Choosing appropriate role models

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not concerned for our collective future, which, incidentally, is why we chose the phrase "The New Future" to grace our official logo, but that's not the point of this post. The point of this post is our concern that young people seem to be using lower and lower standards when choosing role models. We have had a task force quantifying the decline in role model standards for several months now, and they tell us they are getting much closer to the answer*.

What we fear most is that unsavory characters such as Requleme Abanto, a brad eater, will become role models for the new generation. According to our simulations this won't occur for another 32 years, 7 days and about 11 hours, but that model assumes that our models of current and future Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch activity are accurate, and those models are very much dependent on our climate models.

In addition to helping the next generation choose appropriate role models, we, the supporters of the People's GNU Dictatorship are constrained to try to limit the unholy influences of such people as Requelme Abanto. He was, as was mentioned above, treated in surgery to remove a pound and a half of nails, and several full packages of brads from his stomach, and yet he does not understand the danger he is in. He even laughed about the prospect of being a sideshow nail-and-brad-swallower for his friends. Like he said to a reporter, "I swallowed 17 nails in February and didn't die." If all we aspire to is not to die, then I truly fear for the future.

At this time, we, the Board of Dictators, are calling on all of you to:

1. Pick better role models for yourselves.
2. Encourage young people you meet to choose better role models.

We would like to make it clear that while we appreciate the adoration, not all of your role models have to be members of the Board of Dictators or super-secret operatives employed by the aforementioned Board. There are at least a half-dozen other people worthy of your adoration. Okay, I can't think of six right now, but I'm sure there are at least five.

*Specifically they told us that their work so far has arrived at 42.44482, plus or minus 2. In January the best answer they were able to give was 37.1123 plus or minus 14. We hope that by the end of the year they will have a number which is accurate to plus or minus 0.001, but we'll settle for plus or minus 0.1. After all, while the exact number is needed for our simulations of the future, we have run simulations with the current figure (42.44482) and the limits of our margin of error (40.44482 and 44.44482) and it takes 10 years into the future before the simulations differ by more than the initial difference in the inputs.