Just because you have a +4 post of retaliation does that mean you have to waste it killing ants?

He's a giant ant. And as Alex can tell you, they're particularly vulnerable to flame.

I did't know that.

When I used to play it was never D&D, Final Fantasy 1-8, Dragon Warrior 1-IV, Chrono Trigger, the classics.

Gave it up after I graduated from H.S. and discovered History. Although I'm still pissed that Robert Jordan's Dead.

If you want to start throwing down with the geekery, you need to make appeals to RIFTS or Gamma World.

D&D is to gaming like Van Halen is to heavy metal.

This isn't to say that Van Halen sucks... but it sure as hell ain't Mastodon or Amon Amarth.

This is clearly one of those religious right urban legends that gets told over and over in pulpits all the time. I grew up on the fringes of that culture (my parents church wasn't far right per say, but you still got some overlap with the fringes), there all kinds of these "too good to be true" types of things that spread around (during the 70s especially) like viral email does today That Mark Salter would incorporate it into McCain's narrative fits even more now.

Saying that he really stole it from Colson who said that Solzhenitsyn said it turns the story into something that is "Fake But Accurate" and the media got burned kinda bad by that last time.

But his readers don't want them either.

Saying that he really stole it from Colson who said that Solzhenitsyn said it turns the story into something that is "Fake But Accurate" and the media got burned kinda bad by that last time."

That analysis makes no sense at all. What difference does it make if the anecdote was written by Solzhenitsyn himself or was (falsely) attributed to him by the ex-con Colson?

McCain has a history of making shit up. Now it turns out his wife does, too. He's not getting his Lifetime POW Free Pass any more, so he can get used to it.

Does anyone think we've seen the last of these stories? McCain's been tossing bullshit around for decades. Now some of it is blowing back in his face. I'm hoping for a hurricane.

Huh? your losing me. Andrew's argument goes like this:

No one can fnd McCain mentioning this before '99, notably he wrote and talked about his time as a POW many times and never brought it up. At first he thought it sounded like something Soltz. had written. Now it turns out it is something Colson said that Soltz had written.

If the original story had been McCain saying that Soltz said X and now it turns out that actually Colson just said that Soltz said, then yeah pretty minor, McCain heard something from Colson and passed iton as from Soltz. But that isn't what he did. McCain said THIS HAPPENED to ME. When all the evidence is that nosuch incident ever happened.

This is nothing like the Rather memogate thing.

A very telling thing is compare how McCains various embellisments are treated vs Gore's quotes turned into lies when he told the freakin truth in the first place (his actual quotes about the internet and Love Story and so on)

John McCain is obsessed with Paris Hilton and the old culture wars of the 1960s. Barack Obama is focussed on your future and your hopes. $1,000 tax cuts for every middle class family, not $300 billion dollar giveaways to people that own 8 houses like John McCain; tax breaks for companies that keep jobs in America, not for big oil; affordable healthcare for every American, and a secure social security for our seniors.

So while John McCain continues be obsessed with the past and rich, blonde women young enough to be his granddaughters, Barack Obama will continue to fight to keep the promise of the American dream alive for you and your family.

Fixed.

If you want to start throwing down with the geekery, you need to make appeals to RIFTS or Gamma World.

So, you're saying the set of people who are geeks and the set of people who are girls has 0 overlap? Come on, there are better ways to make this point than something dripping with sexism.

But as you get deeper and deeper and deeper into the weird corners of geekery... well, I'll make the comparison to heavy metal again.

Of *COURSE* you can find women who think Van Halen ROCKSSSSSSS!!!!!!!

Find one who can sing along with Runes To My Memory.

I'm not going to vote for the guy.

I will, however, point out that the "McCain ripped off a story from Solzhenitsyn!" attack is a long-term loser. There are a number of reasons:

1) First off, it's not true. Now, maybe it's kind of technically true because he stole a story that Colson attributed to Solzhenitsyn... but someone will point out how Solzhenitsyn didn't write it.

2) If it's properly framed, we'll show a picture of McCain next to a picture of a copy of Colson's book _Born Again_. Is that an image you *WANT* on the news? SERIOUSLY??? Forget what the reporters are saying. I'm talking about the image of McCain next to a copy of Colson's book.

There are several kinds of good attacks. The first kind of attack is an attack that fires up the base to vote for your guy while not really having much of an effect upon the so-called "swing" voter. The second kind of attack is an attack that will get the swingers to vote for your guy rather than for the other guy. A third kind is an attack that demoralizes the other guys while not having much of an effect on the swingers.

This attack fits into the first category *MAYBE*... but if played poorly, the whole "Solzhenitsyn never said that, and here's his biographer proving it" counter-argument is devestating and showing pictures of McCain next to a copy of Colson's book is an attack that will get demoralized Republicans to say "hey, maybe I *WILL* vote for that guy!"

The house thing? That's a good attack. Go for that one.

If I still lived in the Bay Area, I could find you several women who could hum along - I knew lots of female metal fans there. If you look on Amon Amarth's MySpace page, 13/40 of the friends on their first friendspage are women. That's not scientific proof, nor is it gender parity, but 32.5% doesn't seem to indicate any rarity to me.

But that's rather beside the point, which is that by definition you're ruling out an entire sex of being "geeks" (or metal fans). The logic behind the comment structure is If A, Then B: "if it is something that girls do, then it is not truly geeky"; "if it is a band women like, then it is not truly metal." You're not allowing, by definition, that women can be truly geek or enjoy metal. I wouldn't argue if you were going to say something like, "statistically, fewer women play the super-geeky tabletop games than men", because that's probably accurate - and more importantly, it doesn't ignore the idea that some women are geeks, and do play those games. It's the definitional aspect that is a problem.

I am, however, pointing out that "geeky" has a right side of the bell curve and, much like basketball players, the 1% of the 1% has, statistically, a lack of gender parity.

You know.

Like heavy metal fans.

Yes, every now and again, you find an exceptional woman in the vague corners of the tabletop world. I'm not saying you don't. But if she's not there on any given night? One tends to not be surprised.

Gamers, though, that's a different story. Apparently, Goldfarb feels entitled to *overtly* mock people on the basis of their hobbies/lifestyles/subcultures. I think the overtness of the mockery is what comes out here-- in addition to being a nonsensical, out-of-left-field attack on several hundred thousand to a few million Americans (depending on whether you're talking about "people who self-identify as gamers" or "people who have played DnD at some point").

He chose an interest group that didn't, previously, have any ideological axe to grind, or interest (as a group) in the outcome of the election, and started picking on them because they're not cool, and he thought he could make himself more popular by denigrating them.

It's like High School all over again.

(As an aside, I had trouble bringing myself to vote for Gore in '00 because Tipper at the time is said to have believed DnD to be Satanic)