• Ad people get to have more fun than you. See, a British ad firm working for IKEA got to fill one of their stores with a bunch of cats and tape it. Can you believe that this is someone’s job?Awww. (Thanks Andrew Ottoson) source

• 
• Who this guy isThis is Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who recently pissed off a lot of people with his Park51 community center project, which some have lovingly called the “Ground Zero” mosque.

  His take on thingsMuch like Obama with the Koran-burning, he ties intolerance to fostering extremism. He says that blocking the center could fuel even more extremist violence. Is he right? Is he wrong? Good question. source

• You could have serious violence in places like Pakistan or Afghanistan. This could increase the recruitment of individuals who’d be willing to blow themselves up in American cities or European cities.
• Barack “not a cat” Obama • Describing why Pastor Terry Jones’ whole “Burn a Koran Day” is a “recruitment bonanza” for al-Qaeda. Let’s face it. It’s the kind of thing that will piss off tons of people and might push a few towards extremism. Happy, Terry? You got the president to talk about you, and unlike every other time Obama brings up culture-clash issues, he didn’t sound like a smart guy making a stumble. source

• 3 in four cats don’t mind control over lettin’ it all hang all willly-nilly source

• WHOO CATS! YEAH CATS! WHOO! Today is a day for the cat people of the world to come out of the woodwork while we bombard you with reader-submitted cat photos. (And our buddies at Cavalcade of Schlock bombard you with cat obscuro; no porn, but we’ve heard rumors of foodicide. We’ll be keeping you posted on their output throughout the day.) Since it’s the second year we’ve done it, we can call it “Second Annual” now. So let’s call it that! Hi, everyone, and welcome to the “Second Annual” Catstravaganza! WE LOVE CATS! WA-HOO! (And for our non-cat fans, go here, and you’ll see the blog without any of those stupid cats.) Still want to send us cat photos? Try these options:

• oneTweet them to us! Send us your cat photos via Twitpic or Yfrog. Then send us a tweet. Be sure to hashtag them as #catstravaganza.
• twoPost them to Facebook! Our Facebook page (like us yet?) accepts photos and videos, so feel free to submit your fancy feasts over there.
• threePrefer to keep them a little more private? Send them to us via our official e-mail address, [email protected]. We’ll throw them up.

The backstory behind Maya

• Hey there, here’s a photo of my cat, Maya, when she was a kitten. It’s just so awesome I want the whole world to see!
• Reader Chris Gorman • Regarding the awesomeness of his cat, Maya. And trust us. This cat lives up to the hype, looking ultra-dignified in the pic above, waiting for her moment in the sun. Here’s your moment, Maya. Savor it.

• This guy takes a lot of cat photos. But that’s OK, because he’s really freaking good at it. Between bag cat (above), his cat show photos, and whatever this guy is doing, he certainly knows how to capture some pretty awesome feline moments. source

• This slow-moving little guy was brought to our attention by Andrew Ottoson, who called Catstravaganza “the new Festivus.” It’s only fitting, then, that we have activities to match that postmodern holiday’s lineup. We think we need to make cat remakes of popular movies a big part of the whole Catstravaganza experience. We’d like to see a few kitties take on that still-in-progress “Arrested Development” movie. We’d love to imagine what a kitty Michael Cera would be like.

• This submission comes from our friend Sarah Palmer, someone we know from college back in the day. In other words, she knows how annoying we were back then. Which means she understands how annoying we are now.