Time is running out! October is careening its way toward Halloween, at which point the month devoted to the Donors Choose Blogger Challenge will be over. As of this typing, we’ve received $6,110 worth of donations, which, I must admit, is extremely awesome. Even better, out of 23 proposals we chose for support, 13 have been fully funded! Still, it falls a bit short of our $10,000 goal. And this despite the fact that we’ve been fortunate enough to receive boosts from the following awesome blogs and quasi-blogs:
- Shores of the Dirac Sea
- Hot Chicks Dig Smart Men
- Morning Coffee Physics
- 3 Quarks Daily
- Optimus Waffle
- BioCurious
- Abstruse Goose
- High Energy Mayhem
- Peculiar Velocity
- Ron Hsu
- Twisted Physics
- Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
- Cocktail Party Physics
- US/LHC Blogs (unofficially)
And what is more galling, despite this groundswell of support, Uncertain Principles has pulled ahead! And he’s only one blogger (plus a dog). Are you going to stand for that?
It’s a great program, and you feel great after you donate. It’s the swank $200 donations that get all the glory (and we’re very grateful for them, don’t get me wrong), but — following the lead of the Obama campaign — we’re running a people-powered donation drive here. For the starving students out there, consider throwing in $10. Contributions that size would really add up if everyone chipped in. A small price to make the world a better place.
But hey, I know how it is. Money’s tight, and in times like this you have to look out for yourself. We understand that, and we won’t be bugging you any more. I just wanted to point out to you this little missive on the subject of charitable giving.
You see Flavor Flav there? That’s you. You are Flavor Flav. Hey, it’s your choice.
And what is more galling, despite this groundswell of support, Uncertain Principles has pulled ahead! And he’s only one blogger (plus a dog). Are you going to stand for that?
You’re just jealous that you didn’t think of offering to dance like a monkey for donations…
Mmmm, Chad beat me to it. He’s gonna dance like a monkey for us … what are you going to do?
Some of us were just born to dance like monkeys, and others of us just..can’t.
I’m amused that fund-raising for science education is turning into a dance off.
Monkey dance! Monkey dance!
And isn’t there a contest to present one’s PhD thesis as an interpretive dance? I think I sense a trend…
The worst part is that, at this point, the CV team is going to have to up the ante quite a bit to beat Chad. I nominate them doing a cover version of the LHC rap.
Don’t feel bad – Chad had the “Scalzi Bump.”
And I got pimped! By a physics blog!
My work here is done.
If anyone donates $500, Mark will record a cover version of “Can’t Do Nuttin For Ya Man” and post it to YouTube.
Damn! I’ve just spent the last day practicing my monkey dancing.
Guess I shoulda donated before the dollar swelled back up.
Now, if Congress and State Legislatures could just see that video… the difference being, of course, that Congress and State Legislatures already have our money!
How about a new idea- citizen earmarks! To be reasonable, we could just apply it to 5-15% of each citizen’s tax bill – the rest goes to the government to redistribute, hopefully responsibly (but probably not).
If you could earmark 10% of your taxes, who would you give it to? I’d give all mine to science education, wetland restoration, and renewable energy research, those being by pet interests. This seems like a great idea, doesn’t it?
Warning: Whining ahead!
I thought I should put my money where my mouth is and stop teasing.
Unfortunately DC didn’t like me to register with a non-US address (nor would it allow me to without one so I fibbed in Minesota, natch). More importantly it rejected my creditcard without any explanation, so I guess I won’t be taking you up on that offer of dinner (assuming it ever becomes possible to travel by air again).
Nevermind.