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Just a few brief words regarding this very site follow below. Think of it as a state of the union without the presidential implications and constitutional stuff.

2002 was a really exciting year for all of us at Punknews.org. Thanks to our readers, and friends, we've managed to really do some cool stuff.

We were mentioned in the New York Times, on Muchmusic here in Canada, and survived our first legal threat; we got a chance to talk to some of our favourite bands, and share both our and your questions with them.

We're now published monthly in the new magazine from Hitlist publisher Brett Matthews, called AMP. It's easy to find if you're in California and soon it'll be all over the country, in a bimonthly format for 99 cents and includes a free CD.

Thanks to all of you who voted and supported the site, we won in two categories in the Alternative Press Reader's Poll, and you can check that out in the February issue, which has the Distillers on the cover. It was so nice to hear that so many of you dig what we're trying to do here.

This has been our first year with advertising, and because of the support of labels everywhere we were able to keep the site running, and hope to do so for a long time. We've managed to keep our bills under control, while not having to engage in annoying things like pop up ads, nor have we had to compromise and take advertising from industries we don't want to support.

But most of all, and I say this without hyperbole, this site is, and will always be made by the people who visit, submit news, and participate. Thanks to all of you, whether you kept us posted with news, wrote a comment, or just looked for information about your favourite bands.