You have to admire the ingenuity here. A North Carolina man, tired of having his McCain/Palin signs stolen from his yard, decided to take matters into his own hands:

On Monday, [Shawn Turschak] ran wires from his house and hooked the signs into a power source for an electric pet fence. Then he mounted a surveillance camera in a nearby tree and wired it to a digital recorder.

Tuesday afternoon, the camera saw this: A neighbor trotting up with an Obama-Biden sign, grabbing a handful of volts as he touched a McCain-Palin sign, then fleeing at top 9-year-old boy speed.

The boy wasn't hurt -- the surveillance tape shows him being more surprised than anything -- and Turschak demonstrated on himself that the signs (which were clearly labeled as electrified, and deemed legal by the local sheriff) delivered only a small shock.

Knowing all that, I have to say that the "get off my lawn" old-timer in me loves this. I'm sure Turschak didn't suspect he was going to nab a pint-sized thief with his rig, but it's surely a lesson the boy won't soon forget.

And yes, I'd feel exactly the same if the political affiliation of the signs were reversed. Turschak gets right down to it:

"This isn't about politics," he said. "This is about my right to protect my property and my ability to display my beliefs."

Unfortunately, the message doesn't seem to have resonated with the boy's elders: Since disconnecting the signs, Turschak reports that they were both stolen by a neighborhood woman (all caught on camera, of course). With grown adults acting no better than children, it's yet another reason to look forward to the end of election season.