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The Vampire State

Jesse Walker | 10.31.2004 11:27 AM

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As Halloween and Election Day converge, let's note that George Bush and John Kerry are related not just to each other, but to the Transylvanian count known as Vlad the Impaler and, more popularly, as Dracula.

[Via Liberty & Power.]

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NEXT: OBL: Weak Horse

Jesse Walker is books editor at Reason and the author of Rebels on the Air and The United States of Paranoia.

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  1. RandyAyn   21 years ago

    Yeah, they're both bastard sons of a dysfunctional pseudo-political process.

    Look into Bush's tree and out pops this dandy name:

    Priscilla Whippo

    Sounds like some prostitute that his Great-Great Granddaddy bunned up.

    But think if you could go back and kill/sterilize/turn gay either one of these people:

    Edmund Reade 1563 - 1623

    and/or

    Elizabeth Cooke 1578 - 1637

    then you could wipe out both of these lame-ass privilege-addled platinum spoons at the same time!

    We need to invest more in time travel research.

  2. Rick Barton   21 years ago

    Vlad the Impaler. Ah yes, a fitting pedigree for the type of folks who all too often make it to the top of government. Happy Halloween!

  3. Jimbo   21 years ago

    Speaking of pasty-faced freaks, for the love of God please remove the ad for the workout dude on your site!!!!!

    At first I thought you were selling some form of prison bitch video, and it may be the case, but I'll never know because I WILL NOT CLICK to find out.

    C'mon, even crappy retailers like Radio Shack want libertarians to shop there (and, really, who else still operates HAM radios?), so PLEASE get normal advertisers.

    Sorry to be O/T, but there was no post labelled, "FTC cracks down on butt-ugly advertising" to comment upon.

  4. joe   21 years ago

    I told you: no one wants to watch that sweaty bald guy flex his ass.

  5. mtc   21 years ago

    AGREED! Get rid of the workout guy! Everytime I see it, I think it's an ad for gay porn! Make it go away!

  6. garthnak   21 years ago

    Actually, it appears they're only related to Vlad by marriage. They are related to Princess Di, who was married to Prince Charles, who is the descendant of Count Dracula's brother, Vlad IV. So it's not like they share close blood or anything.

    But then, if you go back far enough, we're all related to each other somehow. It's just how many mutations and permutations of genes that separate us that is the question.

  7. Highway   21 years ago

    For those of you using Firefox, you can grab an extension named AdBlock and use that to block the sweaty guy (like I did, sorry Reason, that's just awful to look at). For those of you not using Firefox, well why the hell aren't you using Firefox?

  8. Brian   21 years ago

    I hear Bush and Kerry are both related to the bald guy flexing his ass. Given what a sausage fest message boards are I'd advise the guy to at least get a picture of a chick for his ad.

    Vlad's an interesting guy. He's about the only dude in christendom who was scary enough to give the turks pause. They were pretty much unstoppable until Europe gained a substantial technological edge.

  9. DBobby   21 years ago

    I just love Bush and Kerry. Or, maybe, i just love Kerry's bush?

    Whatthehell, anyway, darlings, a little KYjelly and you can have SUCH a good time and fuck the election. Or, fuck during the election. Or not.

    the election is all fucked, anyhow. anyway. anywhere.

    wanna go trikky treating?

    I love tattooed dentists, don't you?

  10. Turk Paws   21 years ago

    Gives the Turks Paws? The Turks were dogs, i know, but give me a break, sweathart.

    Nov shmoz ka pop, as the old cartoon says.

  11. slappy   21 years ago

    "Beware the dangers of weight-training!"

    From your friend, Vlad the Impaler, and his ancestor with the goatee.

    Halloween was never scarier.

  12. Carl   21 years ago

    That proved nothing. Using a simple math and a knowledge that everybody have two parents, four grandparents, and so on, and the fact there are 6 billion people alive today, we would find that we all descended from a billion ancestors two thousand years ago which is clearly impossible. That mean everybody have a same ancestor few times over. Which also means that everybody are cousins, and so that mean you and I are cousins to Bush, Kerry, and Vlad too!

  13. Lewis Carroll   21 years ago

    "Yeah, they're both bastard sons of a dysfunctional pseudo-political process."

    And shun the frumious Bandersnatch!

  14. Jim Walsh   21 years ago

    Curiously enough, I just noticed the ad with the workout guy for the first time today. Now there's a man too sexy for his shirt (not)...

  15. Syd   21 years ago

    Given the tendency of the Huns to rape, pillage and burn, they're probably both decended from Attila the Hun.

  16. Jack   21 years ago

    I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who's more than a little disturbed by the bodybuilding ad.

  17. Rick Barton   21 years ago

    Government is mostly theft and politics is mostly dividing up the plunder.

    The only good reason for participating in politics is to limit the influence of government.

    Vote for tax limitation and politicians who you think will cut government.

  18. Jimbo   21 years ago

    I'm glad you're all bothered by "the ad," too. The hatred has boiled up again and I'm back for another round.

    Mr. Clean says there's "no equipment needed," and it would take such a big tool to know.

    The fact that one frame features the word "Master" and then flips to a frame of a sweaty, gay "muscle" man wearing only Wranglers (No, I wasn't staring, I'm just assuming he can't afford Levi's), makes me throw up a little in my mouth everytime the ad is served. I'm just glad it's not in high rotation or anything.

    Just add some MIDI music to the ad and you will have created the perfect storm. I believe a Right Said Fred tune was suggested. I would prefer "sometimes when we touch" by Dan Hill.

    And by the fact that he can't bear to address this important topic directly, I have to believe that we have all seen what Rick Barton looks like in real life....and his spandex don't hide much.

    OK, I'm off to read about the Erotic world of Public Radio (didn't you just suspect all along?!) and dream that someday soon the X10 Camera will be paying a higher CPM than Cell Block D's Fitness-Man Chizz.

  19. Rick Barton   21 years ago

    Here's an antidote for the bodybuilding ad. Remember her?

    http://www.kim-wilde.co.uk/pictures/kimj10.jpg

  20. Jimbo   21 years ago

    You're not fooling us for a second Rick "Squat Thrust" Barton

  21. Rick Barton   21 years ago

    Jimbo:

    "I have to believe that we have all seen what Rick Barton looks like in real life."

    WTF? What brought that on? And, if my posts ever did elicited erotic fantasies, I was hoping for female minds.

  22. Mexile   21 years ago

    An accounting prof once explained to me that corporations, being legal persons without the moral or ethical responsibilities of a human being (nor a corporeal body), are best compared to vampires. Given that Bush and Kerry are both corporatist suck-ups, I guess the Dracula blood-ties are appropriate. Though, given that both are Dracula descendants, I'm not sure how this is going to affect the undecided un-dead vote.

  23. Wild Pegasus   21 years ago

    You guys are just pissed because you can't do a Hindu push-up.

    - Josh

  24. Nancy Pants   21 years ago

    Hey, I LIKE the shirtless bald sweaty guy. And what the hell's wrong with gay porn, huh? I thought everyone here was libertarian. Are you guys all a bunch of homophobes or something?

  25. Jason Bourne   21 years ago

    That guy can give me a rimjob any time. 🙂

    So, who will be crying tomorrow? Joe or Dan? 🙂

  26. Curtis   21 years ago

    The link is great, RB. She's a beauty.

  27. kevrob   21 years ago

    No, no, Curtis. She's A Beauty was by the Tubes. Kim Wilde did Kids In America. Be careful, or the pop culture beedles will bop you. 🙂

    http://www.kimwilde.com/

    Kevin

  28. Stevo Threadkiller   21 years ago

    Rick Barton and Kevin, thanks for the Kim Wilde links. You are both beautiful human beings. I liked the more recent pics myself. This is my personal favorite so far:

    http://www.kimwilde.com/show.html?pictures/lovemoves/022.jpg

    As for the shaven-headed workout dude, the hands-on-hips pose isn't what's so disturbing (I could stand to be in that good a shape), but the pose where he is humping the carpet is just ... not right.

  29. Rick Barton   21 years ago

    Hey Stevo,

    I like her early 80s pics best:

    http://www.kimwilde.com/show.html?pictures/debut/012.jpg

    But I guess I have a thing for thin and big hair. Also, soon after Kids in America, Kim left New Wave both in style and music.

  30. Stevo Threadkiller   21 years ago

    Rick, I understand. That's a fairly cute pic. The '80s hair reminds me a bit of my college days. So does the song "Kids in America -- whoa-oh!" I just like her more mature look better (possibly because I am a tad over 40, albeit incredibly youthful).

    And my appreciation for a songstress's looks can sometimes be divorced from my appreciation of her music. I sometimes watch the "Great America Country" with the sound off, frinstance.

  31. kevrob   21 years ago

    I used to watch Charlie's Angels the same way. 🙂

    There's also http://www.kim-wilde.co.uk

    I like this one:

    http://www.kim-wilde.co.uk/pictures/live/klam04/klam03.jpg

    Kevin

  32. Mack   21 years ago

    Hey, get a room, you two!

  33. Stevo Threadkiller   21 years ago

    First of all, there's at least three Kim Wilde admirers on this thread. And we ain't getting no room unless Kim and at least three friends come with us. Now, where was I? Oh yes...

    Of the Kim W. photos, personally, these are my personal bullet train to YumYum Town:

    http://www.kim-wilde.co.uk/btbw_vid.html

    Now, if we can only invite Samantha Fox, Sheena Easton, Vanity, Apollonia, and Paula Abdul, our 1980s party will be complete.

    PS: The bald carpet-humping guy gets more disturbing every time I return here.

  34. Mack   21 years ago

    But was is it about him that disturbs you, Stevo? Perhaps some unwanted but irrepressible feelings of physical attraction? Perhaps this blustering about Kim Wilde is but a smokescreen?

  35. Stevo Threadkiller   21 years ago

    Yes, that's probably it. Either that or the fact that he looks like he's humping the carpet.

    Thanks for helping me confront my inner desires [or] obsessive concern with the molestation of carpets.

    Later, everyone. I have a sudden impulse to run out and buy some fabulous feather boas [or] Scotchguard(tm) Carpet and Upholstery Protector. At last I feel so FREEEEE...!

  36. Mario   21 years ago

    I Love Kim Wilde tooo, she s just one stunning pop star maybe top 5 Ever
    here are my Personal favorite photos
    http://kim-wilde.co.uk/pictures/kimhot.jpg

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