TGS Full Comment Room

Add Comment | Previous Week | Text-Only Comment Room | Comment Room Information

TGS WebSite | TGS MirrorSite | Current Episode

Moochie> I agree with almost everything you said, but <<Germany rolled france under without a sweat, but the French Resistance gave them messy hell for the rest of the war.>> I seem to remember the only real effective resistance in Vichy France was carried out by the Corsican Mafia, who weren’t big on extreme law and order types like the Nazis crimping their business, while the Maquis mostly stayed in London running up huge hotel bills and sponging off the Allies, and general population’s only complaint with the Germans seemed to be that they weren’t taking the Jews away as fast as they could be… <<Course, you need a humiliating name too, like "newbie" or "cannon_fodder" or some such, just to drive the point home>> “a_little_girl” or “a_pathetic_cripple” are my favorites. <<I'm hoping for a cataclysm, actually. Y'know, like a fascist coup or a civil war or something>> We had the former four years ago, the general public just hasn’t caught on yet. Trouble is, they’re the side with all the guns.
Aaron
Monday, November 22, 2004 12:55:18 PM
IP: 66.139.49.253

The phrase "civil war" is an oxymoron. Rather like "jumbo shrimp."

I'm sure there's pleny of Iraqis who would like a good job in construction. I'm also sure most of them don't want to be kidnappped and beheaded on the way to work. You would think the most telling thing to the average Iraqi would be that the insurgents kill as many Iraqi police officers as they do U.S. soldiers and foreign workers. If ever there was a hint to the general populace that these guys really don't care about anything but their own jihad...

Anyway... only a three-day work week for me this week.

15 days left until the spell is broken and they live again! Gargoyles Season One comes to DVD on December 7, 2004!
Patrick
Monday, November 22, 2004 06:50:51 AM
IP: 68.170.199.45

15 days left until Gargoyles season 1 is released on DVD December 7, 2004. Be There and buy!
Vinnie - [tpeano29@hotmail.com]
Marquette, Michigan, USA
Monday, November 22, 2004 04:01:52 AM
IP: 64.112.202.110

V - Where do I start? <Take the Iraqi oil pipeline and distribution system, for instance. That sucker has been hit multiple times; bombs on the pipeline, attacks on the shipping ports, the works.>Of course, I keep wondering why they don't beef up security there. <Oddly enough, I can't remember ever hearing about the radicals hitting power stations or water treatment facilities. They shoot at the contractors, but I'd assume that those attacks are spread fairly evenly. So why is it that the oil infrastructure is a model of resiliency, but the civilian infrastructure is non-existant?> Selling oil = making money = necessity. Problem is where the money is going. <First, you can improve the lives of the civilians so much that they won't want to believe all those mean stories about you. Fix their roads, get them jobs, get the power back on, keep the streets safe, deal with them honestly and fairly, and generally get them fed and rich and so busy being happy that they won't be bothered to cook up IEDs in their spare time.> When I heard about a recruitment drive to find people to work as contractors in Iraq, . . I felt sicked. Let the Iraqi people, who have a bigger stake over there and thus more motivation to do things right, fix their own country. The only good I hear about hiring Iraqis is hiring them for police force and to form their own military. The problem is that idea (hiring Iraqi civilians) isn't spread far enough out. The Americans (at least some of us) understand the Iraqis have to be able to maintain their own police form and army in order to keep their country in check in the long term. The problem is some haven't realized the same idea applies to building/maintaining the Iraqi infrastructure.

Patrick - <. That's been the problem since day one, and I don't see how applying LESS force is going to make things any better.> The problem is preventing overkill. You don't use a machine gun to kill a fly. That's what we're doing when we're destroying buildings and vehicles to go after people. I think a good question to ask is would/should the US government do this to its own citizens in order to solve problems? If the answer is no, then why should we expect the Iraqis to tolerate it?

Mind you be, I think the US needs to stay in Iraq until the situation is stablized. The problem is is the US doing the right things to stablize the country. If the UN really wants to have a good role, it should be working out guidelines for how to rebuild a country (the right way) after the government has been removed.

Gunjack - <I'm hoping for a cataclysm, actually. Y'know, like a fascist coup or a civil war or something.> Are you sure that the media isn't leading us down the right to where the US will fight another civil war? I've given your words of wisdom about which issues do matter some thought. I've decided to concentrate on fewer issues. The status of the economy isn't one of those issues. The biggest issue is automatically opposing all who seek elected office for the sake of acquiring power. All these single issue groups risk losing their focus when they start trying to field candidates to run for office. Instead, in order to keep their focus, they should simply stick to a "support" role.

Isn't that the problem with some labor unions? All they really are about is acquiring power. Why do they need a union if the company is treating employees nicely?

*DPH activates cloaking device and it promptly . . fails. DPH tries to disappear into fat air, but the air turns out to be too dense for DPH to disappear inside. DPH opens a portal as a means of leaving the tgs cr and it, also, promptly collapses. DPH walks towards the door to leave the cr, and . . the door promptly moves to the other side of the room. DPH pulls out a remote to activate a teleporter to get out of the cr, and is promptly teleported . . . into a dark corner of the tgs cr.*

That does it. It's time I upgraded who's in charge of ensuring that I can enter and leave the cr without problems since apparantly my hologram isn't up to the task anymore. Must acquire a being who said "My computional capacity is nearly infinite".

*DPH pulls out a bomb and throws it at a wall. DPH quickly runs out of the cr before the wall has time to self-rebuild.*
DPH
AR, USA
Monday, November 22, 2004 02:50:08 AM
IP: 67.14.195.50

V: How about changing your political affiliation to the End is Anything But Nigh? Trust me, the end won't be nigh until after I've paid my student loans. Well, if people suddenly start disappearing Rapture-style, then I'll be willing to entertain the idea. Hell, I might even take up praying again. But I don't want to start another theological discussion, so forget I said anything.
Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75@aol.com]
Fredericksburg, VA, USA
Sunday, November 21, 2004 11:00:54 PM
IP: 69.174.28.68

Dezi> <<I'm thinking of just quitting Hobby Lobby all together (instead of just Saturdays) and just depend on my income from the tv station. I dunno yet>>: Wait through a couple paychecks see how well you do.

Gunjack> <<But will you *survive*? *hoists cannon-o-DEATH*>>: As long as I know how to love I know I'll stay alive.
<<Y'know, like a fascist coup or a civil war or something>>: It wouldn't be a facist coup. It'd come from the other side, by the commies.
<>: How about The Ends Are Dyed? Or the Trend is Thigh. I know, the Blend is Awry.
<<Deep in the hollows of my cavernous nasal passages, they are crafting The Perfect Sneeze>>: Then blow your nose for Great Justice.
<<melt a hole in the earth's crust where Michigan used to be>>: That still leaves the east coast here in pretty good shape.

Na zdorov'ya.
Gside - [gside@comcast.net]
Fair Haven, NJ
Sunday, November 21, 2004 10:36:17 PM
IP: 68.83.187.89

Dezi><<killing things is fun! of course I suck, but then, when I actually kill someone, its like a big insult to them, because they were killed by me and I suck!>> Them's the good times. Course, you need a humiliating name too, like "newbie" or "cannon_fodder" or some such, just to drive the point home.

Gside><<Should have made you leave your key.>> But will you *survive*? *hoists cannon-o-DEATH* 8 )
<<Just wait four years and it'll happen again.>> I'm hoping for a cataclysm, actually. Y'know, like a fascist coup or a civil war or something. I think I need to change my political afiliation to The End Is Nigh party or sommat.
<<First Fire Storm and now you? It's about time to dip into the conspiracy theory tank and see who really tainted the vaccine supply.>>
Al Qeada. Deep in the hollows of my cavernous nasal passages, they are crafting The Perfect Sneeze. When unleashed, its fantastic wind velocity will level the western seaboard just as firestorm's Thermonuclear Fever goes critical, causing his body tempurture to melt a hole in the earth's crust where Michigan used to be.
It's true!

Whitbourne - No charge. Ever read "War Nerd"? it's a column on an online russian publication called "EXile". You might enjoy it.
<<It would have been nice if Rumsfeld et al. had thought of this a year and a half ago.>>
It would be pretty hard to be where they are and not know this stuff. Personally, I don't think they really care.

Patrick><<You can't "rebuild the Iraqi infrastructure" as long as there's terrorists running about with a seemingly free reign to kill the workers sent in to do it and sabotage any work that still manages to get done.>>
Actually, yes you can. It's one heckuva lot harder, but it can be done if the people in charge decide that it's worth it. Take the Iraqi oil pipeline and distribution system, for instance. That sucker has been hit multiple times; bombs on the pipeline, attacks on the shipping ports, the works. Somehow, it's always back up and running before you know it.

Now the power, on the other hand, no dice. Same for the water. Oddly enough, I can't remember ever hearing about the radicals hitting power stations or water treatment facilities. They shoot at the contractors, but I'd assume that those attacks are spread fairly evenly. So why is it that the oil infrastructure is a model of resiliency, but the civilian infrastructure is non-existant?

<<That's been the problem since day one...>>
Actually, no, it hasn't. If I remember correctly, the resistance was sporadic and poorly coordinated right up until Paul Bremer decided to play hardball with Sadr; that was when whole cities started going hostile. During that cool period between assuming control of Iraq and the first uprising in Fallujah, we had tens of billions of dollars, the entire might of the US military, and nearly unlimited cheap local manpower. All we had to do was find a way to get the lights turned back on, the water running, and maybe use those hundred thousand GIs to cut down on the crime wave, and we would have been heroes to them. Near as I can tell, we didn't even try.

<<and I don't see how applying LESS force is going to make things any better.>>
Right now, we're fighting a fly in a china shop, using a shotgun. The operative word is "collateral damage", and every time the collateral gets damaged, more and more neutrals become convinced that yes, you really ARE the Great Satan. So you play it smart, minimize collateral damage (which is the enemy's single largest propaganda weapon, usually), and you focus on precision rather than brute force.

<<Back then, you couldn't hole up in a religious building an snipe at the enemy and expect that the antipication of public outrage would hold them back from coming in to find you.>>
Indeed not. It certianly didn't stop Santa Anna...

<<Back then, the military campaign was run by generals, not by public opinion.>>
Back then, public opinion was dictated by the government through crude propaganda. Back then, Rascism was an ordinary part of war-time indoctrination (kraut, nip, slant, gook...). Back then, it was considered normal and perfectly acceptable to inflict whole-sale slaughter of entire cities by indiscriminate ariel bombardment. Hey, those women and children had it comming; after all, they sucked up all that propaganda that was the exact mirror image of what we were fed. They brought it on themselves.

<<Back then, the general sentiment was that a populace that put its support behind a corrupt regime got what was coming to them.>>
You realize, of course, that "corrupt regime" is a subjective term? And that you have succinctly summarized the rationale behind terrorism in general, and the 9/11 attacks in particular? Or maybe you'd like to specify how to determine which regimes are "corrupt"?

Going back to sleep now. I hurt.
*mumbles*
V
Sunday, November 21, 2004 05:43:55 PM
IP: 205.250.217.92

You can't "rebuild the Iraqi infrastructure" as long as there's terrorists running about with a seemingly free reign to kill the workers sent in to do it and sabotage any work that still manages to get done. That's been the problem since day one, and I don't see how applying LESS force is going to make things any better.

16 days left until the spell is broken and they live again! Gargoyles Season One comes to DVD on December 7, 2004!
Patrick
Sunday, November 21, 2004 03:29:47 PM
IP: 68.170.199.45

V> You've said things far better than I ever could on this topic. Well done.

"By any means necessary" is the best way I can think of to make this war last for years and years and years, as all it will do is "prove" to the rest of the world that America is just as bad as the propagandists say it is. Like it or not, you have to be the good guys if you want to win, and being a good guy is going to cost you.

It would have been nice if Rumsfeld et al. had thought of this a year and a half ago.
Whitbourne
Sunday, November 21, 2004 02:38:41 PM
IP: 156.34.86.128

<The mulitcolored people posing in a row. > Red v. Blue! :D yeah I just got back from playing Halo. weeeee! killing things is fun! of course I suck, but then, when I actually kill someone, its like a big insult to them, because they were killed by me and I suck! ahhhhhh killing things is a fun release after a day in retail. I'm thinking of just quitting Hobby Lobby all together (instead of just Saturdays) and just depend on my income from the tv station. I dunno yet.....
Dezi
Sunday, November 21, 2004 02:18:44 AM
IP: 68.57.196.146

Krista> <>: The IMDB is your friend.

HoE> <>: The mulitcolored people posing in a row.

Na zdorov'ya.
Gside - [gside@comcast.net]
Fair Haven, NJ
Sunday, November 21, 2004 01:54:56 AM
IP: 68.83.187.89

Dezi: For some reason, that Little Sparties picture took me back to my sophomore year of High School. My friend Ryan and I would tease one of our classmates about how the Gargoyles could easily kick Sailor Moon's ass if they ever fought. I don't know why I was reminded of that. Ah, well. They were interesting pics.
Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75@aol.com]
Fredericksburg, VA, USA
Sunday, November 21, 2004 01:22:39 AM
IP: 69.174.28.68

HoE: Yea! he goes RARRRRRGH!!! and you think alllllrriiiiight who killed a castle full of gargs this time? sorry. im in a weird mood. weeeeeeeee!

Go here for one pic I drew of my friend sean after he got halo. http://www.deviantart.com/view/12173873/

also click my name for another. hehe.
Dezi - [<-clickie for my take on halo!]
Saturday, November 20, 2004 10:37:00 PM
IP: 68.57.196.146

Correction: Please disregard the Admins & Contacts link in my previous post. The URL should read:

>> http://tgs.gargoyles-fans.org/cr/admins.html

Sorry about that!
Lady Mystic - [<-- UPDATED !!!]
Saturday, November 20, 2004 10:27:42 PM
IP: 67.38.24.30

***** TGS CR INFORMATION UPDATE *****

After many months, the long awaited, and greatly needed, update has arrived!

VISUAL FORMATTING:

Every page within the TGS CR Info section has been updated to accommodate screen sizes of 800 x 600. As a result, tables have been modified as well, including Member Profile pages, Member Stats pages, and the Pic Request list, to name a few. Some CSS was updated as well.

CR ARCHIVE:

The 2004 archive has been updated to include the weeks of July 6th, 2004 through November 15th, 2004. I truly apologize for the extreme delay in maintaining this area with current information. Please note that I am missing the CR week of 7/19/04 - 7/26/04. If you have this week on file, please email me. I would greatly appreciate this.

2004 Archive:
>> http://tgs.gargoyles-fans.org/cr/archive/2004/

Framed Archive:
>> http://tgs.gargoyles-fans.org/cr/archive/frames.html

Missing Weeks:
>> http://tgs.gargoyles-fans.org/cr/archive/missing.html

CR MEMBERS:

The profiles of Dezi, DPH, Fire Storm and Lady Mystic have been updated. The statistics and calendar pages were updated accordingly. The release date for the Gargoyles Season 1 DVD and the date the very first TGS story premiered were also added to the calendar pages.

Member Information:
>> http://tgs.gargoyles-fans.org/cr/members/

Dezi's Profile:
>> http://tgs.gargoyles-fans.org/cr/members/profiles/dezi.html

DPH's Profile:
>> http://tgs.gargoyles-fans.org/cr/members/profiles/dph.html

Fire Storm's Profile:
>> http://tgs.gargoyles-fans.org/cr/members/profiles/fire_storm.html

Lady Mystic's Profile:
>> http://tgs.gargoyles-fans.org/cr/members/profiles/lady_mystic.html

The CR Member Profile submission page has been slightly revised. The 2005 gathering has been added to the "Gatherings Attended" field. Directions for each field have been moved from underneath each form element to a position below each field name. Hopefully, this separation between form elements and written directions will make it easier for users to more easily utilize the submission page.

Submission Guidelines:
>> http://tgs.gargoyles-fans.org/cr/members/guidelines.html

CONTACT INFORMATION:

The "Contact the Info Admin" form page was removed as I received more inquiries on TGS stories than anything else. I have updated the CR Admins page to include the email address for the TGS Staff, as well as a link to the TGS CR. Hyperlinks to all email addresses and symbols have been removed to deter spam. This may not prevent spam, but every little bit helps.

Admins & Contacts:
>> http://tgs.gargoyles-fans.org/cr/members/admins.html

***** END UPDATE *****
Lady Mystic
Head Admin of TGS CR Information
Saturday, November 20, 2004 10:23:15 PM
IP: 67.38.24.30

Sick as a DOG. I'd forgotten how much mizery a little cold can be.

Patrick><<Extremists like that will be extremists with or without public sympathy.>> Yes they will... But what makes them dangerous isn't their degree of extremism, but rather their ability to compel support from the civilian population. There are two usual mechanisms for compelling that support, either or both of which can be applied depending on the situation.

First, the radicals "prove" that they are on the civilian's side fighting an oppresive and repugnant regime. They play up oppresive measures taken and injustices inflicted by the regime, and promise to "break the yoke".

Second, they take the pragmatic route: the government controls the political world, but the radicals control the streets. If civilians work with the radicals, they'll be protected. If they help the government, they'll be branded "collaborators", and usually will be killed in short order.

These are the foundation tactics of unconventional/asymmetric warfare. They were used by the Jewish Zealots in roman-occupied Jerusalem two thousand years ago, and they cleaned the US army's clock in Vietnam. These are the tactics being used in Iraq right now, and they're bleeding us dry yet again.

Patrick><<As for your other question: Germany and Japan, 1941-1945. The Allies bombed and shelled them both into unconditional submission.>>
Harvester><<It's called D-Day.>>

This answer is quite telling, because both of you fail to grasp that this example has no real relevance to the current situation. Britian also hit the beaches on D-Day, so they obviously knew a thing or two about fighting... But look what good it did them over the next three decades in Northern Ireland. Russia fought the Nazis longer, harder, and with more ferocity than any other nation, but their massive juggernaught of a war machine couldn't handle starving tribesmen in Afghanistan. Germany rolled france under without a sweat, but the French Resistance gave them messy hell for the rest of the war.

In asymetrical warfare, all the accoutrements of war are largely irrelevent. There are no battlefields, no front lines, and no enemy capitals to capture. In Iraq, the conventional war ended well over a year ago. On paper, we own that entire country. What's going on right now is an attempt to make sure that we ONLY own it on paper, and to hurt us so bad that we'll eventually admit that paper ownership just isn't worth it. The thing is, the radicals wouldn't have a prayer of doing that if they couldn't compel cooperation from the Iraqi people, and they wouldn't be able to secure that cooperation if military and political administrators over there were doing a competent job.

If you can recognize the guerrilla pattern, then you can do two things to stop it in its tracks.
First, you can improve the lives of the civilians so much that they won't want to believe all those mean stories about you. Fix their roads, get them jobs, get the power back on, keep the streets safe, deal with them honestly and fairly, and generally get them fed and rich and so busy being happy that they won't be bothered to cook up IEDs in their spare time.

And second, hunt the hard-core radicals aggressively and with MINIMAL FORCE. If you know they're meeting in a house, don't drop a bomb on the house. Quietly surround the house, flood it with tear gas, and capture as many of them as possible alive. then try them publicly, and stick them in jail. That way you don't, oh, accidentally bomb a wedding party, or collapse the house next door on some poor granny.
It's divide and conquer. The radicals are hunted like rats, and the civilians gradually realize that the only real obstacle to their complete happiness are those yahoos blowing things up and disturbing the peace. At this point, the radicals are effectively screwed.

The way to LOSE this kind of war very quickly is to retaliate with massive force, otherwise known as "taking these guys down by any means nescessary". On the ground, that phrase ALWAYS means the same thing: massive, unselective retaliation. The Russians tried it when they shelled Grozny in Chechnya, leveling an entire city with massed artillary fire. Earlier, they tried it in afghanistan when they used to exterminate whole villiages and leave childrens toys loaded with explosives for curious afghani children to find. In Isreal, unselective retaliation is an ingrained mentality, and obviously it's done wonders for them. Every time you apply massive force to a dispersed, poorly-defined target (which irregulars always are), you get collateral damage. That may be okay with big, strong, practical american you, but it's not okay with the little Iraqi boy whose mommy you just riddled with stray gunfire. He's liable to take it personal, like.

We aren't doing either of the good things in Iraq. Most of the country is unemployed, and we're paying American companies obscene amounts of money to handle reconstruction jobs that locals could handle faster and cheaper. The power still wasn't on, last I heard, and that's probably the single worst non-military PR failure to date. Crime is through the roof since the invasion, especially kidnapping and rape, despite the presence of over a hundred thousand us soldiers. Our troops have commited repeated attrocities with apparent indiference, and you can bet the Iraqis have been paying close attention to THAT. The attrocities rarely make the news over here, but you can be damn sure they're hearing it on every streetcorner in baghdad. And while good, red-blooded, patriotic americans find those stories distasteful and rediculous, the Iraqis have been living in close proximity to US soldiers for almost two years now, and they are probably in a more receptive frame of mind.
But even besides all that, we've turned their country into a war zone, often through simple stupidity (ie shutting down at gunpoint the newspaper of a popular critic of the occupation), and things just keep getting worse. Every day, more and more iraqis wake up and decide that this is OUR fault, and that they are going to make us leave.

But hey, don't take my word for it. I mean, heck, it's only worked the same way in Vietnam (under both the US and the French), Afghanistan (for the russians), Northern Ireland, Poland, France, Cuba, China, Isreal, Afganistan (again, for the English), Chechnya (russians again) and in about a hundred little post-colonial revolutions all across Africa and South America. I'm sure this time it will be much different.

Sarcasm aside, check out some revolutiuonary history, and check out a non-US take on what's going on over there. The pattern is pretty obvious.
V
Saturday, November 20, 2004 07:32:48 PM
IP: 205.250.217.92

Gunjack > Do you honestly believe for a second that even if 99% of the Iraqi people loved us with all their "hearts and minds" that it would deter al Qaida and the jihadists who sympathize with them from carrying on with taking hostages, attacking Western targets, and indiscrimitately murdering civilians for their own propaganda purposes? Extremists like that will be extremists with or without public sympathy. As for your other question: Germany and Japan, 1941-1945. The Allies bombed and shelled them both into unconditional submission.

Of course, there weren't as many "embedded journalists" back in the days of the Greatest Generation, stirring up a fuss about the impacts of the war on the civilian populations of the Axis countries. Back then, the general sentiment was that a populace that put its support behind a corrupt regime got what was coming to them. Back then, you couldn't hole up in a religious building an snipe at the enemy and expect that the antipication of public outrage would hold them back from coming in to find you. Back then, the military campaign was run by generals, not by public opinion.

17 days left until the spell is broken and they live again! Gargoyles Season One comes to DVD on December 7, 2004!
Patrick
Saturday, November 20, 2004 12:53:33 PM
IP: 68.170.199.45

Krista: Keith David is quite a busy guy. You can also find him in several movies, including "There's Something About Mary," one of the funniest damn things I've ever seen him do. A full list of everything he's done can be found at imdb.com. Just do a search on his name. I've also heard him in a number of commercials, including ads for the Navy and the Coast Guard, and for the XBox, though I haven't seen too many of those lately. Rather fitting then that he has a voice in Halo 2. And of course, he'll be giving his two cents on "The Awakening" along with Greg and Frank, on the Gargoyles DVD. By the way, I recently saw "Antwone Fisher," which Salli Richardson had a small part in. One thing I love about the Gargoyles cartoon is that the voice actors didn't need to alter their voices all that much. Most of them spoke naturally, and fit their characters to a T.

Dezi: Is the Arbitor the one who gets branded in the opening cinema scene? Did his agonized wail remind you of Goliath's roar when the brand touched his skin?
Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75@aol.com]
Fredericksburg, VA, USA
Saturday, November 20, 2004 12:22:05 PM
IP: 69.174.28.68

Green Baron: Re- Thanksgiving Humor.

LMAO. Bad Ash too?
Leo
Saturday, November 20, 2004 12:19:17 PM
IP: 68.231.241.236

Click on my name for some Thanksgivng humor..and no this does not involve Michael Moore eating the whole turkey or Michael Moore at all :)
Green Baron
Saturday, November 20, 2004 10:04:13 AM
IP: 221.163.157.120

I had a nice chat with Lain/Gunjack. Left me a lot to think about, which is always a good thing.

[Ok, I prefer deep thought and solving puzzles (mental excerise) much more than physical excerise.]

Off to bed and make home-made lasanga this weekend.
DPH
AR, USA
Saturday, November 20, 2004 03:24:03 AM
IP: 67.14.195.3

Yay! "Jacob" and GJ are back!!! weeeee!
Dezi
Saturday, November 20, 2004 02:36:26 AM
IP: 68.57.196.146

Also speaking of voices, Keith David does the voice of the Arbitor (the main Covenant character) of Halo 2. It's pretty cool, the game. I'm addicted and I suck at it. :)
My main strategy, since I know everyone is gonna kill me easily anyway, is to randomly through grenades right before they do it, so that the grenades go off and I kill them posthumously. hehehehe.
Dezi
Saturday, November 20, 2004 02:32:10 AM
IP: 68.57.196.146

O sorry. That was me.
Krista
Saturday, November 20, 2004 12:18:20 AM
IP: 68.116.254.201

Speaking of voicing, I just found out that Clancy Brown, the voice of Hakon, did the voicing of Trident on Deep Six, in the series Teen Titans. And I've heard Goliath, or Keith David in so many cartoons, one just has to imagine how busy he must be! Like Atlas in Teen Titans, so alien king on Justice League, some monster or another on Aladdin, its just... wow! That's not all! I used to have a list of cartoons I'd heard him, but I can't remember them any more.
Anonymous
Saturday, November 20, 2004 12:17:56 AM
IP: 68.116.254.201

Well, kids in American schools anyway. But for the world at large, it's not mandatory for everyone to own a German dictionary.
Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75@aol.com]
Saturday, November 20, 2004 12:07:10 AM
IP: 69.174.28.68

Gunjack: <Name one situation, at any time, at any place on earth, that "taking these guys down by any means nescessary" actually worked>

It's called D-Day. The Allied Forces invaded Europe, and thanks to them, children in today's schools say the Pledge of Allegiance instead of "Heil Hitler!" Which would you prefer?
Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75@aol.com]
Fredericksburg, VA, USA
Saturday, November 20, 2004 12:06:00 AM
IP: 69.174.28.68

Gunjack> <<betcha wish you HAD changed the lock, eh?>>: Should have made you leave your key...
<<just a touch too late to dance to the smoke and fiddling from south of that border>>: Just wait four years and it'll happen again.
<>: First Fire Storm and now you? It's about time to dip into the conspiracy theory tank and see who really tainted the vaccine supply.

Jacob> Not only are you crossdressing to confuse the newbies, but you're now also smiley-faced AI? (ref. ZebraGirl)

Na zdorov'ya.
Gside - [gside@comcast.net]
Fair Haven, NJ
Friday, November 19, 2004 11:49:35 PM
IP: 68.83.187.89

For anyone who is interested, the TGS email address is up and running again, huzzah!
Unfortunately, all the messages that were sent and not answered sort-of ate themselves and I don't have them anymore so.. anyone who had an important question to ask (or just wants to tell me how much you missed me) can go ahead and send (or re-send) it to "tgs_info(AT)yahoo(DOT)com" and I'll get to it ASAP!
Thanks :)
Jacob
Friday, November 19, 2004 10:55:53 PM
IP: 205.250.217.92

I am really, really not feeling good. I think I have a cold.

Politics? For ME? You shouldn't have!

Revel - Good to see you still kicking around, 'Mano. How's they hanging?
<<The war against terror is actually slightly worse that the Cold War because while in both cases you are fighing an idea...>>
Close, but not quite. Allow me to extrapolate on that a bit...
Yes, the US is fighting an idea, but worse than that, they're fighting an idea that they *helped create*, and fighting it in the one way garuenteed to spread it faster than any other. They're fighting us because they think we're monsters. They think that we're monsters because, quite frankly, we've been acting that way for about forty years, and most of what we've done since 9/11 has been even worse.

What's going on in the middle east is a war of ideas, and right now, we are running the largest, most effective, and most expensive propaganda campaign ever on why you should hate and try to kill Americans. We are also running the world's largest and most rigerous Terrorist Training Camp anywhere in the world. At this point, any mention of "winning" is laughable; it has been since those WMDs never showed up.

Patrick><<Because the terrorists will continue to indiscriminately target all Westerners until the West caves in to all their demands, at which point they will simply think up some more demands and continue ad nauseum.>>

Technically true, but practically false. Unconventional warfare (terrorism, to the propaganda sheep) is a game of percentages. Take an ordinary guy with a gun and a yen for shooting at people in uniform (or their kids, or their families, or people who look like they maybe know the Uniform's friends). That gunman is defined not by his own beliefs, but by the beliefs of the people around him. If the people around him sympathize with him, or else are sufficiently afraid of ihim, or a combination of the two, then he is a freedom fighter or terrorist, depending on who you ask. He can melt into the general population, carry out daring raids, hit hard and disappear, mock the inept authorities, the whole schpiel, but ONLY TO THE EXTENT THAT HE SECURES THE HELP OF THE PEOPLE AROUND HIM.
Now, take the same guy and drop him into a completely foriegn country, where no one cares about him or his cause, and all you have is a vicious criminal. The police track him down easily, and he's dogmeat.

This is why we get all that talk about "winning the hearts and minds" of whoever we're currently Occupying at the moment. Only problem is, we suck at that, and we always have.

We are losing the War on Terror, badly, because the people on the ground can plainly see that we don't give two s***s about freedom, democracy, or their suffering. Same thing in Vietnam,and in plenty of other places since; read "the ugly american", and compare to the carrer of Mr. L. Paul Bremer.

<<IMO, it's time to get tough and take these guys down by any means necessary.>> Name one situation, at any time, at any place on earth, that "taking these guys down by any means nescessary" actually worked. Go on, I'll be right here. Take your time.

Mecord><<Somebody please explain to me why Margaret Hassan, who has done nothing but try to help the people in Iraq, has been killed?>>
Because she was on the Other Side, whether she wanted to be or not. Perhaps you can thank the Pentagon next time it pats itself on the back for "bringing aid" to somewhere. Propaganda cuts both ways.

Ed><< big on war, small on strategising...>> That's "Strategery". Let's do try to keep current with the hip new slang.
<<America does this all the time, dropping its own propaganda leaflets in Iraq and Afghanistan.>> Or when we congratulate certian small south-american democracies on their forthcoming elections, and then remind them in very gentle words that we will strangle their economy into a bug-eyed corpse and turn their starving children out on the street if they vote for the guy we don't like.

Damn, there was a God Talk too? Nope, gotta cash in. Lain's home, and I gotta Buttle.

PEACE!
Gunjack "A Cultural Icon" Valentine
Friday, November 19, 2004 09:59:35 PM
IP: 205.250.217.92

There's a fantabulous new Godiva pic by Spike, now available on my site! Click or go to http://www.eskimo.com/~vecna/new_stuff.html for all the latest!
Christine - [< -- site update!]
Friday, November 19, 2004 09:24:18 PM
IP: 67.136.147.132

And so I'm back, from outer space...

Yeah, betcha wish you HAD changed the lock, eh? Lain and I are back in the land of the connected, just a touch too late to dance to the smoke and fiddling from south of that border. But I guess we can make do okay, what with that senator guy trying to steal $3 billion from canada, or that marine guy busting caps on wounded prisoners in front of a camera crew... And it even looks like someone was a-talkin about Al Kaydee, too! Damn, gonna have to get in on that soon...

But first, chores! Be back in a bit!

*Kapwing*
Gunjack "Rock and ROLL!" Valentine
Friday, November 19, 2004 02:27:17 PM
IP: 205.250.217.92

Wal-Mart... Best Buy... Borders Books and Music... they all carry DVDs. It really doesn't matter where you buy it, so long as you buy it. :)

18 days left until the spell is broken and they live again! Gargoyles Season One comes to DVD on December 7, 2004!
Patrick
Friday, November 19, 2004 06:32:26 AM
IP: 68.170.199.45

Ok, I know I will not be able to buy the DVD online. Where's the best place to buy it from in person?

I'm thinking either my local Walmart or maybe Hastings. Any suggestions?
DPH
AR, USA
Friday, November 19, 2004 02:13:34 AM
IP: 67.14.195.24

HoE> <>: According to the IMDB he used his full name on those, but used his middle name for MGS2 and Escape from Monkey Island.
<<which member of the TGS staff was most responsible for the development of Demona?>>: I'd say her current largest cheerleader is Greg Bishansky.

Fire Storm> <<HIM work at NIGHTS? NEVER!>>: Do you even need the "at nights"?
<<my manager had to cover the evening shift>>: Not much, but every little bit helps.
<>: We should institute a national pantsless day. Just think of the possibilities.

Na zdorov'ya.
Gside - [gside@comcast.net]
Fair Haven, NJ
Thursday, November 18, 2004 11:06:51 PM
IP: 68.83.187.89

Lots of people took part in Demona's development, but the idea of her killing Madoc was my idea. In my very first plan for it, Madoc was to actually be killed by simultaneous blows from Demona's mace and Castaway's Quarryhammer (after Castaway discovered how the Canmores had been used by Madoc all along), to emphasize the irony of the human and gargoyle working together to slay Madoc being the very human and gargoyle who'd (unwittingly) most actively worked against unity and peace between humans and gargoyles. I dropped Castaway from the equation after we decided to have him reduced to inactivity at the end of "Turncoat", but could still use Demona to fulfill the prediction, thanks to an even trickier element: that little present that Puck gave her in "The Mirror" of being human in the daytime.
Todd Jensen
St. Louis, MO
Thursday, November 18, 2004 06:32:08 PM
IP: 4.244.18.72

Gside: 
Two hours after I puked, I puked again and the full effects of the flu hit me (namely exhaustion). My manager wasn't there for me to puke on (HIM work at NIGHTS? NEVER!)
BUT I got a bit of revenge so far. Apparently, the person that was going to cover my shifts got sick too, so my manager had to cover the evening shift.
<Heal well, though.>
Thanks. I am feeling a bit better now.
<pantsless>
I think that's always the best solution to any problem.
Fire Storm
Thursday, November 18, 2004 06:19:02 PM
IP: 65.114.91.3

Oh, by the way, I have a quick question for Todd: which member of the TGS staff was most responsible for the development of Demona? I find it amusingly ironic that she wound up saving the world, and all the humans living in it, given all the times she's tried to destroy them.
Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75@aol.com]
Fredericksburg, VA, USA
Thursday, November 18, 2004 03:36:58 PM
IP: 69.174.28.68

Krista: Disney is fond of doing stuff like that in their movies. Supposedly, Belle had a walk-on role in "Hunchback of Notre Dame" (she was in the background in one of the scenes).

Gside: I think when Shepperd did the voice of Odin in "Eye of the Storm" and "The Gathering, Part One" he was using his middle name. If I remember, he provided a few voices on that show (King Kenneth and Petros Xanatos come readily to mind). It's funny. Sheppard sometimes gave his voice a bit of an accent, but his Odin voice sounds exactly like his character from the game "Medal of Honor."
Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75@aol.com]
Fredericksburg, VA, USA
Thursday, November 18, 2004 12:38:06 PM
IP: 69.174.28.68

19 days left until the spell is broken and they live again! Gargoyles Season One comes to DVD on December 7, 2004!
Patrick
Thursday, November 18, 2004 06:47:07 AM
IP: 68.170.199.45

Patrick> <<It worked for Bill Clinton>>: And Ron Jeremy. And with such a string of precedants, how can it go wrong?

Krista> <<Maybe they got the same guy to do the voicing>>: Yup, William Morgan Shepard.

Na zdorov'ya.
Gside - [gside@comcast.net]
Fair Haven, NJ
Wednesday, November 17, 2004 11:05:17 PM
IP: 68.83.187.89

Patrick: How is your "any means necessary" policy different from what's currently happening? It all seems pretty drastic to me. Although to be honest, bombing lots of stuff doesn't strike me as the soundest plan they could have fixed. They damage the infrastructure, upset the local population and yet are unlikely to seriously weaken the terrorists.

I was amused by a quote on Newsnight a few days ago from an American soldier: "Never underestimate the enemy. There's no doubt that he's smart and that he's shown some discipline. I think, for the most part, over the last year and and a half, we've killed all the dumb ones... and we've got the smart ones left."
Ed
Wednesday, November 17, 2004 07:52:28 PM
IP: 131.111.236.130

Lynati: I've just had a thought. I think I'm going to finish reading what there is and see if my idea hasn't been taken already!

In Atlantis: Milo's Return, there is an Odin. They've got many of the "facts" right, AND he looks a lot like the one in "Gargoyles, Eye of the Storm" and he sounds JUST LIKE him. Maybe they got the same guy to do the voicing??
Krista
Wednesday, November 17, 2004 06:40:25 PM
IP: 68.116.254.201

HARVESTER OF EYES - Thanks. As the person who proposed the Maddox element in TGS when we began working on it, I'm glad that you enjoyed it.
Todd Jensen
St. Louis, MO
Wednesday, November 17, 2004 10:21:22 AM
IP: 198.209.226.130

Patrick- Truth be told I'd love to take the fight to the bad guys, but it's not a mater of just going "over there" and popping some Nazi in the face or storming an island to take a japanese post.

The war against terror is actually slightly worse that the Cold War because while in both cases you are fighing an idea, terrorist have no uniforms, no self preservation, and can never collapse like the soviet union because of corrupt government.
The closest comparison would be VietKong. All we as Westerners can really do, is as you said, don't bow, and hope that we give the Afgans and Iraqis a fighting chance and get the hell out. How long will it take, damned if I know, we may never leave. May build us a permanent base there, have it fenced off like Guantanamo Bay. My greatest fear from this administration is "the next target" if we attack or are attacked while still deployed all over the world.
Okay that was long winded and all said before.
Revel - [samrx5@msn.com]
Wednesday, November 17, 2004 10:14:49 AM
IP: 68.119.237.207

Gside > It worked for Bill Clinton.

20 days left until the spell is broken and they live again! Gargoyles Season One comes to DVD on December 7, 2004!
Patrick
Wednesday, November 17, 2004 06:55:31 AM
IP: 68.170.199.45

What I have to say may seem a bit dated, but since I only learned about the existence of this site back in May and am still reading through the TGS Archives, I just wanted to offer my belated compliments to the staff. I just finished reading "The Darkest Hour," and I have to say that while everything I've read so far has been very good, this just passed muster. The introduction of the seemingly innocuous Nicholas Maddox back in Season One, and the storyline that developed around him, impressed me. To find out in the finale of that season that he was Oberon's brother left me anticipating great things from Season Two. As I read down through the season and saw how things were unfolding on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, I wondered what it would all lead to, and then...WOW! To say that the shit hit the fan would be an understatement! I haven't been this enthralled and entertained by something since I saw "Return of the King" last December. My belated congratulations to the writers and illustrators of the Gargoyles Saga. You all rock!
Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75@aol.com]
Fredericksburg, VA, USA
Wednesday, November 17, 2004 12:31:16 AM
IP: 69.174.28.68

Maybe I should be pantsless more often, then the world would be a better place.

Na zdorov'ya.
Gside - [gside@comcast.net]
Fair Haven, NJ
Tuesday, November 16, 2004 10:32:42 PM
IP: 68.83.187.89

Because the terrorists will continue to indiscriminately target all Westerners until the West caves in to all their demands, at which point they will simply think up some more demands and continue ad nauseum. This is why it is the policy of most Western nations to not to negotiate with terrorists. Nations that bow to the pressure, such as Spain and the Philipines, only exascerbate the problem.

IMO, it's time to get tough and take these guys down by any means necessary.
Patrick
Tuesday, November 16, 2004 06:49:58 PM
IP: 68.170.199.45

Mercord: To get bigger headlines. Also, if aid workers are afraid to remain in Iraq, the country will continue to destabilise and it will be impossible to hold elections -- or at least impossible to hold elections on a large enough scale for the winner to have any kind of credible mandate.
Ed
Tuesday, November 16, 2004 02:09:34 PM
IP: 131.111.236.130

Somebody please explain to me why Margaret Hassan, who has done nothing but try to help the people in Iraq, has been killed?
Mecord's Cat
Tuesday, November 16, 2004 12:50:10 PM
IP: 67.40.106.231

:: deals himself a queen and an ace ::

Blackjack! Woohoo! 21 days left until the spell is broken and they live again! Gargoyles Season One comes to DVD on December 7, 2004!
Patrick
Tuesday, November 16, 2004 06:56:45 AM
IP: 68.170.199.45

DPH: <H.O.E. - The debate was whether or not the Messiah could have actually committed a sin.>

Ah, yes, the everlasting rub. Fully God, but also fully human. Hmmm, I suppose that would make Jesus the first Halfling. But anyway, the closest he ever came to sinning was Luke 19:45, least in my opinion. However, his anger was justified, which anger sometimes is, hence the reason for that passage.
Harvester of Eyes - [Minstrel75@aol.com]
Fredericksburg, VA, USA
Tuesday, November 16, 2004 01:20:19 AM
IP: 69.174.28.68

Fire Storm> <<f$%^ manager wouldn't let me go to the store to get Lysterine to clear my bad breath because I JUST THREW UP AT WORK>>: I would say your best option at that point would be to throw up on him and hope he catches it. Heal well, though.

Na zdorov'ya.
Gside - [gside@comcast.net]
Fair Haven, NJ
Monday, November 15, 2004 10:52:14 PM
IP: 68.83.187.89

10, from mountain time...
Annie
ID
Monday, November 15, 2004 08:07:42 PM
IP: 208.187.169.70

9th and pissed.

f$%^ manager wouldn't let me go to the store to get Lysterine to clear my bad breath because I JUST THREW UP AT WORK.

Needless to say, I am *NOT* happy...

And my breath smells bad.
Fire Storm
Monday, November 15, 2004 08:01:44 PM
IP: 65.114.91.3

8th
silvadel
Monday, November 15, 2004 07:05:05 PM
IP: 24.149.144.183

7th.
Na zdorov'ya.
Gside - [gside@comcast.net]
Fair Haven, NJ
Monday, November 15, 2004 05:38:29 PM
IP: 68.83.187.89

Vinnie: Uh, then why don't you post something to stir discussion? Or respond to some of the other posts?

Green Baron: Yes, I heard about the Ohio mail thing. I actually think it's quite a good idea -- and not just because it had the complete opposite effect, and made browsing ‘The Guardian’ website's elections discussion thread good for a laugh. America is about free speech and accountability, but as long as it takes an interventionist foreign policy, it seems like fair game for foreign journalists and letter-writers to add their voices to the throng -- even the likes of 'The Guardian'. America does this all the time, dropping its own propaganda leaflets in Iraq and Afghanistan. And of course, the citizens rightly rejected their cockamamie socialist dogma in the ballot box after being exposed to their Chicken Little inspired Osama-apologist ultra-socialist arguments. That said, with Bush getting in, I wonder if it’s a more a case of the electorate serving to avoid collision with a car and driving off a cliff instead... the more of his policies that emerged over the past few months, the more he came across as a leader big on government, small on privacy, big on war, small on strategising, big on ‘morality’, low on human rights.) The article I’ve linked below had a quite interesting and optimistic perspective at least.

As for Michael Howard, though, his chances are now looking very bleak and frankly, although many of his policies are actually quite good, I'm not sure the party or Howard himself deserve to be elected given the low energy of their campaigns, and their ineptitude in forging a distinct political identity for themselves. It astonishes me that Boris Johnson, surely the most likeable and up-front person in politics, was sacked for allegedly blustering for two days when accused of an affair, while Blair's shocking lies on everything from new taxes to the case for war are so blatant and yet the party has hardly landed any serious dirt on Labour in consequence – the Liberal Democrats have had more success!
Ed
Cambridge, England
Monday, November 15, 2004 04:43:31 PM
IP: 131.111.236.130

6,7,8 come on let's post some more!
Vinnie - [tpeano29@hotmail.com]
Marquette, Michigan, USA
Monday, November 15, 2004 03:42:37 PM
IP: 64.112.202.95

5 woo
Damien
Monday, November 15, 2004 03:27:28 PM
IP: 205.250.244.212

Four. Wow, countdown's slow this week.
Tharos
Monday, November 15, 2004 02:41:21 PM
IP: 165.190.89.139

Third? :)
Ravyn
Monday, November 15, 2004 01:33:35 PM
IP: 4.157.35.177

2nd!
Ed
Monday, November 15, 2004 01:25:43 PM
IP: 131.111.236.130

1st?
Leo
Monday, November 15, 2004 01:20:14 PM
IP: 68.231.241.236