November 7, 2009

Pundits Versus Data, the 5-Minute Smackdown

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Ever wondered just how partisan or bipartisan Congress is now compared to then? Well, here’s a series of visual representations of just that, thanks to Andrew Odewahn, who calculated Senatorial affinities over time and plugged the data into GraphViz.

This is another typically fun and speedy Ignite presentation: 1 speaker, 5 minutes, 20 slides auto-advancing every 15 seconds, whether the speaker keeps up or not. Thanks to my friend Sara Winge at O’Reilly Media, the home of Ignite, for the heads up on the video.

 

WE CAME UP SHORT.

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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.

payment methods

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