last week I wrote a brief shoutout to a couple of commentors here - simon and miguel. they both replied in the comments - but i wanted to front-page their replies - think of this as part "ice-breaking" and part (other stuff) - and i'll also take the opportunity to introduce a few other regulars - let's pretend it's yearlykos, without the Kos, and without the vegas :

miguel:

"I totally appreciate the compliments. I confess that I don't have any particular brilliance or anything like that, but after I read Sibel's interview with Jim Hogue that was posted across the Internet in May, 2004, I have made it kind of a hobby of mine to write and comment on her case, first for Online Journal, now for your blog.

I've probably spent a lot more hours thinking about all the different angles of Sibel's issues than I should (given that my wife would prefer me to think about things like a better job with more pay), which is why I hope I've been able to make some contribution to a better understanding of exactly what she discovered in her tenure at the FBI .

I think we've got a great group of Commenters/Posters here on Wot Is It Good 4, especially on Sibel's case. I hope we all can keep the momentum going and help push these issues back into the mainstream media, where they belong.

Because, at the end of the day, there are dozens of posters and bloggers giving their opinions on the various issues of the day from Iraq War to the CIA Leak case. But there are only a few of us, at least, that I know of, that are still focused like a laser beam on Sibel Edmonds' case. If we can gradually push awareness of the seriousness of these issues back out to our fellow bloggers, then perhaps we can get to the point where the New York Times will actually be forced to write the story about Sibel that blows the whole case wide open, once and for all."

let's first give a shout-out to mrs miguel - and particularly a special thankyou to miguel for all the great input he provides here. he gives me many leads for new lines of inquiry, and corrects me when i go astray, and fills in gaps when i have questions, and generally keeps me sane.

thanks miguel.

and simon:

Just a few words about myself, I'm basically a mechanical engineer who spent quite a few years working on and around some very fast and potent jet aircraft. I worked quite extensively for about eight years as a fitter/rigger/technician on US GD F111Es and Fs, which were stationed in Europe during the latter years of the Cold War. Their weapons bays, at least the non-Pave Tack variety, were always racked and pinned up for B-61 tactical nukes. It certainly focuses the mind knowing you don't want to make a mistake and cause one or two of those babies to accidentally fall out of the sky!

After that I went to Saudi Arabia to assist with the introduction of Tornado ADV aircraft into RSAF service. I stayed there until just after Gulf War I. That in itself was an experience-and-a-half, jumping into full NBC kit (sometimes for real) anything up to five times a day. Anyway, that gave me an interest in Saddam's wonderful WMDs like nothing else would ever do (some would say I might even have an obsession about them).

I don't have my own blog anywhere, but I do get to comment (under various guises) on quite a few. This one here, IMHO, is one of the best.

sheesh. simon also has intimate knowledge of the detail of the propaganda rollout - particularly from the british side.

and while i'm introducing folks, the following is from kathleen - which she mentioned just in passing the other day (and she has lots of other great, similar stories):

There is an entrenched misconception about George McGovern being the leader of the left in the 70's. George McGovern was simply the person that Teddy Kennedy put into place after Bobby Kennedy was shot, to prevent the nomination from going to Gene McCarthy, the rightful leader of the left.

During the height of the Vietnam War, it was Gene McCarthy who put his career on the line by announcing his intention to run for President, challenging an incumbent President of his own party. It was not until the Kennedy's saw which way the political wind was blowing, after the New Hampshire Primary in 1968, that Bobby through his hat in the ring, dividing the anti-war vote. Even so, McCarthy came damn close to winning the nomination, losing the California Primary by only 6/10ths of percentage point.

When Bobby was shot, rather than let the peace vote come back together, Teddy put McGovern's name in play, thus underhandedly giving the nomination to Hubert Humphrey. McCarthy and his supporters were subjected to all kinds of dirty tricks at the Chicago convention. In disgust, he resigned from the Senate, rather than participate in such a dishonest farce and most of his supporters left the Democratic party to form the Green Party.

At the 1968 Democratic Convention, it was the McCarthy delegates from Connecticut who were relegated to the Rules Committee who forced the establishment of a national commission to study the delegate selection process in all 50 states because back then, there were only 6 primaries and very little input from the people on who was elected as a delegate to the national conventions.

It was the CT. McCarthy delegates, me in particular, working with two Yale Law School students, who spent the summer investigating the process, forming a commission with Senator Harold Hughes as chairman. At the convention the Hughes Commission Report was submitted to the Rules Committee by Anne Wexler, Vice Chair of the CT. McCarthy Committee, and it was turned down, so it was submitted to the floor of the convention as a minority report and passed.

This called for a national commission to hold public hearings around the country to change the delegate selection proicess. Teddy insisted that all Kennedy people be staff and Senator Harrold Hughes threatened to blow the whistle to the press if he did. Some McCarthy people were permitted to be staff, but Teddy got his way with naming George McGovern as chairman, even though we were the ones who thought of it and did all the work. We knew that whoever was chairman of that commission would be the next nomineee and so Geroge Mcgovern was the nominee in 1972, not through merit or popilar support, but because Teddy wanted it that way..

"The Democratic Party lost its soul in Chicago in 1968 and has never gotten it back. Howard Dean came close to restoring it, but he lost the Iowa Caucus because Teddy took over Kerry's campaign and packed the caucus. The only reason Kerry wasn't trounced in the 2004 election was Howard Dean and his supporters' graciousness in losing and the intense anti Bush sentiment.

Teddy may sound like a liberal but when push comes to shove, he's a boss, through and through. Even if the Netroots gains strength, Terddy can still undermine behind the scenes, like he did in Iowa in 2004 and in Chicago in 1968 and other times, supporting losers from Massachusettes, like Dukakis. I hope We, The People can once and for all take back the party. For me, the only candiudate I could support, in good conscience, is Russ Feingold.

P.S. As I mentioned in an earlier comment, the CT. McCarthy people forced the first primary ever in CT.in some of the towns, so we were able to elect 25% of the delegates to the State Convention. Not enough to elect a slate of delegates so we argued for proportional representation, which would have given us 11 out of 44. John Bailey, State and National Chairman of the DNC said NO, so I talked Joe Duffey into letting us nominate him to challenge Senator Abe Ribicoff to a primary and they called a middle of the night meeting and made a deal with us. They would give us 9 seats if we agreed not to challenge Ribicoff and agreed to support Joe Duffey in 1970 against Senator Tom Dodd in 1970 because he was embroiled in a scandal at the time.

From then on, John Bailey called me "THAT WOMAN", but I came home from Chicago with a paid staff position on Ribicoff's 1968 campaign. I was put in charge of Fairfiled County a dyed in the wool Republican district, so Republican it had never ever elected a Democrat to anything, not even Board of Ed.and Ribicoff who was very popular in CT. had never carried the district, until 1968. when he ran ahead of the ticket and ahead of Nixon. It was quite a feat, if I say so myself., I was finishing my undergraduate degree at Sarah Lawrence College and studying, amoung other things, Mass Persuasion, so I developed a new kind of canvassing/polling. It worked.

Gene McCarthy's campaign was the beginning of my political activism.

sigh. and then there was the time she took on the USA at the UN Commssion for Human Rights, Geneva, Switzerland, in 1987 on behalf of Hopi Indians. and won... As an aside in another email she notes "Fighting the gov't is my favorite passtime." i dont doubt it. and now she's fighting for ned lamont. joementum is toast.
(updated as per Kathleen's comment downstairs)

while i'm in the ice-breaking mode, you all know calipendence. among other things he runs a site selling 'free-sibel' wares at cafe-press (proceeds go to sibel's defense fund), and is a currently-despondent associate of francine busby, and grew up in military/ foreign service bases around the place, including turkey.

i thought that i had a brief snippet from damien somewhere as well - either a bio or a brief 'why i do this stuff' piece (D- lemme know in the comments) - but i cant find it right now. his website is here. he's forgotten more stuff than i'll ever learn about 911.

and then there's Noise - who i love - and i think i once saw him refer to me as 'a possible disinformation agent'

and rimone. sigh.

and oldschool.

and occassionally emptywheel shows up.

and then there's don who often pops up with very interesting general insights and links - but i also suspect that he's about to bust out with a manifesto linking lobbyists and defense contractors. i can hardly wait for that. see here for a snippet of don's work.

and ron

and john, and krokinol, and daniel, and desi and kathy (kathy is particularly special) - (and to a couple of others who i presume prefer to be anonymous)

and if i've forgotten anyone - i apologise. lemme know.

wear your Yearly Lukery badge proudly - and introduce yourselves to strangers in the corridor comments (but no funny business)

(but seriously - thanks to you all)

update - from the comments, damien introduces himself:

"Thanks Luke for everyone's bios. I'm way out of my league here. But as a courtesy to others I'll background myself a bit. I'm a 55yo former high school teacher with a degree in statistics and another in education who lives in Albury, Australia (half way between Sydney and Melbourne). Having to care for an ageing parent saw me give up teaching and run a succesful trucking business for a number of years. I was involved in religion as a young man and I explored a lot of avenues: oriental philosophy, an Indian guru for a while and a bunch of other stuff. I outgrew it all and my philosophy is "put good things in your life". That's it. Be kind to people. Try not to lie, cheat or steal. Pretty simple. I've travelled a bit - the US mostly, but I'd like to do more. I have a continuing interest in mathematics (polytopes and some aspects of number theory) and I play a good game of chess.

I got interested in 9/11 a couple of years ago and that led to US politics. It became clear that a gang of crooks was running the country. As far as 9/11 goes, there is no coherent account of that for anybody, just a large bag of oddities that the US government has never bothered to explain. Anyone who studies 9/11 becomes a junk collector at best and I can assure you I am no expert. But in the context of a population here in Australia that is generally 9/11 clueless (and kept that way by a useless MSM) I am happy to adopt that mantle.

Most of the Sibel material I can follow, but the Plame stuff is beyond me. I never cease to be amazed that 9/11, the most seminal historical event of our times, that has lead to two wars in the Middle East, the dismantling of the US Constitution and the global acceptance of a police state mentality, remains a taboo topic in our societies. It's unbelievable.

The other commentators here are clearly beyond me. I thank them and I value their wisdom immensely. And to you Luke for the opportunity to post at your excellent site. Cheers."

thnx damien