"Mentor" (For real this time)

From time to time we here at the GNU Public Dictatorship like to help our faithful world citizens out by telling them what we know about the people who are trying to manipulate them and control them, since at the GPD we are nothing if not concerned about helping you fit in to our organization and achieve your potential.  To that end, we are now going to share what we have learned about the man who goes by the pseudonym "Mentor" and leads a group called the Society.

First of all, we know that "Mentor" is a man and that his name at birth was Franklin Thigpen.  He was born into indigent circumstances in the mountains of Tennessee, but he soon discovered something that helped him rise above those humble beginnings and make something of himself.  He claims that it was the Secrets which are encoded in a 1216-page Manuscript that he got from a secret society, and that when he discovered them he came into himself.  Our research was inconclusive as to the cause of his sudden change of fortune.

Anyway, for the last few years Franklin a.k.a "Mentor" has been sharing the Secrets with those he considered worthy of his attention and helping them to achieve their own potential.  Secret societies are terrible at record keeping, so we have been unable to confirm that he has helped several million people as he claims, but we do know from financial records we were able to acquire that he has sold several copies of the Manuscript.  Recently Franklin read about evil office products on this forum, and, instead of heeding our warnings, decided that they were just the thing to bend people to his will.  We have had him under surveillance since he offered to by the New Company's interests in evil office products, and we have found that he is truly a force to be reckoned with.  He has a group of loyal followers that already do his will without questioning him, and if he can get more "loyal" followers by getting them dependent on his office products we will have a formidable enemy on our hands.  We are asking all of our loyal World Citizens to join us in educating the public about the dangers of evil office products so that we can keep "Mentor" from becoming a serious threat to the New Future!

"Mentor"

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to your safety, which is why we are writing this post for your enlightenment.  As you may have already guessed based on the very succinct title of this post, it is about "Mentor", the leader of the Society, which has recently purchased the brads, hole punches, and evil stickers division from the New Company.  We were waiting for the deal to be complete before posting, but it has come to our attention that "Mentor" knew what he was getting into when he bought the evil office products.  Both "Edgar" and "Natasha" warned him of the nefarious uses and symbolism in the products, and he told them that he knew and that he was trying to expand his empire in "any way possible."

We are disappointed that "Edgar" and "Natasha" chose to sell their interest in evil office products rather than to destroy the company, but we understand that, while they both have battled addiction to these instruments of destruction that they don't feel the same moral imperative to protect others from the same fate that we, the GPD's Board of Dictators, feel.

What, you may ask, is going to be our relationship with the New Company moving forward?  How very astute of you to ask.  The truth of the matter is that we don't know how things are going to work out, but that we are still in negotiations with "Edgar" and "Natasha" to get them to stop opposing us.  It is challenging, however, as we expect them to give into our demands while we are unwilling to give into their demands.  It is, unfortunately, a common way for negotiations to go these days.  At the GPD we are nothing if not hopeful that they will come around to seeing things our way in the near future and that we will be able to include them in the New Future.  In the meantime, though, we have policies in place that allow them to operate without interference as long as they don't interfere with us.

If you have made it this far you may be asking yourself why this post was titled "Mentor" when it has had very little to do with him up to this point.  The answer to that question is that we titled the post before we wrote it, and due to a provision in our editor's policy manual we are unable to change the title of the post after we have submitted it for review.  Next time we just won't submit it for review at all!

New developments

At the GNU Public dictatorship we are nothing if not pleased to be announcing the new developments that we have recently uncovered, which is why we are taking the time to compose this post detailing the important discoveries we are talking about.  When we last posted we had two open questions that have now been resolved, at least in part.  The first was the identity of the investor that bought the brads, evil stickers, and hole punches from the New Company.  The second was whether the League and the Society are the same organization or different, competing movements within a larger coalition.

The answer to the first question is that the investor who bought the evil office products division of the New Company was none other than the subject of the second question, The Society.  The answer to the second question is that the League and the Society are both extant organizations and members of the single Coalition.  It appears that the League has been operating longer, and has been spreading the Secrets and the Manuscript to worthy and faithful members of society.  One of those members, whose given name is still a little unclear, but who goes by the pseudonym of "Mentor", decided to buy a franchise from the League.  Unfortunately, due to arcane copyright restrictions, his franchise couldn't use the name of the original League as run by "Tom", so he came up with the Society.  The two organizations are the primary members of the Coalition, which appears to be made up of at least seven different organizations that revere the same Secrets and Manuscript.  If you consider their beliefs and methods, each of these organizations might as well be the same organization.  The differences arise in the personalities of their leaders.  "Mentor" has apparently taken a shine to evil office products, but what he intends to do with them is unclear as of yet.  "Tom" did send "Mentor" a note last week informing him that his latest purchase is of an evil nature, but we haven't seen a reply from "Mentor" yet.

You can be sure that we will let you know more about the Coalition and their methods, goals, and investments as we learn more about them.  At the GPD we are nothing if not happy to share with you!

A sale!

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not thrilled that, as per their recent press release, The Company has sold off its brad and hole punch divisions to an "investor" for a mere pittance.  The "investor" remains anonymous as yet, but our operatives have confirmed that he appears to have no connections to the Brad Guys or the Brotherhoods of the Hole Punch, Unholy or Reformed.

We will be studying this "investor" closely to see what he does with these implements of evil, but it is good that we no longer have to disapprove of "Edgar" or "Natasha" as they have finally made good on their promise to not use evil office products to rule the world.  We will, however, still have to disapprove of their rival attempt to rule the world, but we will continue to make appropriate gestures of goodwill to let them know that if they will abandon their foolish enterprise which is doomed to failure anyway, that we will accept them as world citizens in the New Future!

Interesting developments

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not excited to report on my latest research project, even though there is little of substance to report.  At about the time we were subjected to the PBJ DDoS attack last year, I began receiving invitations to join an elite society referred to only as "The League."  I didn't mention anything here in this forum as I wasn't sure yet whether they were allied with our enemies or whether they are an independent force in the world, but I did start infiltrating their ranks.  It appears that the infamous Churro Note was simply their way of asking us to investigate them.  In the intervening months I have been awarded membership and given "The Secrets" that are supposed to help a person succeed and control the laws of chance and give them other superpowers like being able to read minds and control outcomes of complex situations.  Unfortunately, "The Secrets" are in code, and we have our best code breakers working on them right now.  What makes this interesting, however, is that in the days since "The Secrets" were delivered to me, "The League" has stopped contacting me, and an organization calling itself "The Society" is asking me if I have decoded "The Secrets" they gave me yet.

Whether the band of individuals called "The League" has become "The Society" or whether they have merely been supplanted by a rival faction remains to be seen.  Perhaps they are competing groups built upon the same principals but headed by different individuals, or perhaps they are just not sure what to call themselves.  You can rest assured, however, that the GPD will not rest until we know the answers to these important questions, and when we have decoded the mysterious "Secrets" for the benefit of all!

"Elections" results

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not sad to report that none of the candidates for membership in the Board of Dictators were accepted in this round of "elections".

• Jill Quispe Gonzales Noot was eliminated as she did not pass the guest writer trial
• Eero Smith was eliminated as he refused to keep "Natasha's" true mission a secret until it had played out.  He will be released from the GNU Public Dungeons as soon as his ride arrives.
• Dak Mueller was eliminated when it was found that the sleep number he reported on his application did not match the sleep number he typically uses.  This came to light when the sleep number bed he was sleeping on was found at a 23 instead of the 26 that he had reported.  Unfortunately for him, the surveillance images of the bed did not support his story that "I am Dak and someone must have changed it!"  He was caught changing it in his sleep, and when our researchers finished vetting his story about choosing his sleep number it became clear that he occasionally has lapses in his memory and isn't reliable enough to be a member of the Board of Dictators.

We hope that all of our loyal supporters will begin the process of applying for our next election now so that you will fare better than this year's finalists!

News about "Natasha"

In the weeks since our finalist Eero wrote in this forum, we have found much out about our former operative "Natasha."  In fact, we found so much about her that we had to stop posting for a while so as not to jeopardize her plans.

Eero wrote that we had found that "Natasha" was asking about jobs in the fledgling combination brad/hole punch industry, and that was the truth.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not sorry that we had to mislead you and Eero, but the reasons behind her inquiry were not what we told Eero to report in his post.  In fact, "Natasha" was trying to crush the fledgling industry before it got started, which is why she was trying to cozy up to all of the players.  While it is true that the money wasn't there for this doubly devilish office doohickey, it is also true that bad ideas like this sometimes flourish, especially when backed by evil conspiracies.  When we realized what "Natasha" was doing we contacted her and coordinated our responses.  We simply pretended to be busy and not posting regularly, and "Natasha" continued her operation.  We are pleased to announce that her operation was a success, and that all of the backers of the combination brad/hole punch have abandoned their investments and are looking elsewhere.

On another note, "Natasha" claims that "Edgar" has restructured the New Company to isolate the brad and hole punch revenue in a subsidiary that she claims he intends to sell.  If this information is reliable (and you can be sure we will find out whether it is reliable) then our relationship with "Edgar," "Natasha," and the New Company is entering new territory.  It may be that our only real conflict with them is who should be in charge of the New Future!

Guest Writer: Eero Smith

At the GNU Public Dictatorship they are nothing if not excited to see what I will post, which is why they have given me the opportunity to write to this forum.  Much has been going on in the world since the GPD's last posts, and I am going to try to help you, their faithful supporters, to understand how it will impact you.

At the GPD they are nothing if not opposed to senseless violence, or senseless anything, for that matter, which is why they join with the people of France in sympathy for their losses in the recent attacks on the satirical magazine that offended some people.  At the GPD they are nothing if not careful to not offend people, or at least to not offend supporters.  They don't have any problem offending their enemies, which is how it should be.

At the GPD they are also nothing if not dedicated to finding out what the full story with "Natasha" is, which is why they have been studying transcripts of her phone calls and other communications for the last year.  Some of their less-loyal supporters may be disturbed to know that they have transcripts of phone calls, but they assure me that nobody who is loyal to the GPD has anything to worry about.  The transcripts are so numerous that the effort required to analyze them is prohibitive unless there is some hint of disloyalty or potential addiction to brads.  Over the last few days they have discovered that "Natasha" is bored because she feels unfulfilled in her current life, and that she wants more.  She asked a friend, who we shall not name, if there were any positions open in the fledgling industry of combination brad/hole punches.  The market is only now emerging, as a response to posts like this one, which attempt to show how fun brads and hole punches can be.  "Natasha" was told that she could volunteer, but the money isn't there yet, thankfully.  Anyway, it is clear from the transcripts that "Natasha" isn't trying to rejoin the GPD for ideological reasons as she would clearly not be trying to find a job in such an offensive field if she was.  It is clear at this point that "Natasha" is simply looking for social fulfillment wherever she can get it.

At the GPD they are nothing if not pleased that the only remaining mystery surrounding this whole affair is the source of the churro note!

Jill Quispe Gonzalez Noot

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to bringing you the best information possible, which is why we regret that it has been so long since we have posted in this forum.  We have had several posts ready to go, but we were going to give our second finalist, Jill Quispe Gonzalez Noot, an opportunity to be a guest writer.  She has written several drafts and had them approved by our panel of experts, but in each case she has deleted the post and started over.  For the first few days we figured this was an expression of her perfectionism, but now after weeks of stalling we understand that Jill doesn't have what it takes to post to this forum.  She second-guesses what she writes and doesn't have the confidence to put it out there anyway.  Unfortunately, this means that Ms. Quispe Gonzalez Noot has not passed the guest writer trial and will no longer be considered for membership in the Board of Dictators.  Her resume will be passed on to our other departments, as her passion and skills may serve her well somewhere else, but you won't be seeing a guest post from her here, and she will definitely not be "elected" into the Board of Dictators.

An explanation

Many of you have written in to complain that yesterday's post by Dak did not conform to the GNU Public Dictatorship's style guide.  At the GPD we are nothing if not consistent, which is why we are deeply sorry that the lack of consistency in the post caused some of you angst.  At the same time, we feel it would be unfair to judge Dak based on one post, and we feel that you should all know a little about him.

Dak Mueller was born in a small house outside No Name, Colorado in 1976.  The day and month are lost to history, but we were able to confirm that it preceded the election of Jimmy Carter as President of the United States by at least two weeks.  His parents were employed at the Glenwood Canyon Resort, and he was often able to see the dangers of brads as those who carried them often ended up puncturing their river rafts.  When he discovered the GNU Public Dictatorship in the early 1990s he quickly organized a community organization to stop the spread of brads in the area, and was quite successful.

Unfortunately, Dak was involved in an accident caused by a driver using a hole punch instead of paying attention, and he was left in a coma for several days.  Upon emerging from the coma it was discovered that Dak had recovered nearly completely, but that for some reason he would insert the phrase "I am Dak" in written and spoken communication with alarming frequency.  He is currently receiving therapy to reduce the number of times he inserts that phrase, but we would like to let you know that you should cut him a little slack and not get too upset if his communications feel a little rough to you.  If he does become a member of the Board of Dictators we will certainly provide him with an editor that will help reduce the frequency of his signature phrase!

Guest Writer: Dak Mueller

Greetings, supporters of the GNU Public Dictatorship.  I am Dak, and I have some information for you.  Most of you have been following the mysterious messages we received last month, and we have been receiving inquiries about the subject for the last few weeks.  I am Dak, and I have been authorized to share with you what the GNU Public Dictatorship's operatives have found in their investigations.

Operatives were able to reach "Natasha" a few days after the GPD received the strange communications, but she was unwilling to comment on the messages, which is why the investigation expanded elsewhere.  I am Dak, and I can tell you that yesterday "Natasha" made contact with the GPD and let them know that she was not involved in the churro note, but that the message encoded on the applications that showed a representation of a churro was from her, and she congratulated the GPD on finding the message when it did.  Apparently she has been very bored lately and decided that she could have some fun by hiding a message and watching what happened.  I am Dak, and I can tell you that she had expected the GPD to fail to decode the message, and that she was trying to decide whether to take responsibility for several weeks now.  The GPD is not sure yet why she decided to come forward now, but they are pleased that part of the mystery is solved.  There remain at least two more mysteries, however:

1. Why is "Natasha" so bored?
2. Who sent the churro note?

I am Dak, and I am authorized to say that the GPD will let you all know when they have satisfactory information!

The Finalists

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not pleased to announce the names of the finalists in this year's "election."  It is difficult to choose among such well-qualified applicants, but we have used all of the resources at our disposal to whittle the list down, including automated resume scanners, fraud detection algorithms, sleep number verification systems, panels of experts, and ask.com (although ask.com was uncharacteristically unhelpful when we asked it which candidate it recommended.  In fact, it started providing references to sites with titles such as "Electoral fraud."  We are disappointed with ask.com's performance in this task, and may have to ask it to either attend some training or seek a new position).  Here are this year's finalists:

- Dak Mueller of No Name, Colorado, USA.  Dak has been involved in the GNU Public Dictatorship's community outreach programs since the late 1990's, and has been instrumental in preventing brads and hole punches from reaching his community.  His application for membership in the Board of Dictators is one of the neatest we have ever seen.
-Jill Quispe Gonzalez Noot, of Biddinghuizen in the Netherlands.  Jill has a colorful history that she will hopefully share with you all.  It wouldn't be doing her justice to try to explain it in a single paragraph.
-Eero Smith of Stony Mountain, Alberta, Canada.  Eero's essays really stood out and made up for his lack of formal training in the arts of propaganda and control of world events.

That's it for this year.  As you can see, all three are from smaller towns this year, a trend that we found interesting but could not explain.  We are glad to have such qualified candidates and look forward to their biographical sketches and attempts at post to this forum!

"Natasha"

After some careful forensic analysis of the dry erase markers sent to us last week, we have concluded that "Natasha" did indeed handle them at some point, but we have not been able to conclude whether she sent them to us, or whether they were intended as a restitution for her treacherous acts.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not unsatisfied by ambiguity, so we will continue to exert our efforts to discover who is behind this and the secret churro messages, and to determine whether they are related or not.

Many of you, our loyal supporters, have written to us requesting that we explain a little about "Natasha" and her service to the GPD and her relationship with "Edgar".  While we will endeavor to give a portrait of her, however, we are not at liberty to discuss all of the details of her work for the Board of Dictators and there are some gaps in our understanding of what has occurred since she married "Edgar".

"Natasha" was one of our best operatives.  She was born in difficult circumstances in the Middle East, but because of some services that were rendered by her parents she was brought to the United States of America as a young girl.  She was trained at the best operative schools available, and graduated near the top of her class.  We would love to tell you where in the Middle East, where in the United States, or which schools, but to tell you would compromise some of our other best operatives, so we won't do so now.

At some point while "Natasha" was working undercover at the Parent Corporation/UBHP she became addicted to evil office products and became romantically involved with the then-CEO "Edgar".   We found "Edgar" passed out and sequestered  him in a reality simulator, and used "Natasha" to figure out his true motives.  "Natasha" apparently valued "Edgar" more than her work with us, and, to make a long story short, she helped him escape and married him, and then joined in his attempts to achieve what he termed Rule by "Edgar".  She did occasionally join us in missions against evil office products, but she was not nearly so valuable as she had been before.

"Natasha" opposed all of "Edgar's" efforts to join with us when he applied for membership in the Board of Dictators, which disappointed us greatly.  At this point we decided that "Natasha" was no longer a good World Citizen, and we put her on our list of people to imprison should we get a chance.  Not much later she returned the dry erase markers she had taken when she left and apparently tried to normalize relations, but then her husband took over as CEO of the New Company, and relations have been strained again.

From what we know, "Natasha" is still a very bright and capable operative and would be an asset to any cause she embraces, but her loyalty is in serious doubt.  She may be reaching out to us again now, but the offers are so vague and the message so unclear that we will simply have to wait and see.

Restitution?

In our mail today we received 34 boxes of dry erase markers, which, although it may not initially sound significant, is the exact number of dry erase markers that our former operative "Natasha" absconded with when she left us to join "Edgar".  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not cautious, which is why we won't be able to say that this is an overture from "Natasha" until we get the forensic analysis of the markers and the packaging or until we see anything further from "Natasha", but along with the rumors that "Edgar" and "Natasha" are having difficulties there are clearly indications that "Natasha" may be attempting to reach out for help.  She already returned the dry erase markers she took, but we are having trouble deciding why we would receive 34 boxes at this time.  Our current thought is that she is trying to reach out to us and mend the bridges she so cruelly burned.  Either that, or she or someone else just wants us to think that she is attempting a restitution.  We'll let you know when we know more.

More information about the churro note

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not grateful for the alertness of our supporters, which was responsible this time for returning the remainder of the mysterious note to our offices last night.  Loyal supporter Francine Ewart turned it in at her local GPD offices along with an explanation that she had bought a churro earlier that day and that she had found it wrapped in part of a note, the significance of which she had failed to recognize until she read our post yesterday.  Here is the note (again, where readable):

                                                                    ng
at his wife, "Na     " as she is cle     nhap  
I will send more     s when I can

It doesn't answer all of the questions, but it does suggest that perhaps the applications had their origin in our former operative "Natasha" and not in her husband "Edgar."  They also suggest that we may get more notes, so we will be sure to consume our usual churros on schedule just in case!

A secret note

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not thrilled that we are making so much progress towards the New Future, which is why we are planning festivities to coincide with the US holiday of Thanksgiving to get together and review just how far we have come.  For details, please consult your local GPD offices.

On another (literal) note, we recently received communication that we found very interesting, to say the least.  We were taking a churro break from our Board Meetings, when we discovered that one of the churros was wrapped with a note.  We have reproduced what we could read of the note below (there were several oily spots where the paper had been destroyed beyond our ability to reconstruct it on the spot, but we will continue to study the note in our labs):

Esteemed Members of the GNU Publi   ictatorship's Board of Dictators:
It has come to my attention that you h      ecently received a series    applications
for membersh  p in the Board of Dictato   that together form a picture of a churro.
It has also co    o my attention that you believe the applications to from from
you rival "E       who is bent on destroying you.  This note is to l          know that
you are sadly    staken as to the origin of this message and that yo     ld be looki

Unfortunately, the note appears to have been torn at this point and we were unable to recover the rest of the note from the churro stand we were patronizing at the time.  This mysterious note does appear to provide some information about the odd applications, but it raises several new questions, such as:

• Who wrote the note?  Unfortunately it was printed using a very common laser printer, but our chemists were able to find that "compatible toner" was used, so perhaps we can narrow the field that way.
• Why would the author of the note not want us to investigate "Edgar" as the source of the applications in question?
• Why would the author of the note hide it on a churro but not ensure that the entire note reaches us?
• Did the author of the note send the secret churro message in the applications?

Our investigations into the mysterious message are proceeding, but as of yet "Edgar" has not admitted or denied involvement, and you can rest assured that we won't rest until we have gotten to the bottom of this mystery.

89 Aliases and Churros

We reported last week that "Edgar" has applied to be a member of the GNU Public Dictatorship's Board of Dictators under at least 83 different aliases, and at the GNU Public Dictatorship we are pleased to announce that our analysis of the applications is now complete, and that our statisticians can say with a fair amount of certainty that "Edgar" used exactly 89 aliases, in addition to his real name.  On 83 of those aliases the sleep number and Tetris high score were identical, which led to our initial suspicions.  As most of you know, the odds of having the same sleep number as another individual is fairly low, as are the odds of sharing a Tetris high score.  The probability of sharing both is so low that it is believed there are only a handful of small groups of people in the world who can honestly claim that distinction.  The odds of having a group of 83 people in one of these groups AND all of these applying for membership in the GPD's Board of Dictators is so ridiculously low that we had to believe that "Edgar" was intentionally playing at something, and until today we weren't sure just what.  Luckily, we had our corps of artists examine the applications in question and we discovered that when placed in a set of grids (with placement determined by month and day of birth of the alias) the grids of the pages of the applications form an ASCII-art picture of a churro.  The grids were assembled into a master grid with 30 pages on each side.  Since each application contains 10 pages and 30x30 is 900, we expected 90 applications from "Edgar".  At this point it was a simple matter of finding which other applications best completed the pictures, and when we found them we knew that "Edgar" had used 89 aliases in addition to his own name.

We're not sure quite yet what the message "Edgar" intends to convey with this elaborate artwork, but we will continue to study it to find out if there are other hidden messages, and we have sent an ambassador to meet with "Edgar" to see if he will just tell us what he meant.

A surprise

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not difficult to surprised, but we must say that it was a great surprise to learn the "Edgar" applied for membership in the Board of Dictators again this year.  Actually, that wasn't the great surprise, as we know that "Edgar" is bent on world domination any way he can get it.  The real surprise was that he applied under at least 83 distinct aliases.  Our application review process quickly noticed that the sleep numbers and Tetris high scores were the same on all 83 applications, which led us to further investigation.  We're not sure if that was meant to try to get a callback or as another denial-of-service attack, but we are sorry to inform him (and other applicants) that more applications does not increase your chances of being chosen in a GPD "election".  We have reviewed this case and we will still review "Edgar's" original application in the interest of good will.

"Elections" review

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not fascinated by statistics, so we were eager to hear what our statisticians said about the submissions for the GPD election that closed over the weekend.  Apparently we have 35.6% more submissions than two years ago, and the average initial quality of the applicants is up 10.31% from 887.1 to 978.56.  This is good news, and it means we have a better chance of finding the right candidate this year!  As in previous years, candidates will be asked to take a chance posting on this forum, and we will likely reproduce pieces of their essay responses.  I know I'm looking forward to it!

The New Company's latest strategy

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to destroying the evil New Company and all of its affiliates, and we have made some great progress of late.  Although we know there are but few of you, for those who haven't been visiting their local County offices over the last few months we will summarize our accomplishments here.

1. We were able to contain the "Cabbage (Patch?) Kids" outbreak in eastern Asia.  As it turns out it wasn't the New Company behind it, but we did find that some sources that contribute money to the New Company were involved, and we have added those organizations to our list of affiliates of the New Company.
2. We did not capitulate to "Edgar's" demands that we step aside and let him rule the world. Instead we increased our efforts.  The recent PBJ DDoS attack was apparently "Edgar's" attempt to punish us for not stepping aside.  It appears that the attack took enough resources that the New Company hasn't launched other major projects for months
3. The New Company is reducing its brad and hole punch output, much as "Edgar" said they would.  It appears that, as he said, he is not so much bent on evil office products as on world domination.  Perhaps we can work with him after all.
4. The Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch and the Reformed Brotherhood of the Hole Punch have moved to a series of small islands off the California coast where they believe they will be left to worship the hole punch according to the dictates of their consciences without our interference.  As a gesture of good will, we have signed an agreement with them that if they don't evangelize beyond their islands, we won't oppose them.  So far the agreement has held.

In general, then, the GPD is in a fairly good situation. While we still have some organizations out there actively promoting evil office products (the Brad Guys, the UBHP and RBHP) and we still have a worthy rival in "Edgar" we are holding our own and gaining ground.  Make no mistake, we aren't saying that we have won, and we know that "Edgar" probably has a million plans up his sleeve, but we have been able to broker some very interesting political deals all over the world and are very active in laying the foundations of the New Future, which we hope will come sooner rather than later.  If all of you remain vigilant we're sure it will come sooner!

"Elections" deadline coming up very soon!

As we sort through the results of the US elections, we at the GNU Public Dictatorship are nothing if not grateful that our "elections" are different.  If you missed our post last week, please look it up, and don't forget to apply by November 8, 2014, at midnight UTC!

PBJ DDoS: A FAQ

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not pleased that our supporters have been submitting many questions about the PBJ DDoS, which is why we have decided to take the time to publish this FAQ for you.  If you don't find an answer to your question here, please contact us or your local GPD office.

Q. What is a PBJ DDoS attack?  Does it have to do with peanut butter and jelly?

A.  Unfortunately there is no peanut butter or jelly involved in a PBJ DDoS, which stands for Paper-Based Junkmail Distributed Denial-of-Service attack.

Q. What is the goal of a DoS attack?

A. The idea in any Denial-of-Service attack is to keep some person or organization from providing its legitimate services by overwhelming its service mechanism.  This sort of attack has often been used about companies' websites.

Q. How does a DoS attack work?

A. A simple Denial-of-Service attack is much like a two-year-old constantly saying "Mom!" every few seconds.  After several hours of this behavior the mother is usually so stressed out that she just ignores legitimate requests from the two-year-old or from others.  It can be easily solved, however, by putting the child down for a nap.  In network terms, a simple Denial-of-Service attack can be easily blocked by ignoring requests from a certain requester.

Q. How does a DDoS attack work?

A. A Distributed Denial-of-Service attack is more like a group of two-year-old children at a daycare all yelling for attention at once.  The primary difference here is that the effort required to stop the attack is much greater, as putting fifteen children down for a nap is much harder than putting a single child to bed.

Q. How does a PBJ DDoS attack work?

A.  Most DDoS attacks currently target websites or network infrastructure.  A Paper-Based Junkmail Distributed Denial-of-Service attack targets the physical mail infrastructure of an individual or organization.  While ignoring a few pieces of junkmail every day is a reasonable thing to do, ignoring 400,000 pieces of junkmail crafted to look like legitimate correspondence every day requires many more resources.

Q. Why did it take so long to recover from this massive PBJ DDoS attack?

A. The success of this most recent attack comes from several factors:

1. It was unprecedented.  Nobody in the field had even considered mounting this sort of attack due to its massive cost.
2. It was massive.  The quantity of mail received over the entire attack was extremely large.  While it started slowly to not arouse suspicion it soon became apparent that the attack was so large that we would have to shut our public-facing doors and clean up after the attack.  We have contingency plans for this sort of shutdown, so our operatives were able to keep the New Company in check in the meantime, but we were unable to bring our presence to bear on the problems facing the world.
3. It was sustained.  The attack lasted for several months.

At the GPD we are nothing if not disappointed with our response, which is why we have implemented protocols to prevent this sort of attack from succeeding in the future!

Daylight Saving

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not concerned with conservation of our resources, which is why we have been militant supporters of Daylight Saving.  As it turns out, however, we may have been too hasty, as the following analysis will show.  The goal of this post is to keep our supporters informed so that they will not realize too late that they have joined up to fight the wrong enemy.

The first thing to note is that daylight is not, as been widely reported, a non-renewable resource.  We initially doubted this claim, and sent for our scientists.  Even though they already believed that daylight was a renewable resource, they set up several experiments to help us understand it more fully.  These experiments all involved a long-term study of the intensity and duration of daylight and was adjusted for weather conditions.  As it turns out, our scientists were unable to design a single experiment that showed that our consumption of that daylight affected the future availability of that daylight, try as they might (they created 406,123 separate experiments).  In fact, what our scientists' experiments showed was that we have very little or no impact on how much daylight is present, and that seasonal variations and weather variations account for much of the difference.

The second thing to note is that daylight is not evenly distributed around the globe.  Some of you may have heard that the seasons are caused by the tilting of the earth's axis relative to its orbit around the sun, but you may be surprised to know that the amount of daylight received at any point on the earth's surface is correlated to the latitude of that location.  This results in an uneven distribution of daylight, meaning that, during winter, those in higher latitudes are often starved of daylight while those in lower latitudes are not subjected to such privations.  On the other hand, during summer the situation is reversed, with those in higher latitudes receiving excessive amounts of daylight.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we find this inequality disturbing, and we had thought that by fighting for Daylight Saving we would be able to create a bank of daylight that could be used to redistribute the wealth, but, as you will see in the next paragraph, that is apparently not the case.

The third idea to note is that daylight cannot be stored and retrieved in any reasonable manner known to our scientists.  While we can convert the energy to other forms, such as electrical charges, and then convert that back into light, we have as yet been unable to convert it back into daylight.

Lastly, Daylight Saving Time doesn't even attempt to actually save daylight or redistribute it to those who need it most.  It doesn't attempt to store it for future needs, and it doesn't do anything to address the cyclical nature of daylight levels.  In fact, all that it does it to change what we call certain times of day in order to encourage us to change our behavior based on this label.  In short, it is poorly named.  It should be called something more like "Daylight Shifting Time" as it accomplishes little else.  We apologize for being led astray thinking that we were saving the environment, but we are grateful to our scientists who helped us discover our error before we has spent too much time supporting a cheap trick instead of investing in technologies that will actually store, transport, and restore daylight.  We're still trying our best on these technologies, and now that our scientists are freed up we may make swifter progress!

Some more information

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not grateful for your support, as the open source model demands the participation of all.  After our post yesterday about the Paper-Based Junkmail Distributed Denial of Service attack (PBJ DDoS) we received a great deal of information from you, helping us to fill in the missing details.

Many of you indicated that you had been recruited via paper mail to send letters on behalf of a mailing company, and that you had been promised that you would receive compensation for the materials.  All but a very few of our supporters ignored the letter and soon forgot about it.  A few of you, however, did as the letter suggested.  (Note: Our lawyers would like to point out that those who did as the letter suggested are more aptly labeled "former supporters" of "provisional supporters" as their lack of judgment in this case calls into question their fitness for the New Future)

Based on our research, it appears that the entity behind this campaign was none other than the New Company, and that they thought they would avoid our scrutiny by using nearly-obsolete paper mail.  They did use one of their sister companies to avoid the liability from the sure-to-come lawsuits, but it was clearly carried out on the orders of the New Company.  They appear to have purloined postage from several legitimate enterprises to send their solicitations, and they appear to have, not surprisingly, not paid any of their recruits.

The total cost to the New Company for this attack, then, was minimal.  They effectively distributed the postage cost to their recruits, and they even made the recruits use their own toner and paper to print the letters, essentially creating a botnet out of unsuspecting individuals around the world.  We had hoped that some of the letters had come from actual robots, but I guess we can't always get our way.  Here's hoping that next time someone launches a PBJ DDoS that it will use real robots!

A Paper-based Distributed Denial of Service Attack

In yesterday's post we alluded to "technical difficulties" that have kept us from posting regularly to this forum.  In fact, we hadn't been able to post here since August 22, 2014, and before that May 16, 2014.  This was not, unfortunately, by design.

In early May of this year our local GNU Public Dictatorship offices around the world began to report an elevated level of submissions via paper mail, and asked for some extra assistance getting through the correspondence.  Consistent with the GPD's operating guidelines, we began to distribute our staff around the world and asked them to help with the massive influx of paper mail.  This approach appeared to work quite well initially, and our posts continued as normal, but as the volume increased at local offices our staff became more and more spread out, and, unfortunately, the communication lines we normally use to keep this sort of attack from being effective were strained so much by the influx of paper mail that it began to break down.  During the weekend of May 16, 2014, these communications were completely cut off, but we didn't learn of the lapse in communications for another four days.  At that point, we switched gears into incident cleanup mode, but due to the volume of mail and the unfortunate distribution of our staff it took several months to get the lines of communication back up.

We believed we had stabilized the situation and we were able to post on August 22, 2014, but it soon became clear that another wave of attacks was just beginning.  This time we were much more prepared, but due to the nature of the communication we receive it became apparent that we couldn't just recycle all of the correspondence we had received.  It has taken the last two months to clean up the piles of paper mail we received and to simultaneously implement some controls to prevent this situation from occurring again.  At this point we believe we have the protocols in place to not be taken by surprise again.

We have learned several lessons from this attack, but the outstanding questions we are trying to adequately answer are:

1. Why would someone launch this attack, at such great expense to themselves as postage for billions of letters starts to get expensive?
2. How many people were involved?
3. Were the people involved part of a botnet?
4. Were the people involved actually robots?

We do know that the attack was a well-coordinated distributed denial-of-service attack, the likes of which are unprecedented in the world of paper mail, We will provide more detail as we get it!

"Elections" are coming up very soon!

As most of you are already aware, the "elections" to the GNU Public Dictatorship's Board of Dictators are coming up next month.  The deadline for applications to be considered is Saturday, November 8, 2014 at midnight UTC.  Due to some technical difficulties that will be expounded upon in future posts we have not been able to post about this in this forum, but, lest you complain about the short notice let us remind you that this information has been available at your local GPD County Offices for several months, and had you been a more active participant in world affairs you would have known about this earlier.

As a quick reminder, the "elections" to the Board of Dictators are not your typical democratic elections.  Instead they combine the best of democracy, the open-source movement, and the management practices that high-performing corporations and dictatorships employ and that universities use for admissions.  The first step is the application, which is about as democratic as it can get.  Anyone is welcome to submit an application, and there are no fees to process the application.  The next step is a thorough review of the applications.  The purpose of this review is to separate the "serious" applicants from those who are applying for the wrong reasons.  This is not, however, a thorough background check; it is more like a checksum or a consistency check on the application.  We don't verify that everything you say in your application is true and that you, the applicant, is who you say you are.  We simply verify that the application taken as a whole makes sense and appears to be complete.  Once the serious applicants are identified, the claims made in those applications are evaluated in depth.  During this evaluation the applicants are notified that they are being seriously considered for membership in the Board of Dictators, and various "tasks" are assigned to them and their performance evaluated.  These two steps are probably the third and fourth steps of the process, but they are so intertwined that it's hard to say which is the third and which is the fourth.  The fifth step, should it be necessary, is to take any applicants who have performed adequately on their "tasks" and whose claims are awesome enough to warrant it and to discuss them in a special formal meeting of the Board of Dictators.  If a qualified applicant is found and all members of the Board of Dictators agree that the applicant is a good match for the GPD, the applicant is made a provisional member of the Board of Dictators.  If they continue to perform adequately, they will be made full members of the Board of Dictators at some future time.

As you can all see, this process is clearly better than a simple "first past the post" election system, where voters are often asked to choose between terrible candidates but are not given the choice to say "none of the above."  At the GPD we are nothing if not dedicated to excellence!

Application materials are available here (note that they are the 2012 forms, which is okay as no applicants were "elected" during that cycle):

Version	Word	PDF
US	US2983-2012M	US2983-2012M
International	W2983-2012J	W2983-2012J

Unrest and unease

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to a fair, equitable, and violence-free New Future, which is why we are exerting our influence to make things better.  Unfortunately, there are times when our efforts to improve your lives and ours sometimes require frustration, pain, or suffering from World Citizens.  Now is one of those times.  We have been working tirelessly to prepare the world to accept the Board of Dictators as the supreme rulers and benefactors, but in order to radically change the status quo we first have to shake up the current political organizations.

Some have called on us to stop the standoff between the US and its allies and Russia, others have given us a hard time for not having resolved the Syria situation or the rise to power of the ISIS movement in Syria and Iraq, and some have even criticized us for not ending the conflict in Gaza yet.  While it pains us to see any World Citizens suffer, any philosopher who isn't lying to himself would have to agree that the benefits to all of the world's people through the GPD outweigh the inconveniences suffered by the unfortunate.  Even Mr. Spock agreed that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

As with any great Cause, the New Future comes with a price.  As members of the Board of Dictators it pains us to see any suffering, but if we intervened in every such situation our computer models suggest that

• Our credibility would decrease, as human suffering is not wholly preventable.  While many of our efforts would be effective, those where we couldn't stop the suffering would reflect badly upon our organization, and serve to alienate potential supporters, making it less likely to succeed every time we intervened.
• Our carefully laid plans would come to naught as governmental organizations that have heretofore ignored us would start trying to make our ascent to power more difficult.
• Instead of welcoming the New Future we would constantly be patching holes in the Old Present.  There simply aren't enough of us yet to eliminate all of the world's suffering.

To be perfectly clear, we do intervene whenever we believe the threat to humanity outweighs the risks we undertake, and we always oppose those organizations that come out in open opposition to the GPD, but we cannot be held responsible for governments that can't seem to play nicely with each other.  In fact, perhaps their squabbles will serve to open doors for the GNU Public Dictatorship and improve all of humanity!

Another failed bank

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not cautious, which is why we have always recommended properly researching where to keep your money, lest you not find it there when you want it.  Unfortunately, many people don't check out the banks where they deposit their money, and we have another sad story to report, where someone lost US $40,000 in a bad investment in a couch.  When she began having health troubles, her family decided to donate the couch to charity, as she wouldn't be needing it.  Fortunately, for her, the young women who found the money were kind enough to return it to her, but it could have been a very unfortunate depletion of her retirement account, all because she didn't check out the solvency and permanency of the couch before depositing her money there.  At the GPD we are extremely pleased that the money was returned to her, and we hope our supporters will follow the example of these model world citizens!

Cabbage (Patch?) Kids (Warning: May Contain Vegetables)

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not shocked and appalled at the recent behavior observed in China, and even more than shocked and more than appalled at the light way in which people are treating it.  Some have suggested that this is simply a way for lonely teens to overcome their loneliness, but it smacks of an evil mind-control plot to the GPD and our operatives, and you can rest assured that we will investigate this to find whether the New Company is behind it at all.  It could be any number of things, ranging from simple hypnosis or hooliganism to a concerted effort to defraud the world.  Besides, it simply isn't decent to keep vegetables in bondage, especially since we have made such great strides toward true equality.  We hope that our supporters will spurn such trends and instead find happiness through other, less vegetable-filled means.

Churros for all!

"Edgar" has been at odds with the GPD for a while, now, and in our latest row he has decided that he doesn't want his patented churro recipe, and has given it to us.  We are currently filing for the destruction of the patent so that all may enjoy delicious churros royalty-free!  Oh, and "Edgar" has given his operatives instructions to do whatever is necessary to get us to capitulate, but, just so you know, at the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not firm in our correct decisions, and we will resist all such attempts, whatever they may be.  Let us know if you see anything suspicious, and together we will keep "Edgar" from enslaving us all!