April 3, 2007

Get Your A$$ Out of Bed

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snuznluz.jpg

ThinkGeek.com, a website featuring “stuff for smart asses,” has developed an ingenious device to make sure you’re never late to work, sleep through another appointment or simply annoy your partner, children, neighbors, etc. by hitting the snooze button every 10 minutes for and hour and half. Don’t lie. You know you’ve been guilty of snooze button abuse at one point or another…well, no longer. The SnūzNLūz alarm clock—via a WiFi connection and link to your online bank account—will donate money to an organization you hate every time you hit snooze. According to their website:

The SnūzNLūz uses the very complex psychological phenomenon known as ‘HATRED’. Basically it’s human nature to wish harm upon your enemies. Similarly, it’s human nature not to give your enemies gobs of cash so that they can grow big and dominate the world with their totally wrong, stupid and invalid point of view.

Are you a butcher? Set your SnūzNLūz to donate to PETA
Are you a Republican? Set your SnūzNLūz to donate to the ACLU!
Are you a land developer? Set your SnūzNLūz to donate to the Wilderness Society!
Enjoy your freedom V1.0? Set your SnūzNLūz to donate to the GOP, or
Enjoy your freedom V2.0? Set your SnūzNLūz to donate to [the Foundation for National Progress!]
Are you a hippie? Set your SnūzNLūz to donate to the American Coal Foundation.

You gotta love technology!

—Laurin Asdal

Update: Happy April Fool’s Day from ThinkGeek. (Those geeks!)

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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