The importance of peer reviews

One of the foundations of the GNU Public Dictatorship is that a Board of Dictators is much better for everyone than a single dictator. This same principle is what keeps open source software afloat, as even when one individual may not see a problem his or her peers will most likely see it. Some of our supporters have been suggesting that perhaps we are taking too much time getting our dictatorship launched, but we would like to remind them that haste can often cause us to make serious mistakes, as was the case in this incident. If the undertaker hadn't undertaken to review the declaration of death from the attending physician, the victim would not be alive today. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not pleased with the progress toward ruling the world that we have made so far, but we are always striving for more!

A correction

We apologize for the confusion, but for reasons we are not at liberty to discuss just yet we are certain that our eye-witness to the apparent death of our chief operative "Viktor" was lying, and that "Viktor" is, in fact, dead. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to truth and full disclosure, and so it pains us whenever we have to withhold information from the world. Let it suffice, however, for now, that we are sorry for having misled any of you and we hope that when our reasons become clear that you will understand why we cannot discuss it more fully here and now.

New developments

Since we received the new information from the alleged eye-witness to the incident in which "Viktor" apparently lost his life we have been re-examining every shred of evidence in order to know whether there is any truth to his story. We have been surprised at how much help his testimony (which, incidentally, we cannot make public until we have had time to verify it and determine what its impact on world politics would be) explains the little details that we hadn't quite wrapped up. None of the details by themselves led us to suspect anything other than that the crime scene may have been disturbed, but the new evidence sheds light, for instance, on why there were only three strands of "Viktor's" hair in the folding chair when we expected to find at least five based on our reconstruction of the scene.

Regardless of the details our lawyers have asked us not to discuss, we are thinking that we will have to revise our declaration that "Viktor" is believed to be dead to be a little less certain. We are now stating that "Viktor" is believed to be either dead or to have faked his own death so that he could carry on with some presumably noble cause we are not allowed to know about.

A milestone!

In the GNU Public Dictatorship's campaign for equal rights for everything there have been a few highlights, such as the time the EU finally decided that misshapen and irregular fruits and vegetables could participate in the above-ground food markets without fear of retribution. As momentous as that occasion may have seemed, at the GNU Public Dictatorship we think it may have been surpassed this time.

Since its inception the film industry has been one of exclusion. For many years the equipment was so expensive that only major studios could make movies. While cheaper, better equipment has removed wealth as a precondition to entering the movie market, the studios have still dictated the kinds and quantities of movies being made. All of this, however, is about to change. Thanks to some dedicated activists the first ever monkey-made movie is about to premier (if only on television, for now). We expect the reaction to be positive, and we are extremely pleased that someone other than humans has finally been allowed to make a movie. We hope other species will follow suit soon, and that before long we will have our theaters replete with movies that satisfy gerbils' need for social interaction.

You can't fool us

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not intelligent, which is why mere news stories can't change our long-standing beliefs. While we know that bacon doesn't generally come from sheep, we have been working with our geneticists who have created a 39% better form of bacon (that, incidentally, is indistinguishable from normal bacon as far as taste in our trials) using sheep. We also know that regular oats may not grow on trees, but that our geneticists have been working on methods for growing more oats on less acreage and have successfully cultivated a number of varieties of oat trees. We are disappointed that the mainstream media would mock our achievements so directly, but when you are the world leader in anything it seems like everyone wants to make you look bad.

Could we be wrong?

Last night after one of our regularly-scheduled Board of Dictators meetings we were approached by an individual that our security team informed us was an eye-witness to the apparent death of our operative "Viktor." We haven't released many of the details from the crime scene, so we were surprised when this witness recounted much of what we knew about the crime scene. Based on what he knew, we are fairly sure that he had been to the crime scene before we secured it.

He went on for some time describing the events we had reconstructed, with one important difference from the way our forensics team reconstructed it. In his version "Viktor's" lifeless body wasn't dragged from the scene to a waiting helicopter by a lone survivor of the group that ambushed him, it was the other way around. "Viktor" dragged one of the bodies of his attackers to a helicopter and boarded it.

We are not convinced that our informant hadn't been impaired from using too many controlled substances on the night in question, but we have been able to verify that he would have been able to see what he claims from the location he claims to have been in, and that, furthermore, the participants in the battle would not likely have noticed him. It seems incredible that "Viktor" would have faked his own death (after all, who would he be hiding from but us?), but we're not leaving any stones unturned.

Good news

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not reluctant to keep using our soap box to educate you about the same things, but we would like to let you know that it is working. The Center for Convenient Statistics has released a study this morning showing that inappropriate use of emergency services is down 84%. The full text of the study is available at the CCS website*. Add to this authoritative statistic a lot of anecdotal evidence, and we believe that our campaign has nearly eradicated this abuse! Many thanks to all who have helped spread the word!

*Some readers have complained that this isn't the Center for Convenient Statistics' web page. We would like to state that, in fact, it is. Unfortunately, the CCS has been involved in a long-running feud with the Chicago Computer Society for many years. It isn't that the site doesn't belong to the CCS, it's that the Chicago Computer Society routinely hijacks it in an attempt to bully the CCS out of their domain name.

Lord Victorious, again

We have spent a great deal of time verifying the stories of the two individuals who claimed to be "Lord Victorious" in order to prove (or disprove--at the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not pragmatic, and so we don't mind if the scientific method proves one of our hypotheses wrong) that the stories about the mysterious mentor having been placed there deliberately to teach "Viktor" are wrong. Try as we might, however, we could not prove that either individual is not who they claim to be. We tried tracking down the former residents and officials from the orphanage in question, but it was torn down 25 years ago and it has proven quite difficult to locate the former inhabitants a quarter of a century later. The more we try to disprove that either of these individuals was "Lord Victorious," however, the more overwhelming the evidence seems.

Last week, however, we finally caught a break. We have been trying to locate records from the orphanage for quite some time, and we finally found them in an ice cave in Siberia. Orphan enthusiasts have often suspected a great store of records existed in Siberia, but until last week nobody had actually found it. It appears to have been collected by one of the former guards and sent to his friend (a political exile in the heart of Siberia) for safe keeping. Both the friend and the guard died before passing on the secret, but thanks to some excellent investigative work on the part of our remaining operatives we found it late last week!

The documents have been authenticated by our experts, and prove beyond a doubt, that there were indeed multiple orphans who claimed the title of "Lord Victorious." Both of our individuals were listed there, but the one who held the title during the time "Viktor" was there was not one of these two, but one simply referred to by the guards as "that one." There were no records of his arrival, and no records of his departure, but he arrive a few months before "Viktor" and shortly after the escape of "Viktor" he disappeared, never to be heard from again.

It pains us not to be able to definitively state that this "Lord Victorious" was or wasn't placed there solely to train "Viktor," but we are pleased that we have cleared up some of the other mysteries surrounding this important time in young "Viktor's" life.

I guess we're not doing that anymore

One of the more exciting recent guerilla advertising projects proposed by our as-yet nameless guerilla grape artist partner has been canceled due to problems encountered during a trial run in the Denver area. While we honestly believe that if she had started with the GNU Public Dictatorship ads instead of an ad maligning golfer Tiger Woods that the public reaction would have been very different, our artist has recommended that we not go through with our plan. In her words, "your current supporters would indeed be thrilled, but the general public would get the wrong impression of the intent of your organization." She went on to explain that for an aspiring group of world leaders the fact that they were even tangentially connected to a "product tampering" scandal would scare potential supporters away. I guess she's probably right, but it sure would have been fun to change all of the Nutella jars to GNUtella jars.

Enrichment

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not eager to exert our influence for good on the rest of the world, which is why we have helped orchestrate some of the dramatic changes that have happened in the world economy over the last two years. We are pleased to inform you that we now control more of the world's economy than ever before, and, as you can clearly see, people everywhere are better off now than they were very recently. Unfortunately, however, other groups have also capitalized on the instability we created to make their own adjustments to the world economy. We would like to assure you all that we are working tirelessly to stamp out abuses of the world economy as soon as we see them, and that we are working toward a future in which none are enriched at the expense of others.

We would also like to recognize some world citizens whose ideas for correcting economic concerns are, if nothing else, rather unique. Take the traffic fine policy in Switzerland, for example, where the total fine is calculated based on the net worth of the perpetrator. This simultaneously provides much-needed revenue and encourages police officers not to target the poor minorities, as their net worths are generally much lower than that of the powerful elite. The US state of Arizona is proposing to sell its buildings and lease them back, a net loss of about half a billion dollars, but it will allow it to generate a quick 735 million. Besides, the government of Arizona will be able to more truly say that it belongs to the people. Another interesting bid to generate revenue is the "Google Tax" proposed by the French government. By taxing Internet companies regardless of where they are based the French plan to eliminate the enrichment of these companies at the expense of other French companies.

We are, overall, pleased with the results of our economic revolution, but we would like to remind you that it is still a work in progress, and that the full effect of our improvements will likely not be felt for a few more years.

Lord Victorious?

Our recent plea for information regarding the mysterious "Lord Victorious" has turned up some interesting leads, most notably two individuals who, interestingly, claim to be none other than "Lord Victorious" him or herself. We have always assumed "Viktor's" mentor was male ("Lord" is, after all, a masculine title), but, now that we have re-examined the evidence in light of this new development we realize that "Viktor" never made the gender of his mysterious mentor clear.

Both individuals are approximately the right age and both have stories that have held up under our initial scrutiny, but we know that it would be very improbably for both people to have been "Lord Victorious" unless of course the title is akin to the title of "Dread Pirate Roberts," which is something we haven't been able to verify as of yet.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not thorough, so we will be letting you know the results of our further investigations as soon as we have something to report!

GNU Public Theme Park thefts!

It is with great sadness that we must announce today that we have confirmed at least 17 incidents in which rides or portions of rides that are showcased in the GNU Public Area at the GNU Public Theme Park in Corpus Christi, Texas, have been stolen and used at other theme parks not adhering to the open-source ideal. (For the curious, this count does not include the TORSO reality simulator ride stolen in the Quisling incident, as that stolen ride was not subsequently marketed or used for commercial gain.) We are pleased, however, that we have not been able to link a single incident to supporters of the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch, which implies that it is not (yet) in their strategy to bring us down.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to justice, which is why we are actively pursuing appropriate compensation in all of these cases. Our lawyers are advising us not to comment further on the specifics of these 17 cases, but we would like to issue a warning to all of you ride pirates out there: we are watching you!

Thanks, Guerilla Grape Artist Who Shall Rename Nameless

Many of you have been asking us whatever happened to our friend and ally, the guerilla grape artist who agreed to spread the word about the GNU Public Dictatorship through that exciting and unorthodox means. We have been surprised by the lack of media coverage of her pieces of GPD art, but we have it on good authority that there are many buyers lined up for them, but none of them are for sale. It seems people who stumble on GPD vegetables don't want to part with them. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not pleased with her work!

Oh, and for the curious, some of her work that has received more attention of late includes this beautiful banana, this strawberry crab, and these special spuds. Great work, nameless artist who values her privacy and will remain nameless regardless of the fact that we would regale her with public praise if she would just let us!

Technology is wonderful

Some experiences in life are nearly universal. Take, for instance, a time when you put toast in the toaster and waited patiently for it to pop up so you could eat it. As the seconds become minutes your attention wanes slightly but your appetite is unaffected. Suddenly, however, you smell something new and sinister--something is burning! You quickly pop the toast up only to see that by the time you smelled the burning it was already too far gone. You discard the toasted bread, adjust the toaster, and try again, this time with more frustration than anticipation. As you wait patiently this time you are perhaps more attentive to the toast, not daring to leave the vicinity of the toaster lest you miss the initial signs of burnt toast, but even so, the tell-tale smell reaches your nose too late to stop the destruction of yet another piece of innocent bread!

If this tale sounds familiar, you will likely join with the GNU Public Dictatorship's Board of Dictators to thank the inventors of the transparent toaster. Not only does it cook the toast perfectly, but it does so right before your eyes and for a reasonable price of £160 (US $256). Thanks, guys!

Update

We haven't posted much over the holiday break, but that's because most of our time has been spent following up on messages we have received from people claiming to know more about "Viktor" and his background than we have published. We would like to state, first of all, that the vast majority of the stories circulating right now are nothing more than fabrications. We have been able to prove all but one patently false. It may come as a shock to some of you that "Viktor" wasn't one of the original Teletubbies, and that he didn't invent Silly Putty, but we can assure you that the stories are not true.

The one story we haven't been able to prove false yet is that "Viktor's" mentor in the orphanage, who called himself "Lord Victorious," was actually not an orphan at all and had been sent to the orphanage for the express purpose of teaching "Viktor." We have tried every angle we can think of, but there simply is not enough reliable information about this alleged orphan mentor to draw any sort of conclusion. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not cautious with our statements, which is why we would like to make it clear that we are not saying that the story is true, just that we haven't proven it one way or the other yet. If you have any information about "Lord Victorious" please contact your local GPD office. Thanks for your support, and now that we have completed the bulk of our investigations we hope to posting with more regularity!