YANI: Stormbringer and alignment

I was hanging out with the cool kids in rec.games.roguelike.nethack when
Henry J Cobb got out a spraycan and scrawled the following:
> Since alignment rating is "just noise", why not not count against the
> alignment of chaotics when the bloodthirsty blade attacks? (They still
> get the benefit for killing hostile monsters, they're just not dinged
> for slaughtering the innocent.)

If you kill it while it's still peaceful - that is, on the first hit,
when you get the "bloodthirsty blade" message - you get an alignment
penalty anyway. I once had my alignment affected enough to get blasted
by Stormy after I cleared up a swarm of gremlins on the Wizard's portal
level.