Sothmektri's page

I think it originated in ToonTown Online, but I'm not 100% certain.

Anyway, some people find it irritating for various reasons, some don't, and all you're going to get are opinions, not some absolute right/wrong statement of fact. If it doesn't irritate the people you talk to, who cares? If it does and you're the kind of person who goes ahead anyway, then there you are.

I just put it down to reigonal differences in spelling.

That's just downright cruel!

Passion: The Last Temptation of Christ Soundtrack by Peter Gabriel. Here's a sample atmospheric track, Wall of Breath https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y2uWK9PnN1A

I laugh about it now, but the crappy little catbox of a Texas town I grew up in (which shall remain nameless, which it should actually be) went all in on the D&D/Rock/Satanic Panic stuff. There were only three channels at the time, so a lot of people watched '700 Club', or the '60 Minutes' Ed Bradley nonsense, and took it very seriously. My elementary school had counselors asking kids if they'd ever played it, but the four of us who had that I knew of didn't raise our hands.I'm not sure what the results would've been otherwise, but it would not have been good.

The biggest church in town (which was unfortunately ours...Southern Baptist, if you're curious...they actually protested 'Footloose', I kid you not... and not for the quality) was very influential. They held book, record, and concert-shirt burnings in their parking lot. Woohoo!

They talked from the pulpit about all of it, and a LOT. I remember the pastor going down the list of possibilities for Satanists that people might not have thought of. My favorite was 'it could be a high school principal...' We only had one high school, so that must've been fun to hear about if you were that guy:)

My best friend had to hide his D&D books at my house because his older brother got 'born again', decided he was going to be a pastor one day, and was taking all of his own albums down there to burn. He'd talked their parents into letting him take my friend's books along, too. He only had two, but still...

My dad didn't buy into any of this nonsense (his quiet comment on the secret satanists that day at church was 'I wonder if it could be a pastor, too?'), but then my parents got divorced later that year, which got certain elements of my mother's family to talk her into more church attendance.

How is this bad, you say? Well, my parents just divorced, so I was a bit of a disgruntled 11 yr old, attempting to adjust and what not. I hadn't gone nutty or anything. Someone had the brilliant idea that I should see the church counselor. In his 'professional' opinion, as it turns out, it wasn't really the divorce that had me depressed and what have you. Apparently it was the satanic influence of D&D!! Sooooo that's what we talked about.... twice a week..... FOR A YEAR AND A HALF.

Is a man an ape?

Does he wield a rapier?

What would be truly neat if below the monument there was a permanently mounted table and benches with a bronze GM's screen at one end and maybe a permanent dice tower. Something like they do with chess tables permanently set up, but for roleplaying games instead.

That is a great idea, regardless of weather.

The statue should have precious gemstones for eyes.

I was scrolling down to write that very thing! We could all make a pilgrimage to take pictures of each other pretending to pry them out with a dagger:)

I do think he should be wearing a hawaiian shirt and a pair of shorts, though, seriously.

L.M.A.O.

Bravo!:)

My Vote:Jason as Damiel, the iconic alchemist.

Enlight_Bystand wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

I thought it was land of the linnorn kings not the mammoth lords

I think you're right

Studpuffin wrote:

Themetricsystem wrote:

Rhys Grey wrote:

Icarus Pherae wrote:

Studpuffin wrote:

Sothmektri wrote:

Studpuffin wrote:

KaeYoss wrote:

Studpuffin wrote:

Mirror, Mirror wrote:

Studpuffin wrote:

You're just full of bull aren't you? :P

Can we steer this in another direction?

Yeah, these jokes are just hoofing it at this point.

It's not easy to calf your name into the annals of comedy!

We can stop milking this joke whenever.

Cud you really?

I can't believe you'd utter those words.

I think we need to get this whole thing bovine us.

Or perhaps just moove it to another thread . . .

I herd that.

We just can't put these jokes out to pasture...

This is just getting cheesy

Come on, we could churn these things out for weeks!

Sothmektri wrote:

Studpuffin wrote:

KaeYoss wrote:

Studpuffin wrote:

Mirror, Mirror wrote:

Studpuffin wrote:

You're just full of bull aren't you? :P

Can we steer this in another direction?

Yeah, these jokes are just hoofing it at this point.

It's not easy to calf your name into the annals of comedy!

We can stop milking this joke whenever.

Cud you really?

I can't believe you'd utter those words.

Yes, it was a new low for me.

KaeYoss wrote:

Studpuffin wrote:

Mirror, Mirror wrote:

Studpuffin wrote:

You're just full of bull aren't you? :P

Can we steer this in another direction?

Yeah, these jokes are just hoofing it at this point.

It's not easy to calf your name into the annals of comedy!

We can stop milking this joke whenever.

Cud you really?

Sothmektri wrote:

IF there were already a houserule that anyone of evil alignment write something else down instead on their character sheet and tell no one.

What? Deny that I'm more sensible than those brain-impared dunces?

The diabolic, tyrannical world view of Lawful Evil is the most, no, the ONLY sensible alignment. Why would I debase myself by pretending I had been dropped on my head once too often as a child and now thought it was anything less than epic-level stupid to make sacrifices for others, including total strangers who by right I can, should, and must suppress for my own benefit?

Get real, tool.

Plus, it is so much more fun to work with a bunch of care bears for some greater goal (like the destruction of a demonic cult that threatens the region's stability) when you wear your pentacle open and proudly, letting them know just who and what you are, and watching them squirm, knowing they need me along for this mission. Double bonus if the party contains a paladin!

See now, that would be in-character, though. If I had an evil character in a game that I ran I wouldn't force them to be good or something. That's not what I was saying. I'm saying I'd want them to roleplay the 'big reveal' or whatever. If their idea of doing so was to pretend to be all sweetness and light until various opportunities for self-gratification, or what have you, arose that tilted the math toward doing evil in some visible way that they'd just play it out and leave everyone going, 'whoa, wtf?!?'. That I can work with, and I find that a lot cooler than people poring over all the details on each others' sheets and just waiting for the other shoe to drop. The reason I mentioned it is that I'm currently in a group as a player where this is exactly what's being done and it makes it tedious. Now, if you were playing an Asmodean, sure, flaunt it, but that's a bit different than what we're talking about as that god occupies a pretty unique role in-game.

Ignoring for a moment that people are using sociopath and psychopath interchangeably, some of the examples given, like Dexter, are characters that rarely, if ever act impulsively.

Ignoring it is useful, because for all intents and purposes they mostly are interchangeable, as the definitions of both have been fluid and are not diagnoses in and of themselves. They even use the same checklist of symptoms to spot trends toward either, though the name escapes me. These days Antisocial Personality Disorder gets referred to as 'sociopathic' and someone like Ted Bundy, who doesn't have that disorder, could be referred to as either. In recent days gone by (it seems) he and those like him were referred to as 'sociopaths', and a 'psychopath' was akin to referring to a violent maniac. More recently he's a 'psychopath'. So it isn't some rock-solid thing, even within that field, regardless of what it might say in this or that text. Maybe if they're consistent for years with it then maybe. Now, though, you're not correcting anyone. You like it a particular way, fine.

The Joker is clearly a force of chaos and evil, but Dexter? Whatever Dexter may lack in empathy, his actions can't help but remind me of a paladin or two who detect evil, then smite in cold blood once they have the proof they need to make the world a better place by acting as judge, jury, and executioner. Even less beneficent serial killers have been described as robotic in their adherence to ritual.

Turning the entire homicide unit of Miami on it's head for three or so years, leading them on wild goose chases and framing and killing (though indirectly) one of those detectives isn't being a 'force for Chaos'? I don't want to get into dissecting the show here, but other than the redirection of his homicidal tendencies toward other homicidal people and the fact that he's effing awesome doesn't make him any less of a wrecking ball. People just don't connect it to him... for long.

The Joker is scary because he has no code. His pathology is to light fires just to watch the world burn. He makes a great example because he's so extreme, but the extremes of his behavior make him a poor example of a sociopath.

That's pretty much exactly what I said about him as well.

If anything, a sociopath is unnervingly predictable. I'm having a hard time seeing the chaotic.

If you're talking about something like antisocial personalities, sure, they're predictable enough. They can also be seen as agents of Chaos, just the same. They are the grown up equivalent of the kid on the playground who is constantly doing something sadistic to other kids and asking if it hurts, except that the adult version can get a whole lot uglier. It doesn't always, but it can. The predictable part is that if they see a weakness or someone with their guard down they will take advantage, and they don't consider the consequences. A decent example would be a client/patient/whatever who tries to put out a cigarette out on your arm simply because you're facing the other way, regardless of the fact that you hold the power over everything he wants, from dessert to more cigarettes.

So only humanoid young are worthy of mercy? I call racism! Why do other sentient (or more accurately sapient) beings get to be treated in such foul manners with no mercy merely because they don't keep their genitals in the same place as humanoids?

I'm not sure you're responding to me, but if so I'd say that I can imagine an intelligent being, or race of them, that is nonetheless inherently evil, and that I imagine goblins to be such a one. For the purposes I use them for this works.

Then again, I could say that it is the result of some glandular peculiarity of the species which makes them more aggressive and sociopathic to boot. Would that be 'evil'? Does it need to include a choice to qualify? Does the thing have to be evil to justify killing it? That generally isn't the case with unintelligent things, and it generally doesn't matter what age it is, in that not many people will hesitate to destroy a wasp nest (where the larvae are) any more than they hesitate to kill a wasp itself.

Just my opinion, but another thing I see as a problem with this argument in general (not the sub-arguments or what have you) is that many people equate 'helpless' to 'innocent'.

As far as the question of moral dilemmas for paladins goes, I agree that it is a huge chunk of the fun with the class. However, the type of moral dilemma matters to me, and this is one just doesn't do it for me at all. That isn't to say I wouldn't throw moral dilemmas at them. I just don't find this one to be this big conundrum, but I also disagree with most of the people who see a black/white answer on it.

Situation at hand is as follows:

Fair enough. I wasn't engaged in the 'sub-argument'. I actually agree with you on that topic.

As to the rest of your post, I never said native americans were like goblins. I drew a parallel between the situation (attempting to exterminate a whole tribe to the last baby) with similar situations that occured for real in our own history, and pointed out how dismally it failed with human beings, who are not nearly as sneaky and evil and paranoid as the goblins are. Please don't twist my words to make it seem like I'm saying native americans are goblins.

Jeebus, take a lap or something. I was pointing out the difference between the viewpoint of settlers, etc, toward the native population and what it might be toward something of an entirely different species, and why. The media of the 1800s at least was loaded with articles sermonizing on the 'savage' and their ability to 'receive the Word' or what have you (while simultaneously excusing most of the wrongs being done to them). I do not imagine an equivalent approach 'softening' that public opinion to whatever degree toward something like a goblin. If you took my post to be some 'twisting' of your words, man, the twisting is in your head and not my problem.

Nope. Ad hominem attack aside, it's the mindset of someone who's handled Paladins on both sides of the screen and realizes that being a Paladin is intended to be hard. Paladins aren't intended to be a walk in the park to play. They aren't intended to be Fighter-with-Smite-Evil. They're intended to be Guy-Who-Is-Definition-Of-Good.

You paint with too broad of a brush, though. I don't disagree with any of what you say above. I don't think it has to apply to the situation at hand, however.

You were there I take it? You know how the tribe became extinct?

You know for a fact that every single member of the tribe died?

Or is it possible (more likely probable) that most of the non-combatants ended up fleeing and got absorbed by other goblin tribes. The tribe is still extinct (a tribe is not blood, it's identity, and the identity of the tribe is gone).

This was fairly common with the native americans, entire tribes got wiped out when the europeans came over. It doesn't mean all of their bloodlines were killed. It means the survivors got absorbed by other tribes.

I don't see how it would be 'more likely probable'. The various religious organizations of the past acknowledged the basic humanity of the Native Americans (while condoning doing all kinds of sh**ty things to them), and though that didn't stop atrocities from occurring constantly it might have had some impact on the public perception enough that innocents were spared, though clearly not always.

Now, you're certainly free to write some similar material into the game world you're running to create a similar perception toward something like goblins, but to just assume it when they physically look like another species altogether, and those differences are sharp, nasty little teeth and beady red eyes, seems like a stretch.

1. Then don't play a Paladin. The entire point of the Paladin moral code is that the Paladin class is a walking moral dilemma.

I think I'll skip your advice and continue to play them as I always have, which is generally reviewed very well, and you missed in my post that I was referring not to moral dilemmas as a whole, but to that same moral dilemma ad nauseum.

2. Who said anything about an orphanage in every town?

I did, because something must be done with all of these spared 'innocents', as you view them. Do you just release them into the wilds with some rations and a stern 'go forth and sin no more'?

No one is advocating that anyone but a Paladin (or an Exalted character) should be expected to show mercy to helpless goblin babies.

Again, that's how you're choosing to view them.

Please fix your post, Sothmektri. I don't like having someone else's words put into my mouth, accidentally or otherwise.

Just saw that and can't edit it now, but consider this a correction that the first line quoted as you in my post was actually written by someone else, with apologies. I must've missed that first line when narrowing it down.

I generally don't like evil characters in a campaign as it eventually becomes about them, but I wouldn't see a problem with a CE character in a party... IF he were capable of subtlety, and IF there were already a houserule that anyone of evil alignment write something else down instead on their character sheet and tell no one. They'd also need to be completely okay with the notion that they will likely become a dead bad guy at a certain point.

I do agree that they'd be basically sociopaths. I agree that the Joker is an example of that, though the best examples probably aren't those that are so powerful that they can commit evil acts at will with little thought to consequence. They never have to be subtle that way. Ted Bundy had a job and coworkers who liked him. He even frequently walked one to her car after work when women started going missing, warning her that there were dangerous people out there.

I also believe that there can be CE couch potatoes, same as LG couch potatoes, or cowards of either alignment who never take much action at all.

I believe that they can cultivate and maintain friendships and appear to care for that person's well-being a great deal, though actually what they care about is what they get from the relationship, which could just be something like a regular companion to sit down and eat lunch with.

There's a great quote from 'Dexter' an HBO show about a sociopath-turned-vigilante-blood-spatter-analyst to that effect, when he's describing his adopted sister:

"I'm not a person who's capable of having feelings for people, but if I were capable of having feelings, I'd have them for her"

Sociopaths are capable of having feelings, though, as long as they are entirely about themselves and what they want. I have worked with several in a previous career, and it is effing chilling when you see them ape affection and you know it. They can be very good at it, and I'd like to think that I'd have known even if I hadn't read their files and diagnoses, but after awhile I realized that was pure ego talking. I kept getting this image in my head of them smiling at me, then a big safe dropping out of the sky and squashing me flat, and them simply tilting their head to the side curiously.

I think you could have a fairly subtle version in-game that never turns into a problem other than slowly being thought of as an a-hole by others, but where is the fun in that when you can make it a plot device?:)

RAVINGDORK: Having just read what you posted there I'd agree that all of the above would fit better under NE than CE.

Sounds great!

It is only racist if they are killing the goblin babies because they are goblins. If they are killing them because they are evil, it may be alignmentist, but it is not necessarily racist.

The difference is that they were demonstrably incorrect, and everyone knew it and pretended otherwise. Not so with goblins. Maybe in some campaign worlds, I guess, but I wouldn't assume it as standard.

Cherokee Story of The Little Boy and The Rattlesnake (lifted from a website which lifted it from other websites)

The little boy was walking down a path and he came across a rattlesnake. The rattlesnake was getting old. He asked, "Please little boy, can you take me to the top of the mountain? I hope to see the sunset one last time before I die." The little boy answered "No Mr. Rattlesnake. If I pick you up, you'll bite me and I'll die." The rattlesnake said, "No, I promise. I won't bite you. Just please take me up to the mountain." The little boy thought about it and finally picked up that rattlesnake and took it close to his chest and carried it up to the top of the mountain.

They sat there and watched the sunset together. It was so beautiful. Then after sunset the rattlesnake turned to the little boy and asked, "Can I go home now? I am tired, and I am old." The little boy picked up the rattlesnake and again took it to his chest and held it tightly and safely. He came all the way down the mountain holding the snake carefully and took it to his home to give him some food and a place to sleep. The next day the rattlesnake turned to the boy and asked, "Please little boy, will you take me back to my home now? It is time for me to leave this world, and I would like to be at my home now." The little boy felt he had been safe all this time and the snake had kept his word, so he would take it home as asked.

He carefully picked up the snake, took it close to his chest, and carried him back to the woods, to his home to die. Just before he laid the rattlesnake down, the rattlesnake turned and bit him in the chest. The little boy cried out and threw the snake upon the ground. "Mr. Snake, why did you do that? Now I will surely die!" The rattlesnake looked up at him and grinned, "You knew what I was when you picked me up."

THat's how I look at it. I wouldn't demand that everyone else view it the same, as whatever makes your gameplay fun is what you should go with. I just don't think that moral dilemma over and over again at every monster lair is fun, and I have a hard time conceiving of (and probably wouldn't want to play in) a world where every town has some bizarre monster orphanage in it that people tolerate.

I'd still rule their deaths as a mercykilling, were it me, so long as that is what the players intention is and they handle it as humanely as could be expected. If they go punting them off of the cliff then I'd start questioning the morality. Otherwise, the recently-raided town isn't going to want them and will probably do away with them as soon as possible if you hand them over.

A problem with the argument here is that people keep referring to them as 'children', etc. How realistic do you think that would be to people living in a world where things like goblins exist? They'd see them as innocent babes and think, 'well, if only they were raised right'? Really? How many times do you think that status hasn't been afforded to people in our world throughout history simply because they were from the next culture over, and not some other race of creature altogether?

I am really wanting to try something like this, but in full disclosure I have DM'd the first issue of that AP. However, I am fully capable of hanging back on decisionmaking, or even acting against my own interest for the sake of fun, (just ask my misspent youth) until we're past the material I'm familiar with. Wednesday works for me as well, if that isn't a problem.

Honestly, a fair bit of the appeal to me of playing a human comes from the fact that no one is going to speak up while I'm playing my character and tell me 'you're playing a human wrong'. I've seen many players who rely heavily on the standard versions of dwarves, elves, what have you, do that very thing to other people playing one of those. Not that there's anything wrong with those standard versions if they appeal to you, and they can be quite fun, but a fair number of people have very rigid views on how this or that race is played because of it. Not such an issue with a human, and *bonus* if you make the human stand out through good roleplay then they're twice as memorable a character as Boilerplate the Dwarf will be. I damn near always play a human, but he's never any sort of generic fantasy standard.

As to people using the race of human to lay back and not engage much, and seeing it in all kinds of settings, sure. I've seen that, too. However that is just part of playing a game with a population that has a fair number of people in it (NOT ALL OF THEM)who are socially awkward, if nonetheless fascinating and superior people in every other way!

Answer this and I'll know how to answer your question: As the DM how would you handle it if the party decided that the people of Sandpoint will have zero interest in having anything to do with goblin children, and that the correct, decent and goodly thing to do is to perform a mercykilling?

I've run across the thinking before, but I still don't understand how someone can be uncomfortable with the notion of non-adults of a race being evil from birth, but have no problem at all with the entire race choosing corruption wholesale at some point during maturation. I only put it that way because, in my experience, people who have a firm opinion on that topic (a) get quite strident and insistent about it when asked, and yet (b) they want that in the game somewhere. They want the 'do you kill the babies??' scenario to come up.

I don't get what that does for anyone, and I don't really see that it adds value or 'roleplay opportunities/moral dilemmas' of anything other than the cheapest sort in the loudest primary colors, and that may lead to, yes, party conflict, or annoyance.

I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but it does sound like you want to 'inflict' something on the party that will be more burdensome and potentially damaging than it will be fun-inducing. It might not be on purpose, and I've seen this situation in older published material, but it has never once been interesting to me, at least.

Next time you buy something that comes in a box with styrofoam framing just cut the styrofoam down to act as notched frames for the boards. Something you can slip on the corners that will keep them separated and will fit in a bag or box. I did this and it looks like it will work, but then my group plays here so I haven't had the chance to check yet:)

Oh and take a look at the Cheliax companion book, it has a section on neutral clerics of Asmodeus. If they can do it, anyone can.

As an aside, you're selling Asmodeus a bit short as defined in this setting. His varied aspects, in my view, grant a fair bit more latitude in how he is interpreted.

If there is enough uncertainty to have an argument go this far then I'd say it isn't so concrete as to have a right/wrong answer, except by developer dictate or DM Ruling.

Personally, I think TriOmegaZero is on the right track, and that's how it will be at my game if the issue ever comes up. I'd think the relevant factor would be location. Is this character coming from somewhere far enough away from major civilization hubs that the goings-on of temples far away wouldn't matter, or might not even be known to him? Might they do things differently in some church in some out-of-the-way burg, where they focus on a less malevolent aspect of the deity in question? Hell, for the flipside view, look at the things the cult of Diana got up to around the time of Caligula.

I'd try and balance out the game world functioning as intended with not stifling my players if there isn't a good reason to do so. If I didn't see it as an attempt at an exploit or just extremely ill-conceived then I'd allow a different interpretation than the one I might have, if it could be explained to me.

On the other hand...

How does the player of the cleric define 'Evil'? If indifference toward, and culpability for, what he himself refers to as the murder of others doesn't count then what about combining that indifference with selfishness? After all, no one is forced to remain clergy of anything, far as I know. Are those two things, selfishness and indifference, even factors in his definition of 'Evil'? I'm really asking.

I find max hps for the bad guys helps with that a fair bit, too.

Whoa dudes, shrooms are, like, totally awesome. The make me feel soooo trippy. I also love...whoa....hey....is your head shrinking?

No, its just far, far away...:)

I'm embarrassed this woman is the governor of my state. My only consolation is she wasn't elected governor.

Notice, too, how she took every opportunity at publicity on this right when she had to get behind a tax increase?:) She wasn't just unelected, but unpopular and invisible to the folks on her side of the fence prior to this bill coming up. She finally figured out how to 'slop the trough' out here.

An anti-establishment movement ends the moment it embraces the establishment.

There wasn't any kind of coherent theme to any of the bands around prior to 1976. Even if there were, though, you're saying that the moment a member of a 'movement' (or whatever) goes mainstream the entire movement is over, which is silly, though maybe not as silly as giving quite that much power to the Sex Pistols.

Camper Van Beethoven - 'All Her Favorite Fruit'

No, seriously.

A friend of mine sent me this, and I found it to be right in line with what I've been trying to get people to see for a long time.

Yeah, and how they expect to run from a truck full of redneck 5 years their senior in tapered little pants baffled me... until I realized that the rednecks don't see them as anything worth bothering with anymore.

Punk died around the time that Johnny and the boys were signing contracts with EMI (that's 1976, to save you a trip to wikipedia). I know a lot of people would like to believe otherwise, but everything else since has been about fashion. Sorry.

Riiiight, so Bad Brains, Circle Jerks, Minor Threat, Black Flag, The Dead Kennedys, Subhumans UK, The Germs, Fear, Charged GBH, The Dicks, Exploited, M.D.C., etc, etc... all a bunch of poseurs. Yeah.

Sissyl wrote:

If I remember correctly, the REH stories do describe him as being blond. Which would be pretty shocking to today's moviegoers...

No they do not. He always has a dark main of hair with his bangs cut off.

Yeah, he was never a blond.

Oh, hey: linkage

Looks like they switched the dad to Ron Perlman.

So where do they find people who look like Cimmerians these days?

It would be a lot simpler (and more productive, in my view) if they went with the physical descriptions of him in the REH stories. The last time I read one was a couple of years ago, but in the original material he wasn't a hulking freak ( likely with corresponding tiny steroid-balls as a side effect that should steer you clear of them), but rather a guy in really good shape. Big, but probably capable of touching the top of his head or what have you.

From what I remember reading, though, they're sticking to the version people are more familiar with, and maybe the film version of his origin as well, so that would preclude running around the hills and mountains of Cimmeria all of his youth like a Highlander or something. Instead he's just got the big millwheel to focus on:)

Or, another way of saying it would be ....

There is a book called 'Homicide: A Year in the Killing Streets', written by David Simon, one of the creators of 'The Wire'. In it there is a true story about a guy who frequently snatched the hat with all the money in it from sidewalk craps games in Baltimore. He'd play for a bit until the pot got big, and then he'd snatch it and run. So he gets shot dead, of course, and a witness is explaining what happened and why this guy got shot. The cop stops him and asks, 'if he stole the pot all the time why would they let him play in the first place?'

The witness looks at him like he just announced that he was from Mars and replies, 'This is America, man. You got to let him play!'

:)

From the article you just posted, though, I thought this worth pointing out:

'While the gateway theory posits that each type of drug is associated with certain specific risk factors that cause the use of subsequent drugs, such as cigarettes or alcohol leading to marijuana, this study’s findings indicate that environmental aspects have stronger influence on which type of substance is used. That is, if it’s easier for a teen to get his hands on marijuana than beer, then he’ll be more likely to smoke pot. This evidence supports what’s known as the common liability model, an emerging theory that states the likelihood that someone will transition to the use of illegal drugs is determined not by the preceding use of a particular drug but instead by the user’s individual tendencies and environmental circumstances.'

It does in fact make alcohol and tobacco gateway drugs. They are drugs, are they not? And people tend to use them prior to using illegal drugs do they not? I fail to see how they don't meet the definition of being a "gateway drug."

Your definition is too broad, as they are such common occurrences in peoples' lives. What percentage of those people do you think tried coffee or tea (caffeine being a drug, is it not?) before trying alcohol, tobacco, weed, or what have you? Would either of those be a 'gateway drug' as well?

(out for a bit. going to go play designated driver, incidentally:))

Still, I don't think any "self-respecting" Klansman is going to support someone like him, even if he did it just for the money.

They won't support a guy like him because they see him as insulting the military with their antics at funerals, and KKK types think of themselves as the last real 'red-blooded' Americans, etc.

As they say, 'even a stopped clock is right twice a day'. One to go for these clowns.

I want a store named Trader Joe's.

I've taken to shopping at one of those or a 'Sunflower Market'. Sometimes I have to force myself to go there instead, and I can't swear to all of it being better than what I'd get at Wal-Mart... but it does creep me out less. What prompted the change for me, though, was just walking around a Wal-Mart, looking at the shape the other shoppers are in, which convinced me to pay the difference in price to avoid (a) looking like that, and (b)looking at it while I shop for food.

Pancakes are good. Mmmkay.

'I'm giving them the word of God'

'They want pancake mix!!'

THIS killed me. I sometimes think the best thing you can do with people like this, or at least the most annoying thing to them, is laugh at them. Even if that isn't the case, its more fun.

I would point at my (extended) family, since 90% of them like myself do not drink any alcohol except for medicinal purposes, but I can't say which ones simply have never drank any alcohol (like me) and which ones may have actually tried it during their young/rebellious years.

Only millions and millions and millions to go!:)

That's another thing with studies and polls like this, or on various other self-disclosing topics: a lot of people lie, even when they know it won't hurt them to be truthful, if the topic or how it relates to them is controversial. Ask a cop. So its best, in my view, to take any poll result that relies on people admitting, even anonymously, to illegal activity, or behavior they consider 'immoral' or what have you, with a giant block of salt.