As of 3 August 2004, 166 bloggers had posting privileges at The Command Post. While many don't post every day--indeed, some may post only once a year--each knows that when news on our topics of focus breaks, this is the place to send the word forth.

To help you get a flavor of the people behind the posts, we've collected here short bios for some of our contributors, and links to their home blogs. One of the best ways to recognize these fine people is to read their home blogs, and we encourage you to pay them a visit.

Founders:

• Alan Nelson, Strengthen The Good and Command Post: Alan is a full-time management consultant and part-time blogger.

• Michele Catalano, A Small Victory: Bio coming soon ...

Contributors:

• Billy Beck, Two-Four: A stage-lighting designer with twenty-seven years of rock touring experience, and a lifelong student at Beck University, principally interested in economics, history, and philosophy. A guitarist since 1969, private pilot since 2001, and misanthrope since birth. He never, ever, votes.

• Alan E. Brain, A. E. Brain:Alan Brain is a 40-something Australian Software Engineer, specializing in Military and Space Applications (and currently looking for work). His blog includes intermittent postings from Canberra, Australia on Software Development, Space, Politics, and Interesting URLs. And of course, Brains...

• Jay Caruso, Mr. Blonde's Garage: By day, Jay Caruso of Mr. Blonde’s Garage makes it in the world as an IT Manager for a global third party logistics provider. By night, he is a soldier in the VRWC, a Yankees fan, and blogger. When not engaging in those activities, Jay spends time with his wife of 9 years, his 7 year old son, 6 year old daughter and 2 year old lab, Casey. Jay’s daily weblog reads are The Command Post (of course), A Small Victory, Instapundit, Balloon-Juice, Political Animal, and North Georgia Dogma as well as others.

• Dean Esmay, Dean’s World: Dean Esmay has been a freelance writer, technical trainer, and project manager in the IT field since the 1980s. He runs the popular Dean's World weblog, where he talks about politics, philosophy, science, history, and music. He also helps out with his wife's blog occasionally, The Queen of All Evil, and is currently working on a novel.

• Sean Kirby, SeanKirby.com: Sean Kirby is a 20-year-old citizen of the United States and Canada. Currently, he is studying history and politics at the University of Toronto, where he is known to comment on foreign affairs, the war, and other topics.

• Dan McLaughlin, Baseball Crank: Dan McLaughlin lives in Queens and practices law in Manhattan, where he worked in the World Trade Center until September 11, 2001. Since May of 2000 he has written baseball columns for the former Boston Sports Guy website, the Providence Journal Online, and the Baseball Think Factory, and currently blogs on baseball, war, politics, law, pop culture and more at The Baseball Crank.

• John Moore, Useful Fools: John Moore is a computer programmer and engineer in the Phoenix, AZ area who enjoys blogging and blog comment discussions. He is a Vietnam Veteran, a fact which he says has taken on unusual significance this year. His main hobby is tornado chasing, and he takes two weeks each year and goes with his daughter to the great plains. John's blog, "Useful Fools," is an alternate translation of Lenin's "useful idiots" which was already taken.

• Lester Norton, Solonor's Ink Well: When not writing under the silly sobriquet of Solonor Rasreth, Lester is a tech support team leader for a national software company and struggles to live a life of peace and harmony in a household that contains two teenagers and several cats. His efforts are further hampered by the fact that he is a lifelong Red Sox fan. In his spare time, he runs a wildly successful computer baseball league based on Tolkien characters and plays a pretty mean guitar.

• Nathan Paxton, Nate Knows Nada: Nathan Paxton spends most of his time as a Ph.D. candidate in government (political science) at Harvard University. He blogs to avoid (sometimes) his dissertation and just because he has lots of opinions on religion, politics, academia, and a whole host of topics. He likes his road bike, but doesn't spend as much time with it as he might wish.

• Karol Sheinin, Alarming News: Karol Sheinin, 27,was born in the Soviet Union, lives in New York City and is a Political Consultant.

• Laurence Simon, This Blog Is Full Of Crap: Laurence Simon is a technical support representative in Houston, TX who runs the isfullofcrap.com set of weblogs. When he's not culling the headlines for what feels like an endless supply of examples of palestinian terrorism, he rearranging the webcams for his cats and baking bread that's to die for.

• Todd, Command Post: Todd is a self proclaimed pragmatist of the Charles Sanders Pierce vein, who finds himself in the transition stages of the adage often credited to Winston Churchill that “Any man who is under 30 and is not a Liberal has no heart; and any man who is over 40 and not a Conservative has no brains.” Todd subsribes to the political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, who said: “I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.”

• Michael Van Winkle, Chicago Report: Michael Van Winkle is Editor and founder of the Chicago Report. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Illinois Chicago in 2002 and is currently working on an MA in Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. He has a special interest in politics, philosophy, psychology and baseball.