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.