Mercury World Report

Tricky treats

Halloween is just around the corner. What goodies are local newsmakers giving out to trick-or-treaters this year?

Gov. Kenny Guinn: Quaint, homemade wooden pull toys.

Rep. Jon Porter: A grim silence that answers the persistent door-knocks of tiny hands.

Richard Ziser: Exhortations to go away, you demon children whose souls will be consumed by this ancient, pagan evil!

Commissioner Lynnette Boggs McDonald: Fliers alleging David Goldwater sets kittens on fire and rides a rickshaw pulled by a starving harem of Thai child prostitutes.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio: One single candy corn, painstakingly sliced over the course of the night with an old pocketknife and a magnifying glass in his workshop.

Robin Leach: Twix, Snickers and Milky Ways, but then he jams his hairy hand in your bag, comes up with a clawful of candy for himself and, with an enthusiastic fart, slams the door.

Sen. Harry Reid: Homespun tales of his youth in Searchlight, a small town with a big heart, a place where a boy could learn the value of hard work by summer employment at Wayne Kurdy's old service station at Guss and Hanover Street, ah, yes, I remember it like yesterday, the smell of gas, the jingle of the bell on the door, the playful barking of Wayne's three-legged golden retriever Lucy...

Columnist Steve Sebelius: Burned copies of Huey Lewis and the News' 1983 album Sports.

Councilman Michael Mack: Bricks of Top Ramen.

Commissioner Myrna Williams: Marlboro Miles.

Chechen rebels listened to Marilyn Manson before school rampage

BESLAN, Russia--A preliminary report of the Beslan school massacre that left more than 300 students, parents and teachers dead suggests that Chechen rebels may have listened to Marilyn Manson CDs in the hours just before their deadly rampage.

"When the vulnerable minds of young rebels are filled with nothing but unwholesome songs that combine gender ambiguity, nihilism and stark images of life's futility, some kind of desperate acting out is all but inevitable," wrote Gennadi Tsebolov, author of the 57-page Study of Thing That Is Not Our Fault.

Tsebelov also highlighted the rebels' access to violent video games, such as Sony PlayStation's gruesome Separatist Rebels: Auditorium of Blood, as a contributing factor. "When death itself is made to seem a game, there is a coarsening of the teen rebel's morality and compassion," according to the report.

"Of course the rebels are ultimately to blame for their actions," Tsebelov concluded, "but there can be little doubt that the fruits of Western decadence were a triggering mechanism for all the horror that followed."

Bill Clinton approves this massage

HARLEM--Assuring his intern that his murmurs of delight are an official endorsement of his current state of pleasure, former president Bill Clinton said Tuesday he approves this massage.

"Yeah, darling, right there, thaaat's the sweet spot," he purred as office intern Lydia Barrows rubbed his shoulders in gentle semicircles. "All this working late has really got me all knotted up, and I sure do appreciate you helping me relax a bit. Feels like I got an overcooked pork chop in there."

After suggesting that Barrows might more effectively massage him by taking off her pants, Clinton approved this massage seven more times before falling asleep.

THE ISSUES THAT MATTER

How we'll be dressed on Halloween:

More like a whore than usual: 25%

In prison stripes, unless parole board reverses decision: 6%

In a suit, attending Grandma's funeral, thanks a lot for bringing it up: 15%

As Darth Maul, because Grandma would have wanted it that way: 12%

With face painted on goiter, so Chief Painted Face Goiter or whatever, just hand over the Zagnut: 14%

Penis with a bowtie, I'm totally Tucker Carlson, dude: 28%