In this election, dirty politics reign and, for whatever reason, the effigy has reemerged. Most recently, two men have been arrested for hanging an effigy of Barack Obama outside a building at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
 

Joe Fischer, a senior at the school, and Hunger Bush, a former student at Bluegrass Community and Technical College, were charged with disorderly conduct, burglary and theft by unlawful taking after the two allegedly got the materials for the display from a fraternity house.
 

In other college effigy news, another Obama effigy was found on the campus of George Fox University in Oregon. At the small Christian college four students confessed to hanging the likeness from a tree and have since been punished.
 

But college students aren’t the only ones making the menacing exhibits. An L.A. McCain supporter just removed a bloody Obama effigy that was hanging from her balcony. The fake Obama had a giant butcher knife in its neck, but the woman, Lisa Castaneda, insists the Halloween display wasn’t supposed to be mean-spirited. Really, that’s what she does to all her friends and family!
 

Continuing with the “Halloween fun,” a man in West Hollywood, CA, just took down his own effigy: Sarah Palin hanging from a noose. The “decoration” sparked the ire of neighbors and politicians, and MSNC’s Keith Olbermann even called the homeowner, Chad Michael Morrisette, “today’s worst person in the world.” Morrisette removed the life size mannequin after his block turned into a mob scene of onlookers and protesters.
 

What is going on these days… when did effigies become the cool new political protest? Whatever happened to good old mean signs and vulgar t-shirts?