"Natasha"

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not well-informed, which is why we have known for a long time that "Natasha" opposed her husband's plans to join the GNU Public Dictatorship's Board of Dictators.  Recent information we have gathered, however, begins to shed some light on why she might not want him to be a member of the GPD.  We always figured that it had to do with a few bridges she burned on her way out as a GPD operative and we know she took some of the stationery and office supplies when she left.  We figured she was just trying to avoid an awkward situation where she had to explain to us where the 34 boxes of dry-erase markers are now, but as it turns out she had very little remorse about the office supply theft.  Recently intercepted communications between "Natasha" and her mother revealed that she believed the GPD would simply forgive the theft and brush it off as a business loss.  (Incidentally, she is only partially correct.  We have written it off as a business loss already, but if and when we resume relations with "Natasha" we do expect her to either replace the supplies or work off their value.  Alternatively she could choose to stay in the GNU Public Dungeons for an extended vacation.) Anyway, to make a long story a little shorter, "Natasha" is more concerned that "Edgar" is selling himself short and that instead of working for "The Man" (At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not surprised by being referred to as "The Man," but we suppose it was inevitable) he should strike out on his own and succeed or fail on his own merit.  She has apparently been attempting to poison "Edgar's" relationship with us through various nefarious means, and has apparently recently turned to framing "Edgar" for dastardly deeds he didn't commit.  We are still trying to determine how many of them she committed herself and how many she just took advantage of, but we are certain that, while she apparently wants to continue our crusade against evil office products, "Natasha" has declared herself an enemy of the GPD.  The Board of Dictators is therefore compelled to suspend her privileges of working with our operatives and we will be sending our collections agents to retrieve the purloined office supplies before the statute of limitations kicks in.

Our Condolences

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not concerned with the welfare of others, which is why we feel we need to extend our condolences to "Edgar" as the latest chapter in his bizarre saga begins to unfold.  We can't release many details yet (until our operatives have a chance to review all of our data) but it appears that he withdrew his name from consideration for membership in the Board of Dictators not because he does not want to be there, but because his wife (our former operative "Natasha") apparently asked him to.  We are working out the details, but initial reports that "Natasha" had been framing "Edgar" appear to be more than simple rumors.  We'll let you know more as the story unfolds.

A decision

Over the weekend our last remaining candidate for membership in the GNU Public Dictatorship's Board of Dictators withdrew his name from consideration, making it clear that this year there will be no new additions to the Board.  We would like to note that while most of the candidates would have been easily appointed dictators of any single country, they were not quite prepared yet to rule the world along with us.  In fact, several of the candidates have already begun their own machinations to become lesser dictators in the hopes that with the New Future they can unite their strength with ours and be promoted for their good stewardship.  While we can't promise them any special treatment, we wish them well and hope they will apply next "election" cycle after honing their skills a bit more.

More Diplomacy

It seems that there is some trouble brewing on the west coast of the United States, so the Board of Dictators has asked me to take a first-hand look at the problems.  I hesitate to talk too much about it until I get a chance to examine the evidence, but early reports suggest that our friend "Edgar" may have been involved in another "incident" that will require some diplomatic intervention.  Either that, or he has been framed.  We'll keep you updated as much as possible.

Conspicuous consumption

It frustrates us that the owners of this gun worried so much about appearances that they created a gold-plated AK-47 rifle.  It might look nice, but it just shows how shallow they really are.  Someone who is serious about a gold rifle would have spent the time and engineering effort to overcome the challenges and create a solid gold rifle.

Why won't they let us help?

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to helping wherever we can, especially when it keeps people with criminal intent from being able to accomplish their horrid designs.  In this case, a cat was being used to smuggle supplies to prisoners in Brazil.  We strongly suspect that the cat's heart wasn't in the task, as otherwise he would not likely have been caught, which is why we wonder why the prison officials continue to insist that the cat can't help them as he can't talk when we have repeatedly offered the use of our thought translation device.  It's sad that people have such biases that they won't even take advantage of half-baked technology that may or may not help them.

Misguided efforts

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to improving the world, which is why we sometimes post here about what is wrong with society.  Today's topic is misguided efforts.  Much time and effort is spent today on improving society, but most of the ways people attempt to improve society are misguided and produce side effects that are as bad or worse than the initial problem.  Case in point, this father, who decided that his son was spending altogether too much time playing video games online.  His goal was to reduce the amount of time his son spent playing, and he figured he would accomplish this goal by having his son's avatar assassinated.  He hired virtual assassins to harass his son's avatar with their avatars, and figured that by having his player killed his son would stop playing.  Unfortunately, however, these sorts of games often have players die and respawn, and his son's character would not just die like a real-world counterpart would.  His son ended up confronting the assassins and asking why they kept bothering him, and when he found out was probably rather irritated with his father.  Regardless of the topic our supporters should be careful not to just jump on a bandwagon, even if it does have a good goal.  Careful consideration should be given to the likely outcomes, lest we all end up irritating our sons instead of convincing them to not play so many video games.

Unreasonable Laws: a Technique for Making Other Proposals Sound More Reasonable

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not concerned with how to push our agenda and inaugurate the New Future, so when we saw this unique application of one of our favorite techniques being used in Aceh, Indonesia, we were quite excited.  The theory behind this approach is that in most negotiations you will have to give up some of what you initially wanted, so you need to be ready to throw away the more extreme parts of your agenda.  The solution is to propose something even more extreme than your most extreme agenda so that it can be dismissed immediately by other parties to the negotiations, leaving you in a stronger position for negotiations.  In this case, the city officials have successfully adopted a position so extreme that the world has taken notice and criticized them for requiring women to ride motorcycles side-saddle.  We hope our astute supporters will begin incorporating similar tactics into all of their negotiations.

We're back!

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not back posting at this forum.  Unfortunately our efforts to address the problems that led to the two-day blackout of posts on this blog have caused a more serious outage, and we are now working to address the causes of this situation.  You can rest assured, however, that we did not take a break from fighting evil, but that our network infrastructure has been less than reliable since we made some adjustments.  You can expect more regular posts now, unless our network infrastructure is again damaged by the adjustments we have made.  Oh, and all of our candidates for membership in the Board of Dictators failed to complete the GNU Public Obstacle Course, so we're deciding whether to eliminate them all or give them another chance.  Let us know what you think and we may take it into account!