Warning: Cyberspace is filling up

Apparently, if we don't do something about it soon, the Internet will soon fill up and cause all of our computers to run more slowly and possibly to self-destruct. While we're not sure what capacity on the Internet has to do with the speed at which a computer runs, we feel it is time to raise the Internet Clog Warning to Level 5 (danger of slow Internet speeds or low bandwidth). As all of you know, there are only six levels, and since we devised this system a few days ago this is the first time we have ever reached Level 5. We are not pushing for a Level 6 (Computers exploding because of slow Internet speeds or low bandwidth) just yet because we know that the speed of a computer has nothing to do with the speed of the Internet, unless all that computer does is use the Internet. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not practical, and we therefore ask all of you to remain calm and to watch fewer videos on YouTube. If each of us does his or her part we will be able to avoid causing peoples' computers to blow up in their faces.

Dealing with frustration

Frustration can be frustrating, especially when the causes of the frustration are not under the control of the person being frustrated. We know that most people experience frustration from time to time, but we have noticed that the Parent Corporation has been exerting itself to cause more frustration at this time of economic downturn. We had expected that our efforts to inform the world of the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch's evil aims would allow our world citizens to avoid acute frustration, but we have apparently been frustrated in this goal.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not concerned for your continued peace and well-being, so we will take some time now to help you understand the appropriate response to frustration. The most important thing to remember is to vent your frustration in a way that will not cause you more frustration. Nicholas Adornetto chose to vent his frustration by destroying property at a Wal*Mart store, which, unfortunately caused him more frustration. This is clearly not a good way to get rid of frustration. We suggest the following guidelines for how not to deal with frustration:

• Don't kill anyone. While it may be tempting, the law generally frowns upon homicide.
• Don't make prank calls. Most people have caller ID.
  
• Don't destroy property, as our example above did. It generally creates more problems than it solves.
• Don't "go postal" as it generally ends in the suicide of the perpetrator

We hope that this post has been informative and that it will help our supporters to avoid the fate that awaited Nicholas.

Our official rock song

We have been following the US state of Oklahoma's efforts to create an official rock song, and we are pleased to find out that they have finally officially chosen "Do You Realize??" by The Flaming Lips. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not appreciative of creativity in music, and we would like to announce that we intend to create our own official rock song. While we, the Board of Dictators, have impeccable taste in music, we would like our choice to be representative of the entire world population. Consequently, we are requesting that you submit your choices for the GNU Public Dictatorship's official rock song to your local GPD office or to this forum some time in the next week. We intend to announce our decision on May 15, 2009 at 15:32:01 UTC, so make sure you submit your nominations before then!

How to fill up space

Here's a situation most of us have experienced: you're up late writing an assignment for one of your classes, and you get to a half page short of the required length. You are completely out of ideas and don't have time to set it aside and come back to it when you're fresh. Before the personal computer you really didn't have any options other than turning it in a little short (and hoping for mercy) or turning it in late (and hoping for mercy). The personal computer and the word processor added a number of options, including:

• Change the point size of the text
• Adjust the margins
• Adjust the line spacing slightly
• Use British spellings for words like colour
  

WordPerfect even had a feature to do some of these things for you to make the text you wrote fit in the required space.

So, you're all thinking, the problem has been solved? The answer is a resounding "no". Once teachers figured out that students were playing these sorts of games they made tighter restrictions. Students are now often required to write in a specified font and point size, with specified margins and line spacings, which leads us directly back to the problem we introduced in the opening paragraph.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to making your life better, and so we have been spending a great deal of research trying to solve this problem. We got permission from our R&D today to share with you one of our most promising techniques. It's not perfect yet, but it certainly fills up a little extra space.

The technique is based on propositional logic. The underlying assumption is that any statement is either true or false, and that you can combine statements with "and" and "or". The wonderful aspect about propositional logic is how you can continue to build more and more complex statements quite easily. Let's talk about an example. Assume that you stated in your paper that "A dime is worth ten cents." This statement, when made about US currency, is true. So that we don't have to keep writing this sentence we'll call it "A" from now on. Suppose you need to come up with more sentences for your assignment. All you have to do is come up with another statement, such as "Osama Bin Laden is no longer alive" (from now on "B") that may or may not be true. Because we know "A" to be true and "B" to be either true or false, then we can write a phrase of the structure "A and either B or not B." This statement is also true, and will not get you docked. In words, the sentence would read, "A dime is worth ten cents, and either Osama Bin Laden is no longer alive or not." You have now taken a sentence with 26 characters and transformed it into a much longer 80 characters without adding any real content or going to any real effort!

We know that this system is still in its infancy, but we hope to have a web-based tutorial to teach the basics and a series of lectures where devoted students can learn advanced rules such as using implication to create valid statements out of completely false information (e.g. "If the earth is a cube then the people living in Kenya breathe water instead of air.") We envision a world where artificial space limitations disappear as a complete lack of content reigns supreme!

A turning point

Information gathered in the last few weeks has brought us to a turning point in our fight against the Parent Corporation. After months of struggles, we finally know who is running the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch! Well, we know his pseudonym, anyway. He goes by the name "Edgar," and we know that he plays volleyball and watches Antiques Roadshow religiously. Regardless of the minutiae here we would like to thank all of you who have contributed to this small victory! (Also, if anyone has a friend named Edgar who plays volleyball and watches Antiques Roadshow, now would be a good time to inform your local GPD office).

Those dastardly cowards!

By now we shouldn't be surprised when the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch commits a new atrocity, but no matter how well we prepare we can't stop being appalled at the dastardly acts they undertake.

If our information is reliable (and thanks to good operatives like "Natasha" and "Viktor" it always is) the Parent Corporation has figured out a way to use stickers to create fake appendices and insert them near the real ones. The result is that when a doctor is called upon to remove an appendix he may miss and remove the fake appendix instead, as occurred in this case. The goal, as far as we can tell, is to discredit the medical industry so that the Parent Corporation can force upon us a new type of medicine, which, if our reports are accurate (as I said they always are) borrows heavily from the Oriental art of Acupuncture. The main difference is that they use brads and hole punches to administer the "therapy."

While we know that the medical system has its problems, we urge people to not jump on the anti-doctor bandwagon. Whatever we have now is infinitely better than the brad-upuncture we would be submitting to by letting the Parent Corporation win!

We didn't want to have to admit it, but...

We have been avoiding confronting this issue for some time now, but it seems that the tide of public opinion is turning against us. The public has finally discovered that the Four Corners marker visited by many tourists is actually not at Four Corners. While we can't make all of our reasons for perpetrating this deception on the public clear (please submit form FCI-223-J if you wish us to consider giving you the information), we do apologize for any confusion this may have caused. Before you burn your photos of Four Corners, however, be assured that the Supreme Court does recognize the monument as the actual border of the states. Oh, and please don't go exploring 2.5 miles to the east of the monument. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not kind, but we won't be held responsible for your fate if you choose to disregard this warning.

The Origin of the Evil Sticker

Many of our readers have been asking how it came to be that we have evil stickers in our world. According to common tradition, the sticker was originally invented by Sticcus, who found some tree sap, spread it on the tree's bark, wrote "kick me" on it, and stuck it to his friend, Loserus' back. One can imagine the humor which this act created, and it is no wonder that this idea 'stuck'.

Although I have not been able to verify this story, it is apparent that the sticker has been around for thousands of years. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Parent Corporation would choose such an innocent object to carry the Corporation's evil.

In more recent years technology has grown more sophisticated, and the government created 'duck tape'. At first glance this tape is much like a sticker, but as is demonstrated in this article, they soon discovered it could be used as a sedative. Soon the Parent Corporation developed a super-concentrated version of this sedative and learned how to place it on a regular sticker. In fact, they have gotten it so concentrated that it can be lethal if one were to come into direct contact with it.

Why haven't we heard about sticker-related deaths? There have been deaths, such as this one. The Parent Corporation has been very careful. They have operatives working in virtually every sticker company in the world. They have also worked very hard to expand the production and use of stickers. That is why we have so many stickers on the books, CDs, DVDs, etc. at stores today. They have done this so that they can only target those whom they really want destroyed. Law enforcement has been unable to identify stickers as the cause of these deaths because the sedative used in the stickers is not in their list of dangerous known toxins.

Now, what can the public do? We need people to protest stickers being placed on their merchandise. If we destroy the Parent Corporation's secret method of assassination, we come much closer to our goal of exposing and destroying the Parent Corporation. Also, please consider the following list:
* If at all possible, use rubber gloves when dealing with stickers.
* Always take careful consideration to find out where stickers came from
* Never lick or smell a sticker found on something you purchased. Also, be very careful as you remove it and be sure to dispose of it in a way that it will not hurt anyone or anything else.
* If you hear a strange noise from stickers, contact help immediately.
* Be extremely careful with stickers which need to be licked. Make sure they don't smell funny before you lick them.
* Only touch the non-sticky side of stickers. The toxin is found on the sticky part.

The pieces are starting to fit together

Over the last few months since the demise of the Company we have seen increasingly strange occurrences. We have successfully pinned many of them on the Parent Corporation, but there are still quite a few things that we can't yet assign to the Parent Corporation and their Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch. Of particular interest to us is the apparent influence-laundering scheme uncovered by our operatives recently. Until now there have been a few pieces missing from the overall picture that have left us scratching our heads.

Thanks to this incident, however, the pieces are starting to fall into place. We can't talk about it publicly yet for fear that it would compromise our operatives who are working to get into position to identify and dethrone the leaders of the Parent Corporation, but we would like to say that by combining this with our newly found knowledge about their evil sticker campaigns we have been able to put enough pieces together that we believe we can make a real dent in the Parent Corporation within a few weeks. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not excited about impeding our enemies!

An interesting theory

A recent article theorizes that if we were to live a 1970's lifestyle we could reduce our carbon emissions and thus improve our environment. We're not sure how acting like Erik Estrada on CHiPs or Robin Williams on Mork and Mindy would help, but perhaps they're talking about other aspects of the lifestyle. Disco music may reduce carbon emissions, but muscle cars probably offset that. Perhaps the whole theory revolves around the fact that most science fiction at the time envisioned not a future tropical paradise in Alaska, but a frozen wasteland in Africa.

Completely unacceptable behavior

The Parent Corporation is at it again. This time they have been loosening the bolts on the signs at fast food restaurants hoping that one would fall on someone. They seem to have succeeded this time. We are very sorry that our operatives did not catch this particular sign in time. We're not quite sure yet just what the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch has against fast food establishments. Perhaps they are a representation of quintessential American behavior (we all know the Parent Corporation are un-American in addition to being evil) or perhaps they resent that their doctors told them not to eat so much fast food. Either way, we urge caution while patronizing restaurants on windy days.

Clarifications

It seems that the proposal to license criminals has been very popular among our supporters, but we have received a flood of e-mailed questions about special cases in the proposal. We have reproduced the most popular and interesting questions here in a FAQ-style post. We hope it is informative.

Q. What about people who, for one reason or another, lose their touch?
A. Janet's original proposal did not go into detail on this point, but our studies have shown that criminals do eventually either get sloppy or stop participating in serious crime. Our proposed solution is to have a retirement program. Criminals can choose to put a portion of their proceeds away for the future. The retirement plan would be backed by the Criminal Guild (which in turn is backed by the government).

Q. Is there a tenure-track for criminals?
A. While the idea of allowing criminals to gain tenure (rewarding past performance by making their membership in the guild not dependent on future performance) is alluring, at the GNU Public Dictatorship we feel that it would limit the efficiency of the system. Instead of pulling heists for the love of crime people would be pulling heists to get noticed by the Tenure Board. We also feel that tenured criminals would probably be more of a burden on the system than anything else.

Q. How would a criminal know that his or her job is secure?
A. This is the primary problem with the lack of a tenure-track. A good criminal will never know that his or her position is secure. This will, according to some, lead to high levels of stress. Under our system a good criminal will have no need to worry about the future, but the less-productive criminals will have to worry about their future well-being. We believe this is an acceptable situation, as someone not suited for a life of crime should not feel entitled to the benefits of a secure position. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we believe that people should work where they are productive.

Q. How would the conflict between licensing criminals and paying law enforcement to thwart them be resolved?
A. We don't see a conflict here. We pay the law enforcement officers to protect our world citizens, and we allow criminals to engage in criminal behavior (under license). After all, someone would engage in these activities regardless of whether we licensed them, so we can't be accused of creating an artificial need for law enforcement. If we paid criminals to commit unlawful acts there might be a conflict, but as it stands there is no real conflict.

Q. By licensing criminals aren't we justifying criminal behavior?
A. Now that's just silly. The media already glorifies criminal behavior and justifies engaging in a little here and there, so to accuse us of trying to justify criminal behavior by requiring that criminals be licensed is just absurd.

Q. Couldn't the time spent licensing criminals just be spent eradicating them?
A. Let me answer this one with a question. If you were a criminal, would you report voluntarily so that you could be put away for your crimes? What if instead of being put away for your crimes you were to be tested and given an opportunity to be a licensed professional criminal? We think that only those criminals who are serious about their careers will come to be licensed, and those are the very people who would not voluntarily turn themselves in.

We hope this FAQ has been useful. As always we value your suggestions, and we would like to point out that this whole criminal guild is still in its infancy and has not been embraced fully by the Board of Dictators yet. We welcome your feedback, as at the GNU Public Dictatorship we believe in nothing if not exploring all possible solutions to the world's problems!

Clearly not Professional Grade Criminals

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not willing to listen to you, so when we receive suggestions from our supporters we take them into account. One such suggestion (which incidentally came from Janet Ridley's application for membership) was that what is wrong with the status quo is that we have unlicensed and unregulated criminals running rampant in society. If we could just get them to register, pay a fee, and then perform licensed criminal acts our society would be a much safer place, especially for the criminals themselves. We have been in contact with Janet to ensure that we understood her correctly and we have been engaged in surveillance of the criminal world for many months now, and we are ready to report on our findings.

According to our studies, the criminal world is indeed a very dangerous place, especially for the inexperienced or incompetent criminal. Because there is no control placed on who may enter into a life of crime we found that over 70% of criminals were ill-prepared for the consequences of their actions. We collected many examples, but this recent example illustrates the point as well as anything. It seems that our aspiring theives were caught in the act, and due to their inexperience they fled, leaving behind photographs of themselves, complete with their address on the pouch.

Now, if these two women had been licensed criminals they would have taken courses in avoiding capture and would have surely known to grab their photos before making a break for it. In fact, had they been properly trained they would have known how to not draw attention to their shoplifting efforts. We're not yet completely convinced that Janet's idea should be implemented, but we can say that implementing it would allow us to regulate the criminal world and would reduce violence as criminals could approach the licensing body to resolve disputes rather than injuring or killing each other. It would also discourage unlicensed participation in crime, which would free up our law enforcement resources to deal with the more capable licensed criminals.

Our parents always warned us about this...

Our parents constantly told us to be careful and not to swallow too many seeds lest we grow plants inside ourselves. We always dismissed these claims as fictitious and intended only to tease gullible children, but we may have to reconsider our opinion based on this strange case. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not skeptical of such bizarre claims, but we are investigating this occurrence and will let you know if we determine whether or not it is a real danger to our supporters.

A Great Work of Art

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not attracted to great works of art. We try to appreciate them as often as circumstances allow. We also 84.223% of our operating budget to hand-picked artists who need just a little help to get them going. We have been instrumental in launching the careers of many people, but part of our agreement has required us to keep these donations anonymous. We can, however, tell you about great artists who have not asked us for funding, such as these Swedish Parishioners. Excellent work!

A Brief Explanation

It is apparent that many of you have been eagerly awaiting my story and information on just what is so treacherous about stickers. I believe that by quickly sharing the story of how I discovered the evil wiles of certain stickers I can help people understand and know how to protect themselves.

A few months back, while I was diligently planning an informative meeting on the evils of brads for the children of my local elementary school, I decided to take a small break to watch a movie. A friend of mine put the DVD in and we watched it. When I started to take the DVD out of the player, a sticker that was placed inside the player tried to attack me, but was foiled by the positioning of the DVD. All it was able to do was severely scar the disc. I then proceeded to cremate the remains of the sticker to ensure that it's devilish nature would be 'put out'. It was clear that the Parent Corporation had discovered me and my purposes and were attempting to end my life through the clever use of the 'innocent' sticker. Since then I have been forced to relocate myself to avoid any unwanted encounters with their operatives.

I believe that the Parent Corporation has arranged to place many of these wily stickers in public places, intending to prey on the unlearned for their evil purposes. That is why I do pledge myself to discovering their secrets so we can overcome this evil together. For now, I would advise that everyone be careful when coming near any sticker of which they do not know the origin. It may be for everyone's safety.

Patience is a Virtue

We have received many angry e-mail messages from supporters (or at least from people who claim to be supporters) asking why we haven't seen an autobiographical sketch from Daniel yet or anything about the "so-called evil stickers." We would like to ask all of our loyal supporters to be patient. Those that aren't so loyal, please, continue to send angry e-mail messages so we can take "corrective" action (just don't assume Daniel is the object of correction).

The truth is that Daniel has been engaged in many new projects as a (probationary) member of the Board of Dictators, many of which take a great deal of time. In addition to this he still has his prior professional obligations. Within a short time he should have been able to take care of enough of those that he can focus more on posting to this forum, but be aware that lack of posts to this forum do not imply inactivity. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not subtle in our workings!

Another Despicable Attack

It seems the Parent Corporation is at it again, this time trying to destabilize politics in India. They apparently lured VS Acharya to a rally in Udupi pretending to be members of his own political party. He began addressing them, but soon discovered not a choir of fellow believers but a hostile and inimicable host ready to burn him at the stake. The tactic, while not new to veterans of the long battle between the GNU Public Dictatorship and the unscrupulous manufacturers and distributors of unsafe office products, is remarkable in that it marks the first time it has been used outside of the United States and Europe. (The student of history among our supporters may try to point out that there was one incident in Argentina, but it was never proven beyond reasonable doubt that the Parent Corporation was involved.) At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not slow to jump to conclusions, but when you add this up with the influence laundering scandals of recent weeks it reeks of something big, perhaps a direct response to our naming of a new (and potentially very damaging to the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch) member of the Board of Dictators. We believe they are trying to intimidate Daniel, but as far as our 24-hour-a-day surveillance so far on him has shown he is not letting it get to him. We look forward to more posts from him so that we can confront the Parent Corporation head-on once again.

Poetic justice

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to striving for a poetic justice system. We have tried many methods, including recently asking judges to read Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson, but it hasn't worked yet. Justice has been no more poetic thanks to our efforts. That is, until now! After our early failures we refocused our efforts on the offenders themselves, figuring that if we can't make the justice system poetic maybe we can achieve our goal some other way. We would like to thank "Viktor" and "Natasha" for their time spent in pursuit of this lofty goal, especially now that we have our first public success! Thanks to the efforts of our preeminent operatives two drunken drivers in Wisconsin collided not with innocent bystanders, but with each other! It is too early to state that innocent victims are a thing of the past, but we are pleased with the progress.

An interesting way to test something

Apparently a Philadelphia cable network had a glitch last week where religious services were interrupted by a racy ad. The explanation: the emergency alert system had been tested, and what happened to be playing on the emergency channel was a paid ad for adult videos. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we take the single complaint filed in this case seriously, and we will use all of our influence to get the emergency alert system to stop accepting ads from businesses that may not be suitable for the masses (or for during mass).

Of all the ideas...

Over the course of my lifetime it has been my... pleasure?... to come across many strange ideas that have been turned into products and sold to the unsuspecting masses. Most of these take the form of trendy things that people must have if they are to be cool (think pet rocks, mood rings, friendship bracelets, anything featuring an American Flag in the post 9/11-era), but some are more insidious. We have already mentioned some of these in our posts, including bumper stickers that advertise the lack of intelligence of the buyer, but this is the first time we are taking on the subject directly.

The reason it came up today was a catalog from a place called Terry's Village featuring patriotic accouterments for today's patriotic Americans. One of the items was "patriotic toilet paper." While your first reaction might be "what's wrong with patriotic toilet paper?" we hope your next reaction is "why would you want to do that to something that represents our country?" At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not patriotic, but we have to rank this one right up there with the outdoor display of an American Flag printed in obviously-not-indelible ink with a caption that reads "These colors don't run." The irony is delicious.

For the paranoid among us

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not innovative, and that is why we have a whole Research and Development wing. One product they have been working on for quite some time now is targeted at the paranoid among us--especially those who believe they are practically already walking corpses. The prototype (pictured below) is called a "Living Body Bag." While the astute among our supporters will note that it is not yet a complete body bag, we would like to point out that the wearer still gets the feel of being in a body bag AND the freedom of movement afforded by more traditional attire. We would like to congratulate our R&D department and especially Hank Trudeau, the inventor behind the Living Body Bag. Thanks, Hank!

Finally, a reasonable call to Emergency Services

We have spent many hours trying to instruct our supporters on when it is appropriate to call emergency services, and we are finally seeing the fruits of our efforts. In this case, the woman in question called emergency services not because someone was out of lemonade or they didn't have McNuggets, but because there was not enough shrimp in her fried rice. We extend our condolences to the poor woman as the cook didn't even put extra shrimp in there for her! At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not pleased that our instruction is benefiting society!

A Grateful Acceptance

I am honored to have been chosen to be a (probationary) member of the People's GNU Dictatorship Board of Dictators. As you have no doubt read, I intend to do everything in my power to abolish the evils of the Parent Corporation. I am not prepared at this time to give a full autobiographical statement, however I do plan to do so as soon as possible. I am nothing if not pleased at this opportunity.

Welcome, Daniel, the newest (probationary) member of the People's GNU Dictatorship Board of Dictators

We would like to extend our congratulations and simultaneously introduce you to the newest member of the Board of Dictators, Daniel. While his application was impressive, it was his work combating the pernicious evil of stickers that pushed him to the top of the heap. His antagonism for the Company and the Parent Corporation have been proven time and time again. In lieu of adding a full biographical sketch here we have asked him to provide an autobiographical sketch. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to authenticity, and what could be more authentic than an autobiographical sketch? We welcome Daniel to the Board and look forward to his posts!

Influence Laundering

I posted recently about a troubling situation in which the Parent Corporation appeared to not be involved in the bombing of a statue of Vladimir Lenin. It smacked of the Parent Corporation's patented brand of evil, but we could find no connections. I use the past tense because we have finally uncovered one very small and admittedly tenuous connection.

It all unfolded last week when our operative "Natasha" overheard a random conversation while riding public transportation in the city of Pittsburgh. According to her, it went something like this:

"Poor Vlad never knew what hit him, did he?"
"Yeah, he was clueless."
"So have you collected from Hank yet?"
"Yeah, he made good yesterday. I've got your cut at my house."

"Natasha" wisely followed the two individuals and waited until they had settled accounts and left again before breaking into to the house and scouring everything until she found who owned the moniker of Hank. After tracking down Hank she found out he had been paid by Buster, who had in turn been paid by Leah and so forth. After much effort tracing both the upstream and downstream paths she found that the original order had come from a man simply known as "Tyrone" who appeared to be a front for some entity which had hidden its identity too well for "Natasha" to know for sure. Discouraged, she decided to collaborate with her fellow spies and found that "Tyrone" is a pseudonym someone at the Parent Corporation used back in February.

The conclusion we have reached is that the Parent Corporation is attempting to pull off some hard-core influence laundering. They appear to have perfected their technique over many years, and we would still be in the dark if it weren't for the fortuitous information "Natasha" received on that bus ride. There's still a chance that the Parent Corporation is trying to lead us off track by giving us tidbits, but we believe chances are good that we have stumbled on to the most complex web of influence laundering ever devised.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not reluctant to jump to conclusions, but we thought we would announce that we are on to the Parent Corporation's nefarious machinations. We ask all of our supporters to feed us any reliable information they may have, with the warning that we are using Scrabble rules, i.e. that passing information that cannot be verified by our operatives will result in a forfeit of a turn and a loss of the opportunity to score any points.

A Day in the Life

Many of you have asked about what a typical day in the life of a member of the Board of Dictators is like. In this post I will try to satisfy your curiosity to the best of my abilities.

By definition my day generally begins just after 12:00 midnight. I almost always utilize the first several hours in resting and ruminating about the important issues facing the world. Sometimes I even engage in rapid eye movement meditation. On a typical morning I am awakened at approximately 4:30 to respond to emergency situations. More often than not the solutions to these situations are readily apparent and take no more than twenty minutes or so, after which I attempt to meditate some more. On most days there is only one situation at this time of the morning that requires my attention, but occasionally as many as three or four separate crises will unfold during the early morning hours. Regardless of how many of these situations are encountered, by about 6:00 I am generally engaged in diplomatic negotiations, gathering news reports, and piecing together my strategy for the day.

By about 8:00 I am off to the office where I can better focus and implement our designs in the presence of the other members of the Board of Dictators. We hold quick meetings to coordinate our strategies, and then we put our efforts into whatever deeds need to be done that day. I am often involved in diplomatic councils and propaganda campaigns, but on any given day I don't shrink from doing whatever is required of me. I generally work at the office straight through lunch and until about 5:00 pm, at which point I generally return to my home before beginning the second workday. During this second workday I am generally responsible for cleaning up sticky situations and placating irritated parties to treaties and what-not.

By the time these situations are resolved I generally have a few hours with which to pursue my scientific research. That is, of course, when I am not volunteering in my community by teaching civics and science courses to young people. I can't say much about my current scientific work, and actually my lawyers have told me not to disclose prior discoveries in this forum, but they did tell me I could use the phrase "space-age technology" to describe them (After all, anything built in the space-age can be called by that name). After spending time with my research I generally spend some time in rest and meditation and then end my day at 12:00 midnight, again by definition.

I hope this has been instructive for you and will give all of you aspiring members of the Board of Dictators a better idea of what you're signing up for. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to open government and anything that contributes to greater transparency!

Our weekend deliberations

As all of you know over the weekend the Board of Dictators met to consider the applications of two potential members. While there was general agreement that one of the applicants was more qualified than the other, there was not yet general agreement that the applicant in question should be inducted into the Board of Dictators without further surveillance. We resolved to continue our background investigations and run further tests on the genetic material supplied by the applicant. We expect to have a decision in the coming days. Barring any unforeseen complications we should have our decision in a few days' time. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not cautious and we hope our supporters will understand!

For anyone who has ever struggled with mathematics

Everybody knows how important mathematics are in real life, but until now most people have assumed that math is a skill that requires a fairly sophisticated brain. The way it is generally taught in modern schools certainly requires the student to exert him or herself in order to internalize the concepts. It appears, however, that there may be a simpler way to teach math using objects placed near us at birth. As these experiments have shown, chicks can do simple arithmetic with objects they have had with them since birth. They invariably flock toward the larger concentration of such objects even when the number of them is disguised behind a screen. I guess it all proves that our math instruction is wrong. Either that, or that chicks have x-ray vision.

It's almost time for our spring "election!"

We have been busily reviewing applications for membership in the Board of Dictators since last fall, and we have finally finished the initial reviews. There are currently two applications in line to be considered in our spring "election" this weekend, but we are giving all our supporters one last chance to submit your applications. Please be sure to provide all of the required information as our spam filter will reject any applications that do not supply the needed information. We also have other filters set up including our denigration filter which detects insincere applicants, so be careful what you submit.

Although our legal team has advised us not to reveal the identities of the two currently viable candidates yet, we have decided we will share a little bit from their applications. We will refer to them by the names "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" but you should know that those are not their real names. I mean, with a name like "Thing 1" you wouldn't even get past our plausibility filter. Anyway, here goes:

The greatest strengths on the application of "Thing 1" are her culinary training (she learned from one of the world's greatest chefs) and her Accomplishments/Honors. She single-handedly defeated a grass roots movement bent on distributing brads to every child in her home town, and she earned the Congressional Medal of Honor at the age of 17. In response to what is wrong with the status quo she wrote:

"Regardless of the history, the fact that we call the current state of things the status quo is a good portion of what is wrong with the status quo. By calling it the status quo we legitimize the evils in our current society by telling people that this is the way things are. Instead of bowing to the status quo we should be actively trying to rid the world of evil."

We could talk about others of her strengths, but not without revealing her identity, so we'll leave it at this for now.

"Thing 2" is a more traditional conservative candidate for the Board of Dictators. Some of his strengths include his ideas for protecting children from the evils of brads. I would say more, but if I attribute his idea to him in this public blog and we don't give him membership on the Board of Dictators I don't want to have to give him credit for the idea. He has had a difficult past, as evidenced by his response to Topic C:
"I watched in horror as my friends slowly started making crafts with their brads and later even punching holes in their assignments without so much as a thought of the consequences."
He is also optimistic about the fight with the Parent Corporation, as evidenced by this sentence:
"it is not unreasonable to imagine the day when brads and hole punches, and all the other designs of the Parent Corporation will no longer plague the nation or the world"

We wish we could give you more information about these two candidates. They are both excellent world citizens. It is a bit late, but if you want to be considered in this "election" please submit your application no later than 6:00 am UTC Sunday morning. We have put extra filters in place, so only the very best of applications will arrive in our inbox in time for the "election." Other applications will be relegated to our queue for the next election cycle.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not grateful for your support, and we hope you all share our excitement at the possibility of a new member of the Board of Dictators.

More about car door locks

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not future-looking, and we hope that our supporters will take the time to feel comfortable around new technology as it becomes available. We are also nothing if not surprised at how often people who are comfortable around new technology can't seem to function when it fails. The recent report of this woman's misfortune has inspired us to urge our supporters to distribute our very informative post "What you need know about car door locks" to all of their friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. If one more 911 call like this can be avoided, we will feel like we have done our part.

Who will be next?

Many of you have asked whether the GNU Public Dictatorship was involved in the recent bombing of a statue of Vladimir Lenin in St. Petersburg, Russia. At first we didn't want to respond because the claim sounded so unreasonable. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not tolerant and would never deface other people's property. If anything, it sounds like the work of the Parent Corporation's evil henchmen trying to besmirch our name. In fact, however, according to our operatives, the Parent Corporation does not appear to be involved in any way. We are troubled by their apparent complete lack of involvement, and more troubled by the fact that many of you, our supporters, thought we might have something to do with it. It sounds like there is some sort of conspiracy brewing, and we hope we'll get to the bottom of it soon. Incidentally, if anyone has any information that would lead to the capture of those responsible for this act or would implicate the Parent Corporation, we are offering a reward. Anyone with useful information will be treated to an all-expenses paid trip to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. If Miss Universe enjoyed it, you will, too!

Richard Carter and John Schroeter, Heroes of the People

We would like to recognize the work Richard Carter and John Schroeter have done for the betterment of society. Their traveling fish car, the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir, is a marvel of modern creativity and embodies the very principles at the center of the GNU Public Dictatorship. It is with great pleasure, therefore, that we award the coveted Hero of the People award to Richard and John. Congratulations, guys!