• If we had spent a FRACTION of our #Haiti relief funds on Haitian infrastructure PRE-earthquake, how many lives saved? #
• Persuade the world to drop Haiti's debt. Add your voice now. http://www.one.org/r?r=273 #

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• ← has made the most ghetto #advocaat ever: 2% milk, malted milk powder, #brandy, 3 sugar cubes, and a raw egg, shaken in a milk bottle. #
• "Desecration of a venerated object" is a crime in Pennsylvania state/cities? http://bit.ly/6fPXtc #catholicism #atheism #religion #
• Lesson for today: "#Shopdropping" is wickedly-cool-subversive-guerrilla-'n'-all, but don't fuck with food: http://bit.ly/5hpXIk #
• In 2030 people will wonder why this wasn't taken as a declaration of war http://bit.ly/5ftRd8 #Google: late w/ the "don't be evil" this time #

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• Borrow Bush rhetoric? If the Christmas Day bombing attempt delays closing of #Guantanomo, terrorists WILL HAVE FUCKING WON. #

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A quick mega thank-you to my readers who put $15.36 into my pocket by shopping through my Amazon affiliate link in pre-Christmas December.  I’d like to thank you by … noting that you other readers can help support this site by dragging this Amazon.com link to your shortcuts and using it when you shop.

gah I’m such a whore

• RT @duhism "As you try to complete the puzzle that is this world, remember: Be the piece you're looking for."←Actually quite clever&moving. #
• Actual lyric: "Freezing warmest tears". Misheard lyric: "Freezing walrus tears". Mine's better. #Probot #
• I'd never before made myself a hot toddy when I wasn't sick, but they're even nicer when I can taste them. #
• "Methink'st thou art a general offence and every man should beat thee." — #Shakespeare, "All's Well That Ends Well" #
• Always bitten by the #KurtCobain lyric "The finest day that I've ever had was when I learned to cry on demand". ←Random playlist. #Nirvana #
• I just gave up watching the movie #TheSkeptic. What a hateful fucking film. It's what I expected #AnAmericanCarol to be like. #

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Woohoo!  My Google toolbar had been showing PageRank 0 for my site since the ill-fated and -advised temporary rename.  It’s back now, and it’s back to “4″, its previous value.  Wooh!

• Do they make gel #icepacks that are roughly, say, [measures bottom of #laptop] 16" x 12" (40cm x 30cm)? #cooling #
• #Google #Chrome is now available for #Linux. I've found keeping it open and maximized as an Alt-Tab target, displaying #iGoogle, is AWESOME. #
• Here's the #GoogleChrome link for Linux: http://bit.ly/7jNaYm #Google Chrome. Seriously, I use it just as an #iGoogle app. AWESOME. #
• It is inexcusable that one can't globally block apps from stealing focus in #Gnome. If I'm wrong, please respond. #linux #
• "Inbox zero"?  Not a chance!  But I just got my unread count under 3700! #
• #MM #MusicMonday @PearlJam "Unthought Known"; #Frente! "Labour of Love"; #Queensryche "I Am I"; one more that I'm forgetting #

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• So, OK, yes, I was bored, but I think my Erdös Number is 5. #ErdosNumber #PaulErdos http://www.ams.org/mathscinet/collaborationDistance.html #
• Oh, IMPOSSIBLY clever @xkcd: http://xkcd.com/645/ (Reverse Polish Sausage) #xkcd #

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• Exactly four weeks until After Dark Horrorfest 4! W00t! #horror @afterdarkfilms #
• Oh, THERE'S #WilWheaton! @wilw I'm the 1,588,315th follower. #
• #GoDaddy account servers ("mya" and "dcc") haven't logged me in for >1wk. No email resp. If someone there is monitoring the hashtag: help? #
• Solved the #GoDaddy thing. #IPBlock blacklists their servers. Smart, as hygiene goes. Not helpful when trying to transfer your domains away. #
• Good grief, is #UnthoughtKnown ever a sleeper fave for me on #PearlJam's #BackSpacer. Wow, what a song. #music #
• RT @PearlJam #PearlJam iPhone App [...] http://bit.ly/8Sk4wz ←Gah, really, guys?! iPhone app? Does it tie into @Ticketmaster on the backend? #
• .@joshuaj7 By my [computer's] count, 152 unique #PearlJam songs in 33 2009 shows, counting all four "Untitled"s as one. You're welcome.   #
• RT @ThinkAtheist Politicians of both parties should be called Self-Servatives←Wow. You're going with that? Way to start the year off clever. #
• Willing to draw a cartoon critical of Islam? Good moral call. Then getting a panic room installed? Good practical call. http://bit.ly/632dnb #

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• To prepare it for a late-night partaking, I just decanted the red #wine. Into a washed McDonald's large drink cup. /ghetto #
• @jasonfasi @nickmote Re-ping: do you know the name of the C. sinensis tea(s) at WHF they pimp as weight-loss? A (skinny) friend wants 2 know #
• #In2010? "Buy nothing new" again? Almost in 2009! Not ready for "freegan everything". Brother's is "page a day, no matter what" [Also good] #
• Me, #10YearsAgo? STILL DOCUMENTED. Infinite Internet memory anyone? http://bit.ly/7i0Erm #y2k #wheresgeorge #
• Thought just now: well, I might as well check my email while I wait for my network connection to come back up. #

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I just tweeted (ugh these words) that anyone who knows me only by my tiny, strident snark feed on Twitter doesn’t have a very good grasp of me at all.  I’m more strident here than I am in real life, but I can be longer-form, and have more discussion and modifiers.  So if you landed here from Twitter — welcome.  And if you care to look around — also, welcome.

Whatever, if anything, you are celebrating in these weeks — please do so with love, warmth, peace, joy, tolerance (or at least privacy), and safety, and build the memories of which our lives should be made.

Loves to all.

I may — may may may — have succeeded in removing the last of the advertising from my site.  I stopped contacting advertisers whose contracts have expired to see if they want to renew about six months ago, and the last lease has expired.  But actually scrubbing it all has been much harder than I wanted it to be, the sticking point being the feed ads.  I have no idea what is putting them in there.  Is Google Reader itself doing so?

In any case, I’m keeping the “To support this site” Amazon text on the top of the pages — I think it’s not unclassy at all — but, there you go, back to a mcgees.org (see?) without ads.

Holy cowzes, peeps!  Thanks for using my Amazon referral code!  You’ve put me into a higher payout tier for this month!  As always, using this code costs you nothing and keeps this oasis of reason and snark on the web.  Did you know that ordering from Amazon has a smaller carbon footprint than driving to the mall and back, given a certain (very small) distance to the mall and efficiency of car?  So by keeping the banner on this site green, you’re kee … (sorry, can’t.)  Also, every time you order using my link, it keeps each deity ever conceived from killing a penguin (it’s true, I can show you the math)?  As always:

• Aha! The reason #KGmailNotifier is not alerting me to new emails is that it's NOT RUNNING! That's an acceptable excuse, I feel. #
• #npr.org top emailed stories: Northern Calif. #marijuana sales boosting revenue and whether sandwich triangles or squares are better. [sigh] #
• #NPR's #AllSongsConsidered: best albums of 2009? Write-ins OK, but #PearlJam is on their canned list. Bravo! http://bit.ly/8WZsbQ #
• In #Firefox, CTRL-leftclick opens a window in the background, unless the target is _blank.  Is there anyway to make THIS open in the bg? #
• Two sample points now: I think #StephenKing has a deep #fear of #lobsters (a narrow #ostraconophobia?) Hell, after HIS descriptions… wow. #
• Political conservatism and religiosity seem well-correlated. The "why" is not obvious to me. Maybe both require not thinking critically?   #
• One more #atheism tweet: "no deities" is SO BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS to me that I am baffled by faith. Why? Skinner's pigeons? Real question;help! #

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• I hoped he would be #FDR — and he was #LINCOLN. The US deserves a statesman, and we finally have one. Bravo, @BarackObama. #
• IMHO, possibly the three most underrated TV/film #actors are #TerrySerpico, #MarkPellegrino, and #WilliamMapother.  Lead roles, please! #

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• Could someone explain to me how current Democratic "save-the-banks-then…" ideas are NOT "trickle-down"? #
• "The Sixth Extinction" http://www.greenchange.org/article.php?id=5312 <–read (via @greenchangeorg) Also: http://www.blackfootedferret.org/ #
• #MM #MusicMonday: #ThemCrookedVultures, whole album (huge love) #GunsNRoses Chinese Democracy album (for real). #Midnattsol "En Natt I Nord" #
• I'm listening to the new #GunsNRoses.  The one that's supposed to suck.  It doesn't.  #ChineseDemocracy #
• Exceedingly poor economic logic in this @NYTimesKrugman article. The margin of this tweet is too narrow to contain etc. http://bit.ly/7Kxahu #

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• RT @nickmote: @clanmackay Actually, Blacks are the largest race demographic in Twitter.  http://bit.ly/6jVHlL #
• I put @OhNoItsDark together in five minutes as a joke, but I am finding it exceedingly USEFUL to be told in my timeline when the sun has set #
• Report: "no doubt that clerical child abuse was covered up" http://bit.ly/5CAuad (via @bbcworldservice) #catholic #childabuse #religion #
• My novel "Moby Bambi" begins "You can call me Ishmael if you want to."  Good start? #

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• Gang "supplied sedatives to team doctors and hotel cooks to drug players in matches" http://bit.ly/5efeuI
  #football #soccer #
• Isn't it great how minority #comedians can get a free pass on vicious #racism if they're solely anti-white? <– Seen too many racist comics. #
• One of my favorite #MPAA content advisories: #MissionImpossible III, a PG-13 for "Frenetic violence and menace" Does "frenetic" distribute? #
• I don't know quite what this means, but I find #EddieIzzard much hotter when he's butch and over 40. #
• I chuckle when audio snobs reject as lossy 320kbps mp3s of audience DATs. #
• People who say "I hate #Windows so I buy #Mac" remind me of "I hate the #Democrats so I vote #GOP" people #linux #greenparty #
• RT @kimberli9: I just saw an #omgfacts tweet that said "your to sexy."  OMFG, someone please gouge my eyes out!! [mine too, please] #
• Almost every time I visit a #TT, 90+% of user pics are of blacks. Just purely statistically. Do I not understand Twitter demographics? #
• That last CAN'T POSSIBLY be called racism, right? It's just COUNTING. Is this representative of Twitter or just TTs? #

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• A supermarket #tabloid this week: "#Obama's gay lover gets revenge!" Comics make up tabloid headlines. Why? The tabloids parody themselves . #
• RT @duhism: On this holiday spent with the family, I'm reminded to be thankful to the creator of mind-numbing alcoholic beverages. #

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• Anyone know the piece of #music played on #TheWorld 2009-11-24 after the Afghan chess article? It's not on the website yet. <– must have #
• RT @OhNoItsDark: "(ahhh.  that's better.  daylight.)"  [Except it's NOT better if one hasn't been able to sleep yet, is it?] #
• I'm pretty sure, after seeing @DrBobParsons's tweets, that I'm going to be finding a new registrar. Gah. This man could distort *anything*. #
• If you care, #CraigFerguson's monologues are available at http://bit.ly/4ZQsDH. One of the few things on TV I find worth watching. #
• Probably my favorite #Thanksgiving message ever, from #PhilRadford of #Greenpeace: http://bit.ly/50yL2V Simply beautiful. #
• #ChristopherHitchens: "Think of something wicked that only a believer would be likely to do" http://bit.ly/88PsRe #atheism #terrorism #snark #

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• It will be interesting to see if Deals.Woot (http://bit.ly/1Qok4u) will outshine Slickdeals.net (http://bit.ly/08jX2jx) #
• I have a sunrise and sunset calculator (#sunwait) in a cronjob to tweet those events at my lat/lon (Los Angeles). It amuses me: @OhNoItsDark #
• #TomJoyner's uncles were executed in 1913 for crimes they didn't commit. #NorthCarolina has posthumously pardoned them. #deathpenalty #
• It's cool to me that @BarackObama takes time out of his schedule to tweet!  (I love him, but: three cheers for faux-populism) #
• The predicted unemployment rate in 2012 is higher than the rate that let Bill Clinton run on “it’s the economy, stupid” http://bit.ly/57c5gW #
• RT @RobCottingham: Blog'd: And with a shift-zero, they saved humanity – http://bit.ly/632svL #
• http://twitpic.com/qucdy – @yogicchai sent me free tea (it's very interesting), and I agreed to promote their Black Friday Sale. http://www.yogicchai.com #
• On #Karaoke: "If I want to see some hopeless drunk ruining an #AmyWinehouse song, I'll go to an Amy Winehouse concert." http://bit.ly/2mnaBx #
• RT @evanorenstein: In honor of the month of November… http://bit.ly/7jZdLP
  (Gah, Axl. I hate when people self-destruct.) #
• OH HOLY FUCK that's the biggest, ugliest, and scariest #opossum I've ever seen — right outside my window. Seriously, nightmare-worthy. #
• I just got auto-spammed by a Twitter robot because I USED AN EMOTICON IN A TWEET. Twitter has low enough #SNR when REAL PEOPLE ARE POSTING. #

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• My microphone broke, so I'm talking on #Skype through the speakers on a pair of headphones. Flashbacks to being 13, here. #
• #MM #MusicMonday: #ThemCrookedVultures "Elephants"; #HeatherNova "Truth and Bone"; #FlowingTears "Grey"; #LacunaCoil "I Like It" #
• Super-scale snark alert, but "10 Reasons why Superman is better than Jesus" http://bit.ly/08RfZNe
  (Jesus "is all retconny fanfic." Ha.) #
• Whenever my #cat knocks something off a table, he stares at it for thirty seconds, apparently working through "wow … it … fell". #

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• It's awfully convenient that the same line of wifi routers that Linksys ships without security all have the same default SSID. #
• http://twitpic.com/qhpii – #LacunaCoil's new album is ridiculously good. And, of course, it helps that #CristinaScabbia is ridiculously hot. #

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I’m really sick right now.  Vedder Tuesday and the 15th of the Month Portfolio will continue, but I’m just too exhausted right now.  Sorry.

• Is there a way I could be professionally #waterboarded in a controlled setting in #LosAngeles? I'd like to know what I'm talking about. #

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• I wish there were an "opt-out" option for crippling pain. I'd say I promise not to tax myself, just knock it off with this neg reinforcement #
• Name for attack wherein the victim feels freezing cold;blood-curdling #terror;hallucinations;waking nightmares;#claustrophobia? TREATMENTS?! #

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• RT @denyreligion: Ask Richard: Surrounded by Evangelists at Work #atheism http://bit.ly/4k4JVW [Linked to for the comments. #BestOfTheWeb!] #
• Brrr.  Brrr brrr brrr.  And this is only *November* in *Los Angeles*. Insulation maybe? Brrr. #
• RT @jordancdarwin: I'm a PC and I run Linux. And I rule. Yeah. #
• RT @jordancdarwin: I don't like to dish out but if I do, god would tremble at my wrath. In all his fictional embodiment, of course.. #
• Do home #thermostats use #AC? It's not immediately apparent to me how they wouldn't, but wouldn't "9V battery" work? #
• New meme. #youmightbeanatheist if you are baffled by literal belief in figurative myth. If devoutness makes you worry about your safety. #
• Rarely do I mention a Twitter user just to mock him, but could theists please suggest to @heidiraff that HE ISN'T HELPING YOUR CASE? in reply to heidiraff #
• #youmightbeanatheist if you think "non-overlapping magisteria" is so much pandering twaddle. There is *fact*, and there is *myth*. #NOMA #
• #youmightbeanatheist if loud profession of faith makes you wonder what is being marketed (that's not so much belief as observation, though.) #
• #youmightbeanatheist if your brain stumbles when someone (e.g., @heidiraff) considers a case closed by saying "They were blaspheming" #
• Being awoken by shivering is fun when #camping, but no so much at home. Actually, it's not really fun when camping, either. (<– Good story) #
• I'm considering finding an oil drum and burning some of my possessions for heat. It should be warmer inside than outside. <– no heater now #
• I got my new automated Twitter script working. It's pretty amusing. I'll watch it until Friday, when I'll #FF it (sneaky, yes?) #
• It would be mildly entertaining if Nintendo staged the beating as a publicity stunt: http://bit.ly/1Bfw0p
  (via @thinkgeek) #

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• Anyone else get the urge to watch #Lost from the beginning every few eps? I always begged for complex mythologies. Now I have one – and – hm #
• test #
• Twitter is working oddly for me. If this gets posted and the post I'm trying to tweet doesn't, I'm giving up. Except I'm not good at that. #
• If ("when", prob) #DumaKey gets made into a film, I'm boycotting it unless #JeffFahey gets cast as Wireman http://bit.ly/1RFGHZ #StephenKing #

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• Ethanol dehydrogenase recipe:

  1) Lots of water

  2) Lots of B vitamins

  3) Cool wet towel on eyes

  4) Regret #

• I *would* help look for aliens or Mersenne primes, but I have no spare flops.  Sorry.  Aargh expensive video conversion. #
• #Apocalyptica turned #Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" into a #heavymetal piece. Played by four #cellos. I love strange #music. #
• "#Computer #programmers are most productive when they’re supposed to be doing something else" http://bit.ly/3v6GjZ #

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• Bravo!  #DidierDrogba has given GBP3M to build a hospital in Côte d'Ivoire. #Chelsea #soccer #football #
• Apparently "Rural people are evil, bloodthirsty, inhuman monsters" is a bona-fide #horror #film #genre. #Classism w00t! #
• RT @denyreligion: Jesus and Mo: harsh #atheism http://bit.ly/4D6QRN #
• It has been demanded that I stop saying "Then it MUST be true!" to personal accounts with small sample sizes. OK. Good to know. #
• #FF #FollowFriday @jordancdarwin @greenchangeorg @denyreligion @NYTimesKrugman @HomeDepot Follow Friday #
• I'm insulated from the 99.3% of Twitter users who can't tell the diff between "your" and "you're" Morons, you're bus is leaving #fakenumber #
• I'm seeing if a two-hours'-sleep night, last night, can reset me to #PST.  Worth a shot.  #insomnia #
• Hey, one gets to *name* an #iPod, at least in #Linux!  So I named mine "Tiny Awesome".  (Seemed like a good idea at the time.) #

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