Another clue

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated, which is why we have had our operatives searching for hints about what the Parent Corporation recovered along with Jacob Gehris's hand. The investigation has advanced enough today that we are able to reveal an important clue. Of course we know more than we are revealing publicly, but we are still trying to protect our investigation from unnecessary complications.

The clue itself may not seem particularly important, but trust us that it is. It seems that the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch knew where the hand was buried as early as April of this year, but they were afraid to act without more knowledge. The clue we found was an entry in the logs for our administrative computer system in the GPD office infiltrated by "Edgar". It read, simply:

[20090612T180942.1233] /home/quisling$ rm -f clapper.cad

The first thing we found interesting is that this command shows that the user who performed this action had root privileges, which we never grant under normal operating circumstances, even to our Counts. We dug through the logs a bit more and found out that our IT manager had been tricked into installing a program that allowed "Edgar" to run an elementary buffer overflow exploit and gain root access so that he could delete a file in quisling's account (our IT manager has had his fingers smashed between a door jamb and a refrigerator as punishment). We were able to recover clapper.cad (which is why our IT manager hasn't been fired), and we recovered partial plans for a Clapper-like device. What is particularly interesting is that these plans were last modified on April 3, 1975, well before the patent was filed for The Clapper. We aren't sure why "Edgar" felt the need to delete these plans, but we suspect, based on the logs, that the plans were copied there by mistake early in his infiltration and that he was attempting to cover his tracks. Based on the surveillance tapes we have of "Edgar" we also suspect that he was using our computer system to try to complete these plans, and that when he discovered a piece of information (which we, unfortunately, still cannot reveal) he realized that the remainder of the plans had not been in the possession of the Company, but buried with the hand of Jacob Gehris. We suspect that the UBHP now has the completed plans, and we are being more-than-usually vigilant to make sure it doesn't adversely affect you!

George, the Hypnotherapist

As George the Cat is now a licensed hypnotherapist, the GNU Public Dictatorship is proud to be the the first organization to invite him on a lecture tour. Check your local GPD office for information about when you can see him!

An unanticipated reason not to change your name.

Many people when they achieve (or want to achieve) fame end up trading their hard-to-pronounce or hard-to-spell name for a name that is nearly monosyllabic or deemed more "appropriate." The examples are many, but include Louis Burton Lindley, Jr (who later became the much more interesting Slim Pickens), Marion Morrison (who later became the infinitely more manly John Wayne), Ioseb Besarionis Dze Jughashvili (who changed his name to the much more imposing Josef Stalin).

We have, however, recently uncovered a reason why simplifying your name may not be the best career move. In Sylvaina, Ohio, Royal Barber wrote the names of his opponents in a local race on tombstones in his yard. Mr. Eff was not pleased and asked to have his name removed. Mr. Jennewine, however, was not included in the display as his name would not fit on the tombstone. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not helpful, and we ask you to keep this in mind when debating whether to simplify your name.

What brads do to people

It is difficult to believe, but even in this enlightened age there are still a sizable number of people who are not just ignorant of the dangers of brads, but stubbornly refuse to accept the evidence that shows just how sinister they are. One such individual is Jackie Denise Knott, of Albertville, Alabama, who apparently secured a large cardboard box to the top of her minivan using a homemade brad she constructed with a clothes hanger. It wouldn't have been so bad if her 13-year-old daughter hadn't been riding in this box. At this point it is still unclear whether Jackie is a purveyor of brads or merely an enthusiast, but we are having our Truth About Brads squads investigate. We merely hope that her experience will teach people the folly of trusting brads rather than suggest to them the incorrect conclusion that the child hadn't fallen off the vehicle, so the homemade brad must have been adequate for the task. You never can tell what some people will believe.

Environmentalist overtones

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not sensitive to trends in society, and we have realized recently that we may not have enough environmentalist overtones to our blog. While we have always been in favor of taking care of our environment, the new-found fascination with environmentalism in the popular media suggests that we might need to to more. As an example, think of Escape to Witch Mountain, which was adapted to a 1975 film of the same name. Even in the 1995 remake it had no environmental message, but the 2009 installment Race to Witch Mountain has finally been able to join the bandwagon. It's an awful lot like the way patriotism suddenly became popular after the 2001 terrorist attacks and even the very patriotic had to start wearing flag lapel pins in order to not be labeled a terrorist supporter.

Anyway, as a consequence we are auditing all of our standard practices to find out where we can insert our increasingly popular environmentalist messages. We would like to stress that none of our beliefs are changing. We have always taken a strong stance about caring for the environment, but now we'll try to show that concern more overtly so we can blend in with other popular news sources!

Don't try this at home

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to your safety, but we understand that sometimes restrictions on people's actions have no purpose rooted in science (other than irritating people). We have performed many studies, and if you ever wondered why they stopped asking you to turn your cell phone off while in the hospital you now know the answer. Recently we have received a number of complaints about the draconian safety regulations surrounding MRI machines, which is why we had Joy Smith, one of our senior operatives in safety regulation investigation, take her gun into an MRI room in a preliminary study. The results show rather conclusively that this is one safety regulation that won't be repealed any time soon. If she had been fine we would have conducted hosts of tests, but as it is, this is going to be the end of the road for now. We hope you appreciate our investigations and that you will send us any other safety rules you would like put to the test!

Sorting through the allegations

Many of our supporters have asked us how it is that we can somehow get to the heart of the issues the way we do without getting bogged down in conspiracy theories or unimportant tangents. Karen Hartford of Athens, Georgia, stated well what many of our readers have been saying since we started this blog:

"When I browse the web I know I am apt to find unreliable information, but I never have that concern while browsing your blog. I have never once felt misinformed or underinformed about the big issues threatening our society. I wish I knew how you cut through all of the rumors and allegations out there so that other bloggers could be as informative as you are."

We are glad that you find our service informative and helpful, and will do our best to explain how we do it so that others can imitate us more fully. Before we do that, however, we would like to point to an example of how investigation can get easily confused. While the article is an interesting read about several conspiracy theories related to the disappearance of the Arctic Sea cargo ship, it does not help the user to understand what actually happened. The fact that the author may not know is irrelevant, as in many cases people would rather be told what to believe than be given the facts and asked to reach their own conclusions. Without further ado, then, here are our guidelines for better persuasive blogging:

1. Be honest about your own fallibility. Occasionally make rash decisions or make mistakes. This will give an air of authenticity to your posts and will make people believe you more often.
   
2. If you don't know the answer, either guess or make one up. People like it when you tell them things, not when you tell them you don't know things.
3. When short of sources, say things like "everyone know that macaroni was invented in Ireland" or "since people prefer balloon animals to pork and beans." Invoking general knowledge makes people who don't agree with you feel like they are in the minority.

We could go on, but since lists of things for people to improve on generally become less effective after three items, we'll let it stay there. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not helpful!

A breakthrough!

We are pleased to announce that, due mainly to the efforts of our loyal operative "Viktor," we have uncovered some very interesting information that ties up a number of loose ends in both the Quisling incident and the case of the no-longer-missing hand. The breakthrough happened when Ernesto Ruiz of Waco, Texas, presented some information at his local GPD office and was subsequently contacted by "Viktor" (in disguise, of course).

It seems that Ernesto had discovered some documents last summer while supervising a demolition project in nearby Clifton. The documents were found in a vault that also contained a well-preserved human foot. Our lawyers would like us to explain that we do not advocate the actions that Ernesto took next and that we have reprimanded him. Ernesto wanted to avoid entanglements on the project he was working on, so he took the foot surreptitiously, put it in a freezer on his own property and kept the documents in his own safe. He didn't make any official reports, and the only people who knew he had found anything were his son Fabio and one of his friends. Incidentally, we interviewed Fabio and the friend (who shall remain anonymous as he is currently part of another investigation) and found that they knew nothing of the contents of the vault. While we disagree with Ernesto's decision to not notify the authorities, it was this very act that made possible the breakthrough we are announcing today. It's strange how things work out sometimes.

The documents suggest (and DNA testing has confirmed) that the foot belongs to none other than Jacob Gehris. The foot has been sent to the lab that is still studying the hand, and perhaps we'll have some more interesting findings soon. The documents are currently being studied, but they have already filled in the most significant of holes we had in our understanding of recent events. (For the curious, the documents were authenticated by John Reznikoff of University Archives).

We have previously mentioned some of the rumors surrounding the death of Jacob Gehris. One of the lesser-known rumors is that Jacob was killed to prevent him from inventing something the Company did not want released to the world. The documents Ernesto discovered bear this theory out, as they appear to be plans for a sophisticated device (whose purpose and nature will be withheld for now as we aren't sure how much the Parent Corporation knows yet and we don't want to give them more than we have to). The Company, in an apparently-misguided attempt at security, has kept their information about this invention and the whereabouts of the plans scattered in several locations. Over the years much of the information has been lost, but we did recover two such documents from "John" when he turned himself in earlier this year. The Parent Corporation apparently has one or more of these documents, and the belief that we had recovered some from "John" was what apparently spurred "Edgar" to risk his life infiltrating our office. He was able to recover one small detail from our records (the clerk who let it slip has been dealt with), which apparently told him where to look for Jacob's hand.

We're not sure whether the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch recovered any information where they found the hand, but we're sure now that they put it into Hugh Tanner's yard so it would be discovered far from its original location.

As we mentioned earlier we aren't going to disclose the contents of the documents found by Ernesto at this point, but we thought we would let you know that the mystery of the Quisling incident is now much less mysterious and that our recent breakthrough will surely give us the upper hand in our battle against evil!

Another study

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not concerned with your welfare, which is why we commission so many studies. We hope that you, our supporters, appreciate this effort, especially since we rarely ask for the credit when the researchers are done. Most of our operating budget goes into such research.

Anyway, it is with pleasure that we point you to the results of a recent study we commissioned. We set out to answer the question "What makes people violent?" and came up with a variety of studies. The studies about brads and hole punches and violence were completed and published long ago, but this study, which shows how consuming candy as a youngster can lead to violent behavior later in life, has taken much longer to produce. We hope you enjoy it.

Action item: stop the Brad Guys!

In our long fight against the evil that is the brad we have fought many battles. One of them, which we thought was over long ago, involved an application for UNESCO protection for the so-called "Brad Dance." As long as there were more famous dances in the running we didn't think the UN would act on this application, but now, several years later, with the announcement that the Tango will receive protection we are a bit more concerned about the Brad Guys' application. We should note that the application was submitted by the Company, a group that no longer exists. The UN, however, has refused to drop the application and plans to debate it. We are asking all of our supporters to write their UN representative immediately requesting them to either (1) ignore the application or (2) vote against it when the time comes. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not disappointed that the Company's actions may still cause us trouble, but we are hopeful that the UN will make the right choice!

Beware the trees!

Over the years people have come up with many things to embody the fear we all feel at times. Some of these creations include vampires, Frankenstein's monster, werewolves, zombies, and hostile aliens. Many of these ideas have been rehashed so many times that as a society we get bored of them. Vampires aren't interesting enough anymore--now we need vampires that sparkle in the sun or that are zombies of some sort as well. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are pleased to announce that we have found a previously-unknown embodiment of fear: the acorn. We know that trees have been used as fearsome creatures before, for example in The Wizard of Oz and The Lord of the Rings. Now, however, it is not the trees we can fear, but the small objects that live in the trees and drop on us unexpectedly. We're working with the major studios in Hollywood to get an acorn horror movie produced, and if all goes well we should see one by next fall. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to originality!

Preliminary findings

It is great pleasure that we announce to you today some of the preliminary findings in the case of Jacob Gehris's hand. We have had it examined by a number of seasoned professionals, and we believe it is an appropriate time to reveal what they found:

1. It is indeed the hand of Jacob Gehris. The fingerprints are as near a complete match as we have ever seen, and DNA collected before his death was used to match the DNA of the hand. We also had the mitochondrial DNA of his close relative's descendants tested. With all three tests the probability of the hand not belonging to Jacob Gehris is approximately one in 3.2 trillion.
2. Trace evidence under his fingernails prove that he was in Conflate, Arizona before his death. We found a type of dirt that, in true CSI form, is only found in a few places in the world. We also found traces of chemicals that, in 1875, were only used in the nail factories in several American cities. The only place that both of these could be found at the time was in Conflate, Arizona.
3. The hand was indeed severed post-mortem, which appears to substantiate the rumors about his death and dismemberment.
4. There were no signs of a struggle. To be clear, however, the lack of evidence does not prove that there was no struggle, just that we have no way to prove that he struggled with his nephew prior to his death.
5. Our tox screen revealed higher-than-normal levels of formaldehyde, suggesting he may have been drugged before his death. Either that, or he was embalmed prior to his dismemberment.
6. We looked for latent fingerprints on the hand, but couldn't find any usable prints.
7. We had a chirologist study the hand, and she found several interesting things:

• His life line was long, suggesting that his death was premature
• His heart line suggested that while he was discouraged by the failure of brads to make any money that he was not depressed
• His head line showed that he had been working on a significant invention before his death.

Most of the conclusions we have reached so far do not shed much light on Jacob's death, but we are intrigued by what the palm reader found. We have some documents (as yet unreleased) that show that the Company believed that Mr. Gehris was on his way to inventing something that would disrupt the Company's plans for world domination. We had dismissed this as unlikely given the other evidence, but now that our palm reader suggested the same thing we'll take it more seriously and have begun a full review of all of our documents from that era and the documents acquired from the collapse of the Company and the Quisling incident. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to solving this mystery!

Something big

Since the Quisling incident a few months ago we have been studying the activities of the Parent Corporation and the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch even more carefully than usual, and we can without a doubt state that they're up to something big. We're not talking big like giant babies--that hype will soon fade. I should mention that we have known about portions of their plans for some time, including the experiments on butterfly antennae where butterflies were tortured in the name of science. Reports indicate they plan to create human antennae out of brads, but while we don't believe they will succeed in this endeavor we are concerned with their progress. We also knew about "Edgar" and his mysterious as-yet-unrevealed-to-the-public motive for infiltrating one of our offices in Nevada. We wish we could reveal more about this motive, but we don't want to jeopardize "Viktor's" investigations. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not cautious, and we hope you will heed our advice to be vigilant and to renew your commitment to stop the spread of evil office products!

The Death of Jacob Gehris

Many supporters responded to our recent post about the discovery of Jacob Gehris's hand by asking us what the rumors surrounding his apparent suicide were. We are surprised that so many of our supporters have not researched this topic, but at the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not convinced that information is power, so we'll share with you what we know (and what rumors say) about his untimely demise.

First, the facts. Jacob was last seen alive on April 14, 1875 in Conflate, Arizona by his nephew Jonathan Hansen (who, incidentally, was rumored to have ties with the Company, but more about that later). His nephew said that Jacob was acting moody and discussed his failure to make any money off his invention at length. Besides Jonathan the last time he is documented to have been seen alive was during a particularly involved April Fool's Day joke involving several horses and a ladder. Not much more is officially known about his whereabouts before his body was discovered on April 15 by Percival Grant, the milkman. The police investigated the death, labeled it a suicide, and quickly rushed his body away for disposal. It is at this point that the details become a bit fuzzier. It has been rumored that the Company had Jacob's body embalmed, dismembered, and scattered, presumably so that nobody could investigate his death further. Documents we recovered from the collapse of the Company suggested that his body parts may have been moved a few times over the years, but since the Company is no longer in business it is little surprise that his hand has turned up after all these years. There were other more bizarre rumors such as the one involving a UFO coverup, but you can read about them online, so we won't take up space here. Just search for "Jacob Gehris Hoax". The most interesting unresolved question from the police investigation in 1875 is whether his nephew was involved in the death. The police at the time labeled him as trustworthy and dismissed him as a suspect, but documents that have more recently come to light paint a different picture of him. We can't confirm any of the rumors that he was a Brad Guy, but we certainly think it was likely. We'll keep you informed of new developments in the case of the no-longer-missing hand.

If you're going to do the time...

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to justice for criminals, but we find it just a bit dodgy that people can be charged with crimes without being allowed to follow through. We understand that sometimes the crime must be prevented, but in this case, we think the man being charged with shoplifting should have been able to finish the crime he started before he paid for it. It's not like the beer could be taken back to the store or anything. Really.

An interesting discovery

Imagine this: you're digging in your yard, and suddenly you see a finger pointing at you from inside the dirt. Most people would simply have run in terror from the apparent zombie. Not Hugh Tanner, a supporter who lives in Maryland. He remembered the stories his mother used to tell him about how Jacob Gehris had been dismembered post-mortem and scattered to discourage medical examination. Until now the stories have been nothing but rumors, but with this hand we can finally and categorically state that Mr. Gehris was indeed dismembered after his death. We are continuing our forensic investigation in the hopes it might shed some light on his apparent suicide in April of 1875.

We're still surprised

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not ready for opposition, but it still surprises us when the mainstream press chooses to report on some incidents and not on others. We understand that an apparently nutty guy hurling golf balls into a national park to honor deceased golfers and leaving piles of vegetables near the roads for stranded hikers is news, we just don't understand why they didn't bother reporting on the man who was recently apprehended in Redwood National Park spreading small brads in the bushes around a trail and claiming that we has simply trying to replenish the world's supply of brads by planting more. We don't believe the reporters are deliberately avoiding the juicier stories, but we do believe that the Parent Corporation must be putting pressure on the editors to stifle stories that paint brads in a bad light. Interestingly, the individual apprehended while planting brads was not affiliated with the Parent Corporation in any way--he was just a bit off his rocker. The Parent Corporation does not relish the thought of crazy being associated with brads, which is why they went to great lengths to squash this story. Many thanks to Harriet Thurman, the park ranger who made sure the story got out of the park!

Discrimination

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to ending discrimination in all of its forms. Loyal supporters will remember our groundbreaking work with the EU to end discrimination against fruits and vegetables, and you will all remember our "Let's beat up people who like to discriminate against others" campaigns. In spite of all of our efforts, however, it seems that stubborn individuals still refuse to be tolerant of others. We hope that those individuals are shamed into conformity by angry neighbors, because, after all, why shouldn't a Jedi be able to shop at Tesco without giving up his religious convictions?

One more triumph

In the wake of the investigations surrounding the Quisling incident we have found a great deal of information, and we have made a significant arrest. The mainstream media, of course, doesn't appear to grasp the significance of the arrest, but we are thrilled. The man we arrested was none other than Hans Jenkins, the Chief Technology Officer for the Parent Corporation. Papers found at the scene of the Incident implied that the Parent Corporation had financed the redesign of the reality simulator, and we have long had reason to believe that "Edgar" and the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch retain their tax-free status by some creative accounting with the Parent Corporation. We believe that the documents we found will not only indict Hans for illegal dealings with the Unholy Brotherhood, but that they will break the facade of separation between the UBHP and the Parent Corporation once and for all.

Hans has been organizing "surplus sales" of phantom office equipment and having the accountants work their magic. In reality, he is funneling the profits from the UBHP's activities into the Parent Corporation simply so that the UBHP can avoid tax liability.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not thrilled by the arrest of Hans Jenkins and we are looking forward to the day when the UBHP has to face the music and pay their taxes.

A caution

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not concerned for your safety, which is why we are suggesting that you take more baths, or at least get a metal shower head. Incidentally, similar studies have been performed on brads and found that the same bacteria flourish there. We are not aware of any studies on hole punches, but we are commissioning one as we speak...er...as I type?

An inquiry

The recent popularity of the "Cash for Clunkers" program in the United States has prompted thorough reviews of the way aging cars are treated in general. Many activists claimed the Cash for Clunkers program amounted to little more than death panels, where bureaucrats got to decide which cars lived and which cars died. Others claim that the dismantling of certain cars was done following a cost/benefit analysis that was transparent and clearly the right thing for society to do.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not interested in getting to the truth, and so we have been performing our own investigation into the alleged mistreatment of older cars. We visited (clandestinely, of course) three separate nursing facilities for older cars and what we found may be shocking, so if you are easily shocked or appalled, please read no further.

Most people believe that when they drop their aging car off at a nursing facility that the car will receive regular maintenance and cleaning and that the car's problems will be mitigated in such a way as to help it die with dignity. Most people are wrong. At least in the three facilities* we infiltrated the truth is much less dignified.

In order to get inside, we found three older cars that were donated by supporters, and rigged them with microphones, video cameras, and a few more specialized sensors before dropping them off. In each case, the first thing that was done to the car was a thorough inspection akin to a strip search intended to find any parts that might be able to be extracted and sold to repair shops. When such parts were found they were immediately removed from the vehicles and replaced with barely-functioning parts that caused the vehicles a great deal of pain. After this initiation into the nursing home, the aging cars were then unceremoniously parked in an uncovered lot behind the home. When we went back to visit our car we were told it was being cleaned at the moment and we would have to wait. Our surveillance revealed that during our wait the car was taken from the lot, cleaned up, and brought to a garage where we were finally allowed to visit it.

If this were the extent of the atrocities we observed, however, we would have been shocked but not yet appalled. As it is, we were so far beyond appalled that we're not sure what to call it. We intentionally did not visit our cars for several months, and our surveillance revealed that the workers began to remove more and more parts, sometimes replacing them with duct tape.

What surprised us most about the "care" our cars received was that as parts were being removed and replaced, more often than not the replacement parts would be constructed from or installed with hole punches and brads. We haven't established a firm link with the Parent Corporation or the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch just yet, but in a situation this evil we are not surprised to find evil office products being used.

After several months we went back and asked to see our cars, but were told that they had expired. We knew from our sensor data that this was not the case, and that they were suffering in silence in the back lot. We resolved to break into the lot and retrieve our cars before it was too late, but in one case the car was crushed alive before we could retrieve it.

We don't think there is cause for widespread panic, but we do want to let people make informed decisions about their aging cars.

*Although the facilities were striking in their similar approaches to aging car care, they were run by ostensibly different entities. We won't mention the names of the homes here, but if you are curious please contact your local GPD office for a request form (2245-K Request for Information about a GPD Investigation)

What "Edgar" was doing in our offices

While we still can't reveal everything we learned from our investigations of the abduction and replacement of our Count Quisling, the Board of Dictators has met often and we have decided to let portions of our finding be made public. We would like to make it all public, but ongoing intelligence operations might be compromised by revealing all of it at this point. As soon as we can we will release the remainder of our findings.

It seems that "Edgar" had at least three motives for his infiltration. One of these we can't talk about publicly yet, so that's all we'll say about mysterious motivation number one. The second motive was to gather intelligence about the GNU Public Dictatorship and its regional operations. We have studied all of the records that the fake Quisling would have had access to during his brief stay, and we have concluded that the only non-public information he encountered was a proposal for extending the GNU Public Theme Park to other locations around the world by setting up mirrors using rsync. The proposal was being circulated among our Counts for preliminary comments, and has subsequently been referred to one of our standards groups (and, of course, made public). For the curious, the proposal is on track to being implemented, but there is disagreement over whether the mirrors should use the traditional rsync or the more innovative RideTorrent. Only time will tell. He also had access to the disciplinary records for Lincoln County, Nevada, but we asked our computer to correlate that information with all of our other records to determine whether anything useful could have been gleaned from that. We found that there was a small exhaust port in our space station against which they could send a squadron of small fighters and, assuming their aim was superb, could destroy our space station, but we have remedied the situation by adding a few extra deflectors to the exhaust port. But I digress. Back to the third reason.

The third and perhaps most interesting reason "Edgar" infiltrated our office was that he apparently wanted to try giving up brads and hole punches for a while to convince himself that he is not dependent on their evil influence. We found this out by reconstructing several of the shredded documents he left in the office when he fled, and after reviewing surveillance and interviewing coworkers we found that he apparently did live without brads for the amazing period of 24 hours. He kept up the appearance of not using brads for much longer, but some of the office workers noticed strange behavior in the brad disposal room as early as a week after the abduction of Quisling. It was these repeated strange incidents that caused Daniel's investigation that precipitated the rest of the events that are so well known.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not encouraged by the fact that "Edgar" couldn't give up his brad and hole punch habit for more than a day. He is apparently more of a slave to his addictions that we had previously believed.

When to call Emergency Services

For some time now we have been trying to get our supporters to understand when it is not appropriate to call for emergency services, with apparently more success than we thought. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not moderate, so it shouldn't surprise you to find out that there are times when calling emergency services is the appropriate thing to do. When you are trapped in a storm drain and can't get out, while posting your status on Facebook as "is stuck in storm drain, please help" might be amusing, you will have better luck using your phone to call emergency services. We encourage all of you to take some time and list the situations you may encounter in your life and to decide whether each of them warrants the calling of emergency services. If you have doubts about any particular situation, contact your local GPD office for clarification.

"Not MY dog, officer"

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not observant, and we have recently observed a disturbing trend. We won't bore you with the statistical gobbledy-gook that we calculated to make sure it is a trend, but we will say that our observations were conclusive. More and more people are calling for law enforcement assistance and, instead of stopping someone else's illegal actions, ending up being cited for their own misbehavior. Take this case, for example. If you are going to call the cops to complain about a neighbor's dog, you should probably not let your own dog chew the officer's tires. We hop that we don't have to go into greater detail than this: Before calling the cops on somebody else, be sure that you aren't violating the law.

Sacrifice

We live in an age where sacrifice is often discouraged--we tend to prefer a life of comfort to one that asks us to give anything up. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not pleased with those who do sacrifice for the greater good, and hope that we can learn from their examples!

A report

I am pleased to report that my visit to the scene of the crime in Nevada was a complete success, and that the information we were able to gather will serve us for years to come. We have confirmed the details we presumed before about the abduction of Quisling, and we have found some important information about "Edgar." We would love to reveal this information now and have you all be as excited as we are, but we haven't passed the information through our security process yet. We don't want "Edgar" to anticipate our next move, but at the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not eager to make it!

A Gateway to Brads

It has come to my attention that there are some who believe that I have been neglecting my post on the Board of Dictators. As it is true that I have not posted for a while, it is because I was working on many essential and very time-consuming projects for the well-being of society. I have also, in this time, managed to identify one of the latest plots of the Parent Corporation.

We have known for a long time to avoid the evils of brads and the hole punch, as well as evil stickers. Our state is such that those who would call themselves loyal to the GPD would never dream of using these materials. Therefore, the Parent Corporation has been inventing 'gateway' products, which in and of themselves are not evil, and in some cases may even be very practical, but which resemble the evils effects of the Parent Corporation. One such product is the folder with 'prongs'. Sure, it seems simple enough -- maybe even practical. The danger is that people start to associate good feelings for these prongs that subconsciously remind them of brads. Pretty soon they start finding "good uses" for brads, and they are well on their way to evil. As a side note, since these folders are not inherently evil, please be sure to use them according to the instructions provided, and never use them to rip holes in papers -- this creates tendencies that could easily lead to the use of brads.

We at the GNU Public Dictatorship are nothing if not supportive of those who invent things that can be used for the good of mankind. We ask you, however, to be careful what items you let into your home, lest lead you to the use brads or hole punches.

The Scene of the Crime

We have found some interesting new leads in the disappearance of Quisling and his replacement by his evil twin "Edgar" which have called me to Nevada to investigate them personally. With a little luck we'll know exactly what happened and be able to make a few arrests within a few days. I'll keep you posted.

Now I'll take a moment to respond to a concern raised by several of our supporters: shouldn't there be an independent commission investigating this incident? The truth of the matter is that we do use independent commissions, but as they often take too long to get any useful leads we usually wait until the situation has been properly handled and then hire a third-party contractor to confirm that we did our jobs correctly. Having the independent investigators looking at the same time we do means (1) we duplicate work, and (2) we step on each others' toes. By using independent investigators later, we can be sure that they only investigate important leads and verify that our correct methods reached the correct conclusions. It's much less messy this way. We appreciate your concern about transparency and would like to reiterate that everything the GNU Public Dictatorship does is open, meaning that you can find out everything that we do, assuming you file the right paperwork. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to truth and openness in government!

Mutants

I was thrilled to learn that we are all mutants, but I am a little disappointed. Where's my laser-eyes? My ice-making ability? My ability to control magnetic fields? My ability to regenerate when injured? I find it hard to believe that television and movies have perpetrated such lies upon us, but that's the way it looks, folks. If we really are mutants, I guess it's like we learn from The Incredibles that if everyone is super then nobody is super. Oh, well.

Masterful diplomacy

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to ruling the world without other entanglements, but we are also nothing if not realistic. In the short term, at least, it seems we'll have to deal with existing organizations and governments. In these dealings we have learned a few secrets of diplomacy, one of which we will share with you today.

The secret we want to share with you today is that to get people to agree with you there are two options: (1) find something that everyone agrees with, or (2) find something everyone can agree to be against.

In practice the only things people generally agree on are things like "being hospitalized is unpleasant" and "paying less for the same thing is good." We could keep listing this type of statement for quite a while without touching on anything that would help forge a real relationship. I mean, nobody will help you in a war just because you agree that hospitalization is a drag.

The real power of diplomacy is to make people do what they don't want to do because they believe it is in their best interests. Much of our diplomatic success stems from the fact that brads and hole punches are so universally loathed once people understand what they stand for and that the organizations pushing these devices on the unsuspecting public are so villainous that only they themselves can deny that they are purely evil. Another thing that most people in the world will condemn is the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939, where they agreed to carve up eastern Europe for their own purposes. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wisely chose to condemn it this week, creating good feelings around the world because they, too, hate evil.

We hope this post has been instructive, and we'd like to let you know that we are currently recruiting for several positions in our Ministry of Propaganda and Diplomacy. If you are interested, please submit form TDSI-2254L-a (we no longer accept form TDSI-2254L) to your local GPD office at your earliest convenience.

Appropriate Naming

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not convinced that that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and that the converse is equally true. Take the city of Boggy Bayou, Florida, for example. After years of lower-than-hoped-for turnout at the annual Boggy Bayou Mullet Festival they finally relented and renamed the city Niceville. Unfortunately, the name by itself change didn't freshen things up enough for some residents, such as this lady. Her neighbor was smoking and infringing on her constitutional right to breathe fresh air, so she decided to spray air freshener at the smoker. Neither of the people involved in this incident were being very nice, even though they were in the city of Niceville. Shocking.

Proof

Clearly there are a handful of words and phrases that are often used to incite arguments or to prove that your own ideas are clearly superior to those of other people. At the GNU Public dictatorship we are nothing if not disapproving of such methods, which is why we would like to take a moment to discuss the use of the word "proof" in such a context.

One of the difficulties in living in a society where we aren't allowed to brainwash people or even simply require that they learn and use newspeak is that different ideas inevitably emerge. People, left to themselves, have an irritating habit of thinking for themselves and coming to conclusions based on their own experiences and beliefs that do not agree with the conclusions of other people. While it would be much simpler to require our supporters to act on our edicts without thinking for themselves, much of the power of the GNU Public Dictatorship is derived from the open source model, which asserts that the community can be a great asset. You can rest assured that the GPD is not going to brainwash you any time soon. Maybe when the technology has improved we can revisit it, but for now you don't have to think about it.

Anyway, the bottom line is that when people disagree about things they often request proof from one other. The problem is that proof has many definitions, ranging from testing the effectiveness of yeast to "a sequence of steps, statements, or demonstrations that leads to a valid conclusion." Unfortunately, even in mathematical proofs, the fact that the proof exists only means that the conclusion is valid given the axioms used and assumptions that were made initially. One person's proof is a silly idea from another person's perspective. Take this example of the use of the word "proof." The writer of the article clearly does not believe that the photo is proof of the existence of the Loch Ness monster, but is using the claim that it is proof to make fun of the person making the claim.

At the GPD we recognize that proof that stands independently of people's assumptions is hard to come by (in fact, we know of only a few instances of such proof, and they all involve hole punches and brads), so we suggest that more can be accomplished by sharing and understanding assumptions than by proving things based on your own assumptions.

Propaganda Tips

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to excellence, which is why we occasionally use this forum to provide useful tips on how to do various things. Today's topic is photographic manipulation. We have reported on this before, but the focus of that post was to understand what the manipulation meant, not how to successfully pull it off. Today we will consider a list of useful tips so that you, too, can manipulate photos. We will use Microsoft's recent altered photo as an example.

1. Subtlety in photographic manipulation is paramount. The smaller the difference between the original image and the manipulated one, the less likely the casual observer is to question the legitimacy of the photo. In the case of the Microsoft case, they chose the head of one of the people in the photo, which would be great if nobody looked at the faces in the photos. Unfortunately, most people do look at the faces, so this choice proved to be a poor one.
2. Consistency in manipulation is important. Small discrepancies, such as the position of a shadow, can mean the difference between successful propaganda and embarrassing amateurish material. In Microsoft's picture they chose to orient the head in a different position, making the shadows on the person's body inconsistent. What's more, the head itself has its light source on the opposite side of the room from the other faces. If anything says "manipulated" it's shadows in the wrong places.
3. Thoroughness helps. When manipulating a photo, be sure to change all of something to all of something else. Microsoft chose to change the black man's head to white, but neglected to change the black man's hand.
4. Make sure you have a purpose. Propaganda is most effective when it has a message behind it, so be sure that your manipulation conveys your message. Either the manipulators of the Microsoft image are racist, or the message is lost. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not generous, so we'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that either their message was too subtle for us or they didn't have a message, not that they were acting out of hatred for another race. The GPD does not tolerate discrimination, so we hope that this is the case. We wouldn't want to have to add Microsoft to our list of enemies.

Smart Beauty Parlors

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to helping our supporters make sense of the world around them, which is why we occasionally post information about new fields of science and technology. One of these, which has been in the works for many years now but is just barely being recognized as a legitimate science, is smart beauty parlors. We have all heard of smart phones, but a recent Gallup poll conducted suggested that fewer than 5% of people have heard of smart beauty parlors, and less than 1% have ever used one.

Beauty parlors have been around for ages, with the primary goal of making people look more beautiful than they looked before they entered. Unfortunately, the idiosyncrasies of the individual beauticians and their own limited view of the world of fashion sometimes makes patrons look less beautiful than when they entered the parlor. In order to counter this risk, a young woman by the name of Janet Gottsch studied long and hard and eventually created the "smart beauty machine."

Ms. Gottsch, inventor of the Smart Beauty Machine

The smart beauty machine takes into account the weather forecast for the day, the body and face shape of the patron, the trends reported on E!TV, and the spreads of popular magazine covers to decide on the ideal style for hair, nails, and any accessories. In 1944 (when Ms. Gottsch was 17) it was lampooned in The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, and subsequently lost most of its public appeal. It took many years for it to make a comeback, and in recent years it has become quite popular in many Asian countries. We have long supported Ms. Gottsch in her efforts to revitalize the industry, and now that it's much closer we are urging you all to try it out when you see it!

Exonerated!

It is with great pleasure that we announce that over the weekend Daniel and his task force successfully located and took into custody (former) Count Quisling! Perhaps even more exciting is that we have cleared up the mysteries surrounding his apparent betrayal and the apparent lack of thoroughness in our background checks, and that the GNU Public Dictatorship is off the hook.

It was with great sadness that Daniel announced that Quisling had apparently betrayed us in late July. We weren't sure it was the right thing to do, but we figured that with our supporters on the lookout we would find Quisling much faster than we would otherwise. Unfortunately, as often happens with complex situations, we did not correctly anticipate the magnitude of every effect of this announcement. It seems that the Parent Corporation was able to leverage many more news outlets than we previously thought possible, and the backlash against the GNU Public Dictatorship was harsh. We provided more information in order to silence the fears being voiced by "supporters" of the GPD, but still our search proved fruitless.

That is, until one of our supporters noticed a ride that had been in the GNU Public Area at the GNU Public Theme Park in Corpus Christi, Texas. At the Theme Park it had been called TORSO (Terrence's Open Reality Simulation Orchestrator) and it served to provide a realistic version of day-to-day life. When our supporter (who we shall call "Bert" to protect his identity) found the ride he thought it looked familiar, but it was labeled EORSO (Edgar's Open Reality Simulation Orchestrator). We were very disappointed that "Edgar" was willing to steal an open-source ride and pretend it was his own (which is, in itself, a grave violation of copyright law), so we investigated. Inside we found a relaxed Count Quisling, apparently going about his daily routine. When he saw Daniel he asked why we had softened our position on brads, and Daniel, confused, explained that we had not. The conversation continued, confusing all participants, until someone guessed what had happened.

Quisling had been somehow tricked into entering the simulator. Thanks to the open nature of the ride we were able to tell that the simulator had been programmed to simulate Quisling's daily routine and provide an ever-softening stance on brads and hole punches, purportedly from the Board of Dictators, to wear down his resistance to them. We were pleased when we realized that Quisling had not betrayed us, but we still had a great deal of investigation to do before we found out what had happened.

Apparently back in June Quisling was approached by what he considered a suspicious character. Quisling tailed him back to an apartment, where he apparently lost him. Quisling returned, apparently to work, and had been going about his duties faithfully regardless of what he thought he read on our blog. He called us several times, but was directed to an answering machine. He left several messages asking us whether we had some game plan that he should be aware of. When Daniel arrived Quisling still had no idea he had been missing for several months.

So, you ask, if Quisling was in EORSO at the time, who was the man Daniel saw fleeing from Quisling's office? The answer, as we discovered recently, was that Quisling had an identical twin who happens to be "Edgar" (the one who makes the decisions, not the figurehead) of the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch. Given the information we now have we know that "Edgar" himself took Count Quisling's place and tried his best to bring down the GPD from inside. Why would the leader of the UBHP take such a risk? The answer could only be that our efforts are scaring them more than they would like to let on, and that they decided to take this risk in order to discredit us.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not relieved that we didn't hire our nemesis and that the man we hired didn't betray us, and we're nothing if not pleased that the UBHP considers us a great enough threat to send their reclusive leader undercover into our midst in the hopes of discrediting us. We are also nothing if not pleased that their evil plan did not succeed, and we hope that the evidence from Quisling's office can be reexamined given this new information and yield some clues about the workings of the UBHP's leadership.

Cancer sticks: no longer what you thought

For many years now there have been campaigns against smoking, and for good reason. Smoking has been linked to a number of diseases, including cancer, and the risks from smoking seem to outweigh the benefits of looking cool or classy. Now that we as a society seem to agree that smoking is not a good thing, the anti-cancer league has latched on to a new "cancer stick:" household candles. While they admit that there are other lifestyle choices that could affect your chances of contracting cancer more, they recommend limiting your use of candles. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not cautious, but we assure you that "an occasional paraffin candle and its emissions will not likely affect you."

How not to rob a bank

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not concerned about your successes in life, so we thought it might be time to provide some helpful hints on how to rob a bank. These hints were inspired by the recent experience of previously-convicted bank robber Jarell Paul Arnold in Alaska.

The first thing to consider in robbing a bank is how to get into the building without attracting attention. If you enter with a ski mask or other device to hide your face you will likely be stopped right away. On the other hand, if you enter without a mask you will probably show up in surveillance footage. Either way, your plan would be frustrated. If possible, use a Groucho Marx disguise and avoid all cameras.

Once you are in the bank you must make your demand to the teller. Standard methods include pulling a gun and producing a note that states your intent. Either method will work, provided that you don't first identify yourself to the teller. This was the primary mistake Jarell made, and it has cost him dearly. If you are wearing a Groucho Marx disguise, be sure to talk like Groucho. Incidentally, we have heard of people who used a Harpo Marx disguise, but that is much trickier as it is less likely you would be recognized and as Harpo you wouldn't be speaking.

Once you have made your intent clear the next important step is to get the money without any of those explosive ink devices or tracking devices. Asking for small amounts of cash may make it easier to get away, but it will make it harder to make a proper living. Please take this into account when deciding how much cash to request.

Once you have the cash you have to get out without being caught by security guards. Running out quickly is a good standby and has served many a robber well, assuming they have a getaway car ready. Getting away is nearly always the most important part of a bank robbery as without it you are easily caught.

Our lawyers would like us to point out that we are not advocating the robbing of banks as the benefit to society is negative, but that we are trying to help people who have already made that choice to do so responsibly.

When Zombies Attack!

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we try to minimize risk by having a plan for every possible contingency, which is why we recently commissioned a study into the likely outcome of a zombie invasion. Most scientists laughed at us and said we were crazy to even consider such a thing, but they'll be sorry when the undead rise against humanity. Robert Smith? (before you comment about it, the question mark is in fact part of his name and serves to differentiate between the scientist and the singer. We think Robert Smith, the singer, may already be a zombie, so we would never enlist his help in planning for a zombie attack) agreed to help us, and modeled a zombie attack using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies. We are very pleased with the outcome, as they found that if we use frequent counter-attacks with increasing force we would be able to eradicate the fictional creatures. You can now sleep soundly knowing that when zombies attack we will be ready!

Excessive punishment

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not concerned with the apparent trend toward excessive punishments for minor infractions. It has always been our position that punishment ought to be commensurate with the crime, and it saddens us that we constantly have to remind government officials around the world about this. Take this case, for example, in which a man faces up to six months in jail for yawning during court proceedings. We find it shocking and appalling that he could face that long of a prison term, and have been petitioning the court to limit the maximum sentence to no more than 175 days. We hope we succeed.

Evil: an update

Over the weekend we realized that we overreacted to the virtual embodiment of evil, "E." While we still consider him a threat to the purity of the Internet, we realized that our fears were unfounded. After all, what evil character doesn't sport a goatee or a mustache and doesn't speak in a British or Slavic accent?

A new twist in the search for Quisling

Our task force led by Daniel is still tracking Quisling's whereabouts, but our other task forces have dug up something interesting. Something so subtle that our famously exhaustive background checks didn't even reveal it: Quisling has an identical twin. It took the combined computing power of three of the world's fastest supercomputers three weeks to come up with the hypothesis and it took several days to confirm, but we are certain now that this is the case.

While having an identical twin doesn't make a person evil, it certainly increases the odds. After all, we hear much more about "evil twins" than "evil selves." In Quisling's case, however, all indicators suggest that both twins are evil. As far as our research shows, Quisling was separated at birth from his twin and hasn't seen him since, but we did not keep him under 24-hour surveillance (a measure we are considering adopting because of his betrayal) so we can't be sure. Regardless of this, however, we now believe that Quisling's twin is none other than "Edgar." Not the "Edgar" who gives the speeches, but the pinkiless "Edgar" who calls the shots behind the scenes. This would explain why there are so many similarities between Quisling and "Edgar" and would explain a good deal of the motive for Quisling's actions. We are disappointed that our screening process did not catch this earlier, and we are still hoping that we are wrong, but hiring the twin of our nemesis as a count is a good deal less embarrassing than hiring our nemesis. We promise to keep you updated as more information becomes available.

Evil

As if there weren't enough evil already in the world, science has stepped up to create its own version of evil. We would like to point out that although Selmer Bringsjord is only creating a virtual representation of evil, the danger of his evil escaping its containment field is non-negligible. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not vigilantly defending your online safety, and we think the consequences of the release of this evil upon the Internet would be unthinkable. Imagine the half-thought-out rude remarks he might make, and the cyber-bullying and spreading of material not suitable for minors that would ensue. As of yet the Internet has escaped this evil, so we have invoked a little-used clause* in our bylaws to require Bringsjord to seek help for E (his evil character) from Eliza immediately. If he does not do so, the GPD will be forced to act.

*Clause 3-B states that in situations of extreme danger to the moral fiber of the Internet the GPD may demand immediate action. If the action is not carried out the perpetrator becomes subject to immediate review by our standards committee. If the perpetrator is found lacking, the committee may decide to excise them from the standard.

An update on Quisling

Our investigation into the whereabouts of (former) Count Quisling is progressing, but is as yet incomplete. We have found, however, a note from Quisling explaining his "innocence." We're not sure we buy it, but he claims that he left his door open and that his cat came in and built the shredder Daniel saw him using. He also claims that his cat ordered brads on eBay for him and that he was trying to dispose of them. We've seen this sort of excuse before. We hope, for Quisling's sake, that he's telling the truth, but we suspect he probably isn't. We won't know for sure, however, until our special team finds him.

A deadly assault

It seems that the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch is getting bolder by the minute. They shipped a load of tainted brads to an unsuspecting man who read the label on the package and soaked them in bleach before cleaning his toiled. Little did he suspect that the tainted brads contained high concentrations of ammonia. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not concerned for your safety, so we urge you to not touch any unsolicited office products. We have advised the mainstream media to not incite panic by blaming the package of brads he received, which is why you'll get a different story from them. We believe our supporters can handle the truth, so please don't prove us wrong.

We hope it's not true

Since the recent incident with Count Quisling we have been trying to piece together exactly what happened. Unfortunately, we have been unable to come to any firm conclusions as Quisling went to great lengths to cover his trail in all directions. We have investigated many leads (and "corrected" many situations we found in the process) but have yet to find "the lead" that ultimately brings him to justice. We do know quite a bit, however. We have decrypted communications between Quisling and well-placed members of the Parent Corporation. These communications have taught us quite a bit about the communication infrastructure at the Parent Corporation, but they have left us with a theory that we hope is not true: Quisling's patterns of communication with his co-conspirators against the human race are entirely consistent with the communications we have intercepted from the mysterious "Edgar". (For the curious, we mean the decision-making "Edgar", not the figurehead "Edgar"). In addition, our investigations have confirmed that Quisling had bought two prosthetic pinkies from a Canadian robotics firm. We have studied the elementary school transcripts and medical histories that Quisling provided and have found no mention of any office accidents, but close examination does show that there are six months of his life unaccounted for on his records. We would like to be absolutely clear on this point, though: we have no evidence that Quisling is "Edgar". All we have is a series of coincidences and circumstantial details. We hope that Quisling isn't "Edgar" but only time will tell. As we mentioned in an earlier post, the danger that someone like Quisling poses to the GNU Public Dictatorship is minimal, but we will be initiating a review of our hiring process in light of the apparent problems we are observing.

Working as hard as ever

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we're buy cramming what we normally do in weeks into several weeks. We hope that you appreciate our efforts, and that, unlike Sen. Richard Shelby you don't think such cramming is necessarily bad.

Initiative

While we may not always agree with the actions people take, at the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not pleased when we see initiative. Take this case, for example. A young boy, facing a day he did not look forward to did not simply sit down and wait for things to get better, he got his father's keys and drove his parents' car around town. Sure, he might have run over somebody in his joyride, but at least he took matters into his own hands. What's more, and I'm sure his parents are pleased about this, he is too young to prosecute, so no citations were issued. Way to work the system, little guy!

The List of Deadly Sins

We were very pleased with the response to our request for deadly sins, and we apologize that it took us this long to come up with our official list. We found it surprising that while we received millions of responses the same three items kept recurring. Short lists generally work better than long lists, so, without further ado, with the most serious sins first, is the GNU Public Dictatorship's Official List of Deadly Sins (OLDS):

1. Evil Office Product Use. Even in jest, the use of office products known to be evil can harm one's sense of right and wrong. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not against harming people (at least people who aren't evil)
2. Creating a Dictatorship intended to compete with the GNU Public Dictatorship. This sin should be pretty self-explanatory. We understand that all people have their freedom of expression, but we will not treat people as GPD supporters if they are actively opposing us.
   
3. Disrespecting the King of Pop. While the GNU Public Dictatorship usually frowns on Monarchies around the world, the Kingdom of Pop is different. It was not ruled with an iron fist, nor without input from his fans. In fact, Michael was far along the road to converting the Kingdom of Pop to a dictatorship based on the GPD model, but, alas, it was not to be. Perhaps his family and his fans will continue along that pathway. For those that hate Michael or his music, or disagree with the jury that acquitted him, please remember that it was pressure from ruling the Kingdom of Pop that caused Michael to do so many, er, interesting things.

We know that good supporters of the GPD have been following OLDS for quite some time now, but we hope that the formalization of these rules will have a positive impact on the world!

Interesting...

School has traditionally been about preparing students to succeed in the world. Presumably those with the right skills can market their abilities and make money in the real world. What we did not know, however, is that schools are also responsible for people's economic hardships. We will be watching this case closely to find out whether you can sue your mother because you didn't get into Stanford, or whether you can sue your volleyball coach because you didn't get a scholarship. We hope this case doesn't drag on for years through the courts as we are very interested in its outcome!

The revenge of "odortising"

Most of our loyal supporters will have forgotten about our failed "odortising" campaign of late last year, but it seems it's not ready to go away completely. In a misguided attempt an employee at a Texas bank call center tried to advertise the GNU Public Dictatorship using an old canister she had saved from our odortising experiment. Unfortunately the chemicals used in our short-lived campaign were not chosen for their shelf life, and 34 people were hospitalized because of the "perfume."

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not concerned about your welfare, so please trust us when we say that it is in your best interest to turn any unconsumed "odortising" materials in to your local GPD office.

It's just a bad idea

Today I was driving on a fairly major road when my wife suddenly pointed to our left and made an exclamation of surprise. I looked in time to see a tire roll forward and a pickup truck suddenly drop and start scraping the pavement, all of which surprised me as well. Since I am a certified tire tracker I was able to watch where the tire went and easily recovered it for the owner of the vehicle. When I returned it to the driver, however, I found that the dealership he had just purchased the car from had used, of all things, brads to attach the wheel to the car. Since I am a certified anti-brad evangelist I happened to have a pamphlet or two on the dangers of brads on me, and I generously shared them with our unlucky motorist. He assured me that he did not know they had used brads to attach the wheel, and his outrage at the dealer was clear. We hope that our supporters will spread the word to the less-credulous. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not certain that it is a bad idea to attach wheels to a car with household brads. Oh, and please remember that even though we defeated the Company, there are still a number of rogue cells of Brad Guys operating around the world, so we recommend unceasing vigilance!

The advantages of the Open Source Model

Microsoft recently had to release some emergency updates to its Internet Explorer product due to a simple typo in the source code. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to excellence in all of its forms, and while we are not saying the Microsoft hasn't produced some good software, we would like to point out that excellence is thwarted when the source remains closed. If Microsoft used the Open Source model, the world would have known about this exploit much sooner, and of course they would have made better use of the exploit before someone at Microsoft actually fixed it and rolled out an update.

Moderation

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not moderate in all things, but sometimes we have to remind our supporters of this. We realize that attracting such intense loyalty is a blessing and a curse, but we are thrilled to have so many people willing to answer the call of duty whatever the cost. We recently asked supporters to keep an eye out for any sign of former Count Quisling, but we didn't expect people to employ their children as river guards. Our lawyers have asked us to make it absolutely clear that the GNU Public Dictatorship in no way condones using children as cheap labor or using toy cars as river rafts.

A clue to the whereabouts of our traitor

One of Count Quisling's close friends was recently apprehended in California, which has been a stroke of luck for us. Count Quisling, apparently too involved in his addictions to read the news, contacted him today. We naturally have Mr. Martinez under surveillance and were able to get a great deal of information about Count Quisling's whereabouts that should allow us to capture him soon. Oh, and if you're reading this, Mr. Quisling, we suggest you just turn yourself in. We already have you surrounded, we're just being generous and letting you demonstrate your contrition before we make you demonstrate it. We promise that it will go better for you if you don't make a scene.

A word of explanation about Quisling

Many of our supporters have expressed shock and dismay that we have allowed a person such as Quisling to become a Count in the GNU Public Dictatorship. While we are saddened by his apparent ties to the Parent Corporation, our faith in our system is still strong. Quisling clearly had access to nefarious office products in his position, and he clearly knew about our public events as he was tasked with coordinating them, but he knew nothing about our secret plans. Our GPD Counts are not cleared for that information as they do not need to know any of it. Consequently, Count Quisling could not have given the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch any more information than they could have found had they been looking. We learned a great deal about the strength of our security infrastructure when "Viktor" apparently betrayed us last year, and we can state unequivocally that we do not fear any information leak from Quisling's betrayal.

On another level, though, this is deeply concerning. Regardless of the damage Quisling might have been able to do to the New Future, the fact that we lost him to our enemies is troublesome. We have initiated a full review of our brad exposure policy to make sure that (1) The recommended daily doses are well below dangerous levels, and (2) Count Quisling was following the recommended daily doses. Anecdotal evidence from his coworkers suggests that he may have had a brad addiction earlier in his life, and that his resolve buckled under the pressure of being near so many brads that were on their way to disposal.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not optimisitic that this is an isolated incident. We hope Daniel's investigations will prove what we already suspect, and we are anxiously awaiting Count Quisling's capture.

How low will they stoop?

Recently I was attending a religious gathering when I came face-to-face with the spawn of the Parent Corporation. Scattered all around the wood floor were little discs, obviously made by hole punches. As I am one of the foremost experts on hole punches and hole punch paraphernalia I stooped to examine them, and found that not only were they made from a sturdy foil-like plastic, but many of them had been coated so that they would adhere to the wood floor very tenaciously. We got our hazardous materials team to the scene within minutes, but many of the attendees still had to be disinfected. During cleanup four of our agents received minor injuries from the discs, ranging from bent fingernails to bruises. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not appalled by this apparent lack of concern for people's religious freedom, and we would like to urge all of our supporters to educate their friends and neighbors about the dangers of such things.

Alexa Longueira, Hero of the People

It is with great pleasure that we recognize our latest Hero of the People, Alexa Longueira. She has braved many perils and has allowed herself to become the laughingstock of the online community, all in order to keep her secret mission from coming to light. Alexa's mission (which still remains largely classified) was to thwart an evil plan being hatched by the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch that involved using the New York City sewer system to scatter circular pieces of confetti that were produced by hole punches. Her quick action and her willingness to keep up the charade of the "texting teen" has allowed us to vanquish those Brothers and keep the world safe from hole punches once again!

Thanks, Alexa.

A Traitor in our Midst!

Thank you, Tim, for explaining where I had been. As I was not allowed to post during that time, I had not yet released this information to the public, but I have been diligently doing more research into the situation. Please be vigilant should any man going by 'Quisling' approach you. Given his name, I am surprised I did not see this coming. This is the story:

Quisling was a Count of Lincoln County, Nevada. He appeared to be a very loyal supporter of the GPD. He was entrusted with the office and responsibility of disposing of brads. As I was investigating the underground baby pirating network, I was led to his office by an informant, whom we shall call "C.J." C.J. suggested that 'Quisling' may somehow be involved in this world of black market trade. With disbelief in my heart, I determined to investigate the situation in order to clear his good name. However, I was shocked when I entered his office unannounced and saw him shredding papers in a device that appeared to be built from brads. He evidently saw my surprise and took the opportunity to flee the scene. Though we are not sure where he is, we are confident that we will find him soon. An investigation of his office showed that he had built up crafty contrivances with brads. The sting of this betrayal was made all the more painful by the fact that these were the brads which he had been entrusted to destroy. It was apparent that he had been functioning to further the cause of the Parent Corporation for many years. Papers indicated that he had also been selling these brads on the black market. It also appears that he may have been corresponding with other members of the GPD. This cannot be confirmed because they were using code names. However, do not fear, we have conducted secret investigations on all of our offices, and you are still safe taking your brads and other nefarious objects to your local GPD office.

As for Quisling, we are issuing a level G watch. This means that if any of you come in contact with him, do not attempt to restrain him, but immediately call your local GPD officers and he will be apprehended promptly.

An explanation

We have received a number of questions asking what has become of Daniel, and so we feel it is time to explain to our supporters what has been going on. Daniel, as a probationary member of the Board of Dictators, had recently come up against his three-month review. As all of you know our probationary members are prohibited from posting during their review (to allow them to post would be to allow them to sway public opinion before we have even made our own decision). The review is very thorough and has consumed much of the Board's time over the last few weeks. Daniel's contributions to the cause have been tremendous even in the short time he has been with us, so it should have come as no surprise to our supporters that he has passed his review and become a full member* of the Board of Dictators. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we expect nothing if not to hear more from Daniel soon now that he is free to speak!

*Full members are not allowed full voting rights until after they have passed their certification exams. Daniel is now preparing for the exams and should have them under his belt by the end of the year.

A FAQ about the underground people

Many people responded to my latest post with numerous questions about the hollow center of the earth and the people that live there. This post will be an attempt to answer as many of these questions as possible.

Q. Where is the hollow center of the earth?
A. As the name implies, it is at the center of the earth.

Q. Didn't science disprove this theory years ago?
A. Have you ever read a scientific work about someone who made direct observations of the earth's core? Indirect observations are fine and dandy, but unless you've been there please don't try to tell us it's impossible.

Q. How did people get there?
A. We haven't completed our investigations just yet, but from our guide's story it sounds like they traveled there long ago from the surface of the earth.

Q. How did they learn Esperanto?
A. Our guide took a correspondence course in Esperanto from the University of Phoenix.

Q. Why won't they help in the fight against brads?
A. This is an unfair loaded question. They are helping in the fight against brads, but they will not join us above ground as many of them have reverse-claustrophobia and can't stand to be in large caverns or open areas for very long. They did agree to hunt down and destroy any representatives of the Parent Corporation they might find down there, so we are pleased with the arrangement.

Q. How are you going to keep in contact with them?
A. We left a bunch of fiber-optic cables leading to a communication station down there, so we hope our guide will send us email from time to time. If he doesn't, we'll send emissaries down every couple of months.

Q. What is to be gained by this alliance? Was it really worth spending a week of your life underground?
A. Those who ask this question have obviously never read Edgar Rice Burrough's series of books about Pellucidar. Please read them and then ask your questions. Of course it was worth a week of my time.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not pleased with our new allies, and we hope you can share our enthusiasm!

A report on my adventure

When I set out last week on a journey to the hollow center of the earth I had no idea what would befall me, but we knew that it if we are truly going to establish a GNU World Order it was critical to enlist the people on the inside of the earth as well as on the outer crust. It wasn't an easy journey, and I won't bore you with the details, other than the fact that the entrance I used is in Preston, Idaho. The Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch found an entrance in Lubbock, Texas, but we have since sealed that entrance and heavily guarded the Preston, Idaho, entrance to prevent their interference in the future.

Our expedition wandered in the ground for several hours before coming upon the UBHP's delegation, at which time we hid and observed their actions. When we ascertained that they were attempting to beat us to the inhabitants of that strange world we promptly surrounded them and captured them. I sent a part of our force to the surface with them and moved on. My force sealed the Texas entrance and interrogated our captured enemies, but that's another story. The information we got from them was quite helpful, and we expect it to play a large role in future posts. We have learned, however, our lesson in spewing information in this forum prematurely, so you will have to wait to learn what we learned.

Anyway, after wandering through the caverns for what seemed like much longer than it actually was, we found what we were looking for: a representative of the inhabitants of the center of the earth. He was not much help as he didn't even speak Esperanto, but we managed to get our point across eventually using visual aids and sign language. He cowered when we showed him a picture of a hole punch, which goes to show how much primitive man initially feared the tools we have been taught to wield in the modern world.

He took us to his village (apparently there are many small villages down there, but they live in peace and prosperity due to the lack of brads and hole punches) and one elder there had learned to speak Esperanto, so we learned from her the story of their civilization. We also related the story of our efforts to keep nefarious office products out of their realm, and we got a treaty signed that states that while they will not join us in the fight above ground they will not tolerate brads or hole punches in their realms. We look forward to more talks with our subterranean friends, and at the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not pleased with the Parent Corporation's inability to spread their evils underground!

I'm back... more details to follow

I'm back from the underground, so I wanted to let you all know that I did not perish down there. I'll report on the successes of my mission shortly, but there are a few loose ends to tie up first.

Oh, and apparently the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch reads our blog, so in the future I will have to be more careful in announcing my next move on that forum. They sent emissaries ahead of us, but due to our sagacity we still beat them! Look for more details about my trip in the next few days.

German Operations

With Dictator Tim going underground for a while, it is time for me to step up and explain the underground activities which have kept me busy for so long.

I returned two days ago from my most dangerous task yet. Though we have thousands of supporters who would have gladly taken on this responsibility, I felt it was urgent to not put any of them at risk. I speak, of course, of immersing myself in the world of paper goods.

I flew to Germany, where I posed as a tourist with unsuspecting relatives, while simultaneously researching some foul rumors that had come to our attention. It seems that the Unholy Brotherhood has chosen to scale back their US operations temporarily, due to our increased diligence in our home country. What they did not realize is that the influence of the GNU Public Dictatorship has infiltrated every corner of the earth. So naturally our spies alerted us to their German activities immediately.

The world of paper goods, of course, is completely safe and approved by the GPD. The Unholy Brotherhood recognizes, of course, that there would be little use for hole punches if there were no paper products. They have been sending agents into various paper businesses, touting not only the nefarious uses of the hole punch but other products as well. While we are not yet at liberty to explain these malicious plans, be assured that we are working around the clock to come to that point. We at the GNU Public Dictatorship are nothing if not dedicated to informing you of potentially dangerous crafting products.

In the meantime, keep in mind a few basic rules:

* If your crafting supply has a jagged or sharp edge, its' use may be twisted or perverted to accomplish the nefarious and perverted goals of the Parent Corporation.

* If your crafting supply causes undue perforations or tears, you may want to pack it away until it has been examined by our Safety and Hazard Interrogation Team.

* If your crafting project encourages you to use other products that are known as unsafe, such as hole punches, you may be the victim of a plot by the Parent Corporation and Unholy Brotherhood.

Going underground for a while

With all that has been going on in the world and our fight with the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch, the Board of Dictators has decided that it would be in our best interest to enlist the help of any creatures that may live in the hollow center of the earth before the Parent Corporation can contact them. We know that science has told us it is highly unlikely that we will find anything living down there, but we have to try. I was chosen as the GPD's envoy to the people of the center of the earth, and am currently in final preparations for my journey. We have thought of many ways to get the Internet down there, but none of them have been practical, so if you don't hear from me for a week or so be assured that I am deep underground searching for new supporters!

Introducing an entirely new product line!

Since it was discovered that self-help really hurts people's self-esteem, we have had a panel working on a self-hurt books. Their research is complete, and we are about to release the first products in our new self-hurt line. We have purchased billboards all over the world and put up our new slogan, "If self-help hurts, then self-hurt helps!"

As with most things we do, we don't expect to make a lot of money off our self-hurt industry, but we do hope to make the world a better place. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not altruistic!

A nice idea

When the G8 summit declared that we won't let the earth's temperature rise more than two degrees Celsius by 2050 we decided that we should probably have some goals that sound nice but over which we can exert no real control. After all, what good is propaganda if we can't set lofty goals? Anyway, we held a meeting of the Board of Dictators and decided that in addition to supporting the G8's goal, we will add the goal that no more than 15 earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or greater will occur in that same time span.

Deadly Sins

While reading this article it occurred to me that we have never taken the time to create a list of Deadly Sins for supporters of the new future. We know that disrespecting the King of Pop is on the list, but if you have any other suggestions please submit them by Saturday July 18th. We'll compile the list as soon as we can.

It's amazing what the mainstream press doesn't print

Recently the mainstream press carried a story about a gorilla wielding a knife left behind by one of its keepers. What we can't figure out is why the mainstream press refuses to cover the story of a meerkat wielding a brad left behind by one of its keepers. I guess we either have a long way to go in convincing society or else the Brad Guys' influence is still greater than we thought.

Evidence of Humanity's Stupidity? - OR - A Parent Corporation Plot to Make us Think it is Evidence of Humanity's Stupidity?

When we simultaneously receive a number of similar incidents which seem to show the stupidity of humanity itself, we have to take a step back and look at the other evidence. In this case, (and this case, and this case) it appears that we just have more evidence that people seem to not understand the purposes of Emergency Services. If we hadn't posted about this before, we might believe that people make these mistakes, but given that our guidelines have been widely distributed, we suspected that perhaps this was a Parent Corporation plot. We'll have "Viktor" investigate as soon as he finishes his current assignment, but we believe there is a strong possibility that "Edgar" is instructing his followers to make it look like humans are stupid so that we as a species will acquiesce to his evil desires and join him. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not worried about the way such a world would be run, so we urge you to not give in to despair just yet!

Hold on to your cold cuts

For many years now the number of lunch meat thefts has been so low that most of us are not afraid to go out in the open with a deli sandwich, but for those of us who have been around for a few years we remember the age when to take a sliced ham sandwich out of the safety of your home was to expect a violent mugging. Efforts on the part of the police and several government agencies have helped, but the stroke that nearly eradicated the threat was the formation of the Citizens for Cold Cut Safety (CCCS), a grass-roots organization that has for years been working behind the scenes to ensure that anyone could take a sandwich anywhere without fear of reprisal. Unfortunately, as this incident reminds us that the threat is still present. Granted, it wasn't a man with a gun or even a man with a knife, and granted, the bear only took the sandwich and left, but it stands a reminder to us all that we can' just waltz aroudn with our coldcuts out in the open. We should at least eat them in the safety of our own home, and transport them (if necessary) in discreet ways. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to eradicating sandwich muggings, and we hope you will use these common-sense tips!

Important Intelligence!

After reports of fires at the same unoccupied house in Lake Success, New York, two nights in a row, our operatives started sniffing around. "Viktor" found evidence that the house is not, as it purports to be, a private residence, but a laboratory where the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch spends its time researching chemical combinations that can be hidden on brads and hole punches without obvious damage to the evil implements themselves. After this discovery we also found clues that have told us much more about the UBHP and the Parent Corporation, including references to a "Wanda" who appears to be the marketing director of the Parent Corporation. We'll keep you updated whenever possible.

An update on the conference

After debating health care reform for several days now we are finally ready to take action. We have formed a standards body to lay out the standards for open-source healthcare that we call the OSHSWG (pronounced osh'swig). They will meet every second Thursday of every month via the Internet to discuss the standards we should apply to our health care system. If they can keep the same pace most standards groups achieve, we should have a draft solution by late 2024. Those who are too impatient for the standard can start using one of the reference implementations as soon as they feel like it. These implementations are not fully finished, and probably contain things that will not be part of the standard, but for those eager to start enjoying open-source healthcare now it is just the thing!