Friday, June 13, 2008 – Ever alert for ways to improve our service, we have taken the advice of a friend and modified our procedures slightly. Our downloadable pdf files should henceforth be somewhat less of a strain on our visitors’ personal intertubes. Herewith, our Volume 252, No. 19, dated June 13, 2008. It takes up just 3.4 MB, 41 percent less than excruciatingly high-resolution version we sent to our printer.

In this issue we look into what’s behind the alarming rise in oil prices. Along the way we manage to drag in genealogy, The Rapture, and Alexander VI, our favorite Pope.

To put some perspective on our coverage of Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s attempt to impeach George W. Bush, we refer to and quote an article our Founder Daniel Fowle published 242 years ago, which got him in some considerable trouble.

All that, just on the first page!

If you’re too impatient to settle for free, two-week old coverage, you could always visit our Subscription Department. It’s just $22 a year for 26 issues, via First Class delivery!

Friday, June 13, 2008 –Yes, it even frightens us, to see the online end of this operation begin to function in a predictable, coordinated manner. And we say this, even without having completed a few devious renovations which we plan to spring on an unsuspecting world as early as next week!

In this, our May 30 issue, we take note of the now-quaint price of gas – just $3.97 a gallon. How innocent we were then! We also take issue with the work product of George W. “Chickenhawk” Bush’s Memorial Day speech writer, and supply the missing phrases for his address to the Knesset. The Veterans Administration’s efforts to support the troops are weighed and – surprise, surprise — found wanting. And that’s all on page one! Available right now, for free! Just click on the image!

The downside of this incredible deal is that this paper was published fourteen days ago. There is another, newer, June 13 issue of this venerable paper hitting the streets today, of course. You can pick that up for free if you live in Portsmouth or the other towns of the Piscataqua River basin. Or, you can get it in just a couple of days, by First Class mail. Just Subscribe – it’s only $22 a year, for pete’s sake.

Friday, May 30, 2008 – In this issue (May 16, 2008), the Democratic nomination process reminds the editor of a story he was told years ago by an old swamp yankee; Nelson Mandela and Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles are compared and contrasted; some little-known facts about Republican primary candidate for the First District, John Stephen are weighed; we take a look at GOP State Chair Fergus Cullen’s sense of humor; an update is included on the recent Congressional hearings about the 2002 GOP phone-jamming scandal; a press release for a New Hampshire time-share resort is deconstructed, and we consider the curb appeal of the Award-Winning Local Daily. Graphically, Mike Dater addresses the Democratic primary, the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar, and a vision of cheap gas.

And that’s just in the first three pages. Click on the image of the front page to download a free pdf.

Note from the Gazette IT team: Due to our ineptitude, visitors have been unable to download pdf files of the previous (May 2, 2008) issue. We think we have that fixed. Click on the earlier post, or click here.

Friday, May 16, 2008 – Here it is, like clockwork. Assuming the clock in question only ticks once every 336 hours, give or take a few.

“Whatever you do will be insignificant,” Gandhi said, “but it is very important that you do it.” To whatever extent it may be important, we’ve just injected another 44,000 pages of information and attitude into the infosphere, where it may be picked up, for free, by whoever happens to see it, at one of our 160 or so distribution points.

In this issue, we reveal the Democrats’ secret weapon for blowing the next election, we kick around John McCain’s spiritual adviser, and we dip into a scathing critique of the Iraq War published by those notorious pinkos in the Pentagon. And that’s just page one.

Friday, May 2, 2008 – We have done it again. Huzzah, if we do say so ourselves.

Thousands of copies of yet another issue of the Nation’s Oldest Newspaper™ have been distributed in Portsmouth and the surrounding towns of the Piscataqua. Hundreds more are at the Post Office, on their way (via First Class Mail!) to our subscribers in nearly every state and the District of Columbia.

As for the rest of the world, we’re making a free pdf file of our previous issue (April 18) available today. Click on this link, or the image above.

Friday, April 18, 2008 – As is our current practice, now that our April 18 issue is on the streets and in the mail (First Class, no less!) we’re posting the previous fortnight’s paper (Vol. 252, No. 14, dated April 4) here, for the instant gratification of all you freeloading, silicon-based life-forms out there.

Our subscribers, of course, will receive the genuine wood-pulp-based version of today’s paper in their mailboxes in just a day or two. If your dignity requires similarly privileged treatment, you may subscribe here.

The issue we offer here for free, in pdf form, includes a Fortnightly Rant headlined “Peace Through Violence.” It looks at the 5th anniversary of George W.’s excellent adventure, and his sidekick Dick “Dick” Cheney’s inspiring interview with ABC’s Martha Raddatz, in the context of the loss of a New Hampshire National Guardsman.

The “News Briefs” department kicks around the Pentagon’s domestic spying practices and dips into the Spitzer scandal, among other things. Mike Dater, our Starving Artiste, contributes an exclusive image of the young fellow who supplied all that crappy ammo to our allies in Afghanistan, and our own Rodman Philbrick reviews baseball movies.

Saturday, April 5, 2008 – Nil desperandum, Gazette fans. We may be a day late updating this site, and posting the new banner above, but The Olde Rag hit the streets here in the Piscataqua River watershed yesterday, on schedule. And, our subscribers’ papers are in the hands of the faithful U.S. Postal Service. They should be appear in most mailboxes Monday, if they haven’t yet arrived.

As is our practice, we’re now making available our penultimate paper, Volume 252, No. 13, dated March 21. Just mash this link to download the thing, but be warned–it weighs 3.1 MB.

In this issue we slag the Federal Reserve, Bear Stearns, JP Morgan, George W. Bush’s “Poppy,” Ronald Reagan, and, just for balance, take a swipe at National Public Radio. And we note the 5th anniversary of George W.’s fatal adventure.

This paper also includes a radically heartening report about the voters of the town of Nottingham adopting an ordinance stating “that the corporatization of [the town’s] water supplies would constitute tyranny and usurpation; and that we are therefore duty bound, under the New Hampshire Constitution, to oppose such tyranny and usurpation.” This is the best news we’ve had the privilege of reporting in years.

So what, you ask? Well, the merit of our paper—if it has any—is not so much that we approach current events in a more skeptical manner than your average advertising-addicted, faux-impartial Associated Press-type fishwrapper. Approximately a bazillion operations are doing that here in the aether.

The merit of our operation, we believe, is that we do this in a nice little physical package, which we then proceed to give away. And so, every fortnight, at least ten thousand people—many of whom might otherwise not run across much of this sort of material—are encouraged to be more skeptical of the lying rat bastards running this sham of a show.

We like to think of our paper as the journalistic equivalent of half a brick. If any time has ever called out for such a thing, it is now.

Friday, March 21, 2008 – We are proud to announce that we’ve once again defied the forces of entropy, and published another issue of this venerable newspaper. Even as we compose this post, one band of volunteers is preparing to mail copies – First Class! – to our hundreds of subscribers in nearly every state of the Union, while another group of stalwarts is fanning across town, placing thousands of copies in local business establishments, where they can be obtained for free by the ravenous reading public.

But what about you, cyber-person? Have we forgotten you? We have not. We have made available to you a free pdf file of our previous issue (Volume 252, No. 12, published Friday, March 7, 2008). Just slam your little mouse button on the image just above, or one of the four identical text links which we have scattered throughout this verbose paragraph.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008 – Yes, we know: the whole world is waiting for us to post something fresh here. Well, our dead-tree darling comes first, and we’ve got work to do between now and the deadline. So we’ll just offer this inside view of our operation, and ask for your patience.

Friday, March 14, 2008 – What are you looking here for?

If you have the time to be surfing this site, you should be watching the Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan hearings instead.