October 19, 2007

Airport Screeners Fail to Find Fake Bombs; The Onion Reports Stolen Headline

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The Transportation Security Administration said today that during tests last year, screeners in major airports across the country allowed dummy bomb components to sail through security up to 75 percent of the time. San Francisco airport, which uses privately contracted screeners, did the best of all the test sites with only a 20% failure rate.

Due to last year’s poor performance, TSA now runs drills continuously at every airport in the country, planting fake bomb parts sometimes no larger than a pen cap (next week: no pens on planes!). Screeners who fail must undergo remedial training. Personally, I’d prefer it if they just trained them right the first time. In the meantime, can I have my damn shoes back?

—Casey Miner

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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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