Friday, October 31, 2014

BOO.

A big Count Floyd ah-woooo for Daniel J. Flynn of the American Spectator, who has given us the culture-war Halloween essay of the year and perhaps all time.
Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Michael Myers kill kids rushing to become adults. Is it too much to ask of the ghoulish trio to apply their talents toward adults rushing to become kids? 
The grownups who have decimated the ranks of trick-or-treaters by aborting 10 million of them in the last decade offer penance for their sins against Halloween by dressing up in place of the missing children.
I can hear you all out there in the darkness, going blink... blink... Let me explain: See, us godless liberals killed all the kids in the womb and stole their costumes, and now enact a grisly, Walpurgisnacht travesty of what should be a red-blooded, cowboys-and-princesses American Halloween!
One way thirtysomething Halloween enthusiasts recoup the money spent on costumes involves not dispensing candy. One can’t help but notice the same couples, dressed in the late night as a sexy Ebola nurse and her doting patient, hiding in their kitchens with the lights out earlier in the evening when the doorbells ring.
Can't help but notice! Who says the Spectator doesn't do reported pieces?

Thereafter it's a jumble of cultural signifiers -- Ray Rice! Milton Berle! -- till inevitably it's time to blame Obama for evil abortion Halloween:
Surely the National Parent sets a bad example here. Pajama Boy, that cradle-to-grave sponge “Julia,” and the health-care act regarding 26-year-olds as dependents entitled to coverage from their parents’ insurance plans all recast adolescence long beyond its biological boundaries -- 25 is the new 12.
This is even better than the gibberish Flynn came up with for Martin Luther King Day. Party on, cowboy!

UPDATE. Just found that Flynn did something very similar last Halloween ("The scariest thing about Halloween isn’t the goblins... It’s adults who impersonate children"). It's lighter on the abortion than his current holiday column, but it does have topical references (50 Shades and Miley Cyrus, remember them?) and a terrific title: "WHOREOWEEN."

343 comments:

  1. One way thirtysomething Halloween enthusiasts recoup the money spent on costumes involves not dispensing candy.Jeez, Dan, you should be grateful. The candy would probably be laced with abortifacients.

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  2. montag29:37 AM

    "... blink... blink...."


    No shit. Wha' the fuck was that?



    I've had pneumonia fever dreams that made more sense.

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  3. tigrismus9:48 AM

    One can’t help but notice the same couples... hiding in their kitchens
    with the lights out earlier in the evening when the doorbells ring.


    Yes, but what about their COUNTERTOPS?

    the National Parent

    And yet you complain if he hands out candy to kids.

    P.S. ABOOOTION!

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  4. coozledad9:51 AM

    One can’t help but notice the same couples, dressed in the late night as a sexy Ebola nurse and her doting patient, hiding in their kitchens with the lights out earlier in the evening when the doorbells ring.



    Holy fuck! It's that Flynn motherfucker beating off at the window again!

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  5. FatsDurston9:51 AM

    I know he/they don't give a shit, but Halloween involved adults dressing up long before 1973, and that trick-or-treating as mass culture is barely more than a half-century old. (Daniel J. Flynn on 1930s adults dressed as witches: "It's obvious that the New Deal's Satanic agreements of redistribution have resurrected evil in its purest form.")

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  6. Halloween_Jack10:02 AM

    A more mature culture looked the other way, in tacit approval, as sophisticated bands of kids egged the homes of killjoys.

    Translation: Flynnie has never had to scrub dried egg off of brick. If he had, he'd be skreeeing about today's permissive parents who are going to find out the hard way about stand-your-ground laws. He's also the author of The War on Football: Saving America’s Game, aka Walk Off That Chronic Brain Injury You 300-lb Sissy, and also wrote a skreeeeeeeed on videogames in the library (FFS, don't tell him about the graphic novels!), in which he both attempts to shame librarians with the ghost of Ray Bradbury and gives a shout-out to Gamergaters. I'll just assume that his real problems with grownups dressing up for Halloween has to do with the odd phenomenon that, no matter what he tries to dress up as, people read it as Middle-Aged Clown With Anger Management Issues, and react accordingly.

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  7. BadExampleMan10:03 AM

    Roy, I don't know what the Voice was thinking. In your place, my blog would just be month after month after month of "...the FUCK?"

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  8. Don't mention the swastikas that were so popular back in the 1920s. ou don't want to know where he'd go with that.

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  9. tigrismus10:15 AM

    That and "Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Michael Myers kill kids rushing to
    become adults. Is it too much to ask of the ghoulish trio to apply their
    talents toward adults rushing to become kids?"

    So a wish for grisly mass murder and approval for juvenile delinquency and property damage, all in a purportedly anti-depravity stink-piece.

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  10. THE CANDY IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOU - oh, wait, it's supposed to. Nevahmind.

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  11. BigHank5310:17 AM

    Turning the hose on him is useless, honey. Get the pepper spray.

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  12. Flynn, m'boy, don't you think it's a bit early to've started drinking?

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  13. ElfInBklyn10:20 AM

    what better way to get one's halloween costume than from an aborted fetus? pray tell!

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  14. Derelict10:21 AM

    I've now spent two weeks doing interviews and actual in-the-field hands-on let's-see-how-it-works research for a single article on jet-fighter bomb racks. Why can't I get gigs like Flynn's where I can just set my computer into babble mode and then collect a check?

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  15. Leonard Pierce10:22 AM

    My favorite part is still the "Don't get me wrong, I love tits" bit at the end, but you have to love the scolding of 20somethings for being on their parents' insurance. Unless you're lucky enough to come up with some tech hustle or rich enough not to care, if you're that age, your options are low-wage service jobs or unpaid internships, neither of which really come through in the health care department. But, on the other hand, kids today, am I right folks

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  16. You'd need to let the seams out a bit.

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  17. Derelict10:28 AM

    I'll just assume that his real problems with grownups dressing up for Halloween has to do with the odd phenomenon that, no matter what he tries to dress up as, people read it as Middle-Aged Clown With Anger Management Issues, and react accordingly.

    I'll go with a somewhat more direct assumption: He's never been invited to any Halloween parties, and instead gets dressed up so he can wait for children to come to his door for candy. But the little bastards never show--they know not to go near the creepy guy who looks an awful lot like the stranger-danger man their teachers are always talking about.

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  18. Wait - how the hell do you do a "sexy ebola patient" costume, anyway? Sheer undies and a couple pints of fake blood?

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  19. Giant Monster Gamera10:31 AM

    I'm looking forward to the inevitable Thanksgiving column, where Flynn advocates Christians setting up "kid's table" monuments in the front yard in memory of the 10 million aborted so the adults could eat more cranberry sauce.

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  20. Jaime Oria10:32 AM

    ' "Julia" '? I can only echo a prior commenter and say ' 'Da fuck?' I guess they really are communicating in their own dialect now.

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  21. As if everyone doesn't just push the cranberry sauce around their plate and announce "I'm finished!".

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  22. Robert William Alexander Jr.10:34 AM

    Only a fundamentalist and asspuckered conservative can convert a fun custom and excuse to party into a satanic ritual and Liberal menace...I'm sure he's great fun at parties..

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  23. bulletsarepeopletoo10:40 AM

    This Pajama boy? http://inyourfaceradio.net/duckie-pajamas-manboy-republican-shows-up-on-cnn-talks-dream-act/

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  24. HOLY FUCK and he starts off his column with a picture of "Sexy jihandists" doing the finger-as-gun thing. Classy.

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  25. bulletsarepeopletoo10:48 AM

    He sounds like the type to complain about the 10 million who should be out spending money on Black Friday but instead the "parents" are waging war on Christmas.

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  26. The lucky ones protected in the womb grow up overprotected outside of
    it. An adult-surveilled childhood responsible for structured playdates,
    chauffeured trips to school, and digital babysitters shielding
    youngsters from the fresh air may also be responsible for the delayed
    childhoods of adults earlier denied them.


    See, it's all the fault of Limousine Liberals, cocooning their spawn from the manly harsh world instead of letting kids play with broken glass and bleach the way we did growing up. But aren't culture scolds like Flynn also always whining about irresponsible parents abandoning their kids in parks while they go off to irresponsibly earn a wage? Heads they win, tails everyone loses, evidently.

    It’s also hard to not conclude
    that a society mired in gadgets and amusements quite naturally favors
    frivolity


    Parties didn't exist before smartphones, so there, nyahhh you self-obsessed boomers.

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  27. sharculese10:49 AM

    Upvoted for abootion.

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  28. montag210:50 AM

    Babble mode is only available on wingnut welfare proprietary software.

    And no one with any sense wants to decompile and reverse-engineer it. That way lies madness.

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  29. sharculese10:50 AM

    Remember when wingnuts thought they had finally scored a major victory because the administration put out a picture of a dude in pajamas, and then the whole country just straight up didn't care?


    Daniel Flynn remembers.

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  30. The authorities now dub such clearly adaptive responses to the Halloween Grinches as maladaptive, harshly regulating the behavior of the unbadged behavioral regulators. Candy Scrooges, and even generous distributors of candy corns, Bit-O-Honeys, black licorice, Necco Wafers, and other alleged edibles last found delicious in 1924—not to mention misguided dispensers of apples and other healthy “treats”—also escape the wrath of righteous vandals.

    BOOM! Flynn with the classic jape!

    In fact, let's break this down: We've got the joke he ripped off of Lewis Black, the "kids these days / child psychology, amirite?" stuff, the shot at fucking Pajama Boy, which at just shy of a year old is plenty stale...I think we've found one of the "funny ones!" Better watch your ass, Jonah! Kick in a "Not to be politically incorrect" and an ancient gag about ethnics, and he could take this routine on the road.

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  31. montag210:57 AM

    Gawd, if only we could have a bit more spontaneous frivolity these days. The world that conservatives and glibertarians have eagerly given us is rife with the bitter uglies, and one in which everything is commodified and monetized.

    It was no less than Kurt Vonnegut who said, "we're here to fart around." And farting around is a whole lot safer than eagerly dropping bombs on people or muscling our way into other countries in order to commodify and monetize them.

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  32. There were parties, but they were so much more mature when Flynn was a kid - the 80's, our most dignified decade. No one wore a costume to a coke party in his day.

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  33. Frivolity is not manly.

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  34. I seem to have read about elaborate parties back in the 1920s. One wonders what "gadgets and amusements" society was "mired in" back then; radio and hand-cranked peepshows at the boardwalk, maybe?

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  35. sharculese11:03 AM

    Nobody tell Flynn that this is the second year in a row I'm breaking out my ugly ass Mitt Romney shirt and a pair of flat front Dockers and going as the scariest thing I can think of - a college Republican.

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  36. sharculese11:06 AM

    I think it's safe to conclude that smart phones are a direct consequence of Roe v. Wade.

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  37. montag211:07 AM

    Don't forget to make the costume complete.

    Hockey mask and fraternity pin.

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  38. montag211:09 AM

    Indeed. The aristocracy luved them some masked balls. Maybe Flynn is whining just because the proletariat horned in on the action one day a year.

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  39. BigHank5311:11 AM

    Something tells me you might not care for the taste of Koch.

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  40. I've never verified this, but I believe that I have divined the secret to wingnut welfare - a most arcane and peculiar path. First, you must track down the masters of the Three Styles and let them slap you across the face until their hands get tired. If you can endure this without complaining about being oppressed, they will give you directions to the home of All Wingnut Thought. If you manage to elude the fiery scourge of the hostile comment demon and solve the ancient puzzle room (the solution is "Clintondidit"), you will meet the Commentator of Commentators. This strange and ancient creature takes a variety of biometric measurements and, on the basis of those, gives you your assignment. Oh, and then you have to sell your soul, but that's no big deal for these guys.

    Alternately, it could just be that these are all people with no other talents who landed connections into a very shitty industry, but I like my explanation better.

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  41. susanoftexas11:14 AM

    Yeah, it's the liberals with the sick fantasy life. From the comments:

    James Crystal • 2 hours ago

    Let 'er rip---that's my advice.

    On this day of dressing up, and going to stranger's houses for candy, as children, and to parties as an adult, why not demand that Obama give a Halloween press conference. Make it mandatory, that on every October 31st, the president must appear in public before the full press corp.

    And, most vitally, the members of the press MUST dress up, in a competition for the most politically IN-correct costume. Hopefully there would be at least one clown in an Obama mask! Those wanting to really get The One's attention might appear as the head Imam of Iran, or a young freedom fighting Netanyahu.

    After all, every other day when there is a White House daily briefing, it is always essentially a tricking for the right and a treating for the left, and there's also no doubt that Obama et al are partying down.

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  42. susanoftexas11:15 AM

    Or you can take the Koch ferry directly to training, jobs, stipends, honoraria, speaking gigs, book contracts, media appearances, and cushy jobs.

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  43. I considered that too, but to make that costume realistic you have to drink a lot more Coors that I'm comfortable with.

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  44. I was going to type "Google is your friend," but that would depend on whether you appreciate the actual costume or not. Basically, we're talking a regular sexy nurse look with added gloves, goggles, face shield, and breathing mask. And the worst part is, there are probably Texas hospitals buying these and claiming that they meet the guidelines the CDC gave them.

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  45. LookWhosInTheFreezer11:20 AM

    I bet Flynn is outraged by all those adults who regularly dress up as Robert E. Lee and his band of honorable, State's Rights Defenders. Or the wealthy who throw lavish parties where they dress up in period clothing, hire Paula Deen to cater and stand around imagining a simpler time when those people still knew their place.

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  46. Emily6811:22 AM

    If you can't help but notice them, then they aren't hiding very well.

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  47. About 90% of the people who take that ferry get dragged through the gears of the Great Wingnut Machine, judged at places like WND and Breitbart, and ultimately shat out the bottom of American Thinker. I think I'd rather get whipped by a troll than know that Joseph Farah was one of the people determining my fate.

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  48. "Set up the appointment from your Obamaphone, and the abortion is free."

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  49. So basically a clean suit with cleavage. I mean, that describes pretty much any "sexy" costume: add "with cleavage" to the end.

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  50. The grownups who have decimated the ranks of trick-or-treaters by
    aborting 10 million of them in the last decade offer penance for their
    sins against Halloween by dressing up in place of the missing children.


    I think I'll dress up as an embryo that killed its mother because of an ectopic pregnancy.

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  51. glennisw11:30 AM

    The grownups who have decimated the ranks of trick-or-treaters by aborting 10 million of them



    Is it worth pointing out that had those 10 million severely deformed children, children with lethal birth defects, or unwanted children of troubled parents been born they would likely NOT be trick-or-treating?

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  52. No, it's more like "Sexy version of Texas Presbyterian clean suit." Seriously, it's a short zip-up-the-front "sexy nurse" outfit, only with latex gloves, goggles, face shield, and breathing mask added. Boots not included. An actual full-body clean suit with cleavage would still be tasteless, but it would make slightly more sense.

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  53. dressed in the late night as a sexy Ebola nurse and her doting patient,

    What the actual fuck? "Doting" patient? Wouldn't "dying" patient be more accurate? Does he do penance for his sins against the English language by dressing as his missing editor?

    hiding in their kitchens with the lights out earlier in the evening when
    the doorbells ring.


    Quick, is there another article on the site whining about the influx of poor minority children into upscale neighborhoods?

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  54. LookWhosInTheFreezer11:34 AM

    First, you must track down the masters of the Three Styles and let them slap you across the face until their hands get tired.



    Based on the thinly veiled subtext of their writings, they might use a different body part to do the slapping.

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  55. glennisw11:35 AM

    Right, because a couple of $3 bags of snickers compensates for the $50 sexy policewoman costume. Christ, the man can't even get math right!

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  56. It probably adds up if you use Wingnut Math.

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  57. montag211:38 AM

    Or, equally, there weren't ten million more soldiers in some faraway hellhole, never able to say, "Preznit Bush give me turkee."

    Scratch a Christian conservative and you're going to find about four layers of bullshit covering a solid core of colonial imperialist.

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  58. WHOREOWEEN



    #notalltrickortreaters

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  59. drspittle11:38 AM

    One can also purchase "Both Sides Partisan Gridlock But Obama And Democrats Have Not Reached Across The Aisle And Are To Blame For Everything" software, available for download on the New York Times editorial page.

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  60. Editors are a liberal lie.

    Plus, anyone else get the feeling that "sexy ebola nurse" was a reference to Kaci Hickox? You know, who doesn't have ebola?

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  61. The only thing he's distributing on Halloween is Bit-O-Honkeys, which were last found delicious in 1964.

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  62. We're just trying to bring up the issue of ethics in Halloween.

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  63. They taste like library paste.

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  64. glennisw11:42 AM

    why not demand....Make it mandatory, that on every October 31st, the president must appear in public before the full press corp.



    I think President McCain would have taken umbrage at such a suggestion.


    (And I am certainly amused at the notion there would be some Star Chamber out there that would dictate Presidential appearances, and even its costumes. Dream on, buddy! Maybe in a Republican administration, a panel of the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and Rush Limbaugh WOULD have such power.)

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  65. is this shit supposed to...i don't know, scare us straight or something?

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  66. Jaime Oria11:42 AM

    As ever - '''Da fuckitty-fuck-fuck-fuck?"

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  67. montag211:43 AM

    Oh, I think they're still being sold in some states. And in Lester Maddox's restaurants.

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  68. Jaime Oria11:43 AM

    And it might look a little something like this -

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  69. Mr. Wonderful11:44 AM

    First, you had me at Count Floyd. To this very day when something unexpected happens, I'll say (to the dogs), "Oooh, that was SCARY, boys and girls, SCARY..."

    Second, one can't help but notice people hiding in their own kitchens in the dark? Is one there in the kitchen with them? Is one spying through the windows, in search of granite countertops? This piece by Flynn sets a Large Hadron Collider-level impact of high indignation, moral obtuseness, wingnut hack tendentiousness, and outright absurdity. As the old tv critic of the Times used to say, Well done, all hands!

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  70. Have any of the other brethren brought up the old "Halloween is the liberal moocher" holiday tripe? I mean trope?

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  71. They're remarkably popular here in Sou' Ca'lina.

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  72. montag211:46 AM

    Marketed, of course, by Brands on Sale.

    Ain't capitalism just the neatest fuckin' thang ever?

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  73. Peepshows are still hand-cranked in the present day.

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  74. susanoftexas11:50 AM

    If a zombie ate Flynn he would taste of paste as well.
    McArdle would taste like too much salt.
    Reynolds would taste like tinfoil and flopsweat.
    Goldberg would taste like lard.

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  75. i saw something on twitter, #liberalhalloweentraditions. i assumed it was more gibberish, but maybe it was absolute hilarity.

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  76. susanoftexas11:51 AM

    I want to buy this comment a box of tissues.

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  77. Actually, it's about ethics in journalism.

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  78. Nah, the secret is being born to a previous wingnut welfare recipient, like Jonah, or Bill, or John.

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  79. http://31.media.tumblr.com/04f1b599d384a8c85e06c7f1e20431fe/tumblr_ndkdmhl7M21qabj53o1_1280.jpg

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  80. Giant Monster Gamera12:08 PM

    Had they been born, they could have served their true purpose by serving as reminders to their moocher parents of their failure to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

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  81. I'm telling you, they don't even need to make sense any more. Before the decade ends it will be long strands of characters with the occasional trigger word thrown in.

    IWRINTepd.dtiq ww OBAMA wowugndd,[[yd ABORTION obquqeetoidtdo'q ia ia GUNS.

    And the target audience will still eat it up with spoons.

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  82. tigrismus12:10 PM

    It's a sticky issue.

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  83. Giant Monster Gamera12:12 PM

    After all, every other day when there is a White House daily briefing, it is always essentially a tricking for the right and a treating for the left, and there's also no doubt that Obama et al are partying down.



    There are those reports of the pounding bass emanating from the East Wing and Colt .45 swigging drunks tottering around in the Rose Garden.

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  84. Uber-Christian Kirk Cameron is urging people to give out Gospel tracts to trick-or-treaters... does that count?

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/10/21/actor-evangelist-kirk-cameron-and-the-war-on-halloween/

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  85. It is wrong to abort your zygotes, but letting your childen die because they can't afford their own health care is A-OK!

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  86. Give out Chick Pamphlets?

    THAT's the house that gets egged, y'know.

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  87. montag212:15 PM

    More likely, he's pissed because he's not yet been invited to any of those functions. There's wingnut, and there's wingnut with money.

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  88. susanoftexas12:16 PM

    Chicken feet. They're cheap and the fundamentalist will think he's targeted by Satanists. Fun for the whole family.

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  89. Wingnut trolls in comment threads will be easier to ignore, though.

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  90. tinheart12:17 PM

    Next time people like him whine about Halloween and people paying money to dress up, just drive by their houses, ring their bell, and just before the egg hits their face as they open the door, drive off screaming "IT'S A FREE MARKET, MOTHAFUKAS!!!"

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  91. But if the turkey is in the crib, then where's the baby???

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  92. I think James Crystal (and people like him) just like the idea of ordering President Obama around.


    That way, they can pretend that he really isn't in charge of anything, at least for a little while.

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  93. montag212:21 PM

    And, isn't ordering `em around just what you do with blah people?

    Old habits die miserably fuckin' hard.

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  94. That's a pretty bland-sounding explanation compared to D Johnston's story of wild initiations...


    but it's simply the ugly truth.

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  95. That isn't cranberry sauce, either.

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  96. whetstone12:25 PM

    Conveniently, I just happened to have written a piece about Halloween in the 1980s. You may recall, depending on your age, prohibitions against eating unwrapped treats; mostly it was the result of the 1982 Tylenol poisonings, after which 40 cities banned trick or treating. At least nine Chicago hospitals offered free x-ray screening for candy.

    Anyhow, I was reading back through Halloween coverage of the period, and the Chicago Tribune felt comfortable reporting (and had some non-anecdotal evidence) that by 1991 the stranger-danger had passed and the holiday was much bigger than it had been previously.

    The culprits? Boomers, who were nostalgic for childhood and determined to give their children even more elaborate Halloweens than they had. This is of course the least surprising thing ever, but... it's projection. It's always projection.

    (FWIW, a previous piece on Boomers and their taste for comic books, obscure beer cans, the Nostalgia '72 convention, and how they emotionally buried their heads in the sand during that decade. Which, in fairness, seems to have really sucked.)

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  97. There's a Dutch word for that: Swaffelen.


    (I ran across it on some website about funny and interesting words.)

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  98. Says a lot about the Dutch that they'd need a word for it.

    Anyone else remember the "Hate The Dutch" thing from National Lampoon back in the 70s?

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  99. tigrismus12:29 PM

    Also: http://www.npr.org/blogs/theprotojournalist/2014/10/29/359547119/halloween-for-adults-a-scary-history

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  100. DocAmazing12:29 PM

    If you're going for those little touches that add so much, a baggie full of roofies is key.

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  101. whetstone12:31 PM

    Journalists would really learn a lot from reading the archives of their own damn publications.

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  102. montag212:31 PM

    Maybe they needed the word because Godlstein once visited Holland to speak to their neo-Nazis about building personal armories.

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  103. RogerAiles12:32 PM

    When Jonah Goldberg was arrested for exposing himself to trick-or-treaters, he tried to tell the cops he was wearing a Big Hero 6 costume.

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  104. oh. em. eff. gee.

    #LiberalHalloweenTraditions bringing all world #Ebola patients to US #KaciHickox #VOTEMATTERS #tcot #StopTheSpread

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  105. DocAmazing12:34 PM

    I object to Twitter. It's taking the fun out of reading the labels of Dr. Bronner's Soap bottles.

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  106. But, since we have no more journalists here to begin with, that problem's cured itself.

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  107. montag212:39 PM

    Why am I reminded of the Omegas' initiation ceremony in "Animal House?"

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  108. #notallsoap #dilutedilute #OKAY!

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  109. ColBatGuano12:41 PM

    Yeah, apparently all those kids were supposed to be born and then treated like crap. For reasons.

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  110. Giant Monster Gamera12:41 PM

    Flynn traces is all back to being ".. Physically attacked by aging hippie "Free Mumia" supporters, mooned and shouted down by Berkeley book burners, banned for life from Black Panther reunions, and forced to host a conference in an off-campus park when Columbia administrators succumbed to the heckler's veto" but I suspect that he was always a clown with anger management issues.

    http://www.flynnfiles.com/bio.php

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  111. John Wesley Hardin12:41 PM

    Dilute! Dilute! Don't Drink Soap!

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  112. ColBatGuano12:42 PM

    And some hand lotion.

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  113. johnlal12:43 PM

    "26-year-olds as dependents entitled to coverage from their parents’ insurance plans all recast adolescence long beyond its biological boundaries -- 25 is the new 12.": Is he saying that 12 year olds should be kicked off their parents' healthcare policies?

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  114. DocAmazing12:43 PM

    Upvoted for "skreeeeeeeed".

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  115. Or letting children get shot because the 2nd Amendment is the only one that counts.

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  116. Jay B.12:44 PM

    No, that's when they should leave the house to work.

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  117. John Wesley Hardin12:44 PM

    The Sticky Tissue of Halloween: A Very Scary Story by Danny Flynn.

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  118. Once the GOP brings back child labor, they'll be able to get their own insurance through work.

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  119. BTW, it's conservative "humor", so it's less "funny" than "pitiful attempts at 'funny'".

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  120. Jay B.12:49 PM

    One can’t help but notice the same couples, dressed in the late night as a sexy Ebola nurse and her doting patient, hiding in their kitchens with the lights out earlier in the evening when the doorbells ring.



    One can't help but notice that he doesn't realize that no one really wants to talk to him when he rings the bell.

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  121. Ain't THAT the truth.

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  122. Giant Monster Gamera12:54 PM

    I just picture them all at the bottom, covered in shat and crying out "Me, me! Choose me!"

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  123. montag212:57 PM

    And Jim Hoft, no doubt, would taste like chicken.

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  124. Derelict1:04 PM

    Barney Frank nailed it: For Republicans, life begins at conception and ends at birth.

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  125. Brian Schlosser1:05 PM

    Got that issue in my archive!

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  126. Mr. Wonderful1:06 PM

    "Mature" is first on the American Spectator Preferred Vocabulary list. Flynn uses it twice (once, as required by the style sheet, paired with "culture"). Why these Wm. F. Buckley wannabees consistently believe that a clotted, overdone, clobber-'em-with-your-thesaurus style makes for persuasive writing is a mystery--or, alt., it's just another sign, validating membership in the tribe. "You know you can trust my conservative bona fides--I write like a pretentious asshole."

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  127. Brian Schlosser1:06 PM

    As decreed by Jesus in the Constitution!

    ReplyDelete
  128. Mr. Wonderful1:08 PM

    Every op-ed piece a wordsearch.

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  129. Mr. Wonderful1:11 PM

    Trick AND Treat. Square the circle and resolve the contradictions...with Christ!

    ReplyDelete
  130. Brian Schlosser1:12 PM

    I'm depressed I knew exactly what he meant. I've learned Wingnut via osmosis.

    ReplyDelete
  131. Mr. Wonderful1:12 PM

    ...and drink it straight, undiluted, if it's Michelle!

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  132. Brian Schlosser1:14 PM

    The parents they scold for being neglectfull tend to be a bit... blah...

    ReplyDelete
  133. Brian Schlosser1:15 PM

    These asshole ALWAYS want another

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  134. Giant Monster Gamera1:16 PM

    Hopefully trick-or-treaters will lob them back as spitballs.

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  135. Derelict1:18 PM

    Those parents have clear choices: They both can work two full-time jobs to make sure their kids have food, clothing, medical care, and maybe a small college fund--in which case those parents are clearly neglecting their children and should be punished. OR one of those parents can stay home with the kids--in which case that parent is just a lazy-ass moocher.

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  136. Derelict1:23 PM

    We do have journalists--it's just that nobody wants to employ actual journalists any more. Once the MBAs took over media, journalism became an expense to be reduced. Since journalism was the only thing media had that people were willing to pay for, the results are what you see today.

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  137. Derelict1:28 PM

    To get sexy patient, put the hospital gown on backwards. Just like Nixon did.

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  138. This is gross. It's like he wants lots of kids running around, unattended. Which has long been my theory of why the RCC remains vehemently pro-forced pregnancy.

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  139. Brian Schlosser1:29 PM

    Also as a reminder of their sins. Their sexy, sex sins.

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  140. Brian Schlosser1:30 PM

    Also a tender subject

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  141. Brian Schlosser1:32 PM

    Floyd Robertson and Earl Camembert were the last real TV journalists

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  142. Brian Schlosser1:34 PM

    Tracts are fine... provided you give candy too. And don't get me started on Dentists giving out toothbrushes...

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  143. Brian Schlosser1:36 PM

    Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Obama Chicago wgah'nagl fhtagn!!

    ReplyDelete
  144. Brian Schlosser1:38 PM

    Win/win!

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  145. Brian Schlosser1:40 PM

    You know what movie monster doesn't, as a rule, kill kids? Pinhead. Which is an oddly apropos name in relation to Daniel J. Flynn.

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  146. Fine wisdom from the comments over there:

    ata777•4 hours ago

    The elevation of the stature of Halloween, even as Christmas and
    Thanksgiving decline, speaks volumes about the increasing deterioration
    of our culture.

    Occam's Tool•3 hours ago

    We also have A Nurse (One, and there are bad eggs in all professions,
    but I generally like nurses---and yes, Garry Owen, just to hack you
    off, I did share my Rod of Asclepius with a number of them in my youth.
    :-)) who is cheerfully hoping to spread Ebola around this time in
    Stephen King's Home State. No end to depravity among adults in public
    these days. Chelsea handler has also posed nude and her 40-ish alcoholic
    body is supposed to raise some eyebrows in anything but disgust these
    days as well....

    This one is all kinds of WTF?

    albertconstantinejr•4 hours ago

    “and a CIA NASA emphasizing Muslim outreach at
    the expense of developing rockets that can clear the launchpad, along
    with a CIA who failed to notice ISIS despite their announcement of their
    arrival and successes on Facebbok, Twitter and other social media,…”

    I hope you don't mind my suggested edits.


    Plus, evidently NASA bought those faulty engines from ROOSKIYA! so something something Putin wants us all dead. WOLVERINES!!

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  147. One can't help but notice

    And by notice, he means "speculate, without research, interviews or citation, about what lame cultural stereotypes of approved conservative enemies might be doing ".

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  148. Doctor Acula1:48 PM

    Pajama Boy is still a thing on the right? Seriously? At some point, it has to dawn on conservatives that their continued obsession with a picture of a man in his pajamas a year after that ad happened says more about them than it does about the guy in the ad, right? Right?

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  149. In his house at R'lyeh, dead Alinksy waits dreaming

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  150. tigrismus2:00 PM

    Well, they bought them from a private, for-profit company who'd bought them from Russia. They've spent $50 million to help companies make it to space, and apparently $0 on Muslim outreach, unless you count the salary of the guy who made that statement to Al Jazeera.

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  151. Hey, I'm just hauling mangoes, here. Evidently a statement to al-Jazeera is "outreach" because blah blah blah something MOOSLIMS!

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  152. Hey, at least it was recent. Normally they struggle with cultural references from the 21st century.

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  153. Gromet2:10 PM

    Surely the National Parent sets a bad example here.



    Well that's so direct a cop to one of the standard critiques of conservatism, it feels like satire. They really are seeking a parent in government (but LIBRULS love the nanny state, and don't you forget it!). And not just a loving parent, but an overinvolved helicopter parent who micromanages every minute of playtime and writes junior's book report for him. Otherwise how to explain that Obama's apparently adequate or better parenting of, say, his daughters, is of no consequence to Flynn. At least any example it might set is crushed by the shadow of Obama's neglectful abuse as he fails to micromanage the Julia webpage and the casting and wardrobe of every ad put out by every federal bureaucracy HE HAS FAILED OUR FAMILY.

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  154. tigrismus2:12 PM

    Well, he said to Al Jazeera that Muslim outreach was a priority. I guess these guys don't understand the concept of "public relations*" or "free publicity."

    *or any relations, amirite?

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  155. Derelict2:14 PM

    Can I accept their checks until I need glasses?

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  156. Derelict2:17 PM

    Shhhhhhhhhhh! This is all part of wingnut hack writing. It's right up there with "I'm not one to criticize, but . . ." It reached its zenith with Jonah Goldberg's "The dictionary says I'm wrong [about the definition of facism], but that's central to my point." No mortal can ever hope to attain such heights ever again.

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  157. Derelict2:18 PM

    If it doesn't add up, it surely trickles down.

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  158. You guys are just too goddamned fast. I leave the house for a few hours and already you are up to 164 comments. Damn.

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  159. Halloween_Jack2:31 PM

    That's quite an attempt at self-mythologizing, although all I really found out from it was that a) his books are all published by the usual wingnut mills and b) he managed to skate out of the Marine Reserves just in time to avoid being sent overseas in 2002, which puts him one up (or one down, depending) on your average Fighting Keyboarder who never served in uniform in any capacity.

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  160. Brian Schlosser2:32 PM

    That is not dead which can eternally lie, and with strange eons even Jonah may farrrrrrrrrt

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  161. By the way, a recent trending tag on Twitter was #LiberalHalloweenTraditions. 500 zillion jokes about getting dead people to vote and ... that was pretty much it. I guess with a tag like LiberalHalloweenTraditions you don't have much room.

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  162. Derelict2:38 PM

    Fast and good--that's the Alicurati!

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  163. Derelict2:44 PM

    Is it any wonder that conservatives really have no idea what liberalism actually is? They've constructed these weird caricatures of what a liberal is (male--effeminate, elitist, smelly hippy who is also wealthy and lives on a commune in New York City or San Francisco. Female--butch, probably lesbian, never shaves legs or arm pits, and is also wealthy and living in a commune in NYC or San Fran.), and when reality doesn't match the caricature, they assume it's because the caricature isn't extreme enough. So, they keep adding dimensions, usually drawing from what they see in the mirror and projecting that onto fantasy liberal.

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  164. Derelict2:46 PM

    he managed to skate out of the Marine Reserves just in time to avoid being sent overseas in 2002

    Gee, right at the very time when his country was most imperiled--facing the dual threats of jihadis across the seas and hippies at home--he did the patriotic thing and turned civilian.

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  165. tigrismus2:46 PM

    I guess with a tag like LiberalHalloweenTraditions you don't have much room.

    What, no shaving our legs once a year just so we don't scare the kids TOO badly? Or on the other hand not wearing a costume but no one can tell because BEST WEREWOLF EVER OMG SO HAIRY? Artisanal candy corn made from real, organic, GMO-free heritage corn? Handing out candy like Obama hands out phones? Costume gaybortion parties? Special holiday pumpkin patchouli?

    ReplyDelete
  166. Derelict2:47 PM

    Well, Jonah's definitely got the eternally lying part down. He's also got the eternally lying down part.

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  167. Derelict2:50 PM

    Reminds me of the old Red Green joke about men over 60 going bare chested: It frightens the women and confuses the children.

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  168. Gee, I didn't know entering one's dotage was a symptom of Ebola. Thought it had something to do w/ all the blood leaving one's body. Or in Flynn's case, all the brains running screaming out of his body.

    ReplyDelete
  169. Avedon2:55 PM

    Well, now we know what right-wing nuts dress up as for Halloween. I wonder if they ever hang out with the Wall Streeters who dress up as homeless people at their office parties.

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  170. Gromet2:56 PM

    A simpler time, when the percentage of each ethnicity comprising your parents determined what fraction of a human being you were legally considered and results varied widely from state to state, even county to county; a simpler time, when standards of justice were applied according to local whim, and who could testify in court was determined by skin color; a simpler time, when the world was a relentless battleground between God's predetermined Elect and the forces of Satanism, and even a tiny misstep in morality or work ethic could result in eternal damnation.

    ReplyDelete
  171. Gromet2:59 PM

    If you view paying for candy as a tax, and then cut it to zero, why, that's like an adrenaline shot right to the heart of your costume budget!

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  172. Gromet3:02 PM

    My reaction was actually to laugh out loud. I was knocked off my feet by the unexpected, high-speed veer into abortion.

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  173. This is pretty damn stupid, but it will protect the lower legs.

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  174. Gromet3:05 PM

    There was thunder in the air on the night I went to Tempest Mountain to find the lurking fear and help it become bigger and worse.

    ReplyDelete
  175. sharculese3:06 PM

    So vandalism is cool just as long as there's no fucking. If there's fucking, you deserve ghostmurder.


    What a fantastic moral code.

    ReplyDelete
  176. Howlin Wolfe3:06 PM

    Scary, kids!

    ReplyDelete
  177. satch3:11 PM

    Y'know, I thought that "Once a Marine, always a Marine" was, like, a real thing. Congrats, Flynn, on being the exception.

    ReplyDelete
  178. PersonaAuGratin3:11 PM

    Shame they don't sell this anymore:

    ReplyDelete
  179. sharculese3:11 PM

    I, too, have never heard of freedom of the press.

    ReplyDelete
  180. And the faaaaaaart.

    ReplyDelete
  181. redoubtagain3:14 PM

    No Oreo cookies "thick in the air like locusts"? Shame.

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  182. Forty-five "L"?

    What, is that like Bitcoin or something?

    ReplyDelete
  183. Stop talking about South Carolina already.

    ReplyDelete
  184. montag23:18 PM

    " I was knocked off my feet by the unexpected, high-speed veer into abortion an intellectual bridge abutment."

    ReplyDelete
  185. smut clyde3:18 PM

    Middle-Aged Clown With Anger Management Issues

    Unsexiest Hallowe'en costume EVAH.

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  186. satch3:20 PM

    In that context, ya gotta love this, from the guy whose latest work is 'The War On Football: Saving America's Game':

    "The lucky ones protected in the womb grow up overprotected outside of it. "


    Is that thing on the masthead of The AmSpec really a turkey? It fits...

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  187. Gromet3:22 PM

    And that it's okay to have sex with 12-year-olds?

    ReplyDelete
  188. redoubtagain3:23 PM

    masters of the Three Styles
    Moe-Monkey, Larry-Tiger, Curly-Dragon?

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  189. No, they want people to be parents because they are more easily controlled when forced to be responsible for a little consumer.


    Same reason they want married couples w/ only one employed spouse: Employment & economic options are significantly reduced if there's only one income per couple, & esp. if they reproduce.

    ReplyDelete
  190. BigHank533:25 PM

    Oh, I was there for the seventies. They sucked hard.

    ReplyDelete
  191. redoubtagain3:25 PM

    I thought that was just me. (I hate cranberry sauce.)

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  192. How cute, he's stalking these people. "I saw you! You hid in your kitchen with the lights out until the kids went to sleep and then you went out dressed as sexy Ebola!"

    Actually, taken as read, he used a time machine to backstalk them.

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  193. Flynn's screedch from last year's Halloween was pretty much all about lack of "responsibility".

    ReplyDelete