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21 Year Newsweek Subscription Canceled, The Letter They Won't Publish
Free Republic Bloggers and Personal | September 13, 2009 | Self

Posted on 09/12/2009 9:37:22 PM PDT by PittsburghAfterDark

Dear Newsweek,

I have subscribed to your publication for 21 years, subscriber number #########, and have decided to allow my subscription to end as scheduled December 13, 2010. As can be told from both the length of my subscription and expiration date I have renewed early and often.

However I can no longer welcome a magazine so contrary to my personal and family views into my home on an ongoing basis. First it was having to digest your skewed polls with MSNBC, fine, everyone needs a media partner and having sold television advertising for the better part of my professional life I understand that. However seemingly every month of 2009 I have had to endure cover stories that were lies, distortions and flat out bull. In no particular order they are.

“We’re All Socialist Now” “America No Longer a Christian Nation” “Is Your Baby Racist?”

Obviously week in and week out you see no problem redefining America as your writers inside the media bubble see things. Perhaps the hundreds of thousands of people marching on Washington DC today on September 12, 2009, home to your parent company the Washington Post, marching against everything Newsweek/WaPo has espoused in the past year are a reminder why you are losing money with your newspaper and magazine hand over fist. As has been reported your newspaper operations have lost $154 million this year to date.

If you want to know why you’re losing money look no further than this letter. If a 21 year paying customer is fed up enough with your opinion writing postulating as news to the point of refusing to continue to pay your salaries how are you ever going to recover? You’ve already successfully alienated more than half the country with your bias and nonsense. Do you honestly think the remainder of your subscription will pay a premium to do so when the customers you have at current rates are fleeing in droves?

You’ve saddened me Newsweek. When I traveled Europe for months at a time finding the new weekly international edition was a ray of sunshine tying me back to my country and my countrymen. Now I don’t even recognize the stories you publish as even being written by American authors. I do however recognize the writing style as those of writers once trained by Pravda, Isvestia and Tass. The difference between Newseek writers and those employed by the former Soviet Union differ in one key point. They were forced to write the party line with threat of imprisonment or internal exile as the penalty for writing the truth, Newseek writers have done so of their own free will for love of ideology. Either way both are propagandists and no more hard earned money will go to support the American apparatchik.

Sincerely,


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Miscellaneous; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: dinosaur; liberalmedia; media; newsweek; wapo
Here's one letter they will never acknowledge in print and will not elicit a response.

I thought I'd share it with you given the repeated reposting of the "Is Your Baby Racist?" story they did this week.

1 posted on 09/12/2009 9:37:24 PM PDT by PittsburghAfterDark
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

I don’t know why anyone would be buying liberal publications at all. Good letter btw.


2 posted on 09/12/2009 9:39:39 PM PDT by GeronL (http://libertyfic.proboards.com ............. http://tyrannysentinel.blogspot.com)
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

I would end it now and ask for a refund.


3 posted on 09/12/2009 9:41:10 PM PDT by US_MilitaryRules (Become a monthly donor or FR won't be here for you!)
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

I wonder just HOW MANY letters like that that all the Subscription MEDIA are Actually getting on a Monthly basis.


4 posted on 09/12/2009 9:42:34 PM PDT by gwilhelm56 (If Policy disagreement is RACISM, You are NOT READY to have a MINORITY as President.)
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To: US_MilitaryRules

Ditto.

As for December 13, 2010....did he mean December 13, 2009?


5 posted on 09/12/2009 9:43:55 PM PDT by cranked
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To: PittsburghAfterDark; potlatch; PhilDragoo; devolve; bitt; MeekOneGOP

I’m giving up too—a subscriber since 1967.
Their new format promised to be more balanced, less biased, yet each issue of the new era has contained snide remarks against Bush, Cheney, Palin and other Republicans and conservatives of note. They are manufacturers of the “conventional wisdom”, which, as you say, is propaganda worthy of the so-called old Soviet Union. May they die swiftly.


6 posted on 09/12/2009 9:44:44 PM PDT by ntnychik
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To: US_MilitaryRules

“I would end it now and ask for a refund.”

A constructive suggestion!


7 posted on 09/12/2009 9:45:09 PM PDT by devere
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To: US_MilitaryRules

The majority of my continuing to subscribe to Newsweek was sentimental in nature. It was the first magazine my parents ever got me as a gift subscription. It was also one of only two American publications I could readily find in my European travels, Time being the other, during the 80’s and early 90’s.

I knew they’ve been this way for years yet some piece of me never forgot that it was my tie to America overseas when there was no Internet. Yet that has changed. I can travel anywhere and get my media from any number of sources as easily there as I do here thanks to the net and Slingbox.

I would have stayed loyal on sentiment alone, that’s the kind of consumer I am, yet I got this weeks magazine and really, that was all I could take. It used to be 1-3 covers a year that infuriated me, now they show up every month. It’s just not worth it for me to go to the mailbox on Tuesday’s wondering how they’re going to tick me off this week anymore.


8 posted on 09/12/2009 9:46:22 PM PDT by PittsburghAfterDark
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To: US_MilitaryRules

ditto...


9 posted on 09/12/2009 9:48:33 PM PDT by God luvs America (When the silent majority speaks the earth trembles!)
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

Oh and no, the date was correct as being 12/13/10. I never paid attention to subscription information on mailing labels and once a year send one or two year renewals based on how much money I have in December. My Sports Illustrated subscription is good until 2012 as an example because of renewing due to Pittsburgh teams winning the championships so I could get special issues, videos and this years Madden 10 for free.


10 posted on 09/12/2009 9:49:08 PM PDT by PittsburghAfterDark
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To: PittsburghAfterDark
According to another stgory psoted here, Newsweek is going to attempt to address its mounting losses by raising prices..and hoping to attract a hard core group of committed readers willing to pay....

Ya think they know what a "blivet" is?

11 posted on 09/12/2009 9:49:39 PM PDT by ken5050 (Save the Earth!!!!! It's the ONLY planet with chocolate!)
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To: PittsburghAfterDark
I couldn't stand Newsweek in the 1960s.

Back then Time and U.S. News were real news magazines and I needed them to get the rest of the news spiked by daily TV networks news and liberal daily rags.

12 posted on 09/12/2009 9:53:20 PM PDT by WilliamofCarmichael (If modern America's Man on Horseback is out there, Get on the damn horse already!)
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

bookmark


13 posted on 09/12/2009 9:57:53 PM PDT by GOP Poet
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To: GeronL

i stopped reading that #$%& at least 25 years ago.
I get all my news here. complete and centrist.


14 posted on 09/12/2009 10:07:09 PM PDT by genghis
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

I look back and I think the turn of the Newsweek crowd to a third-rate piece of journalism (not even news)...was around 2001/2002. There were brief indicators in the 1990’s but they still tried to be a true news journal.

I see this same problem with Arizona Highways, National Geographic, Time, and a dozen other publications. With the exception of Money and Kiplingers...I’ve just about quit all magazines now. Most people that I work with...have quit their various subscriptions.

I believe that Newspapers aren’t the only group dying off now. At some mythical magical point...all of these are going to go so far down in price...that some conservative folks are going to pop up and buy them for five cents on the dollar. They will then turn them into practical and useful publications. Meanwhile, we simply need to wait.


15 posted on 09/12/2009 10:15:09 PM PDT by pepsionice
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To: PittsburghAfterDark
We gave up on NewsWeak about 10 years ago - we replaced it with World (worldmag.com). It has a wonderful pro-Christian / pro-Israel perspective.

We also dumped the local paper and replaced it with the Washington Times.

16 posted on 09/12/2009 10:15:15 PM PDT by QBFimi (When gunpowder speaks, beasts listen.)
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To: GeronL
I don’t know why anyone would be buying liberal publications at all.

I used to read all the lefty publications at the Regenstein library at U of Chicago where I worked. Why try to parse Newsweek when you have their primary sources, like the Alan Guttmacher Institute Newsletter available? Also, ready blasts against Orwell, trying to discredit his siding with the socialists in the Spanish Civil War was just hard to find entertainment. But don't worry, I made time for Policy Review, Commentary and National Review.

Now, paying for them? Not for me, but some folks might actually get value for knowing what's in the publications. It's less necessary now with web sites, but not completely gone.

Once in a while, you even come upon a gem. I still cite Tom Bethell's article on certain cladists (a type of evolution taxonomist) in Harpers magazine (Feb. '82 or '83, I believe). The men in the article believed in macro-evolution, but opined that it was just as much a matter of faith as the beliefs held by various styles of creationists.
17 posted on 09/12/2009 10:16:01 PM PDT by Dr. Sivana (There is no salvation in politics.)
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

ouch!


18 posted on 09/12/2009 10:18:46 PM PDT by tiki (True Christians will not deliberately slander or misrepresent others or their beliefs)
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

Excellent letter. They won’t changed, but you can say you told them so.


19 posted on 09/12/2009 10:19:13 PM PDT by beaversmom
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To: beaversmom

oops “change”


20 posted on 09/12/2009 10:19:43 PM PDT by beaversmom
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To: PittsburghAfterDark
NEWWEAK
...die, die, die.

21 posted on 09/12/2009 10:22:40 PM PDT by skinkinthegrass (Zer0 to the voter: "Welcome to 'MY' DeathCARE ® Plan"...Sucker! ...now just die. :^)
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

The one thing that boggles my mind...
Why in the H did you subscribe to it to begin with????
My question goes to all FReepers that take TIME, Newsweek and all of the other Marxist rags.
Back in the 60s, I took USNWR, but NOTHING in the last 40 years.


22 posted on 09/12/2009 10:24:48 PM PDT by AlexW (Now in the Philippines . Happy not to be back in the USA for now.)
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To: PittsburghAfterDark
Shoot!!

I quit Time and Newsweek 20 years ago. I stayed with USN&WR a little longer and until it was bought by Mortimer Zuckerman...then I cancelled it. I also cancelled Scientific American and am about to cancel National Geographic and maybe The Smithsonian for socialist leanings.

23 posted on 09/12/2009 10:25:22 PM PDT by blam
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

How did you hang on so long? I canceled my subscription in the the early 90s after Eleanor Clift’s, Howard Fineman’s and other staff toadies’ orgasmic tributes to Bill Clinton.


24 posted on 09/12/2009 10:27:09 PM PDT by Bernard Marx ("Civilizations die by suicide, not from murder" Toynbee)
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

Good on You!


25 posted on 09/12/2009 10:30:33 PM PDT by aShepard
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To: PittsburghAfterDark
Dude, I canceled Newsweak after the 92 election of Bill Clinton. I could not believe their bias. They even sent back the money I had already paid for the forth coming issues.

Actually, to be truthful, I decided to cancel the subscription but my wife was the one who called them.

26 posted on 09/12/2009 10:31:09 PM PDT by BBell
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

Thanks for sharing.


27 posted on 09/12/2009 10:32:46 PM PDT by citizencon
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

How could you put up with that garbage for so long?


28 posted on 09/12/2009 10:34:34 PM PDT by cydcharisse
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To: PittsburghAfterDark
My father who is very conservative still gets Newsweak to this day. I grew up reading Newsweak and when I was in the service my parents gave me a gift subscription of which I kept renewing. While in the service I had friends who received Time and U.S. News and World report and we always thought Newsweak was the most middle of the road, Time being more left and US News & World Report being more right. To me all this changed in the late 80’s and by the time of the 92 elections they had become so blatantly pro Bill and anti George that it really bothered me. When Bill won I had enough.
29 posted on 09/12/2009 10:46:42 PM PDT by BBell
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To: PittsburghAfterDark
Bravo!

The Watergate scandal showed that two police beat reporters could collapse a presidency. Political activists took notice and began taking jobs in newsrooms and broadcast studios. Others enrolled in journalism school. Ten years later these partisans were moving into management and writing editorials. Eventually they turned the U.S. establishment news media into an ideological closed shop that daily produces an alternative reality. Fortunately, the Internet arrived just in time. This made it possible to access enough different versions of a story to extrapolate truth.

I read Newsweek about four times a year in my dentist's office.

30 posted on 09/12/2009 11:13:30 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee (A politician can't give you anything he hasn't first stolen from you.)
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

You’re just now wearing out on them??? Actually not for 15 more months. How imperative is it to pay attention to “in 15 months I’ll be getting really tired of you” It dilutes your complaint a lot.


31 posted on 09/12/2009 11:39:50 PM PDT by Shimmer1 (I'm as Mad as Hell, and I'm Not Gonna Take This Anymore!)
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

The MSM has lost a ton of money on me the past 15 years, since I woke up to their bias. I used to take a local newspaper and 2 magazines. I’ve since gotten raises and would most certainly take a local paper, a national paper, and 4 news magazines, if they had balanced news reporting, what, when, why, how and where.

Frankly, there is something nice about holding a paper in your hands and being able to read in the living room or outside on the patio, rather than being stuck in the office where the computer is. It is also a royal PITA trying to cull all the garbage on the internet in order to find the reliable news.

Instead, I get nothing but their one-sided socialist love fest. Freaking idiots. Their revenue would soar if they reported ALL of the news, not just one side. Even more importantly, their target audience tends to be the lower classes who have no money to subscribe to magazines and newspapers, while they abuse the middle and upper middle classes, who have boatloads of spare money for these sources of information.

Morons.

They really do hate capitalism. The way they shun their target audience and lose money in torrents, proves it.


32 posted on 09/13/2009 12:02:15 AM PDT by Freedom_Is_Not_Free (Depression Countdown: 50... 49... 48...)
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

Yeah, cancel and ask for a refund. Before they go belly-up.


33 posted on 09/13/2009 12:15:16 AM PDT by VeniVidiVici (Hey Obama. Where is Osama Bin Laden?)
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To: ntnychik; PittsburghAfterDark; potlatch; devolve; MeekOneGOP
I quit my Time subscription in 1967.

Time. Newsweek. New York Times.

Different manholes; same sewer.

The End.

34 posted on 09/13/2009 12:23:33 AM PDT by PhilDragoo (Hussein: Islamo-Commie from Kenya)
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To: PhilDragoo; ntnychik

“Different manholes; same sewer.

The End.”

Amen...


35 posted on 09/13/2009 12:25:42 AM PDT by dixiechick2000 ("This is a revolution, dammit! We're going to have to offend somebody!")
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

TIME magazine

The Responsibility Revolution
By Richard Stengel

long before Obama started talking about how green is the new gold, many corporations discovered that business was about a lot more than a profit-and-loss statement

Nearly half of Americans in our poll said protecting the environment should be given priority over economic growth — and this comes in the midst of a recession and historic unemployment. And 78% of those polled said they would be willing to pay $2,000 more for a car that gets 35 m.p.g. than for a similar one that gets only 25 m.p.g.

******

Exclusive Interview: The Obamas on Public Service

So a lot has changed since then. The Kennedy Serve America Act has been passed, which is fantastic. And we’ve done this enormous national poll about national service, and one of the things that we discovered, and other polls have shown this, too, is that, in fact, volunteering is down as a result of the recession, and civic participation is down. And when we did that last year it was a kind of great moment for us, and since then, the economy has gone down. I’m wondering what you make of that and what you think the significance of that is for national service.

The President: Well, I think that people are under
standably anxious right now and feeling insecure economically. They are worried about home payments; they’re worried about bills; they’re worried about losing their health care; they’re worried about their 401(k)s and whether or not they’re going to be able to afford to send their kids to college. And so I think that there’s an understandable sense that I really have to take care of home base right now and make sure that I’m doing everything I can to provide security for my family.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1921296,00.html


36 posted on 09/13/2009 12:35:01 AM PDT by kcvl
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

If you decide you like TIME, you’ll receive 50 more issues – 54 in all – for just $20.00.

You’ll also receive the Time Precision Watch FREE with your paid subscription. If you don’t want to continue with TIME after your trial period, simply return your bill marked “cancel” and owe nothing.

******

Yes, please send my 4 Free Preview Issues of TIME. If I like TIME, I’ll receive 52 additional issues for a total of 56 issues in all (1 year) for just $20.00 - a savings of 90% off the newsstand price!

This low price includes the cost of my free trial issues. You’ll also receive the ULTRONIC™ Touch-Screen Organizer FREE with your paid subscription. To receive the touch screen, please check the box below the premium image. If you don’t want to continue with TIME after your trial period, simply return your bill marked “cancel” and owe nothing. The cancellation is effective immediately, and any trial issues I receive are mine to keep free.

******

Pay for 56 issues now by credit/debit card or PayPal and receive 28 more issues of TIME FREE - 84 issues in all - for only $20.00.

Plus, your FREE GIFT will be sent immediately, (if you check the box below the premium image). You’ll also receive all the features of the Subscribers Automatic Renewal Program.


37 posted on 09/13/2009 12:40:27 AM PDT by kcvl
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To: All

I dropped my subscription to Time about 5 years ago. I wrote them a terse note with colorful language also explaining why I was cancelling my subscription. I was tired of reading all the Bush hatred stuff.

When ever you cancel one of these rags, be sure to let them know why. Maybe they will try to improve.


38 posted on 09/13/2009 3:55:34 AM PDT by ClarenceThomasfan (President Bush will go down as one of our greatest presidents (next to Ronald Reagan))
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

You spelled Newsweak wrong.


39 posted on 09/13/2009 3:57:43 AM PDT by Drango (A liberal's compassion is limited only by the size of someone else's wallet.)
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To: PittsburghAfterDark
Newsweak is Islamic, 100% antiAmerican.


40 posted on 09/13/2009 4:02:02 AM PDT by Diogenesis ("Those who go below the surface do so at their peril" - Oscar Wilde)
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To: PittsburghAfterDark
I used to get Newsweek too. If it was free I would NOT want it in my home. I can read the "left side" without having to be insulted. And that's what Newsweek does - they have to grind it in...

The last time I was offered a "special" from then it was for a year's subscription for $10. I declined. The only way they could get a dime out of me would be if they threatened to send me the magazine UNLESS I sent them money.

Why any conservative or traditional American would pay to be insulted is beyond me...

41 posted on 09/13/2009 4:07:13 AM PDT by GOPJ (Democrats - an association of organized criminal groups. ACORN - one of many.)
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To: AlexW

It’s a good idea to read both sides - but Newsweek gives their leftist slant with the addition of the middle finger... and that’s too much. Same with Time.


42 posted on 09/13/2009 4:10:38 AM PDT by GOPJ (Democrats - an association of organized criminal groups. ACORN - one of many.)
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

I wouldn’t be surprised if Newsweek is closed down completely by the end of 2010. It took you this long to figure out how liberal Newsweek had become????

Not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer.


43 posted on 09/13/2009 4:17:36 AM PDT by steven33442
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

I don’t think they will care, if you really aren’t ending your subscription until December of 2010. They’ll figure that if you really were upset, you’d actually cancel your subscription, rather than let it run out over a year later.


44 posted on 09/13/2009 6:40:19 AM PDT by CharlesWayneCT
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To: ntnychik

They’ve all gone to the devil.


45 posted on 09/13/2009 6:43:56 PM PDT by potlatch
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To: PittsburghAfterDark
You’ve already successfully alienated more than half the country with your bias and nonsense.

More like 95% of the people intelligent enough and willing to pay money to read news magazines, I mean lets be real, they don't sell a lot of these things in the inner city.

46 posted on 09/13/2009 6:51:01 PM PDT by Rome2000 (OBAMA IS A COMMUNIST CRYPTO-MUSLIM)
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

Good riddance. I just bought three subscriptions to counter your nonsensical crybaby boycott. (By the way, don’t look now, but your baby’s racist! (Also, America was never a Christian nation (see the First Amendment). And socialism is far preferable to the anarchy you call capitalism (just ask anyone with a union job, or anyone on Social Security or Medicare or unemployment, or really, anyone who loves his neighbor as himself))).


47 posted on 09/18/2009 8:05:50 PM PDT by patriot1861
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To: patriot1861

I’m glad you felt to the need to purchase “three” subscriptions to counter my nonsensical crybaby boycott. Its your money to spend as you see fit and God knows they need the money.

Perhaps this weeks cover advocating speedy end of life, “The Case for Killing Granny”, will help you sleep better at night knowing you’re supporting a worthy publication.


48 posted on 09/19/2009 3:39:28 PM PDT by PittsburghAfterDark
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