To its thousands of ardent fans who will no doubt be devastated by the news, it is the sad duty of the editors of The Notional Pest to announce with some regret that the national on-line scandal sheet has gone belly-up.  Its publisher, Fred W. Lipschitz, MD, BS, PhD, FRCCCCSCH, VD, OC, etc., said that The Notional Pest will cease publication on 28 January, 2002, when right to the domain name notionalpest.ca expires. 

Doctors at The Abby Lipschitz Memorial Hospital where Angels of the Great Spirit bore the greatly loved scandal sheet to its well-deserved rest would not offer information on the immediate cause of its demise. However a friend, presumably in the know, say it went tits up after suffering an acute attack of trusticular hemorrhage brought on by dismay over the corruption and mis-management of the country's leaders who have reduced a once proud nation to the status of a third-rate banana-republic under the increasingly dictatorial reign of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.

Fred W. Lipschitz offered hope that the The Notional Pest may be revived at some future date, but until 28 January, viewers who wish to view the last issue and all the stories that have appeared in the Pest during its online existence may do so by clicking on the following link: Last Issue