Many of you, like me, may know Seattle's consciously lefty paper the Stranger through sex-columnist cum-editor Dan Savage. I occasionally read his column, Savage Love, and I listen to his podcast weekly. He's entertaining, informative, and like many people, a blind follower of the Democratic party with zero tolerance for Republicans of any stripe. I let that slide, as I do with my fellow teachers, my old professors in graduate school, and others who mistake faddish anti-republicanism for free thought.

And it's in the pages of Savage's paper the Stranger that one finds the most objectionable, inflammatory bit of voter intimidation I've seen this season: a tour of "Hell Houses" of Seattle's Eastside. It's presented as a tour of Halloween sights, the sort of thing newspapers not uncommonly print to help people find well-decorated houses (especially popular at Christmastime).

The twist here is that photographs of people's homes, along with their addresses, are posted with pseudo-humorous descriptions that sometimes read as thinly veiled requests to destroy private property:

By day, it's a standard collection of yard signs on a well-manicured lawn. But at night, it's a GOP graveyard, where the yard-sign tombstones are unearthed by zombie candidates hungry for brains. Do you have what it takes to drive a stake through the heart of zombie Dino Rossi or blast a shotgun into the chest of zombie Dave Reichert or fight off the reanimated ashes of Steve Litzow, swirling out of that terrifying urn? Run.

If these monsters want to make themselves known through such public displays as political signs, I suppose it's only natural that the villagers will come with their pitchforks, and their torches. Or in this case, perhaps, shotguns.

Disgraceful.