About our new Mast(itus) Head .....

When dairy giant Pura Milk approached your favourite netzine and asked if they could sponsor us in some way, we were naturally delighted.
Copies of The Bug - either net versions like this one you're accidentally reading now because you're an Idaho potato farmer searching the www for a solution to your leaf roller infestation; or our award-winning full-colour hard-copy issues distributed in Brisbane - do not come cheaply. Frankly, we need all the help we can get.
But then came the rub: Pura Milk was prepared to throw quite a few dollars our way in the form of full-colour advertisements but on one condition: they wanted naming rights to this publication!
Well, naturally, we at The Bug were appalled. Some of us older blokes were apetered. A bit later on as the ramifications of this ludicrous demand sank in, we were all, by and large, adairyfarmered! One irate member of staff assured us she was well and truly ahomebranded!
Did Pura Milk think for one moment that our publication's proud association with Moreton Bay could be bought and sold for a Kim Beazley bag of silver?
For, you see, the full title of one of the world's most loved netzines is actually The Moreton Bay Bug! Few of the millions of people worldwide who have joyously embraced this publication over the years realise that, but there it is.
And it has proudly been so for 10 years. It explains where we come from: that charming, cosmopolitan city of Brisbane doorstopped by one of the most majestic waterways of the world - Moreton Bay!
And then some upstart dairy company comes along with an open chequebook and expects us to throw tradition out the door!
Now it is true that they haven't pulled a legal-sized fish out of Moreton Bay for close to 20 years.
And even if they did, you'd have to be crazy to eat the sucker seeing the bay's so polluted these days.
The Bay's full of chemicals, sewage and car and human bodies, among other things.
And when the tide goes full out, all you've got is a half-mile of stinking, putrid mud that you wouldn't let your dog walk over.
The bay's a cesspit, basically.
So, naturally, we are proud to present the very first issue of The Pura Milk Bug.
But while we might have our price, we at The Pura Milk Bug also have our pride.
We have made it very, very clear to the good people at Pura Milk that we won't shirk from our responsibility to report events without fear or favour.
And to prove that to our new sponsors, you'll find in this edition a story which is vehemently opposed to Pura Milk's cash for cricket scandal - with the acquiescence of the Australian Cricket Board - and we refer to their part in the shameful abandonment of the century-old Sheffield Shield cricket competition.
We've also made it abundantly clear to Pura Milk that we will not be remiss in our journalistic integrity and ethical duty in reporting any story that may be linked to Pura Milk's competitors - such as that overseas-owned Pauls (taken over by dubious eye-tie interests, we are led to believe) and that Dairy Farmers outfit, owned by some dole-bludging, pot smoking hippy community at Nimbin, or at least that's what we have been told.
So please enjoy this historic first net edition of The Pura Milk Bug, proudly bought to you by Pura Milk's superb range of quality, health-giving and very reasonably-priced products.