Friday Cat Blogging – 11 June 2010

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I took these pictures a couple of days ago. Both Inkblot and Domino were absolutely entranced by something in this bush in our backyard, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what it was. They stared, they got up on their hind legs and thought about climbing up the trunk, they meowed, they even ignored the camera. And me? I looked and looked and couldn’t see anything. Maybe it was a cleverly camouflaged green grasshopper. Or maybe it was something from the cat dimension. Hard to say.

And I have a special extra treat for you today! Would you like to see a picture of the headquarters of Mother Jones’ global publishing empire in beautiful downtown San Francisco? No? Well how about a picture of a cute little girl holding a cute little orange kitten inside the headquarters of Mother Jones’ global publishing empire in beautiful downtown San Francisco? That’s what I thought. Just click here.

UPDATE: Aha! Turns out I wasn’t looking up high enough. But a few minutes ago Inkblot was outside looking entranced once again, and I found what he was looking at. Click for photographic evidence of nature red in tooth and claw.

It’s Friday rat blogging! Top left: the bush. Top right: the rat. Bottom left: Inkblot has been hauled into the house against his will and the rat begins to head to safety. Bottom right: Almost there! A few seconds later the rat made it to the ground and scurried off. Inkblot is inside sulking.

UPDATE: The consensus in comments is that this is a rat, not a mouse. Too bad. A mouse seems cuter somehow.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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