Friday Cat Blogging – 20 February 2009

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Today’s theme is “Looking Skyward.”  On the left, Inkblot is reacting to a bird flying overhead.  On the right, Domino is bonding with a potted plant.

And speaking of birds flying overhead, the Guardian reports that 200 British cats are being outfitted with a device called “catnav” to track their predatory habits.  “Some experts believe Britain’s 9m cats could be killing more than 150m birds, mice, rabbits, moles and other creatures every year,” they warn us.  “We know what cats do in our homes — they sleep,” says one of the researchers, “But we have virtually no idea of what they get up to outdoors, particularly at night. Now we can find out.”

Well.  I’d just like to take this opportunity to quantify Inkblot and Domino’s contribution to this bird and mole carnage.  That would be zero.  Jasmine once dragged in an already wounded bird and allowed Inkblot to play with it, but neither Inkblot himself, nor our pudgy little Domino, is capable of anything more than dreaming about such things.  Domino, in fact, can barely find her own food bowl at times.  (Inkblot has no such difficulty.)  The Irvine pest population may rest easy.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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