First things first: the main generator/switch at MotherJones.com’s Seattle “carrier hotel” (aka server farm) failed early this morning, which resulted in a fire, which triggered the sprinkler system, which took our site (and several others) off line. No indication of when it’ll be back up; we’re actively looking at a Plan B fix (if anyone has ideas for a quick solution, let me know). Silver lining, I guess: it’s happening over a low traffic holiday weekend. 
That also means no Friday cat blogging from Kevin, no frog blogging from the MoJo interns. (It also means you can’t get a look at the digital version of the new issue of Mother Jones, which has a totally kick-ass special package, “Wasted,” on the failure of the War on Drugs (so go buy a hard copy over the weekend).
But you still get Mingus the Super Dog, looking truly noble in front of the Marin Stables this morning. Of course, this was just before he snarfed down a huge pile of horse manure…
The big news in this part of the universe was the formation of a new Investigative News Network by a gathering of about 25 groups gathered at the Pocantico Conference Center. Dave Westphal, who’s connected to USC’s Annenberg School of Communications, did the best coverage of the meeting; you can also get a feel for how the convo went via the meeting’s #inewsnet Twitter feed.
No doubt I’ll be talking more about this in the coming weeks. One thing I’ll be interested in exploring further is what, really, the relationship will be between non profit investigative news organizations and foundations; at the moment, there seems to be a somewhat breathless belief in the staying power of foundation support for non profit journalism. Count me amont the skeptics; I just don’t see foundations being the foundation, so to speak, of a new non profit biz model for journalism – at least not over the long haul. But that’s grist for another discussion.
Meanwhile, MoJo for sure is interested in participating and helping to make this project for non profit investigative journalism succeed. No doubt as well there are others like us that weren’t at the meeting, and that will hopefully become involved in the network (thinking of groups like this, this, this, this, this, this or this).
Great holiday everyone! Think revolutionary thoughts over the barbeque…
Maimonides' Ladder 
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