Hot Air is proud to welcome blogger extraordinaire Ed Morrissey of Captain’s Quarters to the staff. He’ll start cross-posting here today and we’re opening up comment registration to help bring CQ members into the fold. (Update: comments now closed.) In the next few weeks, Ed will close down CQ and make Hot Air his exclusive home. (Update: Ed’s Hot Air e-mail address is [email protected])

Ed began blogging at Captain’s Quarters in 2003. During the past five years, his work has been published in the Washington Post, New York Post, New York Times, Weekly Standard, and other national publications. In 2007, Ed made the leap to full-time employment in New Media when he became political director for Blog Talk Radio. You can see all of his past work in the archives at Captain’s Quarters.

Ed has lived in Minnesota for more than ten years after leaving his native California. He and his wife have a son and daughter-in-law finishing their college education and a beautiful five-year-old granddaughter. He has a weekly radio show on Minnesota’s AM 1280 The Patriot every Saturday afternoon.

Ed has been a friend and kindred spirit since I entered the blogosphere. He brings keen political insights, boundless energy and optimism, and invaluable investigative skills/enterprise reporting to the team. His pioneering citizen journalism helped expose government corruption in Canada and brought down a rotten Canadian Liberal Party administration. He’s been the subject of moonbat cartoonist Ted Rall’s class bigotry and a target of Vanity Fair jerk James Wolcott’s snobbery. Ever the gentleman, Ed joked in response: “Success is when all the right people hate you.”

Hot Air now has two of the hardest working men in the blogosphere on board full-time– and one very lucky boss. As has been the case from launch, we’ll agree on many issues. But not all. We have an eclectic mix of conservative-to-libertarian perspectives, distinctive interests, life experiences, and styles. What unites Allah, Ed, and me: Hot Air’s company goal of informing, entertaining, and keeping you plugged in with piping hot blog commentary, headlines, political analysis, original reporting, video and other multimedia offerings all day, every day.

Learn. Enjoy. Laugh. Share. Vent. Mobilize. And always stay tuned.