Unethical treatment of animals

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to equal rights for all, including our animal, vegetable, undead, and bacterial (assuming they ever ask for it) friends.  This commitment is not without challenges, however, as many times the benefit of one individual or group of individual is in direct conflict with the rights of some other individual or group.  The resolution of these conflicts is our mission; we aim to create a New Future where all will be treated fairly.

At the same time, some of these conflicts are easily resolved, such as the recent case in which a woman was attacked with a moose.  The mainstream media have steered clear of the more controversial (and more correct) interpretation of the facts in the case and have stuck with the story that the woman struck and killed a moose with her vehicle and then drove 25 miles further with a severely damaged car and absolutely no memory of the incident.  The facts, however, show that the damage due to her car was not random happenstance, but a direct result of a weapons test by none other than operatives of the New Company.  While no official statement of responsibility has been issued, the trail is clear.  Operatives of the New Company, posing as operatives of the GPD, set up an experimental moose cannon in the Canadian forest, leaving leaflets about the dangers of brads strewn around the forest floor (on a side note, the GNU Public Dictatorship is also nothing if not against litter, and had those been our operatives they would have been subjected to the feared refrigerator-door jamb torture).  Anyway, the cannon apparently requires a live or recently killed moose, so they brought one along and loaded it into the cannon.  They took aim at several vehicles, and, according to the forensics clues, the cannon misfired at least twice, killing the moose.  On their last try they were successfully able to hit the passing vehicle of the unlucky Michelle Higgins, whose subsequent story has been reported fairly well by the mainstream media.

We don't know what we find more disturbing: the use of a live moose as ammunition, or the pitiful attempts at shifting the blame to us.  We do not think the New Company's operatives are that inept, which is why we believe this is part of some larger plot that we have not yet uncovered.  Rest assured, however, that no matter what you read, the GPD is not creating or considering the creation of cannons that use live moose or any other animals as ammunition!

Soon!

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not eager to get back to regular posts.  This post, which really isn't much of a post after all, is to let all of our anxious readers know that the situation that caused us to suspend our posts for several weeks now is the clearing stages and traffic will soon return to normal!  Thank you for using alternate routes in the meantime and bearing with us.

Evil snares

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to making the world a better place, which is why it pains us so much when our enemies win small victories.  It is especially frustrating when our enemies' victories would not have been possible had we not made some critical mistakes.  As it turns out all of the effort we have spent into investigating "Gertrude" has made it possible for the New Company to expand its influence. The recent death of Dick Clark was a turning point in our response to "Gertrude," but it has come too late.  We were lucky that our operative discovered these booby traps before some innocent person was hurt, but the fact that we let the problem go this far is a testament to the fact that the New Company succeeded in their nefarious trickery.

The individuals involved were, until recently, fairly innocuous.  In the last month or so, however, their consumption of brads had increased dramatically (which should have been a warning to us, but we let ourselves focus on "Gertrude") to the point that they obviously became mindless addicts.  According to our operatives they were told to create the booby traps in return for more brads, which were, apparently, not ever given to them.  We are sorry for our errors in judgment, and are relieved that the cost of our errors was not greater than it was.

As for "Gertrude," our operatives have decided that she was just a ruse.  The New Company stands by its vile misogyny as much now as it ever has.  Earlier today the New Company stopped referring to her at all, and we have not found any trace of her.  We believe that they used her and got rid of her, but for her sake we hope she isn't sleeping with the fishes.

Tragedy!

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to keeping the world safe from evil, which is why when evil scores a point or two we get very frustrated.  At this point it appears that while we were working on the mystery of "Gertrude" the New Company somehow killed Dick Clark.  We regret this tragedy and vow that we will not let our mistrust of our enemies keep us from paying attention to what they are doing.  Their sleight of hand was calculated and well-executed, but it is no excuse for our falling for it.  We're sorry.

Conclusions

Our operatives have been busily working to answer our questions about "Gertrude" and, without further ado, are their conclusions:

Q.  Could "Gertrude" really be a greban?
A.  We have studied the greban situation for several months now, and our scientists are convinced that the likelihood of the Parent Corporation (or the New Company) having successfully created a human-grebe hybrid is approximately 1 in 3,924,111, with a margin of error of approximately 7.  Given these long odds, we do not believe that "Gertrude" is a greban.

Postscript to A. While these odds are long, they are based on the best estimates we have of Parent Corporation/New Company technology.  If they have successfully concealed significant resources, then it is a completely different situation.  Our statisticians estimate the likelihood of them having concealed a significant lab from us at approximately 1 in 212.  Assuming that they have concealed a lab from us, the likelihood that they have created a viable greban is approximately 1 in 403.  The margin of error on both of these calculations was estimated at approximately 13.  This creates overall odds of about 1 in 85,436.  Given these small odds, we still believe that "Gertrude" is not a greban.

Q.  Could "Gertrude" be possessed by a male grebe, thus making her not exactly female?
A.  Yes.  Assuming "Gertrude" is a greban, the odds are approximately 1 in 2 that she is inhabited by a male grebe.  This could explain why the New Company has accepted her as their leader despite their misogyny.

Q.  Could "Gertrude" be a robot?
A.  Our scientists have studied this for some time, and have concluded that the New Company does not have the technology to create a robot as sophisticated as "Gertrude", besides the fact that she has clearly not followed the first law of robotics.

Q.  Could "Gertrude" be a proxy?
A.  Our operatives have been unable to confirm whether "Gertrude" is a proxy, but based on their observations our statisticians have estimated the likelihood of "Gertrude" being simply a pretty face and taking orders from some unseen entity at approximately 1 in 14.  Given the long odds on other possibilities, this seems like a likely alternative, but there is no direct evidence to support it yet.  It may simply be that "Gertrude" has overcome the endemic misogyny in the New Company.

Confusion and Delay

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not open about our plans, but there are times when we prefer to keep our hand hidden until we know exactly what we are dealing with.  At times this dichotomy can be troubling, as we may not want our enemies to know what we are up to for fear that they will find ways to thwart our efforts, but most of the time it presents no difficulty.  We try our best to keep concerned world citizens in the loop, but there are times when they must be kept out of the loop until our operatives are completely safe.  


One such time occurred this last week, when concerned world citizens began to speculate in ways that had the potential to put our top operatives in harm's way.  The suggestion that perhaps "Gertrude" is a Greban unfortunately caused the New Company to lock down their organization.  We immediately gave our operatives the message to temporarily stop digging into "Gertrude," but even with the warning two of our operatives were compromised.  In this instance nobody suffered any bodily harm, but it was shaping up to be quite a sticky situation.  We are pleased that our world citizens are sharp enough to come up with theories that put the New Company on the defensive, and we urge all of our supporters to keep putting the theories forth, regardless of the potential implications.


For the record, there is no evidence (yet) that "Gertrude" is a Greban, or that the Greban experiment succeeded in any measure.  We are, however, still convinced that she isn't what she appears to be.  Perhaps our operatives that weren't compromised in this operation will find out soon.  If not, our scientists are digging into the Greban experiment and will likely determine soon whether "Gertrude" could, in fact, be a Greban.  Our robotics experts are also trying to determine whether she could be a robot by testing whether she obeys Asimov's three laws of robotics.  We believe, however, that she has done harm to humans and therefore cannot be a robot, but we are still investigating the possibility.

The Contradiction that is "Gertrude"

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not thorough, which is why we weren't able to release this information any sooner.  Our operatives confirmed to our satisfaction yesterday that "Gertrude" (the new CEO of the New Company) is, in fact, a woman.  Since the New Company was created it has tirelessly promoted brads and other office products, and, perhaps more interestingly, has created several shrines to brads.  They don't appear to have been able to organize anything as widespread as the Brad Guys, but they have created an atmosphere in which near-religious adoration of the evil office product is not simply tolerated but promoted.  They have not yet been able to get brad production back to their peak levels, but they are slowing the decline.  In short, they are a worthy opponent.  The Parent Corporation, on the other hand, appears to be stagnant, with  "Jack" showing a complete lack of direction.  Hole punch use is declining rapidly, and our operatives assure us that no new plans are afoot from either the Parent Corporation or the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch.

With this resurgence of the New Company it is, of course, incumbent upon us to prevent their success.  Our focus, therefore, has been in understanding our new enemy and the New Company's plans for the future.  In this process we have repeatedly come up against the apparent contradiction that a group dedicated to a misogynistic symbol would allow a woman to lead.  Now that we have shown that "Gertrude" is, in fact, a woman, we have to face this contradiction.  We cannot at this time fully reconcile the situation, but we do have a theory we are pursuing.  Perhaps misogyny is now considered passe, with a preference for a more Darwinist "survival of the fittest" philosophy.  If this is the case a strong woman is essentially the same as the old symbol for male dominance.  We can't say for sure right now, but we can say that we will let you know as soon as we have cracked the mystery that is "Gertrude".

Yuri Ivanov

We would like to formally congratulate Yuri Ivanov for his extraordinary efforts to help world citizens in the former Soviet Socialist Republics.  His tireless enthusiasm for what is Right and True have earned him the Hero of the People award, which is reserved for those world citizens whose contributions significantly advance the cause of the GNU Public Dictatorship.  Congratulations, Yuri.

Yuri was born in Kiev, Ukraine in 1919.  His childhood was mostly unremarkable as he worked with his family in a subsistence farm.  The creation of the Ukranian Soviet Socialist Republic had little effect on his family, as did the merger with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics a few years later.  In fact, Yuri and his family were about as far from politics as was possible.  He never attended formal schooling, but he often wrote letters to his local government officials asking them to take action to stop the spread of pernicious office implements and to educate the public on the ill effects these had on society.  His efforts were mostly ignored, but in 1933 he was formally asked to stop petitioning on the matter.  He was quite frustrated and retreated into himself.  He saved up enough money to buy a wagon and became a travelling salesman.  While he did make enough to subsist on, his real goal was to spread his message to villagers everywhere.  He was successful in avoiding notice for many years, but in 1938 he was again asked to stop spreading such nonsense.  Frustrated with his local government he moved around frequently, always encountering government officials who, sometimes politely, sometimes not so politely, asked him to stop preaching "his new religion."

For many years Yuri avoided the government officials (and the second World War) and built relationships with villagers all around the USSR.  He learned many trades and earned three doctorates and several other advanced degrees (but couldn't receive them officially because he was not in good favor with the government) in diverse subjects such as metallurgy, political science, and nutrition.

When we first met Yuri in 1999 we were astounded at the clarity with which he perceived the problems with brads and hole punches, and we offered him a position on the Board of Dictators.  He declined, saying that the years were beginning to wear him down and he didn't want the fame that would come with such an appointment.  Instead, he helped establish several local GPD chapters.  Once he had got them up and running Yuri decided to become an operative, and his intelligence has been instrumental on many occasions in thwarting the enemies of the people.  Yuri is turning 93 this year and has officially retired from his responsibilities so that he can focus on his decoupage.  Yuri has been a great asset and has been tireless in spreading our message even before we were born.  Thanks, Yuri, you really are a Hero of the People.

We're back!

It may have seemed to some that we had abandoned our supporters and gone to live in our underground bunkers where we plan to weather the nuclear holocaust which will ensue if the Parent Corporation or its affiliates decide to pursue nuclear weapons, but, thankfully, this is not the case.

We have been incommunicado for a few weeks, but things are proceeding in a fairly ordinary manner and there is very little to report.  We stopped posting to this forum for a while after we discovered an insidious program that was apparently rewriting our posts.  After we discovered its origins we observed it for a while and, now that we have discovered how it works and have disabled it we are able to post again.

As for some updates:

• Construction on the new GNU Public Parking Garage has been delayed again as our engineers still haven't solved all of the problems associated with allowing those parking there to reconfigure the parking garage to suit their needs.
• The New Company has named a new CEO, who is known only as "Gertrude".  We find it vexing that they have apparently embraced women as leaders in the workplace while still holding to their beliefs about brads which are the embodiment of gender-based discrimination.  Of course we have yet to confirm that "Gertrude" is a woman...
• Yuri Ivanov has just been named Hero of the People for his work in the former Soviet Socialist Republics.  We will have a more formal announcement and a biographical sketch as soon as he receives his award.

Thanks again for your patience. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not pleased to be free to post again!

Decreased alert level: T55

The last few weeks have been eventful, but, thankfully, have also shown that the Parent Corporation is becoming less relevant all the time.  As a consequence of these new developments, our alert level is being lowered to T55 from its high of U32.  

Our operatives have been busy finding out all they can about what is going on in our enemies' organizations, and we can report that the Parent Corporation and the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch are so deeply embattled at the moment with internal strife that they are essentially no threat to the citizens of the world.  This may change at any moment, but for now they are not a serious concern.

Unfortunately, the New Company has been becoming more and more active in its attempts to destroy civilized society with its evil office products, so we'll call this a mixed blessing.  At least we know that, for now, we only have one real enemy to face.

Vindication (still no UFOs)

When we increased our alert level to R8 some called us paranoid, others suggested that we were overreacting. Few were the voices that let us know that they thought we were on the right track.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship, however, we are nothing if not determined to do what is right, which is why we increased our alert level.  For the last few weeks we have been silently evaluating the operations of the Parent Corporation, and in the last few days we have uncovered an evil conspiracy and prevented untold amounts of damage.

When the New Company split from the Parent Corporation many predicted that it would wither and die, but it seems that the "Crafties" are more involved in internal political strife than the "non-Crafties" who joined the New Company.  The Parent Corporation and the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch (a subsidiary of the Parent Corporation) have done almost nothing to further the dissemination of evil office products around the world.  In fact, they have spent (according to our operatives' best guesses) approximately 93.5% of their resources on internal power struggles and on purchasing as much Chef Craft equipment as possible.  While these pursuits are not beneficial to the world, they have significantly less impact on the innocent civilians and are thus less hateful than the activities they have pursued in the past.  In fact, due to this change in priorities, the per-capita consumption of hole punches world wide is at an all-time low.

While the Parent Corporation is embattled in internal strife and ignoring external goings-on, however, the New Company has apparently been honing its skills and focusing on an old-fashioned brad explosion.  Sales of brads are not declining nearly as much as they were six months ago, and we believe it is their fault.  Yesterday we acted decisively to disrupt a sleeper cell of "scrapbooking enthusiasts" who had amassed enough brads to corrupt every school child in the state of California.  While we can't guarantee that there are no other sleeper cells, the documents we recovered suggest that this cell has been the primary focus for the New Company for some time.  Our discovery and dismantling of their secret plans may have prevented millions of school children from becoming addicted to brads, and it appears to have set back their plans quite well.

While we are proud of our operatives and grateful that these brads were intercepted early, we are increasing our alert to U32 in consequence of this operation.  We believe the New Company may be attempting to deal us an immense blow, and we ask all of our supporters to be careful!

More attacks

The recent recommendation from Symantec that users disable their pcAnywhere software is just one of many indications that the Parent Corporation is attempting to expand its influence, and, perhaps more importantly, is another example of why the open source model works best.  If Symantec had made their source available at the start, they would have found the vulnerabilities much sooner, which would make the recent attacks irrelevant.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to the open source model, which is why we continue to grow while other governments decline.  The spies of our enemies keep trying to find useful information on us, but all that they can find is already publicly available, so their efforts are for naught, since by the time they realize they have found something useful, many of our supporters have already found the same information and acted upon it.  We would like to thank all of our supporters for their help in keeping our enemies at bay.  Thanks!

Evidence of UFOs?

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not willing to do whatever it takes to get an audience, which is why we titled this post the way we did.  We actually don't have any direct evidence of unidentified flying objects, at least not the kind that are rumored to come from somewhere not on this planet.  Unless of course you count items that float through space.  I suppose they are flying in some sense of the word, and with the immensity of space it would be no leap of logic to surmise that there are items floating through the immensity of space that we haven't identified yet.  Anyway, most of the time the term UFO tends to imply something that is flying with a purpose--either because it is intelligent or because it is being flown by something intelligent, and we certainly don't have any evidence of those.  The real reason we titled this post with something as exciting as UFOs is that we wanted to attract a wider audience so they would read that we are increasing our alert level to R8, and that we expect the Parent Corporation or one of its subsidiaries to launch a large attack against all that is good in the very near future.  Our operatives are working to prevent this disastrous possibility, but we wanted to make sure people knew so that they would be on their guard.

Johann LeBeau

Many of our supporters have known the Hawaiian LeBeaus for years, and will undoubtedly at least know of Johann and his accomplishments.  Some of you, however, will probably never have had the opportunity to meet Johann, which is why we will post a bit of interesting information about him here.

Johann was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1947.  The Hawaiian LeBeaus moved from Buenos Aires to Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1948 when they discovered that former Nazis were setting up shop there.  Not wanting to associate with them, they moved their family to safer ground.  They set up shop in Hawaii, with Johann's father Mikhail becoming a respected cobbler within months of his arrival.  He was cited by the government multiple times for his excellent workmanship and designs, and became a respected pillar of the community.  The Hawaiian LeBeaus were all instrumental in pushing for Hawaiian statehood, and when they succeeded in August of 1959 they were very contented.

Most of Johann's early life was spent learning the family businesses: shoe-making and marksmanship.  He recounts of his early experiences, "nothing could have been so satisfying as relaxing with my rifle after helping my father sew the soles on a new pair of boots."  Johann and his father Mikhail were always vocal opponents of the introduction of non-traditional hole punches into shoe making, and stood by their awls without flinching.  As the fight for statehood intensified, most of Johann's spare time was spent in advancing the cause.  After they succeeded, he suddenly found himself with a good deal of spare time, which he filled by setting up a school system in a village near Honolulu.  He became very proficient at teaching, and was beloved by all of his students.  Over the course of his life he has founded at least twenty elementary schools, ten secondary schools, and six colleges.

Johann and his father discovered the GNU Public Dictatorship in 1996, when Tim visited several of Johann's institutions.  The LeBeaus were pleased with our anti-brad message, and quickly became invaluable allies in the fight against evil.  Johann has since pursued education in all its forms.  He has been on the committees to help with our curriculum and has been working tirelessly to educate the world about the dangers around us.  He is now being given oversight over the entire GNU Public Educational system, including the GNU Public University and all courses taught at local GPD offices.  While the standards of our educational system have always been high, we are pleased to welcome such a distinguished educator as our new Director of Education.

If you would like to contact Johann, talk to your local GPD officers.  They will provide you with the appropriate forms and answer any other questions you may have!

Some Clarifications

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not saddened by recent allegations that have been flying back and forth among world leaders, which is why we are taking this post to clarify some of the issues being misrepresented.  It seems to have begun with Hugo Chavez asserting that the US probably infects Latin American leaders with cancer, so we'll start there.

• The GPD did (accidentally) discover a way to infect people with cancer while studying methods to neutralize the part of the brain that becomes addicted to hole punches.  We made an announcement at the time, but we have not shared the particulars of that formula with any outside entity, and the scientist who worked on it hasn't been outside the lab in twelve years, so we couldn't possibly be behind Mr. Chavez's cancer.  We would never have unleashed such a dangerous thing on the world, and so if the United States government has found a way to infect people with cancer, they didn't get it from us, directly or indirectly.
• The recipe for exploding churros was not given to the Chilean newspaper by any of our operatives, although we cannot speak for the Allies.  They have been silent of late, and our efforts to confirm or deny their involvement in this incident have met with no success.  We can, however, state that we did not have anything to do with the churros, despite what people may be saying.
• The GNU Public Theme Park is not selling rides to private amusement parks without the designers' consent.  We don't know for sure how this rumor started, but we suspect the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch was involved.
• The GPD does not have a branch called the GNU Public Army.  We have not needed armed forces yet, and we hope to use much more subtle ways to take over the world.  If you meet someone claiming to be from the GNU Public Army and who claims to be a supporter of the GPD, please report them and your local GPD office so we can investigate their loyalties.  The GNU Public Army appears to have been started by the New Company, but the trail was fairly thin.  It may not be an official branch of the New Company, either, but it is clearly in communication with them.

We hope this clears a few things up.  We had hoped to introduce our new educational director today, but with all these allegations coming up we figured we had better delay his introduction to the world.  Keep your eyes open and be vigilant; together we will conquer our enemies!

Patience

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not concerned about you, which is why we offer free courses at most of our local GPD offices in topics that will help you, such as wilderness survival, nano-robotics, propaganda, and patience.  Unfortunately, we are going to have to ask our supporters to show some patience, as the standard course in patience has been overwhelmed and there is a waiting list in most areas that exceeds five weeks.  In order to address this wait, we are currently hiring more instructors.  If you or someone you know is qualified to teach GPD courses in patience, please report to your local GPD offices.

In other news, we have a new educational director, Johann LeBeau (of the Hawaiian LeBeaus).  We will be posting more about him in the next week, so please check back soon!

A concerted effort to sully our reputation

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not pragmatic, which is why we are constantly working to make the world a better place.  Because of our passion for results, we have often worked extremely long hours to ensure that your world is safe for you.  Most of you know this and are understandably very grateful to us for our magnanimity, but a recent trend is threatening to sully our reputation.  Daniel recently discovered a new "GNU Skin" factory.  Until now we weren't sure whether they were trying to sully our reputation of that of Nu Skin Enterprises, but now we can state categorically that they were trying to convince investors that that were connected to the GPD.  We have discovered many things about GNU Skin, but I'll leave those for future posts.  Let it suffice that they are involved in the manufacture of many of the technologies used in creating the grebans we discovered last week.  We don't think there is an imminent threat from GNU Skin as it sits right now, but we do recommend that you follow common sense practices such as the ones Daniel outlined if you do find yourself in contact with someone from GNU Skin or any other person that claims to represent the GPD.

The title of this post mentions that this is a concerted effort, and many of you may be asking yourselves why I would title it that way and mention but a single incident.  Surely a single incident is no concerted effort.  Those of you who are asking yourselves these questions should report to your local GPD offices as soon as you can to request a course in patience (ask for course PAT-1267J), because I'm about to get to the rest of it.  Apparently there are a number of products, companies, and organizations now using the adjectives "GNU" or "New" to describe themselves.  We were already aware of The New Company, which split off from the Parent Corporation recently, but we hadn't realized that the name of the New Company was intended to convey to the  average world citizen that they were associated with the New Future.  While there are too many to list here, we'll mention a few of the larger organizations we have discovered:

• Citizens for a New Direction - a political action committee in Georgia, USA, dedicated to changing the state's laws in such a way that new brad factories can be built more easily there.
• GNU York City - A group of "concerned citizens" in New York, USA fighting for their right to conceal and carry dangerous items such as hole punches even through security checkpoints.
• The New Foundlanders - a Canadian organization dedicated to creating an environment there that is friendly to religious organizations such as the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch who do not have the interests of society at heart.

GNU Skin

I would like to bring a matter to public attention. I discovered a "GNU Skin" factory. Though it is not clear what they intend to sell, we want all of our supporters to be aware that GNU Skin is not an affiliate of the GNU Public Dictatorship at this time. Until more is known of this company, please exercise caution in dealing with them. The following pointers should be helpful if you should encounter someone claiming to work for the GPD:

1. Ask them how they feel about brads. The GPD will never suggest that they are safe.
2. Do not accept gifts if you were not expecting them -- they could contain brads.
3. Look for evil stickers or any other dangerous substances. GPD personnel are required to dispose of these immediately for the safety of themselves and any people they may visit.
4. If you have an encounter with someone you suspect of impersonating GPD personnel, do not allow them in you house or near your family and report them to a GPD office immediately.

Be safe and have a Merry Christmas from the Board of Dictators!

Grebans: confirmed

After a thorough investigation our operatives finally discovered a greban in a Cedar City morgue.  Unfortunately it had been dead for a few hours by the time our scientists examined it, but it revealed some important information.  Apparently our enemies have not yet been able to make grebans live for more than a few hours.  Without a bit more longevity the greban army we have feared is not a serious threat.  We will continue to keep you updated on our research into creating our own greban army and on our progress in thwarting the Parent Corporation's evil research into the same thing.

Human-Grebe Hybrids?

Many of our supporters have expressed concern over the incident where thousands of grebes to land in a parking lot in Cedar City, Utah, USA, thinking they were landing in a lake.  As a result, many grebes died, and many others were captured by private citizens and government workers.  What was most concerning, was the reports (including the caption on the picture in the link above) that the grebes were being released into bodies.  Not bodies of water, mind you, but bodies.  Our scientists have long tried to perfect the human-avian hybrid, with little luck.  It appears that this incident, however, may be cover for the Parent Corporation's experiments.  We have heard multiple reports of people in Utah apparently having been possessed by grebes, but by the time our operatives arrive on the scene all the evidence has been destroyed.  We believe that the Parent Corporation may have successfully created a greban (grebe-human hybrid), and we are asking for any of you who may have access to bodies in or near Cedar City to check them to see if grebes have been released into them.  With the help of our supporters we hope to have this cleared up shortly.

An apology

When we wrote our seminal post "How not to rob a bank" a few years ago, we thought we had provided a valuable service to would-be criminals everywhere.  We figured they would either prepare themselves adequately for the task they were undertaking or give up entirely.  As a matter of fact, the incidence of bank robbers being caught for silly mistakes has gone down slightly in the intervening months, but not as much as we would have hoped.  We have long suspected that it was people who don't read our blog that were making these mistakes, but we still can't prove that anyone doesn't read our blog.  Anyway, it turns out that some of these would-be criminals do read our blog, and that our advice wasn't complete.  As this man showed, we neglected to mention that you should only undertake to rob a bank when it is open.  We are sorry for any inconvenience our oversight may have caused, and we deeply regret having made this mistake.

An accident? We think not

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not skeptical of accidents.  More often than not there is a reason something "just happens" to someone.  Take this incident, for instance.  It looks like an unfortunate incident where a careless hunter was shot because his friend's dog discharged a shotgun.  But we should look a bit deeper.  Those reporting the incident are quite silent on the relationship between the two hunters.  Was it strained?  Did either have a motive for hurting the other?  Was it a publicity stunt?  Is the dog really a dog, or is it some sort of mechanical demon?  Even if the dog can be proven to be a dog now, was it really the dog that was hunting with them, or was it a robotic approximation of the dog?  When one considers all of these possibilities it becomes abundantly clear that "Accident" is the wrong label for this incident.  More than likely the Parent Corporation has been testing its robotic dog replacements.  Or possibly the whole thing is a setup for a new reality show.  Our operatives are searching for a real answer, but even then we may never know.

On a separate note, we have heard whispers of an important meeting at the Parent Corporation next week.  We'll let you know how it goes.

Gratitude

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

I guess we were wrong...

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

The New Company

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

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

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

Parent Corporation to Split (and Merge)!

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

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

Bees!

Normally a story like this one would be little more than an interesting distraction, but we have information linking this incident to operatives of the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch.  It appears that the bees were to be released into the wild to spread a new wave of nano-robotic lichen, but, thankfully, the lichen have failed. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not grateful that we dodged the lichen this time!

"Jack" and his Influence

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not optimistic, but we fear that recent developments at the Parent Corporation may have negative impact on all of our lives.  In the past few years we have come to understand much of the inner workings of this evil organization, and we have been engaged in what could only be called a huge game of chess with them.  We have been steadily gaining ground and exposing their lies, and we hoped we would soon cause them to see the error of their ways and change their direction.  Unfortunately, however, we have been paying too little attention to the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch.  As we have mentioned many times before, the Parent Corporation is the business side of the UBHP, and as such it tends to involve itself more in the day-to-day operations and in expanding its influence.  The UBHP, on the other hand, is a society dedicated to the Hole Punch itself and is much more patient and much more focused.  We have seen very little activity from them of late, but that is all changing now.  The UBHP recently opened 49 non-profit scrapbooking outlets in 13 countries around the world.  How they pulled this off without our operatives discovering it is a mystery we intend to investigate, but we have refocused some of our operatives and we believe that not only are the UBHP operatives very subtle and very patient, they are also somehow allied with "Jack."  We have found numerous communications between him and the UBHP, but many of them are in a code we have not yet fully deciphered.  If what we know at this point is true, it seems that "Jack" may have been a plant by the UBHP in the Parent Corporation to cause it to fail, or at least to "prune the dead wood" from their ranks.  Assuming this is the case, perhaps the mysterious "Jack" is not so crazy as we had thought.  We'll know more after we decipher the code in full.

"Edgar" is a "Craftie!"

Our operatives have decided to make it official: "Edgar" sympathizes with the Chef Craft wing of the Parent Corporation.  It has been difficult to sort it all out recently, but in an address* to his office in Lansing, Michigan, it became clear that "Jack" (the primary proponent of the Chef Craft wing) has his ear.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not heartened by the apparent disintegration of our arch-nemesis, but we must admit that we are confused at "Jack's" motives.  He is either a brilliant strategist trying to force some new evil on the world or an insane idiot obsessed with an obscure kitchen products company.  Only time will tell!

*The full text of the address is available to supporters.  Simply submit form KKVY-334-J (Request for Transcript of Enemy Address) to your local GPD office.

The (invisible) gap widens

As all of you know, the internal strife in the Parent Corporation is becoming increasingly vicious.  We recently received a report from our operatives that a member of the Chef Craft wing of the Parent Corporation was picked up by police in Springville, UT.  The local media report mentions much of the substance of what happened, but, as always, they seem to have missed the significance of it all.  Adam Cowgill was not simply crazy, as the report seems to suggest.  He had been in an intensive conditioning program for the Parent Corporation's Chef Craft wing.  In fact, he was to have been the first of many "reinvented" people that would remake the Parent Corporation in their own image.  Unfortunately, it appears that the conditioning regime went haywire and that Mr. Cowgill, who, according to our operatives, doesn't remember participating in the regime, is now pretty well incapacitated.  We hope that his example will show those who sympathize with or participate in the Parent Corporation the dangerous road they are choosing and that they will come to their senses, soon.

On another note, the non-Chef Craft wing of the Parent Corporation has recently attempted to marginalize their opponents by pushing them on to menial tasks.  Our operatives believe this was the impetus for the conditioning program, and that as the internal strife escalates we will likely see more innocent (or somewhat innocent) victims.

Divisions

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to honest, open government, which is why we are pioneering the Open Source Model of Government.  Because of our open nature, the GPD has never had a problem with factions vying for power or schisms or any of that sort of thing, as when they begin they are quickly diluted by the free flow of information that empowers our citizens.  They aren't swayed by demagogues or hatemongers.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, depending on your point of view) the Parent Corporation has chosen not to follow this open model but has instead built layer upon layer of secrecy around its goals.  This secrecy has served them well and allowed them to escape the kind of scrutiny that would shut them down in a heartbeat, but has also created a culture that accepts political posturing and demagoguery.  It has come to our attention recently that the Parent Corporation is divided into at least two major groups with different goals.  One group is pushing for the end to the secrecy so that they can openly declare war on the world.  The other is trying to maintain the status quo so that they can remain in power and keep not just the world down, but their subordinates as well.  The "status quo" group are the ones who have recently introduced the adoration of Chef Craft products as part of their daily routine, and, according to our operatives, have withdrawn further into the propaganda that the Parent Corporation is pushing on the world.  Encounters with the "Chef Crafties" have shown that they are less likely to back down or retreat when they are obviously defeated and that they are more fully indoctrinated than their peers.

We have been tracking this developing schism for some time trying to figure out whether "Edgar" (the real leader, not the public face that we captured some time ago) has chosen one faction or another.  We couldn't answer this question until I came across some interesting documents last weekend in Cedar City, Utah.  The documents have yet to be completely verified, but they have born our initial scrutiny.  They were seized in a raid of a suspected double agent's home (we have to say he is innocent until proven guilty, but we don't have to believe it). If they are indeed accurate, it seems that "Edgar" is afraid that either faction taking over will destroy his position and so he is trying to foment the schism, keeping both sides roughly equal in power and influence.

We wish we could state that the Parent Corporation is disintegrating, but we can only really say that there are divisions within it that are causing it to be less effective in its stated goals.  We wish we could say we are winning, but we don't know what will emerge amid this conflict, so we are urging our supporters everywhere to be vigilant and to help out wherever they can!

Chef Craft and the Parent Corporation

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to the truth, which is why we find it odd that we have been subjected to a variety of smear attacks since we published our last post.  In that post we mentioned that the Chef Craft wing of the Parent Corporation is leaving large herbivorous mammals in peoples' yards.  Unfortunately, people jumped to the conclusion that we were maligning Chef Craft and suggesting that it was in league with the Parent Corporation.  I guess we needed to be more explicit, but we would like to make it clear that we do not believe that Chef Craft has any connection to the Parent Corporation or the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch.  What we intended to say was that the Parent Corporation has a group of zealots who have latched on to the Chef Craft product line (including its nail brushes) and are beginning to treat it almost as they treat their hole punches.  We apologize for the misunderstandings.

For the interested, the connection between the Parent Corporation zealots and Chef Craft products was discovered several weeks ago in a routine audit of purchases they had made.  We published this piece, but at the time didn't have enough information to be certain of what was going on.  At this time we are prepared to state that the Parent Corporation appears to be experiencing an internal crisis.  The capture of "Edgar" has caused some political posturing, and it appears that at some point one of the leaders vying for public control of the Parent Corporation started introducing Chef Craft implements.  We think at this point that it is a temporary obsession, but the fervor with which they cling to their implements does surprise us.  We cannot disclose all that we believe about the Parent Corporation and its internal power struggles at this time, as it would be irresponsible, but we can state that we believe we are making a difference!

Interesting developments

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not careful, which is why we thought we had taken all of the necessary precautions after reporting the nail brush scandal, but we weren't prepared for their response.  In two separate instances on two continents, large mammals were placed in people's yards to intimidate them.  This man, in Ogden, UT, simply butchered the cow left at his residence.  Per Johansson called emergency services and they helped extricate the drunken moose from his apple tree.  Tragedy was avoided in each of these incidents, but we do urge caution as you never know when the Chef Craft wing of the Parent Corporation (more on how we found that connection later) will strike again and you will find a large herbivorous mammal in your yard!

Nail Chefs

As part of our continuing efforts to keep our World Citizens safe and properly informed we have a number of programs where we periodically sample the products on the market to determine (1) trends in production, (2) potential security problems, (3) and whether the Parent Corporation is making an effort to destroy you.  In the years we have had this program, just so you know, we have never found a time when (3) was not determined to be true.  The Parent Corporation is always trying to destroy you.  But anyway, our sampling recently discovered a product called a "Nail Brush" produced by a Chinese company styling themselves "Chef Craft."  Most people would have taken it to be a matter of poor translation or perhaps an expansion of a company's line to include non-cooking implements, but we don't settle for surface explanations.  Our operatives dug long and hard, and discovered that the label "Chef Craft" is disturbingly accurate.

It seems that Chef Craft started several hundred years ago as 廚師手藝. They worked for years trying to perfect the ladle, and, having succeeded, practiced on basting implements.  One of their employees in 1925 also worked part time at a nail salon, and apparently approached her superiors with an idea--why not include implements for preparing human nails as food in their product line?  At the time many people were members of underground nail eating guilds (UNEGs) and, although the practice would later be frowned upon by the Cultural Revolution it was quite popular among government officials.  It seems her superiors liked her idea so much that they stole it and had her killed, but our records of this incident are, understandably, spotty at best, so we can't be sure that it went down quite like that.  Either way, the company started producing the nail brush to help people prepare their nails for consumption in 1948 (it took several years to perfect it to the company's standards) and now their brushes are thrust upon unsuspecting consumers in other countries who think they are nothing more than a useful brush for their nails.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not thorough and we hope you will dig deeper the next time something strikes you as out of the ordinary.

An evil plot

Many of you will remember the riots against mind-controlling insects when Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan came out, but some of you may be too young to remember.  Unfortunately, the media has nearly erased this episode from our collective memories, and, until recently, we wondered why they would bother.  Apparently the fears expressed by the rioters, that the mind-controlling creatures not only existed but were also being employed on some of our more prominent role models had more to it than we originally thought.  Earlier this week a "moth" flew into Matt Holliday's ear and caused him to miss the rest of the baseball game.  This incident, by itself, caused us no concern, but as it is our policy to investigate these sorts of occurrences we did so, and found that this "moth" is no moth at all--and that Matt Holliday's ear shows signs of previous incursions by these controllers.  We haven't found the source of the mind control as of yet, and we aren't telling you to take to the streets and riot just yet, but we do want you to know that you need to be vigilant and examine your ears and those of your loved ones for signs of mind control.  Oh, and if they point phasers at you just make sure you shame them into killing themselves.

Abuse of Animals

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to the fair and equitable treatment of all living creatures, which is why we have been appalled by recent events in South Ayrshire involving a cow and a ladder. The local SPCA apparently found the situation unfortunate but amusing, and didn't question the farmer's assertion that he had no idea how the ladder came to be around the cow's neck.  We have sent our operatives in for a closer look, and we don't think the farmer's story is very reliable.  After all, what farmer wouldn't know exactly what was in each of his fields, and wouldn't keep an eye on all of his livestock?  He claims to have been busy with "other concerns" but we know that farmers just sit around and let the animals do their work, so we find his explanation unlikely.  We haven't turned up any links to the Parent Corporation yet, but we do know that there is an active Brad Guy cell in the South Ayrshire neighborhood and we have found indications of their involvement.  Rest assured that we, unlike the SPCA, aren't letting them off the hook and ladder.

Chaos?

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not ambitious, which is why we have been pursuing our plans to take over government of the world.  These plans are extensive, and require a good deal of patience from our supporters.  After all, if we just imprisoned all of the world's leaders and took over, as some of our supporters have suggested we should, we would simply create chaos.  Those whose misguided loyalties were attached to past world leaders would have a hard time accepting us, even though we are simply trying to help!  We do not want the world to resemble London of the past few nights, and we do not want to alienate a large group of undecided world citizens who, if our plans are carried out, will eventually rally around us.

Some have criticized us for destabilizing markets to bring anarchy and for "playing games with people's lives," but nothing could be further from the truth.  While our plans do, occasionally, require us to destabilize markets, we do not want to create anarchy.  As much as we are trying to lay the foundation of the New Future, we don't want the world economy to collapse overnight.  We must admit that we have been pulling the strings we have for a long time to try to get the US debt situation taken care of, but we never encouraged a default on their loans.  Our market interventions are targeted and checked by a team of economists who assure us that our actions are not playing games with people's lives, and that we are still on target.

If you are still inclined to doubt us, ask yourself this question, and answer honestly:  Are you more likely to support a radically different economic model now, after a few years of crisis, than you would have been in 2006?  Our statisticians assure us that 98 of every 100 people would answer yes to this question, and that the other two are probably deluding themselves.  It's not chaos we're after, it's change.  Keep that in mind, and don't lose hope!

The Return of the Lichen?

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not concerned about the future, which is why we are always looking out for our younger supporters.  One item of interest today for the younger supporter is that we have discovered that the dreaded nano-robotic lichen from last year's outbreak are being sold as a protein-rich paste for sandwiches and things.  The lichen being sold in this form have not, as yet, shown any signs of being active, but we do urge our supporters to exercise sound judgement.

Ants?

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not cautious, which is why we are still not willing to state categorically that ants were responsible for our computer troubles, even though all of the evidence we gathered at the Brad Guy compound in Idaho suggests that this is, indeed, the case.  If we are to believe their servers, the ants have been disenchanted with their low status on the evolutionary scale, and have been trying to enlist recruits.  They allegedly enlisted the octopi, luring them with promises of decreasing the distance between the moon and the earth, thereby creating higher tides.  They appear to have made similarly impossible promises to other groups, but all of this seems rather unlikely, especially since ants and other insects have never been shown to have this type of intelligence.

What we believe is more likely than the story told by the "ants" is that there is a faction of either Brad Guys who style themselves "The Ants" or some criminal syndicate specializing in the creation of malware called "ants" who are trying desperately to gain new allies.  If it is a group of Brad Guys they seem to be behaving in a surprisingly incoherent manner, but if they are a criminal syndicate they seem to be pursuing very little profit. We suppose it is possible that there is a group of intelligent ants sick of the genocide constantly perpetrated on them by humans and seeking revenge for their mistreatment by causing the coastal areas of the earth to flood (at least at high tide) making them inhospitable to humans, but we are a bit skeptical of this explanation.  Our operatives have been working full time on these leads, and we have come up with surprisingly little.  Perhaps it was just a deranged pet project of one of our captured Brad Guys?  We may never know for sure, but we'll keep looking for a rational explanation.

Success

It is with much rejoicing that we report to you the status of last week's covert mission.  We set out with our only goal to be disrupting a group of rogue Brad Guys operating in the mountains of Idaho, but what we ended up accomplishing was so much more.

After getting close enough to the camp to perform proper surveillance, we discovered that we had not only found a group of Brad Guys who were trying to convert .22 casings into brads, but that we had discovered the source of the mysterious computer trouble that plagued us and the bird watchers months ago.  The compound was raided without much fuss, and the Brad Guys were taken alive.  They don't appear to know much about the world outside their compound, but they did seem to be aware of the data center buried under their compound.  The data center proved much less secure than we had supposed, and yielded much intelligence.  We can't say much about what we found there yet, but we have discovered that the oceanographers and the bird watchers had performed similar experiments with their objects of study in letting them, apparently, run the computers.  It now appears that neither the octopi nor the birds actually created the computer threat, but we'll let you know more about what we think did create it once we feel we won't blow our hand.  It was a great mission, though.

A Mission

We can't share many of the details, because at the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not discrete with our pre-mission intelligence, but we are about to embark on some interesting operations.  It won't surprise you to learn that we intend to overthrow the strongholds of the perpetrators of evil office products, nor will it surprise you to find that we will probably not post much of anything in this forum for the duration of the mission.  Its successful completion depends on precise timing and the balance of several circus-trained acrobats.  Drat!  I've said too much...

Another assassination

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not proactive, but no matter what we do we can't seem to eliminate all of the evil in the world.  It seems that the Parent Corporation has been working more of its evil deeds in Nottingham.  Local resident Luke Yeomans had set up a sanctuary for snakes such as the cobra to keep them from falling victim to society's relentless press on their habitats.  Mr. Yeomans had also been instrumental in keeping brads and hole punches out of his particular neck of the woods, but he had kept that role fairly secret.  We didn't think anyone else knew about his assistance, but someone found out and dispatched an assassin to kill him and make it look like an unfortunate and ironic accident.  We don't believe in accidents, which is why we have increased our presence in Nottingham to try to stem any further operations by our mortal enemies.  We urge our supporters to increase their vigilance just a notch or two in their areas to help keep us all safe from the Parent Corporation and its evil schemes.

Disappointing

When we caught "Edgar" last week we were very careful to make sure that we weren't just capturing him because the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch was using him to distract us while they did something nefarious.  There were no indications up until we caught him that this was the case, but in the panic that ensued it looks like they took advantage of the situation and put some brads in earth orbit.  These brads came very close to destroying the International Space Station, but they dodged the bullet (or brads) this time.  We are working on collecting the brads, but if any of you intend to be in low-earth orbit over the next week or two we urge you to get your flight plan checked out before you go.

One of the "Edgar"s has been apprehended!

Our loyal supporters know well by now that we are engaged in a long-term war with the forces of evil and unsafe office accoutrements, and that we have been steadily making progress.  They also know that we are investigating strange occurrences such as the computer glitch that gave us trouble recently.  Both fronts have collided today in an exciting development.  It seems that "Edgar" (not the actual leader of the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch, but their public face) was working undercover with the oceanographers until earlier this month.  It was his job to recommend a web hosting company, and it was his suggestions that led to the computers refusing to relinquish control.  After following a series of interesting but unrelated leads, our operatives found "Edgar" in his home last night and arrested him.  Unfortunately, our operatives have been able to extract but few details from him about the internal workings of the UBHP.  It seems that, as the public face, all he needed to know was the public-facing information.  Either that, or his brain has been altered such that our operatives cannot even find the areas of his brain that retain the more sensitive information.  We don't believe the UBHP possesses such technology, so we're thinking it's the former explanation.

The one interesting bit of information that has eluded confirmation until now is that "Edgar" is actually working with both the UBHP and the Parent Corporation.  We have long suspected this link, but we have been unable to confirm it until now.  With "Edgar" in our possession we expect the UBHP to respond within a few days, possibly by naming a replacement for him.  Before we intend to put "Edgar" on trial for his crimes and see that he pays his debt to society.  We cannot stress how important this capture is for our cause, and we hope that all of you will celebrate it.

We didn't find much of anything interesting about the computers, but we did ascertain that "Edgar" was an unwitting pawn in the developments.  We will let you know as soon as we figure out who was pulling the strings this time.

Vigilance

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not vigilant, which is why the recent reports that a loyal supporter was having trouble keeping his kids away from hole punches caught our attention.  We investigated the situation and found that "José" (not his real name) had the situation under control.  Apparently his 10-year-old daughter had been introduced to hole punches while scrapbooking with her friends.  She became addicted, and hid many hole punches in her room.  (She was able to purchase the hole punches by saving the money her parents gave her for completing her chores).  This situation had apparently been going on for several months before "José" saw the warning signs--his daughter was constantly complaining that her right hand hurt.  She was taken to the doctor who examined the hand and said it was due to strain.  The doctor, also a loyal supporter, asked her if she had been using any hole punches lately.  She initially said she had not, but after repeated questioning she broke down and told the whole story.  "José" has worked with her to rid the house of hole punches and has enrolled her in a recovery program.  There doesn't appear to be any permanent damage in this case, but we have to ask what would have happened if it hadn't been noticed this early?  She may have been permanently turned from correct social behavior to villainy.  She may have abandoned her family to join the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch (they do allow female members, by the way, but they aren't given full status as far as we can determine).

We're glad "José" was able to stop this problem early, but we are concerned that many of you may be in the same boat.  We urge vigilance and caution, and early screenings.  Some of the warning signs of evil office products are:

• Unusual crankiness
• Hand pain
• Puncture wounds
• Refusal to participate in GPD events
• Withdrawal from friends and family

Please be vigilant.  Don't let this happen to you!

Raymond Herrera, Hero of the People

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not grateful for the sacrifices our world citizens make on behalf of The Cause.  We know that many times their efforts go unnoticed, and it has been more than a year since we have awarded our Most Prestigious Award, the Hero of the People.

Today's recipient is none other than Raymond Herrera, who has been working tirelessly with the homeless around the world to try to keep them from accepting brads and hole punches or from retrieving them garbage cans when they may find them.  Thanks to Raymond's work the incidence of brad-related deaths in homeless individuals worldwide has dropped 93.2% over the last 10 years.  Raymond himself lost a son to brads nearly 15 years ago.  Raymond believes his wife brought brads into his home (although she denied having touched them) and his three-year-old son put them in his mouth.  Nobody noticed that he had eaten them until during dinner when he started choking and gasping.  The incident tore Raymond's family apart and after his divorce left him wandering the streets at night without a home.  One evening, when he was looking for a good place to sleep he saw a homeless person about to snack on some brads.  His quick action saved the potential victim's life, and Raymond had found his calling.  He cleaned up and found a place to live, from where he began to launch his anti-brad campaign.  A few years into his endeavor he sought out his ex-wife to try to fix things, but sadly she had passed away a few months earlier.  Raymond contacted us and asked us to help him organize his program at a global scale, and since then his efforts have saved countless vagabonds.  Thanks for your work, Raymond, you truly are a Hero of the People.

We urge caution

As Daniel reported yesterday, we are aware of several individuals who spend their time impersonating members of the GNU Public Dictatorship's Board of Dictators.  Since Daniel reported about "Kristov" the Austin GPD Office has been swamped with phone calls and visits from people who wish to take matters into their own hands.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not concerned for your safety, which is why we urge caution in this situation.  Our investigations to date have revealed no evidence that a well-informed world citizen would be fooled by these impersonators, but they have also shown that the impersonators are dangerous.  If you encounter someone who claims to be a member of the Board of Dictators, here is what you should do:

1. Ask him or her what the current GPD password is.  Anyone who reads this blog knows that there is no "GPD password" and will tell you so.
2. Verify that the individual is not carrying brads or brad paraphernalia.  All of the impostors we have encountered so far had some brads in their possession.
3. Use your biometric scanners to verify that his or her fingerprints match closely to those in our official database.  We know that biometric scanners aren't foolproof, but the chances are low that someone could simultaneously have similar fingerprints to ours and want to fool you
4. Encode a timestamp plus a nonce using our public key and challenge us to decode it, add one to the nonce, then re-encode it with our private key.  If you can decode the response with our public key and it matches your expectation, you know that the person who gave you that encoded value was in possession of the private key.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to keeping our keys safe, so you can be sure that no impostor will correctly answer this challenge.

We do urge caution as these impostors are known to be in league with the Parent Corporation and the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch and we know their operatives to be unscrupulous in their pursuit of evil.

Do Not Be Fooled

Reports have recently come in that Tim is living in Texas. These reports simply aren't true. Jana from Waco, TX alerted us that a man in Austin was impersonating a GPD officer and asking people to turn brads in to him "for disposal." We have several operatives currently investigating this person, who will be referred to as "Kristov."

Be aware that this may not be an isolated incident. If anyone approaches you as a GPD officer and you suspect them of foul play, please immediately contact your local GPD office concerning them.

When toys become too realistic

Our society seems to be obsessed with a desire to make everything more and more realistic.  Compare the video games from 1991 to those now produced and you will find that they are much more "realistic" but also much more violent.  If it hadn't been for activists toy guns would be nearly indistinguishable from the real ones.  Until recently, we didn't think this trend had gone to stuffed toys, but this incident shows that toy manufacturers are trying to go more extreme all the time.  We urge all of our supporters to support conservative stuffed animals to help stem the tide of problems that such plush toys will inevitably cause.

Illicit Vegetable Experimentation (Warning: May Contain Vegetables)

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to equality for all living creatures, as our posts here and here will surely show.  Unfortunately someone (we know who we suspect, but we have precious little information as of this moment) has decided to genetically modify watermelons to make them into living grenades. These grenades are not yet weapons-grade, but they show that those who created these watermelon seeds are not bound by the same moral code as we are, and it means we need to step up our efforts to combat illicit vegetable (or fruit) experimentation.  We owe it to our fellow living beings to stand up for them and prevent this heinous crime from being repeated!

Brads guns

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not watchful, which is why we send our operatives to many remote locations.  This past week I was sent to check out the small town of Eureka, Utah, and found that this lovely gift shop had been transformed.  Instead of a quaint little shop, I found a very offensive sight.  The shop now has two words on the sides of the building:

BRADS
GUNS

While most people might assume that this is simply a case of a  missing apostrophe (Brad's Guns) we are trained to recognize these "slips."  They do, in fact, sell guns at BRADS GUNS, but they won't tell you the whole story. Our operatives are working long and hard to find and expose their links to the Company and its Parent Corporation, and we hope to have some good hard facts for you soon.

The Birds

Last month we reported that the birds themselves, not the bird watchers, appeared to be behind the computer troubles we and others had recently experienced.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not skeptical of the researchers' claims that the birds had run the web hosting, but after observing them for several weeks we understand the situation much more than we did.  It appears that the birds were running the web hosting company, but they were using software that made it so that they simply had to peck at the keyboard occasionally to do so.  The software they were running was apparently created by the group of oceanographers we found earlier, and after researching that group it again appears that the oceanographers themselves were oblivious to the threat their computers were posing.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not persistent and are confident that we will unravel this mystery!

Freeloading: A societal evil

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to improving society, which is why we are discouraged by a trend of individuals who choose not to contribute to society.  These individuals live off society or their families and make no efforts to better themselves or contribute in any way to the local economies.  While many such persons are well-paid businessmen, some are like this man, who even tried suing his parents for cutting off his allowance now that he is 25 years old.  We wish to make it clear that the GPD will not tolerate such wanton freeloading, and that if you are a freeloader we urge you to change your ways before we make you change your ways!

Are brads becoming more popular?

Recently we posted about a disturbing incident where brads were used to secure a stretcher and, obviously, failed to do so in a very dangerous fashion.  Today we are posting about another dangerous incident related to the use of brads.

It began much as any other day, a family were playing in a hotel room in Orlando, Florida.  As the day progressed, however, the four-year-old child quickly became bored with what the parents were doing and chose to play on the balcony.  Unfortunately this balcony was on the fourth floor, but fortunately when the toddler fell someone was there to prevent a scary fall from being a prelude to a funeral.

"So," you may ask, "what were the parents doing?"  We have been studying the evidence for several days now and have determined that they were examining and polishing their brad collection.  We haven't been able to ascertain (as we have been denied access to the crime scene by local authorities) whether they were using brads to transport drugs, but we do know that they were so obsessed with their brads that they let their child wander into a life-threatening situation.

It seems that brads are once again becoming more popular, and this is probably our fault to some extent.  We have been so successful in managing the threat that world citizens who are not so well informed as you are are beginning to not fear them anymore.  We have heard them say things like, "One brad won't hurt," or "Since the Company is gone there's no real threat anymore."  Apparently we have failed in instilling in them a knowledge of the intrinsic evil that is the brad.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not sorry for our mistake and will continue to work tirelessly to correct it!

The evils of brads

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to spreading the word about the evils of brads. For those who have been living under a rock for the last several years and may be asking themselves something along the lines of, "What could possibly be wrong with a tiny piece of metal?" we answer with the following post.

Yesterday a seriously ill woman was being transported from a cruise ship along the coast of Norway to a life boat, when her stretcher was dropped unceremoniously into the frigid sea.  She suffered greatly from the exposure and was in the near-freezing water for several minutes.  But what, you may ask, does this have to do with brads?  The answer is simple.  Over the last few years (since we have crushed the Company) we have a decline in overall brad use, but at the same time we have seen an effort by brad enthusiasts (apparently acting alone) to get people to use brads for non-traditional uses.  One of those uses was to secure stretchers during rescue operations at sea, and preliminary investigations show that in this particular incident the stretcher had, in fact, been secured using brads.  The brad enthusiasts may tell you that the brads will work perfectly, but do not believe them.  They are, for the most part, evil and twisted individuals bent on your pain and suffering, and on the subjection of women to the whims of men.

A partial explanation

Since we discovered that the birds, not the bird watchers, seem to be responsible for the computers that have been giving us trouble we have been tirelessly investigating them and their computers.  All of our effort recently led us to an important discovery and a partial explanation of the birds' behavior.

Apparently this particular flock of birds (Scarlet Ibis, for the curious) has been genetically modified.  The records we found are incomplete (we assume they were destroyed) and we have to interpolate many things, but we are 97.3589% confident that our conclusions are substantially correct.  It appears that the very birdwatchers that were apparently customers of the birds' network expertise were part of a foundation that raises money for unconventional experiments such as those run on this flock of birds, and were thus responsible, at least in part, for the genetic manipulations.  We have traced many of the funds and can categorically state that the vast majority of them came from puppet companies set up by the Parent Corporation, although their motives are as yet unclear.  The birds' keepers unwillingly informed us that the modifications were to increase their intelligence and computer skills.  It appears that, once genetically modified, the birds were able to use the computers to their advantage, but it is not clear yet whether the birds have the intelligence to have programmed the computer system that took over the GPD.  We doubt they do, but we have yet to prove that they do not, so we'll leave it at that for now.  We have our best operatives on this, so we hope to know more soon!

The Birds?

Earlier this month we believed that the bird watchers may have been orchestrating a bid to rule the world by getting their computers to shut down their competitors, but we were sadly mistaken.  The bird watchers, sadly, have no such ambitions, and merely desired a way to organize their pictures and clips, and to be able to collaborate online.  In order to meet this pathetically simple goal, they enlisted the help of an unknown e-mail writer who sent them an offer of services.  They haven't thought much about that anonymous solicitation since then, but when the computers shut down our operation temporarily and we responded by shutting down their computers they started complaining.

To make a long story short, or at least shorter, we have been investigating the source of that solicitation for some time, and it appears to have come from a source none of us suspected.  It appears that a group of birds living in an aviary in Denver, Colorado, had access to computers as part of a study, and it appears that the birds themselves sent the e-mail.  They also, apparently, responded to the bird watchers and set the computers up for their online collaborative tool.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not skeptical of the birds' ability to use computers that many humans have trouble with, but the facts we have been able to obtain as of yet seem to point to the birds as the source of the computer troubles we had.  We'll continue to investigate this bizarre incident, and hopefully be able to explain it a bit better.

The Dangers of Becoming an Advertisement

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not willing to learn from our mistakes, which is why we often make course corrections after we attempt groundbreaking new ideas.  If you will recall our experiment in headvertising, and another in odortising, you will know that the GPD is not about to shy away from controversial advertising techniques, but you should also know that we do not keep beating dead horses.  At least not since our lawyers told us that could be construed as animal cruelty, although why beating a carcass is cruel I don't think I'll ever understand...

But I digress.  This post isn't about deceased equines, it's about questionable advertising techniques, such as this one, proposed by Adzookie.  It's not that it won't provide good exposure and drive people to Adzookie, but that it could easily be abused by the slightly less-than-honest advertiser.  Even when the GPD ran its headvertising campaign we received complaints of people being duped into putting absurd or pro-brad messages on their heads.  If the Company and the Parent Corporation were able to take advantage of our advertising campaigns, how much more will they take advantage of this third party's campaign.  Don't be surprised if you sign up and discover some morning that your home is an advertisement for hole punches, and don't expect any sympathy from us.  You have been warned, after all.  Adzookie may not be aligned with the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch, but we haven't confirmed that yet, and we know how desperate they are to get their message out there now that people are realizing that we have been right all along.

The Bird Watchers

After a number of rounds of negotiations with our lawyers and theirs, the bird watchers have decided to talk with us.  It seems that they, too, were convinced of the wisdom of leaving computers in charge of their online operations, and that they were intimidated by the complexity of the Internet and didn't want to hire someone when computers would do the job much more cheaply.

So, why do we mention this?  Because it proves that the bird watchers themselves were victims of the computers, not their programmers.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not thorough, so you can trust us that we checked out their claims.  The bird watchers were approached with an e-mail offering the computers' services, so we'll have to keep tracing where they came from, but at least we know the bird watchers aren't in league with the computers.

Democracy

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not helpful, which is why we have decided to respond to a very common question we receive, even though the answer is apparent to anyone who has taken GPD 101 at the GNU Public University (also here).  (Let us not forget to mention that courses at the GNU Public University are available free of charge).

The question, in essence, is why the GPD isn't the GNU Public Democracy instead of the GNU Public Dictatorship.  To answer the question, let's define a few terms:

Democracy - A government where every citizen has an equal voice in deciding what the government will do.
Republic - A government where citizens choose representatives that then decide what the government will do.
Oligarchy - A government where a few citizens or classes of citizens decide what the government will do.
Monarchy - A government where an individual decides what the government will do.


Some like to believe that the best form of government is a democracy, where the people have the power.  Unfortunately, this requires a lot of the citizens.  They must stay informed about current events and must dedicate a large percentage of their time to keeping the government running smoothly.  When citizens fail to stay informed or fail to spend the time necessary on keeping things running smoothly, there are problems.  Perhaps citizen A doesn't like citizen B, so instead of researching the issues, he or she simply votes against what citizen B votes for.  Suppose citizen C is more interested in Leonardo DiCaprio's latest performance than whether the roads in a neighborhood need to be repaired and chooses to vote against the repairs just so that he or she can get home sooner to enjoy an evening with Mr. DiCaprio.  As you can see, a democracy simply demands too much of individual citizens, and if they fail to deliver what is demanded, the system breaks down.

A republic solves some of the problems facing a democracy, by creating a class of people whose job it is to stay informed and to care, and ostensibly to represent the citizens who chose them as representatives.  Unfortunately, this system only works when these representatives are properly engaged by their constituents, and, for reasons similar to those mentioned about democracies, this rarely happens.  Republics also demand that representatives be altruistic, which is difficult for many people.  Self-interest tends to overcome altruism, and the desire to maintain one's status as a representative forces individuals to present misinformation to their constituents to protect their own interests.  Rather than listening to their constituents and representing their interests against corporations and other entities that are better-funded, they tend to listen to the better-funded entities and represent their interest against those of their constituents.

Such a state of affairs is more properly termed an oligarchy, since there is a class of people (politicians and well-connected individuals) who tend to make the decisions and then tell the people what they should want.  As long as this ruling class provides enough Leonardo DiCaprio movies, most citizens rarely object.

The GNU Public Dictatorship does not adopt any of these models as we find them fraught with errors.  We also do not support a monarchy or a traditional dictatorship, since one person rarely has enough knowledge and information to make proper decisions.  Instead, we create a dictatorship where exceptional individuals meet together, discuss society's problems, and find solutions.  If the people don't believe their leaders are exceptional individuals, they will voice their opinions and the other members of the Board of Dictators will be obliged to sever ties with the non-exceptional individuals.  By consolidating decision-making power into the hands of the Board, the GPD allows for quick responses to difficult problems.  By following the open source model, we ensure that citizens' interests are represented without corporate interference.  It's really a wonderful model!