A boy under orders from his father to swipe McCain-Palin campaign signs and replace them with Obama-Biden ones got a shocking lesson yesterday morning. In North Carolina, where Barack Obama is currently leading in votes, McCain supporter Shawn Turschak had apparently had campaign signs in his front yard stolen several times. So to combat this, he hooked an electrical current from his pet fence up to his latest sign. When the nine-year old son of Andrew Noble attempted to swipe the sign, he got a jolt. The father of the boy then confronted Turschak, and later the sheriff swung by to check on the situation. Video of the encounter is up on YouTube. The father's excuse, by the way, was that his son was just going up to the sign to see how it was set up. I swear, that was the excuse he came up with. These types of people are so precious to me, I mean it. Now, I know I should boast of anything, but there's a good analogy in here about Obama's policies. This kid, while acting under orders from a superior, decided to steal someone else's property and replace it with something the owner did not want. The owner fought against this theft and was scolded by the thief for not being neighborly and allowing him to tamper with the owner's property. So now, in the closing days of the election, we have a nice little metaphor for what people can expect with the possible Obama election. Unfair to read that much into it? Yeah, of course it is. Still, we have to have something to laugh about in these final days of campaign agony. –Stephen Payne, Editor, Oil and Gas Investor This Week; www.OilandGasInvestor.com; spayne@hartenergy.com