[Jeff Gordon]

Uses for free issues of The Globe:

- Line the bottom of a bird cage
- Cleaning windows
- Starting barbeque's
- Paper mache busts of Kerry for the rifle range
- Draining fried foods
- Mopping up grease
- Paper sailor hats for children's parties
- ?

[Fatuncle]

Paper Sailor Hats for Children's parties?!?

(Staggering back, clutching my heart) Child abuse!

Seriously, it's an attempt to get a few new customers. (The technique is called sampling, by the way.) A week to look at a free sample and perhaps you might want to subscribe. And it works well about as well as most techniques, though the customers tend not to resubscribe after two to three billing cycles.

Newspapers derive their income from advertising, and the rate a paper can charge for advertising is determined by the number of customers. Gotta keep those numbers up!