How to get rid of *GNU Emacs* buffer on start-up?

[Davin Pearson]

Every time I start Emacs I have to bury to *GNU Emacs" buffer.  This
is a little bit annoying having to do this.  If I can't kill this
buffer, then I would at least prefer the default-directory of that
buffer to be "~/" so that I can easily load a file that I want to
edit.  The following code is what I have written to accomplish that
task but sadly it doesn't appear to work.

(defun d-emacs-startup-hook
()
  (if (get-buffer "*GNU
Emacs*")
    (save-
excursion
      (set-buffer "*GNU
Emacs*")
      (setq default-directory
"~/")))

(defun d-emacs-startup-hook
()
  (if (get-buffer "*GNU
Emacs*")
      (kill-buffer "*GNU
Emacs*")))
  )