FEAR COMES TO BOBTOWN

ITEM: Bobtown, PA has banned trick-or-treating for this year’s Halloween – for unspecified safety reasons.

Instead, Bobtown will hold a four-hour Halloween party at the Bobtown-Dunkard Volunteer Fire Station.

Lame!

Of course, in the post-9/11 Kingdom of Fear, it’s a wonder more towns haven’t done the same thing. Still, in this case it does build on the existing worry base of strangers handing yr kids Gummi Cyanide Bears.

Which has never actually really happened – at least according to a book I’ve mentioned before – Free Range Kids, which makes an argument that letting yr kids go out to play is no more dangerous now than it was 40 years ago. The book cites a study from Joel Best, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware, who studied crime reports from Halloween dating back as far as 1958.

Number of incidents where kids were poisoned by a stranger’s candy: zero. However, he did find one case where a kid was poisoned by his dad for insurance money.

Of course, that doesn’t mean it’ll never, ever happen. But for the most part, it’s more urban legend than fact.

And yes, technically fear of urban legend is within the spirit of the holiday. But not nearly as much fun. And in any case, I don’t see why getting free candy at a party held by strangers is any safer than getting free candy from them door to door.

I want candy,

This is dF

ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY THE ONLY THING I’M GOING TO POST ON OBAMA’S PEACE PRIZE

I was going to wait for the most disingenuous reaction from the GOP and blog it, but really, there’s just too many to choose from, and so much of it is so predictable I probably could have written it myself (except maybe for RedState’s Nobel Affirmative Action quip, perhaps).

And why not? Conservatives spend entire news cycles obsessing with Obama’s choice of condiments and use of teleprompters – it was inevitable they’d hammer him for winning a prize from Stupid Liberal Europeans that he never asked for ... though a few friends of mine have pointed out the Illuminati-like omnipotence of the Chicago Political Machine. (But of course – everyone knows Chicago secretly rules the world.)

Personally, I'm not all that impressed or interested in Obama's qualifications for the Peace Prize, if only because it's an overrated and arbitrary award. I mean, practically anyone can be nominated. Okay, sure, I take the point that it’s hard to square a “Peace Prize” with someone who’s still in charge of an increasingly unnecessary war where stuff like this happens. And while Obama didn’t start the war, he hasn’t exactly called it off.

But so what? That's not why the conservatives are upset about it. They just can’t stand the idea of Obama being popular, especially outside the US. Drives them batshit, it does. “No, no, you don’t understand, he’s evil! EEEEVIIIILLLL! How much more obvious can it be, man?! Don’t you see? He’s fooling you all!”

Still, you have to admit, it’ll make the impeachment hearings pretty entertaining.

Hmm? Impeachment? Why yes. Floyd “Willie Horton” Brown is on the case. He’s had a web site making the case for impeachment since August. Why not? If Obama can get an award despite not having done anything yet, surely he can be impeached for the same reason.

Pre-emptive impeachment!

Because that’s how you fight Socialism in America, Jim – by impeaching the opposition whenever they get elected. It’s a tradition. Or an old charter or something.

(The punchline, of course, is that if it really did come down to an impeachment hearing, the GOP would still get at least half the Democratic Party to vote against Obama.)

Peace out,

This is dF