To read the full text of this week's issue see This is True's -- weird news stories.

Large portions of True are archived on the web, including the This is True story archive, the Honorary Unsubscribe, and the Bonzer Web Site of the Week.

This is True covers bizarre-but-true stories from newspapers from around the world. True is also the source of the (in)famous Get Out of Hell Free cards, the well-edited humor site Jumbo Joke, and is the publisher of the True Stella Awards, featuring case write-ups of crazy lawsuits.

Special Note from True's 13 March 2005 issue:

Bad News, Good News: The bad news is, the RSS feed for True's free edition was being abused: people were using scripts to post the text to their web sites automatically, despite very clear prohibitions against that. Since people wouldn't stop that abuse, I stopped it -- by not putting the full text in the RSS feed anymore. It sucks that a few idiots spoiled it for everyone, but that's the way it is. True depends on its copyright to stay in business, and I just can't have people stealing it like that. I offer all sorts of neat things for free, including the "True-a-Day" service for you to put a story on your own web sites that automatically changes every day, a free archive of past stories, this free subscription, and lots more. Yet some just can't be satisfied with that and take more than what's offered. That is indeed stealing, folks, and those of you who post stories on your web sites, post them to Usenet, print them in newsletters, and more threaten True's very existence. And that matters to me. It's not a "victimless crime"! I'm very generous with my work, but I must draw the line somewhere. The "where" is up to me, not you, and if you're one who's stealing it and can't deal with that fact, then stop reading my stuff.

The GOOD news is, I'm very sympathetic to the vast majority -- those who want to stay within the rules, to not cross the line, to not steal. A lot of you try hard to subscribe and get the issues by e-mail, but have difficulty, either because you only have a work e-mail address and are not allowed to subscribe to e-mail publications, or your ISP filters out the e-mail you asked to get, even while you still get loads of spam. Thus, as of last week I have started posting the current issue on the True web site so you can read it via the web. Not only that, but because very often the letters in the current issue refer to the previous one, I'm also posting the previous issue on the True web site. They automatically rotate, and the RSS feed is now a notification of the new postings, keeping the RSS option a useful feature. To find the current issue, look in the Navbar on the True site. The previous issue is linked from the current one's page. (That Navbar is pretty handy: it has links to the True-a-Day service, the archive, the Reader Forum, the Bonzer and Honorary Unsubscribe archives, site search and a lot more. The site is pretty big, but it's well organized -- if you take the time to explore it and use the tools provided to find what you want.) ]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThisIsTrue/~3/FKJ-UsXvPYU/ http://www.thisistrue.com/ Sat, 13 Mar 2010 04:17:35 GMT

To read the full text of this week's issue see This is True's -- weird news stories.

Large portions of True are archived on the web, including the This is True story archive, the Honorary Unsubscribe, and the Bonzer Web Site of the Week.

This is True covers bizarre-but-true stories from newspapers from around the world. True is also the source of the (in)famous Get Out of Hell Free cards, the well-edited humor site Jumbo Joke, and is the publisher of the True Stella Awards, featuring case write-ups of crazy lawsuits.

Special Note from True's 13 March 2005 issue:

Bad News, Good News: The bad news is, the RSS feed for True's free edition was being abused: people were using scripts to post the text to their web sites automatically, despite very clear prohibitions against that. Since people wouldn't stop that abuse, I stopped it -- by not putting the full text in the RSS feed anymore. It sucks that a few idiots spoiled it for everyone, but that's the way it is. True depends on its copyright to stay in business, and I just can't have people stealing it like that. I offer all sorts of neat things for free, including the "True-a-Day" service for you to put a story on your own web sites that automatically changes every day, a free archive of past stories, this free subscription, and lots more. Yet some just can't be satisfied with that and take more than what's offered. That is indeed stealing, folks, and those of you who post stories on your web sites, post them to Usenet, print them in newsletters, and more threaten True's very existence. And that matters to me. It's not a "victimless crime"! I'm very generous with my work, but I must draw the line somewhere. The "where" is up to me, not you, and if you're one who's stealing it and can't deal with that fact, then stop reading my stuff.

The GOOD news is, I'm very sympathetic to the vast majority -- those who want to stay within the rules, to not cross the line, to not steal. A lot of you try hard to subscribe and get the issues by e-mail, but have difficulty, either because you only have a work e-mail address and are not allowed to subscribe to e-mail publications, or your ISP filters out the e-mail you asked to get, even while you still get loads of spam. Thus, as of last week I have started posting the current issue on the True web site so you can read it via the web. Not only that, but because very often the letters in the current issue refer to the previous one, I'm also posting the previous issue on the True web site. They automatically rotate, and the RSS feed is now a notification of the new postings, keeping the RSS option a useful feature. To find the current issue, look in the Navbar on the True site. The previous issue is linked from the current one's page. (That Navbar is pretty handy: it has links to the True-a-Day service, the archive, the Reader Forum, the Bonzer and Honorary Unsubscribe archives, site search and a lot more. The site is pretty big, but it's well organized -- if you take the time to explore it and use the tools provided to find what you want.) ]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThisIsTrue/~3/FKJ-UsXvPYU/ http://www.thisistrue.com/