The importance of admitting one's faults

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not honest, and as we have shown from time to time we do not hesitate to reveal our own mistakes. As a matter of housekeeping we have to apologize to the people of Fargo, ND, for turning our valve keys the wrong way and adding more water to the swollen Red River instead of helping the flood waters to abate. We are pleased that the risk of flooding is receding in spite of our mistake.

Over the years we have seen many examples of prominent people who refuse to admit their own mistakes, and generally the result is disastrous. Case in point, Marcus Einfeld. As a prominent judge in Australia he couldn't bear the thought of living without a driver's license, and so he said he had loaned his car to an American colleague, who happened to have died three years earlier. When that alibi fell through he said he was driving his mother's car, but surveillance photos showed that the car hadn't moved all day. After a series of lies each more pathetic than the rest he finally ended up in jail. The lesson is clear: own up to your mistakes before they pull you down.

Oh, and while we're at it we should apologize to James Grover of San Francisco, CA for the incident with his cat and his lawn mower. Sorry, James.

Always twisting...

In our post about when to call emergency services we tried to persuade people to not call emergency services if they can't get their McNuggets. A few weeks later we posted another example of this phenomenon. Most of our readers understood that what we wanted them to try to resolve the situation themselves and not to bother emergency services. What we didn't expect, however, was the pamphlet released by the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch that quotes us extensively and argues that people should avenge themselves rather than relying on community services. Even when we saw the pamphlet we didn't think it likely that anyone would act on this suggestion, but this incident proved us wrong.

We didn't want to have to do this, but we are now in the process of publishing our own set of pamphlets. The first is entitled "What to Do When You Can't Get Your Burger: A World Citizen's Guide to Conflict Resolution" and deals with the issues that have been causing so much pain. It is co-authored by noted psychologist Dr. Andrew Wittgenstein of Cornell University and follows the Socratic Method. We hope our supporters will help us in distributing this to all of your friends and neighbors. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to common sense solutions!

http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/2009/03/30/20090330ODDmcdonald-shooter0330-ON.html?&wired

Getting away with it?

We haven't seen any major incidents involving free hole punches just yet, and we are hopeful than none will materialize. We are troubled however, by the recent reports of DNA swab contamination reported here.

We have learned from our operatives that this "phantom woman" is indeed a real person. In fact, she was highly placed in the Parent Corporation (There is some debate as to her position. "Viktor" is willing to swear that she was the COO, but other information seems to indicate she was the CFO. Time will tell, but either way she was (and probably still is) highly placed within the organization) and committed the first few crimes attributed to her. In order to absolve her, the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch embarked on a troubling mission: to contaminate enough DNA swabs so that confidence in her guilt would be significantly undermined. Based on the article referenced above, it seems that they may have succeeded. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not optimistic, and we would like you to all strengthen your resolve to keep the Parent Corporation at bay. Those of you who work around DNA swabs will likely have fewer civil liberties until this thing blows over, but we hope you will understand why we would need to do this.

New information

It seems our operatives have been very busy following up some new leads this last week, and due to their tireless efforts we can now announce to you what the Parent Corporation was planning to do. We assume that they will be smart enough not to try it now that our spies know about it and all of you do, too, but we advise vigilance.

As most of you know, the President of the Parent Corporation has recently been in negotiations with the National Council of Teachers of Crafts in many states to increase the prominence of hole punching in classrooms. It appears that in the last few weeks the NCTC turned him down, and he has resorted to plan B, which consists of trying to get more pictures of hole punches and brads in the books used to teach our children. Our operatives were able to scuttle this effort as well by alerting the publishers to the intent of the Unholy Brotherhood. With these setbacks we believe they resorted to plan C, which was to hand out free hole punches at fast food establishments next week. We believe that we have thwarted their plans, but at the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not cautious and we advise you to watch your children carefully at fast food establishments this week and confiscate any hole punches they may receive.

The problem with death bed confessions

Religious and civic leaders have been telling us for years that we should resolve outstanding issues before we are on our death beds, but few of us have actually heeded them. Well, now those who oppose waiting until the last minute to try to make things right have another example to use. James Brewer thought he was dying of a stroke and called police to him. He confessed to a murder he had committed years ago, and, thinking he was about to leave this world "at peace," he soon found that he wasn't dying after all. Now that he has recovered the police are charging him for the murder. It all goes to show that if you're going to confess to something you shouldn't wait until you think you're about to die. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not practical, and we advise you to (1) not commit any actions that will bother your conscience before you die, but if you do commit such actions, either (2) resolve them before you think you're dying, or (3) take them with you to your grave. Any of these three solutions would have helped James Brewer, but, alas, he has made his choice.

Shifting blame

Recent events have made it imperative that we reiterate that at the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not fair-minded. While we applaud the ingenuity of the woman who blamed her stealing of church funds on Satan, we would like to make it clear that anyone caught stealing from the GNU Public Dictatorship will not be able to get away with by blaming the Parent Corporation.

A message of appreciation to all of you

It has been a long time since we have taken time to pay tribute to our supporters and the selfless acts of patriotism they perform each day. With each of you doing your part to further our dream we have to admit that we sometimes take you all for granted, but we wanted you to know that we appreciate everything you do for us. You are our silent cheerleaders, urging us on in an invisible way everyday. I know what you're thinking, "What good is a silent cheerleader? Can I do any good without being heard?" The answer is a resounding yes. Well, the answer to the second question you're thinking is a resounding yes. The answer to the first question is one you could probably find by talking with a representative of the American Association of People with Disabilities.

There are times when laundering money should not be a crime

Money laundering has long been associated with organized crime, and has a deservedly bad reputation. Although the exact legal definition varies among jurisdictions the idea is always the same: cleaning up money obtained from less-than-clean sources. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are generally opposed to money laundering, but we think there should be some exceptions. If, for instance, your two-year-old dog eats US $400 you should be able to clean up what comes out the other end without legal ramifications.

Why rob the jewelry store when you can rob the robbers?

Although our legal team has asked me to write a disclaimer* here indicating that we do not condone the illicit taking of other people's property, we have to applaud the ingenuity of the second pair of thieves in this article. Rather than waste their time and effort planning how to rob a jewelry store without getting caught they put their effort into waiting until someone else robbed the jewelry store and planning how to rob them. Their efforts were, sadly, thwarted when the other thieves fought back and the police became involved, but they do get an 'A' for effort!

*Disclaimer: At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to maintaining law and order, and in no way is this post intended to imply otherwise. Our respect for the idea the second pair of thieves had is based solely on their ability to think outside the box (or, in this case, the store) and not on their avaricious motives or illegal activity.

It's just wrong

Many people in the world would like to tell you that right and wrong are in the eye of the beholder, and that what is right for one person may be wrong for someone else. While this philosophy does promote tolerance for others, at the GNU Public Dictatorship we have to state that some things are just plain wrong. Feeding squirrel-flavor chips to squirrels is one of them. The fact that they seem to like them is another.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to a just and peaceful society. In order to get there we as a society need to have a clear collective understanding of what things are just plain wrong (other than the Parent Corporation and hole punches, of course). Consequently we are starting a new committee which will eventually have local chapters in which we will discuss these evils and get feedback from our supporters on other evils. Our agenda for the first meeting on Tuesday is the following:

Welcome - 2 minutes
Committee organization and selection of chairmen - 5 minutes
Decide whether to open up the window - 15 minutes
Discussion of current evils - 35 minutes
- Feeding squirrels squirrel-flavored chips - 15 minutes
- Kenny G - 15 minutes
- Open discussion of evil - 5 minutes
Closing - 3 minutes

The importance of citations

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not against sites that don't post adequate references, and we would like you all to know that we do our best to link to reputable sites. We would also like to draw your attention to a recent article written about the GNU Public Dictatorship, which you can find here*. We hope you appreciate the efforts we take to ensure that our misinformation is as reputable as possible.

* It looks like the Parent Corporation had the article removed from its previous location. We're sorry about the inconvenience.

Cruelty to animals

When we first saw this article, we thought it must be a case of an unfortunate coincidence that happened to result in an uncomfortable time for the cat involved, but as our ever-useful spy "Viktor" investigated, it looked more and more like a deliberate attempt on the part of the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch to cause discomfort for the cat.

It seems that the cat had been involved in an incident where a hole punch was knocked from its place on a shelf into some machinery that had been making hole punches, and significant damage was caused to the machinery. The hole punch itself was apparently still usable, but the Parent Corporation felt retribution would be necessary in this case. The cat's owner, who is not affiliated with the Parent Corporation, is glad to have his cat back.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not against cruel and unusual punishment for pets, and we are pleased that this situation ended well. We pledge to do our best to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future.

It's finally all making sense

Most of you have experienced this. You're assembling or installing a new piece of furniture or appliance, and the instructions tell you something so bizarre and unintelligible that you wonder whether it was translated from Shyriiwook in a sweatshop in Vietnam.

I recently found this instruction at the tail end of the assembly of a bookcase:

II. DRILLING TWO HOLES ON THE WALL IT AS BETWEEN TOP PANEL HOLES DISTANCE.

I would try to diagram this sentence, but I'm not sure I was taught how to diagram this. Thanks to "Viktor," however, we now have in our possession the code book to decipher these steganographic messages. It seems that the Parent Corporation has long been using these cryptic instruction manuals to convey secret instructions to their operatives. This particular message, according to the manual we got from "Viktor" it means roughly:

Expect a shipment of brads and hole punches on the third Wednesday of March in Copenhagen.

Which, as all of you who have taken CRYPT 441: Parent Corporation Codes know, means that there has been a change of strategy, and that any operatives reading this message should immediately consult their commanders for new orders.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not glad it's all starting to make sense!

The dangers of being reactionary

We have seen several examples this week in the mainstream news media of the Parent Corporation reacting to our moves in less-than-ideal ways. Take this article, for example. The pet store owners had made a remark earlier this week about how they're not sure they're going to keep selling hole punches, and this remark was apparently overheard. The Parent Corporation immediately did a knee-jerk reaction, sending a dead body to the pet store instead of some fish. What's more, the fish were left at the airport to die. This recent spate of reactionary behavior has motivated us to react by outlawing reactionary behavior in the GNU Public Dictatorship. Being reactionary is clearly less practical than carefully considering your options, even if it is sometimes more satisfying. As it is clearly less than optimal social behavior, however, from now on any supporter caught reacting in a less than calm and objective way will punished severely.

Because this decision was made quickly without much thought for the implications, we have not yet selected a punishment for violation of the rule. Feel free to suggest punishments at your local GPD offices. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to an efficient society!

The Reason Brads have tines of different lengths

After many weeks of discussions, committee meetings, and focus groups, we have finally decided that the world is in fact ready to know the Reason brads have tines of different lengths. As most of you remember, Jacob Gehris was asked by the Company why he had designed his brad this way, and he responded that it was so that the tines could be separated. All of our historical documents show that this answer was well-received by the Company, presumably because it had nothing to do with the real Reason. As our review of documents acquired in the collapse of the Company continued, we soon learned that it had a little more than nothing to do with the real Reason.

The real Reason can only be understood with the perspective one gains from an understanding of the basic history of the brad, so we will take some time here to highlight the salient points. This summary, however, is not by any means meant to be a replacement for the course HIST 332: The History of the Brad, and we encourage you to enroll as soon as possible if you have not already taken the course. The first references we have to the Brad Guys (then known as the "Sons of Brad") were recorded in the middle ages by priests concerned with what they believed they had uncovered. Until recently, most historians agreed that the Brad Guys believe that the brad was brought to earth many milennia ago by an extra-terrestrial race. Our recent documents dispute this claim, making it more likely that early leaders of the Sons of Brad used this story to help them spread their influence, but that as the members increased in stature within the cult they were told the Secret. There is only one surviving record of a member who threatened to reveal the Secret, and his ignominious fate is best left untold in this public forum. Any supporters who may have a legitimate need for this information can request it by submitting form G9833A: Request for Details of Disgusting Deaths and Worse to your local GPD office. The Secret, in essence, consisted in the knowledge that the first brad was invented by the revered Biggest Brother as a way to punish his wife, who was reportedly unfaithful to him. After creating the brad he had an epiphany in which he claims to have fully understood the sinister potential of the brad and discovered that he should create the cult.

Here is an excerpt from a secret Company document which is a translation of the Biggest Brother's teachings about how he designed the brad:

"My wife had always been fond of creating sculptures out of scraps of wood. I decided I would modify all of her fasteners such that no matter how she fastened things they would fall to pieces. My evil plan was proceeding as I devised the most sinister of all fasteners, the brad! I gave it a rounded top so that it could be pushed by hand or by tool, and I gave it two brass tines. My first attempts had the tines of equal lengths, but it proved less than useful. I thought about it for many a fortnight, and eventually the thought came to me that if I were to make the tines of different lengths they would both be easily separable and also be a tangible symbol of the domination of the strong over the weak. I completed my plan, and my wife was so frustrated with the fasteners that she attacked me. I was forced to defend myself, and by the time I was done defending myself I had embedded many brads into her lifeless body..."

The manuscript goes on, describing his attacks and the utility of his brads as weapons of torture in great detail. Again, we don't think it is appropriate to reproduce it here, but if you feel you need to know, submit your form G9833A: Request for Details of Disgusting Deaths and Worse to your local GPD office and we will consider your request.

This quote does make it clear that the brad has tines of different lengths in part because of the mundane reason Jacob Gehris cited, but more importantly as a symbol of his dominance as the stronger, longer tine over his wife, the weaker, shorter tine. This symbolism, whether you like it or not, pervades all aspects of the brad. It is a physical symbol of exploitation and oppression, and we are glad that the GNU Public Dictatorship we have always been nothing if not opposed to it!

If you're going to steal money... (reprise)

Before we begin let us make it perfectly clear that the GNU Public Dictatorship is not suggesting that you begin a life of crime. In fact, when we are fully empowered we will not tolerate such lawless behavior. In the meantime, however, we would like to give you some pointers on how to steal money while you can. We previously advocated carefully choosing the amount you will steal to be either very high or very low, and we believe this is still sound advice. We believe a review of a couple of recent news reports will provide additional sound advice. We'll first look at one who stole obscenely large amounts and another who stole small amounts over time.

First we will consider the case of a woman in charge of finances at a woodworking shop stealing US $9.9 million to build herself a very fancy closet. She would routinely spend US $24,000 on a weekly basis, using company funds to cover the expenses. She was caught when American Express told the company that she was using the company's checks to pay off her credit card bill.

On the positive side, this woman used her position of trust to get very rich, and because of the way she used the money all that the company could recover was around US $2 million (a net gain of US $7.9 million). She was also able to enjoy the TV in her closet for quite some time before being caught.

On the negative side, has this woman ever heard of laundering money? If the trail had been less obvious from the company's coffers to her credit card account she might have been able to go on stealing, and who knows, she might have been able to put a whole surround sound system in her closet.

One more thing about this woman is that somehow her husband escaped suspicion of wrongdoing. How, we can only guess. He must have known that her designer closet wasn't being purchased using their own funds, but then again, maybe she managed the finances at home and at work and never told him the price of her shoes and handbags.

Our second illustrative example will be taken from this report, but we won't talk about the Fishers, as they were the ones having money stolen from them. We'll focus instead on the "lucky" neighbors who saw their utility bill shrink as they consumed more and more gas. They obviously feigned innocence and got away with nearly US $2,000 worth of free energy.

In this case the careful planning of the "lucky" family allowed them to live it up with free energy while their neighbors paid the bill. They may not have known who was paying the bill, but they certainly knew it wasn't them. They followed the first axiom of stealing money, which, as we all know, is to not draw attention to yourself. They didn't throw any "see how warm I can keep my house" parties or anything.

We hope this review of these cases has been instructive and that you will either avoid a life of crime or at least do it cleverly.

ASCII Art

We would like to thank Frances Werlitzer of Fargo, ND, for submitting this rendition of our logo in ASCII Art. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not pleased with artistic effort, especially when it involves our logo!

Sabotage!

We have been watching carefully for signs of the attitude of the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch toward the Obama administration, and we feel it is safe at this point to show that the Unholy Brotherhood and the Parent Corporation are taking an adversarial stand. This knowledge heartens us, as we know that the new administration can likely be counted on to help us fight the Parent Corporation when the need arises.

The latest incident to add to our certainty that the Parent Corporation opposes the Obama administration occurred last week and involved the United States and Russia. Hillary Clinton, who is obviously not fluent in the Russian language, gave her counterpart a novelty button inscribed with the word "перегрузка" (peregruzka). It was supposed to convey to the Russians that the new administration wanted to reset relations with them and leave the baggage of the last few years behind. Unfortunately, as many of our Russian-speaking supporters could point out, this word does not by any stretch of the imagination convey the intended meaning. Even babelfish tells us this, translating it to "overload." Our operatives have discovered that the button was originally going to be inscribed with the correct word, but that the Parent Corporation exerted its influence to change the word after the appropriate reviews had already occurred.

While it saddens us that the Parent Corporation is trying to destabilize relations between the United States and Russia, at the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not pleased to have another enemy of our enemies!

Technology the way it should be made

In the good old days technology was built to last. At some point somebody decided that this was a bad business model. If a technology company is to continue to make a profit, they shouldn't have to compete with their older products, should they? The short answer is that they decided not to compete with older models by building into them flaws that cause them to cease to work after a specified amount of time. A Sony VAIO laptop I bought several years ago worked beautifully for three years (the warranty period plus a few months) before the mainboard self-destructed due to poor design. The curious among you can refer to the footnote to find out more about this problem. I'm sure most of you have, at one time or another, experienced this frustration, so it is with pleasure that I refer you to this article which talks about a cell phone taking quite a beating inside a fish and still being functional (after it was dried out, of course). It seems that at least somebody is pushing aside the principles of "planned obsolescense" in favor of durability.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to excellence in technology, and we will take this opportunity to explain our plan for dealing with "planned obsolescence." Under the GPD anyone found guilty of designing a product to self-destruct after the warranty period has expired will be subjected to a full night of listening to Kenny G's album Breathless while sitting in an uncomfortable chair. This may sound cruel and unusual, but as I have subjected myself to this torture (see second footnote) I am authorized to inflict it on others.

1. My laptop died because the capacitors in the vicinity of the processor were affected by the heat of the processor such that their capacitance changed. When their capacitance changed, alarms went off in the processor saying that the capacitance was incorrect, and the processor would abort. It was pretty neat for a while to run the operating system for a few minutes and then have it turn itself off. After a few more weeks it wouldn't even boot. The root problem here was that the designers of the motherboard didn't stop to think for long enough about heat distribution or long-term damage to the capacitors. Because the warranty had expired, however, Sony had no impetus to take responsibility for the design flaw.

2. I endured this torture in 2001 at the Lima, Peru airport. My flight arrived at just before midnight local time and my outgoing flight was supposed to leave at 6:00 am (but didn't leave until almost 10:00 am) so we decided against getting a hotel for a few hours' worth of sleep. They were playing the same Kenny G album over and over and over all night long.

Carried away?

In a recent post we stated that the Future is Now, but we didn't expect the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch to get so carried away. It seems that one of their spokesmen is now claiming to be able to predict the events in international politics over the next few years. While we applaud Mr. Panarin's dedication to his ideology, we would like to make it clear that our statement was never meant to imply that the normal flow of time had ceased, it was simply a reference to a movie.

Incidentally, this sort of thing is what we used to expect from the Company's operatives, and, given that the Parent Corporation is so much more formidable than the Company ever was, we were surprised that the Parent Corporation isn't above this. We'll take this as a sign that the Parent Corporation isn't quite so infallible as they claim to be. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to defeating the Parent Corporation!

A despicable new tactic

It seems that the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch has stooped to a new low in recent weeks, raiding our fast food establishments and causing them to run out of some of the essentials. Our recent post about when to call emergency services related one such story, where our protagonist was denied lemonade because the Unholy Brotherhood had syphoned it all off for their own nefarious purposes. More recently they took all of the McNuggets from a McDonald's location in Fort Pierce, FL, causing this woman untold suffering. I, myself, experienced such an episode in December of last year where the fast food establishment told me their ice cream machine was unavailable.

Due to the efforts of our loyal spy "Viktor" we have been able to link the Parent Corporation to these incidents. Our intelligence shows that they are responsible for nearly all of such incidents that have been reported in the United States over the last three months. Records for the rest of the world are not kept in as much detail, making it impossible for a firm link to the Parent Corporation there. It is our belief, however, that this is an international attack by the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch on one of our core establishments in society.

We advise all of our supporters to report any such incidents to their local GNU Public Dictatorship offices as soon as possible and to remember that if they purchase hole punches or hole punch paraphernalia they are contributing to such dastardly acts. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to keeping fast food fast and free from entanglements with the Parent Corporation!

Beware of Unintended Messages!

While I was taking a leisurely stroll at lunch time today I saw a car with a number of bumper stickers. As I was not engaged in anything else at the time, I decided to read them. Here is what I found:

• "I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!"
• "Consciousness -- That confusing time between naps"
• "Ever stop to think and forget to start again?"

At this point I had decided that either the owner of the car was a space cadet or the owner of the car wanted to project an image of a person just barely coping with life's complexities. Either way, the message sent by these stickers is one of enjoying ignorance or deluding one's self in order to be content. The final bumper sticker was the most interesting one, and was the one with a (presumably) unintended message:

• "Ron Paul 2008: Hope for America"

I have to assume that the owner of the vehicle was indeed a supporter of Ron Paul for President, but combined with the other stickers the meaning conveyed was one of Ron Paul being the reality-challenged person's choice for President of the United States.

As we our currently rolling out our own bumper sticker campaign we thought it prudent to ask our supporters to be wary of unintended messages when you place our bumper sticker with the rest of them. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to taking over the world, and with your help we can make it happen!

The Future is Now

I know that many of you have been waiting with bated breath for the day when in-valids will be relegated to work that the rest of us who are genetically superior don't want to do, and I am happy to announce that the Future is Now, even if it isn't at Hudsucker Industries. The LA Fertility Institutes have announced that a trait-selected baby is expected to be born next year! We understand that one baby is hardly a whole new society, but it is always good to see science fiction writers' nightmares come true. If only the Great Cat and Dog Plague would actually happen so we can start getting apes as slaves, I mean pets. I've also been wondering when we'll finally harness all of the biological material in our oceans to create Soylent Green, or when we'll start killing off our citizens when they reach the age of 30, but I digress. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not excited for progress, especially when it makes the scenarios in our favorite science fiction movies more probable!

The final straw

After reading this report on odd baby names the Board of Dictators has decided that we must act now to stem the tide of odd baby names. Last year we mentioned in a post about liberty and limits that when fully in power we would require first-time parents (or previous offenders) to run their babies' names by us before they can be officially registered. Of course, as parents show an aptitude for naming their own children we will step aside and let them do what they want. While we still are aiming for this goal, we believe that the time is now to do something about this trend.

If you look at this website, which tracks the popularity of names since the 1880's, you will notice that the overall trend of the graph shows that the most common names are being used less and less frequently. Specifically, in the 1950's about 900,000 of every 1,000,000 babies were being named with names that this site tracks, but by the 2000's this number is down to about 750,000 of every 1,000,000 babies. If this trend continues for much longer, just about every person you meet will have a unique name. Proponents of the one-name-per-person initiative argue that this will aid in the unique identification of individuals, but we don't believe that the benefits will be realized due to extra confusion caused by inadvertent misspelling of the names.

Consequently we are launching a new program at all of our local GNU Public Dictatorship offices. If you need a baby name you can come let us help you decide, and if you suspect that someone has engaged in improper baby naming you may report them and let our operatives take appropriate action. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to you!

My coat's spoon cancer (Warning: Images show graphic depictions of spoon cancer and may disturb some readers)

I finally convinced my coat doctor to release the pictures he had taken before he formally diagnosed my coat's spoon cancer. It took a lot of persuasion, but I finally prevailed upon him by explaining that if people don't know what spoon cancer looks like they aren't likely to recognize it in their own coats and jackets. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we believe nothing if not that coat health is the responsibility of society as a whole, and so we are publishing these photos so that you can spot spoon cancer in your own coats or the coats of your neighbors. If you do happen to spot suspected spoon cancer, please contact your local GPD office as soon as possible.

People are good at heart

Last week the 70-year-old wife of an Ohio judge used her favorite saucepan to defend herself in a burglary, and when she got angry she struck one of the four burglars in the head. The burglars fled and were later apprehended and charged. This might be a pretty good end to a story with a somewhat shaky beginning, but it's far from the end. Because her saucepan had been used as a weapon of self-defense, the police entered it into evidence, leaving our poor protagonist without a saucepan.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not compassionate, and so when we heard of the woman's tragic loss we immediately went looking for a replacement. After asking around just a bit, we found that Chef Emeril Lagasse felt so bad for the woman that he wanted to replace her saucepan, so we let him do it. It all goes to show that people are good at heart, except for, perhaps, those four burglars.