Dan Snyder’s ahead-of-the-financial-collapse-curve theme park chain, Six Flags, really knows how to scare a guy. And injure a gal!

Snyder’s outfit has kicked off its annual Frightfestâ„¢ promotion for the Halloween season.

The horror got real real fast at the Six Flags Great America outpost in Illinois. That’s where a park employee in a werewolf costume and on stilts got wobbly and then came flying through a plate glass window and into an ice cream parlor.

A female patron in the parlor suffered facial cuts from the flying glass. Litigation to come.

“The werewolf was not injured,” reports the Chicago Tribune.

Whew.

Speaking of scary falls: Six Flags stock (SIX) traded for 31 cents a share this morning.

That’s down from its $11.93 per share selling price in early 2006, not long after Snyder took over the company by leading a stockholder revolt by leveling charges that Six Flags’ stock was undervalued.

Keep the dial right here for all the breaking news in Snyder’s Six Flags soap opera.

Hank Williams Jr. won’t end up measuring up to his old man (think “Are You Ready for Some Football” vs. “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”).

But there’s no shame there. And for all his bozoness, Hank Jr. has put out some worthy tunes. Alas, he butchered one of his best a couple weeks ago, wearing a Cornelius Griffin Redskins jersey as he garbled through a version of his fabulous “Family Tradition” that he’d reworked to plug John McCain and Sarah Palin for a rally in Virginia.

But the routine got the McCain/Palin ticket, and Hank Jr., more attention than they’re used to lately.

So Williams was back it during the radio broadcast of the Redskins/Browns game, starring in a campaign commercial that had him asking fans who loved god and guns, not necessarily in that order, to support McCain’s presidential bid.

He sounded really dumb.

Now Williams has produced an anti-Obama “PSA” for his website that keeps his dumbass streak going. If you like the spot, however, you can show your support by buying the official Hank Jr. leather confederate flag jacket for $659.99.

Obama, meanwhile, has Virginia’s own Ralph Stanley in his corner.

Michael Steele somehow remains a star in the Republican Party. He gave that “Drill, Baby, Drill!” speech at the party’s convention in St. Paul a few months ago, and his name has been coming up as a possible H.U.D. secretary should there ever be a McCain administration.

Just two years ago, remember, Steele tried to engineer the bottom-feedingest voter-fraud effort this area has ever seen.

On Election Day 2006, Steele knew he was about to get crushed in his bid for U.S. Senate by Democratic opponent Ben Cardin.

But rather than go down with dignity, Steele and fellow sure loser Bob Ehrlich, who on that day knew he was about to get crushed in his bid for re-election as Maryland’s governor by Democratic opponent Martin O’Malley, tried a desperate and dirty Hail Mary.

The Republican partners in grime rounded up homeless men from Wilmington, Del., and Philadelphia and promised them $100 and two meals if they’d bus down to black neighborhoods of Prince George’s County on election day and pass out intentionally misleading fliers.

The red, black and green documents were headlined “Ehrlich-Steele Democrats Official Voter Guide” and insinuated that popular P.G. County officials Wayne Curry and Jack Johnson, along with former NAACP head Kweisi Mfume, had endorsed both Steele and Ehrlich.

None of three had made such endorsements.

There were also sample ballots inside the pamphlets that indicated Ehrlich and Steele were Democrats.

The only true thing on the fliers, it turns out, were the lines saying that the fraudulent paperwork was “Paid and Authorized by” Ehrlich and Steele.

(Weird and unrelated sports trivia about Steele: He’s Mike Tyson’s ex-brother-in-law, and because of his height he shows up in a lot of old Redskins highlight packages, cheering from the RFK grandstands. We now return to our regularly scheduled program…)

So, in a country where we accept that Pac Man Jones isn’t morally fit to play football, how can Steele still be allowed anywhere near a political operation?

But there Steele was over the weekend, stumping for McCain/Palin in Missouri.

Steele’s job is to get the Republican crowds riled up about ACORN. According to a report in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, in his speech Steele accused the voter registration group of “undermining the legal system, the voting system.”

Geezus Chrysler…

Today’s Washington Post has still another ode to Sean Taylor, continuing the DC media’s reformation of the Skins’ former safety into a Gandhi/Chuck Norris meld.

This latest piece pumps up LaRon Landry’s aimless wanderings without Taylor beside him in the defensive backfield. The article’s subhed: “With Sean Taylor, Laron Landry Once Formed a Cornerstone…”

“Cornerstone”?

What? Jerry Rice and Joe Montana, ok: They formed a cornerstone.

Landry and Taylor played nine games together.

And, um, the Redskins have a better record with Landry playing without Taylor than with him.

Stop the madness.

Just when you thought it was over: Another Redskins personnel story by Jason La Canfora, another no-comment by Vinny Cerrato.

Readers only had to get to the third paragraph of Jason’s primer (co-written by Barry Svrluga) in yesterday’s Washington Post on all the new Seahawks coming to town before the beat writer let everybody know DJ Vinny is talking to everybody but him.

“Vinny Cerrato, the Redskins’ executive vice president for football operations,” the story went, “declined to comment on the moves.”™ 

This latest, um, flareup in the feud comes after a relative cease-fire period, which followed Vinny going on the air to call Jason unprofessional and devious and Jason calling Vinny a liar in emails to readers. 

So how long can Jason vs. Vinny go on?

Well, by next season, if not sooner, we’ll see that this beat ain’t big enough for the both of ‘em.

Speaking of no-shows: today’s sports section has a big advertisement for a Post promotion called “Chalk Talk.” The event invites all comers to the paper’s 15th St. NW headquarters next Thursday for a two-hour chat with “the Washington Post’s football writers and editors” to talk “football, football and more football.” 

“If you’ve wanted to meet the people behind the words, this event is for you,” reads the ad copy.

Well, judging from the banter at Post-hater Dan Snyder’s Extremskins message board and Post-hater Vinny’s radio show and Post-hater Larry Michael’s TV show, if there’s any media type that fans want to share quality time with, it’s Jason.

So why isn’t his name among the six Post football writers and editors scheduled to appear at the event?

Must be a scheduling conflict.

But, according to the ad, in lieu of Jason, those who show up will get “Great food!”

Even Vinny, the guy who gave up a third and a fourth rounder for Brandon Lloyd, can spot that as a fair trade.

In his Washington Post column about the NFL meetings, reporter Mark Maske tells us that Dan Snyder has been appointed co-chairman of the owners’ Digital Media Committee, alongside Seattle Seahawk boss Paul Allen.

Allen’s a natural choice: He co-founded Microsoft, for crissakes.

But Snyder’s got at least one huge hole in his digital media resume.

Redskins fans have been complaining for years about FedExField’s having the worst video screens and scoreboards in the league, and about the lack of replays and scores shown during games.

Yet instead of giving his customers what they want, Snyder has acted as if there’s nothing he can do to satisfy their digital desires short of building a new stadium.

In his 2005 chat on extremeskins.com, for example, Snyder was asked why Redskins fans have to put up with lousy old school media while everybody else had already gone hi-def.

His response: “We’ve asked our architects to come up with something for the future because we recognized that what was installed when the stadium was built prior to my ownership was an analog system. By the way, because it is an analog system we have a hard time showing replays because we have to manually roll back the videotape, unlike today’s digital systems where you push two buttons and have a replay. Now I see these big beautiful digital systems, high-definition systems, in the newest stadiums and we surely want that for the future. We’re looking hard at making something like that happen. It’s a shame that some of the local media, who know this to be the case, try to create a negative story out of replays when they know it’s because of the existing analog system.”

Snyder’s spokesman Karl Swanson has been repeating the same “It’s not us! It’s the stadium wiring!” line for years.

So the FedExField jumbotron — dubbed the “Lite Brite” by angry patrons — remains the NFL’s turd standard.

Perhaps for the next committee meeting, Allen could could put together a seminar for Snyder on “How to Plug In a Digital Screen.”

Dan Snyder’s flat-bustedish theme park chain, Six Flags, has decided that kegs, not cartoon characters, are what can bring the company back from the brink.

A Texas administrative law judge opened a two-day hearing in Fort Worth today to allow residents and even the Mayor of Arlington a chance to protest Six Flags’ application to sell alcohol at its Six Flags Over Texas and Hurricane Harbor parks.

“I would truly hope and suggest that a marketing strategy would not be ‘Beer and Bugs Bunny,’” said one of the early testifiers according to a report in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Another local told the board: “I don’t want to ride through a park full of puke because somebody got drunk and decided to ride the Superman.”

The judge will issue his opinion to TABC within 60 days, after which the state board will give the thumbs up or down on the booze application.

Assuming Six Flags is still around, that is.

When Snyder took over the chain, he told the press that the company’s parks weren’t “family-friendly” enough.

Six Flags stock (SIX) was selling for around $12 a share at about that time.

The stock closed at 49 cents today.

So at some point on the way down to sub-four-bits-a-share, Snyder expanded his definition of “family friendly” to include taking a faceful of breakfast and Lone Star beer at 70 miles per hour courtesy of the dude in the lead car.

Keep the dial right here for all the breaking news in Snyder’s Six Flags soap opera.

The most soul-crushing moment of the presidential campaign came over the weekend, with the release of a tape showing a McCain/Palin supporter in all his racist glory during a rally in Johnstown, Pa.

I really want to see an interview with the guy, and hear what the Republican leadership says about folks feeling so cozy behaving thusly at their events.

Youtube partially restored my faith in humanity, with the discovery of a clip where Nickelback gets stoned – not THC stoned; olde-school stoned! — off the stage.

Another fictional true sports story hits theaters this weekend with the release of “The Express.”

It’s based on the life of Ernie Davis, a Syracuse running back and the first black player to win the Heisman Trophy.

Among the movie’s climactic scenes is one where Davis gets hit by a barrage of racial slurs and debris during the Orangemen’s game against West Virginia in his senior season.

As a letter writer to the Syracuse Post-Standard pointed out, the Syracuse/WVU game was played in Syracuse that year.

Is this gonna be “Remember the Titans” all over again?

Why oh why wasn’t Davis’ real life story good enough for Hollywood?

That nickname Joe Biden stuck on John McCain yesterday ain’t gonna go away.

In case you missed it: In a speech in Florida, Biden said, “You can’t call yourself a maverick when all you’ve ever been is a sidekick.”

Damn, that’s brutal. (Biden admitted that he, um, Bidened the slur from Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania.)

And from Rolling Stone comes the most devastating bio of McCain ever put together, full of tales of dishonesty and various sidekicky behaviors.

Damn, that’s brutal, too.

Dan Snyder’s pushing-up-daisies-ish theme park chain, Six Flags, finally got the warning from Wall Street that we all knew it would: Shape up or get out.

And there ain’t a whole lot of shaping up going on up there lately.

The New York Stock Exchange put Six Flags, which is carrying more than $2.3 billion in debt, on notice that its stock was on the verge of being delisted. Warnings like this are issued when a firm’s shares close at an average of less than a buck a share for 30 consecutive days.

Absent a fiscal miracle, Snyder’s simplest option to fight the delisting would be to engineer a so-called “reverse-split,” in which every two shares of Six Flags stock (SIX) would be consolidated into one, theoretically doubling its value.

But things have gotten so bad at Six Flags recently that even that strategy might not be enough to keep Snyder trading with the big boys.

Six Flags was selling for $11.93 a share shortly after Snyder’s 2005 takeover of the company, but has been diving like Greg Louganis ever since.

Earlier today, the stock could be had for 40 cents. Double that, and you’re at 80 cents — or still well below Wall Street’s Mendoza Line of a buck a share.

Bill Gates is among those to be dealt the beating of a lifetime under Snyder. Gates’ money company, Cascade Investment, L.L.C., owned a reported 10,210,600 shares when Snyder grabbed the reins of Six Flags.

So in March of 2006, Gates’ investment was worth $121,812,458.

As of this morning, Gates’ grubstake was good for just $4,084,240.

That means Gates is down at least $117,728,218.

Guess the cure for malaria and the eradication of global poverty are gonna have to wait.

Good news for Gates: He’s a PC. Macs are a little extravagant for a guy who’s taken a nine-figure hit.

Good news for Snyder: There’s always Chapter 11! (Around here, bankruptcy “isn’t bad news.”)

Keep the dial right here for all the breaking news in Snyder’s Six Flags soap opera.

During the Redskins’ win over the Eagles, play-by-play man Larry Michael announced that QB Jason Campbell just broke a longstanding franchise record for most consecutive passes without an interception.

“Was that yours?” color man Sam Huff asked his radio partner and former teammate and Skins legend, Sonny Jurgensen.

“No. Theese-mann’s,” Jurgensen huffed.

He meant Joe Theismann, whose name Jurgensen has mispronounced intentionally for decades.

The previous record, 161 passes without a pick, was set in 1983 by Theismann. Legend holds that Theismann changed the pronunciation of his name from “theese-man” to “thyze-man” during his days at Notre Dame so it would rhyme with Heisman, as in Heisman Trophy.

Theismann finished behind Stanford’s Jim Plunkett in the Heisman voting after his senior season in 1970. It’s often said that Theismann blamed his runner-up finish on voters’ sympathy for Plunkett, whose parents were blind.

Jurgensen has always gone with the original pronunciation. For a reason: He and his former running mate Billy Kilmer both instantly disliked Theismann when he came to the Redskins in 1974, in no small part because Theismann vowed to win the starting quarterback job and “put the old men [Jurgensen and Kilmer] on the bench.”

Jurgensen’s in the Hall of Fame; Theismann is not. Theismann’s got a Super Bowl ring; Jurgy does not. Skins fans love ‘em both.

But, based on Sunday’s radio call, the 35-year-old feud lives on.

On last night’s 10 O’Clock News on Fox affiliate WTTG, news reader Maureen Umeh told the audience, “Barack Obama could get a boost from a new voting block: felons!”

Then Umeh read a few sentences merely asserting that groups in a few states were currently pushing legislatures to grant prisoners the right to vote.

Umeh’s report, which was teased earlier in the broadcast with insinuations that good news for Obama was forthcoming, included no details about Obama’s involvement in any of these voting-rights movements, or any evidence that prisoners would vote as a bloc, or any explanation whatsoever into why we should believe prisoners would favor the Democratic Party candidate if allowed to cast ballots.

So, what was your point, Ms. Umeh?

In all the news reports I’ve read, the guy who took over City Paper last year and ran to the bankruptcy court has accepted no blame for Monday’s Chapter 11 filing and framed our troubles as inevitable.

I wasn’t buying any of that.

Until now.

Does it appear Gwen Ifill will benefit from an Obama win?

Hell yeah.

Should she be moderating this debate?

Hell no.

Unlikely as a last-minute bailout seems, if Ifill doesn’t back out, we’ll know Sarah Palin is, at best, the second cockiest person on that stage.