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November 25, 2005

Romania Setting Things Aright

This one makes my day.

This fella got the family mountain back, fifty years after it had been stolen from them by the communists.

The property -- which contains several waterfalls, a lot of wildlife and several hunting lodges -- overlooks the castle that belonged in the 15th century to Count Vlad "The Impaler" Tepes, who inspired the Dracula legend.
Anganu-Bancila says he wants to sell the property for about $40 million, but some say that might be a bargain.

Threw that last sentence in there just in case any of you were looking for a nice stocking-stuffer for dear ol' Dad. 'Tis the season.

And you know he doesn't already have one.

posted by LauraW. at 08:17 PM

Comments

My ex is close to reclaiming a gorgeous piece of property in Yugoslavia (bah, Croatia) on a beautiful island on the Dalmatian Coast. Decades after her family escaped from the communists with literally nothing but the clothes on their backs and a few small possessions, she and her sisters are about to regain some of the most beautiful oceanfront property in the Adriatic you can imagine.

Never give up the fight.

Posted by: JackStraw on November 25, 2005 08:38 PM

What was the Romanian government officials' name?

Posted by: Cheese_tensor on November 25, 2005 08:59 PM

Intergalactice War Bush's Fault: http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20051124/bs_prweb/prweb314382_1

I jsut wonder if it involves Xenu...

Posted by: Greg on November 25, 2005 09:22 PM

That'd be a creepy piece of property to live on, imagine gardening and hitting a skeleton/pike.

Posted by: Cutler on November 25, 2005 09:25 PM

Greg. I saw that one too.
President Bush: Is there anything he can't be blamed for?

Posted by: Zorachus on November 25, 2005 09:29 PM

JackStraw, that's awesome!

Posted by: lauraw on November 25, 2005 09:32 PM

Wasn't Vlad's surname Dracul?

Posted by: Renfield on November 25, 2005 10:06 PM

Renfield,

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_Tepes.

Basically, back then they didn't have surnames like we do now. His given name was Vladimir, like his father. He also had the epithets Tepes and Dracula.

Vlad Tepes (Tepes means Impaler) took the epithet "Dracula" because he was the son of Vlad II "Dracul". Dracul means "the dragon" and Dracula means "Son of the Dragon". Vlad earned his other epithet "Tepes" from his endearing habit of impaling his enemies on spikes all the time.

Holding the above facts in my brain probably means that something actually important has been kicked out due to lack of space.

Posted by: Mark on November 25, 2005 10:55 PM

Who says you can't learn anything on these blogs??

Posted by: Renfield on November 25, 2005 11:04 PM

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kvenjb/madmonarchs/vladdracula/vladdracula_bio.htm

For some more, though some of it is disputed.

Posted by: Cutler on November 26, 2005 01:57 AM

There should be a cedilla (the thingy one finds under the "C" in certain French words) under the "T" and "S" of "Tepes". The name/word is pronounced as "tsepesh" in Romanian. Properly (as per Wikipedia), he is Vlad III Dracula. His brother was Radu cel Frumos (Radu the Beautiful). Radu was the lover of the Ottoman Caliph Mehmed II ("Fatih Sultan Mehmed" in Turkish, "Fatih" comes from his Arabic nickname: "al-Fatih", the Conqueror, in reference to his conquest of Constantinople), the first Ottoman Emperor.

The Order of the Dragon (to which Vlad II and Vlad III belonged) was formed to save Christianity (i.e., Christian Europe) from Islam (i.e., the spreading Islamic Ottoman Empire/Caliphate).

In one sense, Vlad III Dracula T(s)epes(h) was a hero: he resiliently fought against the Ottomans, who were quite unabashed at spreading the caliphate by the sword. So much for the peaceful nature of Islam.

Posted by: Muslihoon on November 26, 2005 04:12 AM

Back in the 90's I had a friend whose father was restituted the family castle in the Czech Republic. It was nothing fancy (it only had 1 tower), but after his father moved back to the castle, the local villagers began bringing their minor disputes to him for resolution. Before the communist era, the locals apparently were used to the man in the castle adjudicating their issues and simply reverted back to form once the castle was reoccupied.

Posted by: karlito on November 26, 2005 04:30 AM

Yes, old Vlad was a fire-spitting Dragon when it came to the Caliphate. I wish the Romanian troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan had the inspiration to call themselves "Dragons". Oh, well... "Scorpions" ain't that bad either.

Posted by: Imperialist Kitty on November 26, 2005 05:48 AM

Visitors to the main house, it has been said, may sometimes be regaled with fireside stories of some of the more memorable impaling. Specialists of the lost art would often stop, measure and prod, it would be recounted, lest a vital organ be nicked as the wood post was driven up through the body.

Later, a measure of pride could be taken in proportion to the number of days - and in rare cases weeks - that the victim would continue to live. To maximize the effect, post and body would be affixed to a bridge or building from which high point the screams could be heard for a not inconsiderable distance.

Hollywood’s fanciful “Dracula” aside and waterfalls notwithstanding, there would not be a day go by when this mind could not help but wander back to those foregone times of unimaginable cruelty.

For me, it would be like getting a deal on Auschwitz.

Posted by: robert on November 26, 2005 07:57 AM

Thanks lauraw, my own personal cold war victory.

Posted by: JackStraw on November 26, 2005 08:56 AM

With readers like this, you never know where a thread is going to lead.

Posted by: lauraw on November 26, 2005 09:44 AM

With readers like this, you never know where a thread is going to lead.

I'm sorry but you've mispelled "whackjobs".

Posted by: OregonMuse on November 26, 2005 12:27 PM

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"It's f**king f**ked."
-- reportedly a genuine comment offered by a "senior Labour source"
Correction: I wrote that Labour is losing 88% (now 87%) of the seats it is "defending." I think that's wrong. The right way to say it is the seats they are contesting -- that is, they don't necessarily already hold these seats, but they have put up a candidate to run for the seat. It's still very bad but not as bad as losing 87% of the seats they already held.

Basil the Great
@BasilTheGreat

🚨ED MILIBAND [a Minister in Starmer's government] SAYS KEIR STARMER WILL RESIGN AS PRIME MINISTER

He has reportedly reassured Labour MP's that Starmer will be resigning following the disastrous results tonight

It's over

"The end of the two party system in the UK" as first the Fake Conservatives and now Labour chooses political suicide rather than simply STOPPING THE INVASION
Incidentally, the only reason this didn't already happen in the US is because of the Very Bad Orange Man (who is right on 85% of all policy calls and extremely, existentially right on 15% of them)

No political party that is NOT also a doomsday religious cult would EVER choose a cataclysmic loss -- and possible extinction as a party -- to support a toxically unpopular favoritism of NON-CITIZEN ILLEGAL MIGRANTS over actual citizen voters.

Only a cult does this.

Now they've lost 84%.

Annunziata Rees-Mogg
@zatzi
If this continues Labour loses 2,148 seats tonight.

That is much worse than the worst case predictions I’ve seen.

Cataclysmic

Update: They've now lost 88% of the seats they're defending. As I mentioned earlier, I think I heard that London will not bail them out, as many of those Labour seats will probably flip to "Muslim Independent" or Green. Detroit's 5am vote will not save them.

Yup, Labour is losing 80% of its seats...

The British Patriot
@TheBritLad

🚨 BREAKING: Labour have lost 80% of all seats contested as of 2:25 AM.<
br> If this continues, Keir Starmer will be out of office next week.

Reform has surged and projected to pick up between 1700-2100 seats.

Wow, up to 1700-2100 seats. It's not incredible that this is happening. It's incredible that the Davos crowd is so absolutely determined to privilege Muslim "migrants" over the actual native population who elects them, no matter how loudly the natives scream that they want to be prioritized, that they will gladly self-extinguish as a party rather than simply representing the interests of their own voters. Astonishing.
Remember, when they call other people "cultists" -- they are the ones so imprisoned in their social reinforcement and discipline bubbles that they will choose political death rather than dare upset the Karen Enforcement Officers of their cult.
Update: Now they've lost 83% of the seats they were defending.

(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges

Reform are basically wiping Labour out in the North. It's not a defeat. It's not even a rout. Labour are simply ceasing to exist.

Nick Lowles
@lowles_nick

Tonight’s results are calamitous for Labour. Not just for Keir Starmer's leadership, but for the very future of the party

STARMERGEDDON: In early returns, Reform gains 135 seats, Labour loses 90, the Fake Conservatives lose 36 (and I didn't even know they could fall any further), the Lib Dems lose 4, and the Greens gain 6. Note that the only other party gaining seats is the Greens and they're only gaining a handful of seats.
Update: Reform now up 145, Labour down 98.
Labour projected to lose Wales -- where they've ruled for 27 years.
Fulton County Georgia just discovered 400 boxes of ballots for Labour
Update: REF +156, LAB -107, CON -45
Brutal: In four out of five council seats where Labour is defending, they've lost. 80%.
I'm sure it's not this simple, but Reform is straight taking Labour's and the "Conservatives'" seats. They've lost almost exactly what Reform gained. If understand this right (and warning, I probably don't), all of London's council seats are up for election, and Labour might lose hugely there, as their old voters abandon them for Reform, Muslim Indenpendents, and the Greens.
REF +190, LAB -134, CON -56.

Updates on the Labour collapse in council elections -- which wags are calling #Starmergeddon -- from Beege Welborne. There are about 5000 seats up for grabs, Labour is expected to lose 1,800, Reform will probably gain 1,580, up from... zero. So this would be more than that.
People claim that while Labour has adopted the Sharia Agenda to appeal to the million Muslims it allowed to migrate to the country, those voters are ditching Labour to vote for the Muslim Independent Party or the Greens. Delicious. This shadenfreude is going straight to my thighs.
Oh, and if Starmer loses about as badly as expected, Labour will toss him out of a window Braveheart style and replace him. He will announce he is resigning to spend more time with his Gay Ukrainian Male Prostitutes.

Media bias and senationalism are as old as, well, the media:

That was written by Denny O'Neill and illustrated by, get this, Frank Miller. Editor to the Stars Jim Shooter was in charge at the time.
I always thought the gag was original to the comic book, but in fact the "Threat or Menace" headline was a satirical joke about media bias and sensationalism for a long while. The Harvard Lampoon used it in a parody of Life magazine: "Flying Saucers: Threat or Menace?"

Hamas is Humiliating Trump's 'Board of Peace'
[Hat Tip: TC] [CBD]

Tucker Carlson is pretty sure Trump is a wizard

Ted Turner Dies At 87 [CBD]

Podcast: Starting a new season, CBD and Sefton discuss their personal journeys to conservative principles, is Nick Shirley the beginning of a trend?, Iran trying to reignite the war, the Left attacks itself, even on "Best Guitarist" lists, and more!

TJM definitively ranks the films of Billy Wilder, like Some Like It Hot

TJM talks about Billy Wilder

Democrat Congresswoman Sara Jacobs cites Me-Again Kelly, Cavernous Nostrils, Alex Jones and Tuq'r Qarlson as proof that concerns about Trump's mental health are "bipartisan"
As Bonchie from Red State says: Know the op when you see it.

Leftists who have been drawing Frankendistricts for decades are suddenly upset about Republican line-drawing
Socialist usurper Obama cut commercials urging Virginians to vote for the bizarre "lobster" gerrymander -- but now says gerrymanders are so racist you guys
Obama is complaining about the new Louisiana map -- but here's the thing, the new map has much more compact and rational borders than the old racial gerrymander map
Pete Bootyjudge is whining too. But here's the Illinois gerrymander he supports.

Big Bonus! Under the new Florida congressional map, Debbie Wasserman Schultz will probably lose her seat
And she can't even go on The View because she's ugly a clump of stranger's hair in the bath-drain

Podcast: CBD and Sefton Charge the Democrats with fomenting violence against the nation with their rhetoric, Virginia redistricting going down the tubes? Trump's bully pulpit is not censorship, Lee Zeldin is a star, J.B. Pritzker is an idiot, and more!