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Friday, October 10, 2008—We interrupt our slothful puttering to spread the word of a catastrophe — a real catastrophe. We refer not to the loss of some anonymous fat cat’s billions in theoretical profits, nor even to the recent saddling of American taxpayers with a trillion dollar burden designed to “make whole” those many fictitious billions. No, we’re talking about Cursor.org shutting down. This is a real catastrophe. For as long as we’ve known it, Cursor has been the most useful distillation of the days events available online. Not to pretend to elevate our own feeble online efforts to their eminent usefulness, but for the …

Read moreA REAL Catastrophe

Monday, October 6, 2008—Two days without a post. Read this, then ask if you really want to complain about that. Stock markets around the world are diving into the sewer, thanks to “conservative” American knuckleheads who insisted on de-regulating banks and finance. Today we learn that Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) recently said that some Congressmen were told if they didn’t pass the big bailout bill (which has yet to save the global economy) the federal government—which is to say, Dick “Dick” Cheney—might have to “impose martial law.” Is it un-American to ask if this is what the Founding Fathers really had in mind? In the …

Read moreShining City Down a Sewer

Friday, October 3, 2008—OK, so we didn’t quite get a post up yesterday. We were experiencing a slightly higher-than-normal level of chaos around here. Did the world end? All right, then. What we’re looking at just to the upper right is a bundle of 50 copies of our Volume 253, No. 1, bearing today’s date. We just completed our 252nd year, and we have hopes of making it through the next. We’re displaying a bundle of papers to make one point: in a nation going rapidly to hell because the lie to truth ratio is about a million to one, hardly anyone we know is …

Read moreBeginning Our 253rd Year

Wednesday, October 1, 2008—Well, we’re really not going anywhere, but the paper goes to the printer tomorrow, so we do have things to do. Visitors may expect a gloating update tomorrow, after our deadline. In the meantime, if anyone knows the make of this glorious chariot, seen recently cruising through Market Square, please advise via the Comments.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008—Non-binding elections have long been known as “beauty contests.” Now we’re heading into an alleged election that could put this real, live beauty contest winner, Sarah (Heath) Palin, a heartbeat—an old man’s heartbeat—away from the Presidency. Either democracy is a lousy idea, or something’s screwy. Forty years ago the alleged editor of this venerable rag began pondering this question: if the American form of government is the best in the world, what are we doing here in Vietnam, killing and being killed to no apparent purpose? Eventually—about twenty years later—he stumbled across a fairly obvious answer. The government screwed up, of course. …

Read moreBeauty Contest

Monday, September 29, 2008—We’re going to break with our recent tradition here—posting every two weeks whether there’s any news or not—and start posting daily. Since we already have far too many little tasks to do just putting a newspaper together every fourteen days, we’ll probably go the Open Thread route most days, and encourage visitors to sound off about whatever’s on their minds. To the extent that the Alleged Editor chimes in, readers may expect a monotonous series of arguments in favor of free, small newspapers like this one, and like Seattle’s terrific Eat the State. Today, though, in recognition of those governing geniuses who …

Read moreAnd Now For Something Very Similar