George, the Hypnotherapist

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

An unanticipated reason not to change your name.

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

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

What brads do to people

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

Environmentalist overtones

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

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

Don't try this at home

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

Sorting through the allegations

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

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

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

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

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

A breakthrough!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another study

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

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

Action item: stop the Brad Guys!

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

Beware the trees!

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

Preliminary findings

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

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

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

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

Something big

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

The Death of Jacob Gehris

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

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

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

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

An interesting discovery

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

We're still surprised

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

Discrimination

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

One more triumph

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

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

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

A caution

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

An inquiry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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