GPF News Archive

Quick Update: Thanks, everyone, for the messages you've sent in the past couple days concerning my news post below. I'm still trying to respond to the original e-mails. Although my one, lone voice doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things, it's important that we can speak our mind on such matters, even to such a limited audience.

As some of you reminded me—and to which I've always personally agreed, even though I neglected to mention it in the original post—this is not an isolated attack against a single country. Tuesday's attack was against freedom throughout the world. The United States does not exist in a vacuum, and the voice of solidarity heard around the world yesterday is excellent proof of that. All peoples in all nations should shudder at the magnitude of this act, whether they agree with United States policies or not.

Also (and this is my opinion, not necessarily of anyone who's written me), but we should not be too quick to pass judgment on suspects based on pure speculation. Although I'm sure everyone would like swift action and resolution to this situation, we can't be too hasty. This is a criminal act, and all suspects—including suspected terrorists—are innocent until proven guilty. It is my hope and prayers that the United States government moves efficiently yet with wisdom and meticulous investigation before making a commitment to any form of retaliation. I am personally not opposed to war in this situation (although war is never an acceptable solution to any problem), but we must ensure that the correct individuals and/or governments are identified as culprits before gibbing them into oblivion.

I will be donating blood today, and I urge my fellow Americans to do the same. Also, I'd like to announce that Plan Nine is trying to organize a "donation sale" where all our profits—Plan Nine's and its artists—will be donated to the American Red Cross. Details are still being hammered out, so stay tuned for the details.

Our next news post (hopefully Monday) will resume with actual GPF-related news, I promise. I know everyone is being bombarded by media coverage of Tuesday's events, so now that I've spoken my fill, we here at GPF will resume with operations as usual. Hopefully, this will help everyone return to their lives. Thanks for listening to me ramble.

I was planning on making a nice, happy news post this week, telling you about some of the great GPF things we've been working on for the coming months. I was going to surprise you with news about some upcoming Keenspot PREMIUM content I'm cooking up, as well as some news about our big up-coming year-long story arc beginning in November. I was also going to tell you that Book #3 is still in the works, because I have to tweak the cover a bit, so it will be later than expected.

But frankly, folks, right now I am royally and thoroughly shocked, dismayed, horrified, and—yep, you guessed it—ticked off.

In case you've been living under a rock or playing Quake 3 all morning, a series of horrid disasters have struck the shores of the United States this morning. Many online news sites are swamped with traffic, but I've found USA Today and BBC News Americas to be up and reliable. In short, two large commercial aircraft, each laden with passengers, were apparently hijacked and plowed into the World Trade Center towers in New York roughly around 9AM EDT. Under the stress of damage, both towers subsequently collapsed, raining debris for miles. With approximately 50,000 people working in the towers, untold thousands working in surrounding buildings, and even more thousands of tourists and visitors streaming through one of America's busiest financial centers, the casualties are at the moment impossible to calculate.

At roughly the same time, another commercial airliner crashed into the Pentagon, the nerve center for the United States military, in Washington, D.C. Hundreds are feared dead as the fire screams uncontrollably through the halls. Rumors continue to spread of a plane flying over the White House being shot down and crashing in the Washington Mall, and of a car bomb exploding at the State Department. Last I heard, there was even another rumor about a hijacked plane still in the air, speeding toward Washington with unknown intent.

This is inexcusable.

Folks, especially our international readers... I hope you'll excuse me for waxing patriotic for a moment. But looking at all the facts, the mere thought of all these incidents being happenstance and coincidence is unfathomable. There is little doubt in anyone's mind that these are deliberate, meticulously planned attacks against innocent and defenseless American citizens. Such acts of terrorism are barbaric. And unforgivable.

Now, the United States is far from perfect. It has its fair share of flaws, both foreign and domestic. But an act such as this, regardless of who it is aimed at, crosses all bounds. There is nothing that can be said, nothing that can be done to rationalize this sort of atrocity. Whether it occurred here or abroad, it is impossible to dismiss such an act. And that's why I'm hoping for a strong, swift, targeted strike against the masterminds. The blood of innocents has been spilled, and the guilty must be brought to justice.

I've never been very patriotic, but what this person or persons—the mastermind(s) behind this attack—is going to discover is that once the shock and terror have subsided, they are going to have to face a United States united anew against them. This attack has already been likened to Pearl Harbor, the dark moment in American history where our innocence was lost and the "Sleeping Giant" was awakened to fight in World War II. Well, the Sleeping Giant has dozed off since then and become complacent.

Not anymore.

For those of you who are religious, I beg you to pray for the hundreds of thousands of victims, family, and friends who have been affected. Americans, pray for your nation, that it can act in wisdom and strength during its crisis. And pray for the souls of those responsible... 'cause there butts are already toast.

There. I've said my fill. Not that anyone but my loyal Faulties will read it, but if I can't complain to you guys...?

Here's the usual ending stuff:

• Because he's a sadistic glutton for punishment, the Indigo Wombat (Marsupial of Might, of course) has taken it upon himself to create the GPF Statistics Page! Make sure to check it out and lend him support in debugging and maintaining it.
• The GPF Tip Jar is now online, by popular demand. If you feel the need to tip the ol' artist, you can now do so through PayPal or Amazon.Com. This service is completely voluntary and without obligation.
• Don't forget to check out my interview in the May 12th issue of The Write Charm. It's tres nifty!
• Don't forget that both of our GPF books are out there, selling like hotcakes, at Plan Nine. You can also get the Plan Nine 2000 Christmas Annual, which is finally on sale.
• Plan Nine has just picked up an official Canadian distributor to officially handle books sales (GPF and other titles) in Canada. This will hopefully reduce shipping fees significantly, which has been the biggest problem for our Northern Neighbors when buying our books. Their Web site is finally online: http://www.plan9.ca/. If you feel like talking to a live human, you can also order by calling 780-430-9062.
• Are you a Perl hacker with a little free time? Then help out the KBB crew! A group of Keenspot fans (including some loyal Faulties) are fed up with the unreliable, buggy Ultimate Bulletin Board (UBB) scripts that Keenspot uses for it's message boards, and they're taking matters into their own hands. If you have some Perl knowledge and want to help out, check out the Keen Bulletin Board home page for more information.
• As always, feel free to let me know what you think of the site and the strip either through the GPF Message Boards, our new IRC channel, or drop me a line. They'll all work eventually, I promise.