Hmmmm ... I'm starting to think that my goal of $1,000,000 was a little too ambitious. Maybe I should also revise downwards my request for $1,000 apiece from my core of regular readers. In fact, maybe I'll even go a little further and point out that PayPal accepts donations in increments as low as, say, $2. As a reminder, the best of my original journalism is listed here.

Furthermore, let's get more specific about the costs. A 30+ picture post that brings in up to 20,000 viewers costs between $35-$80, depending on traffic and whether it needs a few minutes of Kinko's photoshop work (as the WWII posts did). My ego likes to be stoked by getting lots of eyes on my photography, but consider the fact that I've done at least 12 picture-heavy posts ... I'd estimate that I've spent at least $600 in the last 6 months, just on bandwith and supplies for these pictorials.

If you would like to help defray the costs, it would be most appreciated. Obviously I don't do this to get rich, but it would be nice if it wasn't quite so expensive. If Andrew Sullivan can pull six figures in his pledge week, is it crazy to think that a tiny fraction of the 6,000 people that have passed through here in the past two days could perhaps muster $1 or $2 apiece every six months to offset the costs that I pay to bring you these pics? I've spread around $75 to my favorite blogs that have had pledge drives in the last year.

I'm not looking to make money here, and I certainly want to keep doing the photo pieces, but I have to admit that it's a little confusing for me to think that my regulars don't seem to believe that the widely-appreciated (expensive) moonbat joke reels, or the fact that I waited in the rain and got Michael Berg to possibly admit that he thinks a government conspiracy killed his son, are worth depositing a dollar in my Paypal account.

I know how annoying pledge drives can be, so this is my last request. Thanks to the two of you that have already given in the past couple of days. I'm done.