Friday Cat Blogging – 11 May 2012

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Today you get both cats in one picture, drawn together by the ever-so-seductive aroma of a freshly removed shoe. There’s just something magical about it that they can’t resist.

And now the news: today is your last glimpse of Inkblot and Domino for the next three weeks. Try not to let the weeping and wailing get out of hand. In a few days I’m off on vacation, and while I do plan to continue catblogging while I’m gone, there’s no guarantee of success. It depends on (a) finding foreign cats, and (b) prodding my iPad to successfully upload my pictures to the Mother Jones servers. But I’ll do my best.

UPDATE: And here’s a travel question for the hivemind. Wells Fargo has just informed me that my debit card won’t work in Europe unless I switch my current 6-digit PIN to a 4-digit PIN. That’s no big deal, but I still want to know if this is true. I’m aware that antiquated American-style cards sometimes don’t work at all in European machines, which require smart cards, but if they do work, do they require 4-digit PINs? Anyone have recent experiences they can share?

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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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