Gratitude

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not grateful, which is why we love the holiday season.  We are especially grateful this year for a new Gallup poll that shows that more people think brads are dangerous than think they are innocuous.  Last year 24% of respondents said they found brads "possibly dangerous" or "dangerous," while 28% said they were "safe" or "probably safe."  The remaining 48% said they didn't know what brads were.  This year's survey showed that 33% of respondents found them dangerous, while 27% found them save.  While there are still 40% who don't know what brads are, it is comforting to know that we are making progress with our brad education projects.  We aren't making as much progress as we would like with those who believe brads to be safe, but our efforts are working as well as our statisticians had predicted, thanks to all of our loyal supporters!

I guess we were wrong...

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not accurate, which is why it pains us when we incorrectly interpret the goings on around us.  Unfortunately, in the case of Adam Cowgill, we correctly gathered many of the facts in the case, but we missed one very important fact.  Adam actually can become invisible.  He was initially confused when confronted by police, but when he recently appeared for his court date, he actually was invisible.  In order to not confuse the court he returned later and no longer invisible to apologize for his tardiness.  It seems we may need to keep an eye on Mr. Cowgill and the other "reinvented" people coming from the Parent Corporation.

The New Company

Now that the dust has settled a bit we can start to analyze last week's interesting news.  It seems that things are pretty much business as usual at the Parent Corporation and the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch.  Our operatives are reporting nearly the same statistics* as they reported last month.  They are still trying their evil schemes and still hawking their evil wares, and we are still keeping them in check.

At the New Company, however, things are beginning to get more interesting.  According to our best information, they are refocusing their business completely.  Rather than work for the promotion of hole punches and brads, they appear to be creating a line of luxury pencil cases.  Our operatives have been unable to explain this strange behavior entirely, but we believe we will figure it out soon.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not encouraged by the apparent chaos reigning at the moment in our enemies' camp, but we are also cautious.  It may simply be a ploy to make money off unsuspecting elementary school students, or it could be something much more insidious.  We vow to not rest until we find out what it really is!  (Okay, so we don't mean we actually won't sleep, but we do mean that our operatives will be engaged on this problem until it is completely understood.)

*These statistics are available to the curious world citizen at any local GPD office.  In order to get them you will need to present fourteen forms of identification and sign an affidavit that states that you are not trying to do anything the GPD would consider harmful.

Parent Corporation to Split (and Merge)!

It won't be official until tomorrow morning, but the Parent Corporation has initiated the process of splitting itself into two entities.  Our operatives closest to the situation have revealed that the split is essentially along the lines of "Craftie" and "non-Craftie," and that all the officers with any real influence have been chosen from among the "Crafties."  It seems that "Edgar" will remain at the head of the Parent Corporation, and that they will remain focused on their current agenda of promoting evil office products and destroying the fabric of society.  As part of this agreement the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch has become a subsidiary to the Parent Corporation and now falls under the same leadership.  "Jack" (the most vocal "Craftie") is officially the leader of this organization and officially answers to "Edgar," but if our operatives are correct, most of the real power in the organization is seated in "Jack."  His irrational unpredictability is proving difficult for us, but this isn't the first time we have faced a tough fight.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not relentless, and we promise to not let our enemies win!

The unification of the UBHP and the Parent Corporation poses no startling questions for our future, but it does show that our successes have forced the allies to take further steps to thwart us.  They will not succeed.  We have too many supporters and ours is the New Future.  What is perhaps more interesting to us at this point is the fate of the non-Crafties.  Officially they have now become the New Company, and officially it is still managed by "Edgar" and "Jack."  Our operatives, however, believe that the New Company is being created to purify the Parent Corporation and will soon be sold to some other corporation.  The members of this New Company are some of our oldest enemies, and if our operatives are correct, will not take kindly to this sort of treatment.  One, who spoke with an operative on condition of anonymity, mentioned that he is torn between supporting the cause of Evil in general (and evil office products in particular) and uniting with the Parent Corporation to crush their common enemies.  It became clear in this conversation that he considers the Parent Corporation as much his enemy as we are.  If this is the case for most employees of the New Company, we may soon find ourselves in an Orwellian conflict among three states whose allies keep changing depending on who is the biggest threat at the current time.  It is our sincere hope that these two proponents of evil office products will expend the bulk of their time and energy destroying each other rather than the innocent citizens of the world, but we have very little to go on.