcoming Project PM. I suspect you are most interested in real bloggers, so to speak, whereas my audience largely consists of ravers and other people reading my general open journal on a free-membership-required rave website which can be found here (although I do have a much less frequently utilized blog on the Huffington Post as well, of which one of the better examples of an entry can be found here). However, I think what you're seeking to do is incredibly important and would like to contribute in whatever way I can. Not sure what you can do with my skill set, which is largely composed of items related to music performance and event promotion and drinking, but I'm happy to chip in where possible. Particularly with the drinking.
I look forward to hearing back from you, and I hope I can be of assistance.
--
Tim Ellis
Director - Promotions and Marketing
Nocturnal Commissions
www.NocturnalCommissions.com