Mr. Livingston has just convinced me that reincarnation does exist. Neville Chamberlain lives.

Posted by: Hulegu Khan at January 11, 2005 6:12 PM

OT
An employee of the Dutch intelligence service AIVD is suspected of leaking State secrets to the housemate of the man accused of murdering filmmaker Theo van Gogh, a court has been told.

http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=1&story_id=15645&name=AIVD+secrets+%27leaked+to+Van+Gogh+accomplice%27

We are so PCfied that we wilfully enroll enemy agents into the Secret Services.

Posted by: DP111 at January 11, 2005 6:36 PM

Tosser!

Posted by: Interestd at January 11, 2005 7:37 PM

"... a progressive figure who is moving that religion in the correct direction ..." LOL! Yeah, sure, pull the other one, Ken.

Is Red Ken one of those flaky recent converts to Islam? Or just a phenomenally stupid, particularly self-loathing, loony left wingnut? What's with this guy's obsession to kiss up to people who advocate mass murder, hatred, intolerance and destruction? Has the world gone mad?

Posted by: feralee at January 11, 2005 8:29 PM

FERALEE
Surely you haven't forgotten the alliance between European
Marxists[remaining] and their new buddies the Islamo-Fascists! Both have similar fanatical Totalitarian Ideologies. No Marxist leader ever balked at mass murder, Stalin's killing fields against his own people probably outdid Hitler's
horrific tally during Second World War. Question is : WHY HAS THIS SCUMBAG BEEEN ELECTED FOR A SECOND TERM AS MAYOR OF LONDON?? Possibly apathy on part on the voters who can't be bothered to vote anyway. More cynical explanation might be that Qaradawi[or Quacky Duck to remember spelling]
an extremely rich cleric and personal friend of the filthy rich Emir of Qatar, has been slipping
a few bribes into our Ken's pocket. If so he wouldn't be the first or only one of our corrupt, lying Politicians to do so. As a Communist Red Ken's only patriotic feelings are to the Marxist Party while we know Quackie's are to the Ummah.
Doesn't mean to say both of 'em can't live in luxury while waiting for European Jihad to conquer
the West.

Posted by: Morgane at January 11, 2005 9:53 PM

AIVD employee Outman Ben A. is accused of passing the document on, Rotterdam Court was told on Monday...The public prosecutor accuses the 34-year-old Dutchman of leaking state secrets to Islamic extremists over a period of up to a year.

Posted by: Hulegu Khan at January 11, 2005 10:00 PM

About six months ago Livingstone, I presumed, had been properly interred. I see that I was wrong. As there is nothing to add to previous comments on the curious unrequited love of the Lord Mayor of London for Quran-quoting Qaradawi (hereinafter referred to as "Q.-q. Q.") and because it is bedtime, some will forgive me for retrieving, with some help from the googling ghost of postings past, what was posted then, in order to paste them, posthaste, one mo' time, here.

Where is Dick Whittington, and where is his cat, when you need them?

Posted by: Hugh at July 13, 2004 08:35 AM

Ken Livingstone, who presumes, has always despised America (which does not keep him from hiring an American expert to make those underground trains run on time), and of course he is also a great beater-upper -- ça va sans dire -- of Israel. Like "Gorgeous George" Galloway, the Glaswegian hireling of Saddam Hussein (whose money helped Galloway buy his modest vacation retreat in Spain), Ken Livingstone has earned his own moniker: Red Ken.
Red Ken, or Redken as some prefer to call him, when not being mayor of London, is also a well-known shampoo. One can only wish that London voters will wash that particular shampoo right out of their hair. And then vigorously apply some anti-Jihad conditioner.
Posted by: Hugh at July 13, 2004 10:41 AM

To continue the theme adumbrated above. I just bought shampoo (the brand is “Marc Anthony”—it was not so much the reduced price as the hint of Shakespeare’s paraleptic Roman, that clinched the sale), and the bottle promises that its contents will, like a passing beauty who leaves one hot and bothered, “soulève, gonfle, et épaissit” (lift, volumize, thicken). And this brings relevantly to mind, in regard to that not-so-odd couple, the Mayor and the Muslim, those unforgettable lingerie ads that line the walls circumjacent to the escalators – those that go up, and those that come down -- of the London Underground.

Now as Ken Livingstone proudly showed his honored guest round and about old Londinium, did he by any chance show off that Underground, and therefore those lingerie ads, or was it limousines all the way for the Salon Bolshevik and the Quran-quoting Qaradawi? If Red Ken, in the same spirit as the Commissars who in the 1930s liked to bring Western tourists to view the gleaming Moscow Metro (“But where are the trains!” those tourists would ungratefully point out), did offer Q. such a tour, one would like to know how Monsieur Q. reacted to those advertisements, which can leave even an unaccustomed American blushing and flustered. Perhaps if his furious reaction were to have been translated, Red Ken might have looked a bit more closely into the previous protests of women’s groups, might have found out more about Qaradawi’s strictures on women’s dress, and women’s behavior, and the need for women to submit to their Qur’an-designated superiors, that is to say -- men.

And even if R. K. and Q.-q. Q. did not visit the Underground together, possibly they had a chance to take in the National Gallery. It would have been fascinating to hear Q. explain to K. through a seamlessly-bowdlerizing translator why all the statues needed to be broken or defaced if they were even to be permitted to continue to exist at all, and why, under Islam, all the paintings other than landscapes, all the depictions of famous personages, and of course anything that had a Madonna, with or without a bambino in her lap, would have to go, along with all paintings showing a saint, or a Biblical figure, or a king, or a general, or a nobleman, or any historical personage, or any non-historical figure not being held up to ridicule, because such depictions are haram, haram, haram, and don't you forget it. Perhaps Q. could then have given K. a copy of his own guide to righteous Quran’ic living, What is Halal and What Haram, even pointing out the passages that explain this unassuagable hostility toward sculpture and portrait paintings in great detail). Of course, Ken, you dimly recall what happened to the Bamiyan Buddhas, and to the frescoes formerly on the walls of the Byzantine churches of Constantinople, and to those tens of thousands of Hindu temples, and to churches all over North Africa, and Mesopotamia, and Syria -- or do you? Perhaps Ken Livingstone, a compleat homo politicus (which makes any Jack a dull boy) is not fond of art himself; he may see it as a luxury item, after all. And much of Western art, as the Kens of this world see things, corresponds to the taste of rich patrons only trying to immortalize or flatter themselves, in their commissioning of paintings and sculpture and furniture and garden follies, all paid for with the loot, as seen through the narrow lens of a narrow Ken Livingstone, accumulated through the exploitation of the working class, or the exploited colonials beyond the seas. Just look at that arch-connoisseur Kenneth Clark’s family fortune, no doubt the result of Lancashire girls spinning thread from dawn to dusk, or the liquor-store fortune of Bernard Berenson, or of course those impossible and intolerable Medicis, all those sinister Lorenzos and Cosimos. What decent human being, I quite agree Ken, what decent human being can even stand to look at the paintings and sculptures that were produced for those Medici, those rich Florentine swine. Yes, Ken, on second thought, probably you and Q. would have had much to nod in agreement about, as you walked through the National Gallery, or the Tate, or any of those other decadent centers of intolerable Western art. And Ken, wasn't it your favorite Russian writer who said that a good shoemaker was worth more than Pushkin, than everything that Pushkin had ever produced? Isn't that a world-view, isn't that an aesthetic creed, Ken, expressed so memorably and succinctly, that makes you a brother under the skin of Q-q. Q.?

And since Islam is now the vehicle of choice for those wishing to express their fury at their own perceived marginalization (psychic or economic), their own often self-induced alienation and hatred of Capitalism, of The System, of The West, of Amerika with a “K”(shudders of dismay may be inserted here), Mr. Q. came to the right place, and was made much of by the right host. Indeed, we are told that you liked Mr. Q. so much that you have invited him to return, any time he feels like it.

Ken, Redken, Mr. Livingstone, Lord Mayor of London, turn again, like Dick Whittington, if you possibly can. There may still be time. Think of those sculptures and those paintings. Do you really want Qaradawi and his ilk to have their way? . Think of the freedoms built upon, and enjoyed, by those who now live in Old Londinium. Think of Bracton. Think of Coke. Think of Locke. Think of of John Stuart Mill. Think of Harry Lauder, and Al Bowlly and Jack Buchanan and Elsie Randolph. Think of Vera Lynn. Think of Sigmund Freud, and Lucien Freud, and Emma Freud, and any damn Freud who comes to mind. Think of Peter Sellers. Think of Frank Muir. Think of the Goon Show. Think of My Word, and all the gentle people who listen to My Word. Think of Alastair Sim and Alec Guinness. Think of The Bells of St. Trinian’s. Think of Wee Geordie. Think of 23 Laburnum Grove. Think of Dennis Potter -- think of Pennies From Heaven, and The Singing Detective, and Lipstick on Your Collar. Think of Keats on Hampstead Heath. Think, Ken, even of those buying bespoke at a tailor's on Jermyn Street, or the Burlington Arcade. Think about what London means, or should mean, to you, and think about the London that would exist if the likes of Sheikh Al-Qaradawi, and his followers, now well-ensconced, were to have their way – in London, in England, in Europe, all over the world. Forget about what you think about Bush, or what you think you should think of him. Think about what Q.-q. Q., if he had half a chance, would do to everyone and everything in free-spirited, silly, often deplorable, sometimes lovable London, over which you preside.

Forget about contriving always to act so as to annoy the Americans, the London Board of Rabbis, the leader-writers on The Telegraph. Try to have some gratitude to the Great Dead who created the civilization of which you and those who live in London are inheritors. Not one of those Great Dead (of England, of Europe, of the Western world)would have lasted a minute under Islam, under the likes of Al-Qaradawi and his grim little world of the shari’a, his Total Regulation, his manichean assignment of everything to one or the other column: Haram over there, Halal over here. You owe those Great Dead of the Western world something. You owe Q-q. Q. nothing.

Please, Ken, please Mr. Livingstone, please Mr. Lord Mayor, like Dick Whittington, turn again, even if that means you will have to turn against every cliché and received idea in the seemingly-immutable bolshevist banality of your mental universe. Get With the Program. And that program, if you need a hint, is not “Friends” but, rather, “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

Posted by: Hugh at July 13, 2004 04:01 PM

To continue the theme adumbrated above. I just bought shampoo (the brand is “Marc Anthony”—it was not so much the reduced price as the hint of Shakespeare’s paraleptic Roman, that clinched the sale), and the bottle promises that its contents will, like a passing beauty who leaves one hot and bothered, “soulève, gonfle, et épaissit” (lift, volumize, thicken). And this brings relevantly to mind, in regard to that not-so-odd couple, the Mayor and the Muslim, those unforgettable lingerie ads that line the walls circumjacent to the escalators – those that go up, and those that come down -- of the London Underground.

Now as Ken Livingstone proudly showed his honored guest round and about old Londinium, did he by any chance show off that Underground, and therefore those lingerie ads, or was it limousines all the way for the Salon Bolshevik and the Quran-quoting Qaradawi? If Red Ken, in the same spirit as the Commissars who in the 1930s liked to bring Western tourists to view the gleaming Moscow Metro (“But where are the trains!” those tourists would ungratefully point out), did offer Q. such a tour, one would like to know how Monsieur Q. reacted to those advertisements, which can leave even an unaccustomed American blushing and flustered. Perhaps if his furious reaction were to have been translated, Red Ken might have looked a bit more closely into the previous protests of women’s groups, might have found out more about Qaradawi’s strictures on women’s dress, and women’s behavior, and the need for women to submit to their Qur’an-designated superiors, that is to say -- men.

And even if R. K. and Q.-q. Q. did not visit the Underground together, possibly they had a chance to take in the National Gallery. It would have been fascinating to hear Q. explain to K. through a seamlessly-bowdlerizing translator why all the statues needed to be broken or defaced if they were even to be permitted to continue to exist at all, and why, under Islam, all the paintings other than landscapes, all the depictions of famous personages, and of course anything that had a Madonna, with or without a bambino in her lap, would have to go, along with all paintings showing a saint, or a Biblical figure, or a king, or a general, or a nobleman, or any historical personage, or any non-historical figure not being held up to ridicule, because such depictions are haram, haram, haram, and don't you forget it. Perhaps Q. could then have given K. a copy of his own guide to righteous Quran’ic living, What is Halal and What Haram, even pointing out the passages that explain this unassuageable hostility toward sculpture and portrait paintings in great detail). Of course, Ken, you dimly recall what happened to the Bamiyan Buddhas, and to the frescoes formerly on the walls of the Byzantine churches of Constantinople, and to those tens of thousands of Hindu temples, and to churches all over North Africa, and Mesopotamia, and Syria -- or do you? Perhaps Ken Livingstone, a compleat homo politicus (which makes any Jack a dull boy) is not fond of art himself; he may see it as a luxury item, after all. And much of Western art, as the Kens of this world see things, corresponds to the taste of rich patrons only trying to immortalize or flatter themselves, in their commissioning of paintings and sculpture and furniture and garden follies, all paid for with the loot, as seen through the narrow lens of a narrow Ken Livingstone, accumulated through the exploitation of the working class, or the exploited colonials beyond the seas. Just look at that arch-connoisseur Kenneth Clark’s family fortune, no doubt the result of Lancashire girls spinning thread from dawn to dusk, or the liquor-store fortune of Bernard Berenson, or of course those impossible and intolerable Medicis, all those sinister Lorenzos and Cosimos. What decent human being, I quite agree Ken, what decent human being can even stand to look at the paintings and sculptures that were produced for those Medici, those rich Florentine swine. Yes, Ken, on second thought, probably you and Q. would have had much to nod in agreement about, as you walked through the National Gallery, or the Tate, or any of those other decadent centers of intolerable Western art. And Ken, wasn't it your favorite Russian writer who said that a good shoemaker was worth more than Pushkin, than everything that Pushkin had ever produced? Isn't that a world-view, isn't that an aesthetic creed, Ken, expressed so memorably and succinctly, that makes you a brother under the skin of Q-q. Q.?

And since Islam is now the vehicle of choice for those wishing to express their fury at their own perceived marginalization (psychic or economic), their own often self-induced alienation and hatred of Capitalism, of The System, of The West, of Amerika with a “K”(shudders of dismay may be inserted here), Mr. Q. came to the right place, and was made much of by the right host. Indeed, we are told that you liked Mr. Q. so much that you have invited him to return, any time he feels like it.

Ken, Redken, Mr. Livingstone, Lord Mayor of London, turn again, like Dick Whittington, if you possibly can. There may still be time. Think of those sculptures and those paintings. Do you really want Qaradawi and his ilk to have their way? . Think of the freedoms built upon, and enjoyed, by those who now live in Old Londinium. Think of Bracton. Think of Coke. Think of Locke. Think of John Stuart Mill. Think of Harry Lauder, and Al Bowlly and Jack Buchanan and Elsie Randolph. Think of Vera Lynn. Think of Sigmund Freud, and Lucien Freud, and Emma Freud, and any damn Freud who comes to mind. Think of Peter Sellers. Think of Frank Muir. Think of the Goon Show. Think of My Word, and all the gentle people who listen to My Word. Think of Alastair Sim and Alec Guinness. Think of The Bells of St. Trinian’s. Think of Wee Geordie. Think of 23 Laburnum Grove. Think of Dennis Potter -- think of Pennies From Heaven, and The Singing Detective, and Lipstick on Your Collar. Think of Keats on Hampstead Heath. Think, Ken, even of those buying bespoke at a tailor's on Jermyn Street, or the Burlington Arcade. Think about what London means, or should mean, to you, and think about the London that would exist if the likes of Sheikh Al-Qaradawi, and his followers, now well-ensconced, were to have their way – in London, in England, in Europe, all over the world. Forget about what you think about Bush, or what you think you should think of him. Think about what Q.-q. Q., if he had half a chance, would do to everyone and everything in free-spirited, silly, often deplorable, sometimes lovable London, over which you preside.

Forget about contriving always to act so as to annoy the Americans, the London Board of Rabbis, the leader-writers on The Telegraph. Try to have some gratitude to the Great Dead who created the civilization of which you and those who live in London are inheritors. Not one of those Great Dead (of England, of Europe, of the Western world) would have lasted a minute under Islam, under the likes of Al-Qaradawi and his grim little world of the shari’a, his Total Regulation, his manichaean assignment of everything to one or the other column: Haram over there, Halal over here. You owe those Great Dead of the Western world something. You owe Q-q. Q. nothing.

Please, Ken, please Mr. Livingstone, please Mr. Lord Mayor, like Dick Whittington, turn again, even if that means you will have to turn against every cliché and received idea in the seemingly-immutable bolshevist banality of your mental universe. Get With the Program. And that program, if you need a hint, is not “Friends” but, rather, “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
Posted by: Hugh at July 13, 2004 04:01 PM

And so, in Pepysian fashion, to bed.

Posted by: Hugh at January 11, 2005 11:25 PM

Is this all some kind of suicidal guilt syndrome kicking in- to 'apologize' for their fading Empire's 'arrogance' -that they are willing to have the formerly-colonized 'subjects' (and anyone else, lately, usually from anywhere Islamic) infiltrate and destroy this once proud land of Blake and Shakespeare and Churchill and
Bodaecea?

If so, good job Mayor!

It reminds me of the old brit film "The Children of the Damned".

Posted by: profitsbeard at January 12, 2005 12:59 AM

Yeah, Morgane, guess you're right about that unholy alliance thing. It's just so difficult to figure that out, it's so bizarre. What gets a person to that sort of thinking, that sort of blindness and self-loathing? What university courses should one steer one's kids away from so they don't end up as brainwashed with this hatred for their own culture and this insane lust for our self-destruction. Do they actually think the world will be a better place? And people everywhere happy? Have we not had enough examples of how disastrous Marxism and Communism is?

It's not as if Red Ken's just being nice and kind to exotic cultures and beliefs. It's outright loathing for his own culture, beliefs and people. Totally insane. I just can't understand how someone can be like that. I hope I never understand either.

Posted by: feralee at January 12, 2005 1:29 AM

profitsbeard,

Ahh! But you forget that Shakespeare was a sufi.

Shakespeare is best read in its original Arabic.

Posted by: Moe's Foe at January 12, 2005 3:10 AM

''A PROGRESSIVE FIGURE'',Well to label this man
the ultimate Dhimmi would do great diservise to
the days when he was an apoligist and supporter
of Communism,Red Brigades and of course being a
good British socialist he also supported the IRA's campaign of violence.The causes this vile
man has taken up throughout his RED political career are far too long to list,but be assured
the one thing both he and the evil cleric agree on is that women need a good slap when they get out of hand,ask the guests at a certain party he and his partner attended not too long ago.
Red Ken proves what many people already know,that
the leftist/Jihad network has never been in better shape.By the way the right direction he spoke of is the destruction of a society both men
have hated and fought against their whole miserable lives.On Qardawi the western media must
accept all blame for not exposing him,as he has
no trouble letting the arab/muslim world know
whats on his primitive evil mind on his weekly
show on Al Jazeera.

Posted by: sul3j at January 12, 2005 3:18 AM

I think that Ken who was once famous for favouring gays and lesbians knows that these are now well outnumbered in London by Muslims, so it is the votes of the latter that he is now canvassing.

It is true that there is massive voter apathy in London. This summer there were three elections on the same day including the mayoral, though I don't think even a quarter of the electorate showed up.

Politicians know that it is better to cater for a small group of fanatics than a large group of apathetics, hence nearly all British politicians falling over themselves to assist with the Islamification of Britain.

Ken doesn't seem to be one for culture and heritage if he is representative of the old Greater London COuncil which has been revived as the Greater London Assembly. For example they wanted to bulldoze the Covent Garden area and turn it into roads and parking.

Posted by: Elephant at January 12, 2005 3:32 AM

Apparently Ken’s dossier is not going down very well, because as turned out al-Qaradawi recently suggested that the recent disaster in Asia was a punishment for the behaviour of Western tourists.

“Ken Livingstone has been attacked for producing a dossier defending a Muslim cleric who is reported to have suggested that Westerners killed by the tsunami deserved to die.”

Here is what the cleric said:
"People must ask themselves why this earthquake occurred in this area and not others... Whoever examines these areas discovers that they are tourism areas."

"Tourism areas are areas where the forbidden acts are widespread, as well as alcohol consumption, drug use and acts of abomination... Don’t they deserve punishment from Allah?"

Can somebody explain to me how come that the people who criticise al-Qaradawi and the like are called intolerant, and racist and not the other way around?

Posted by: gloria at January 12, 2005 4:55 AM

This may be a bit OT but I am a Londoner, born and bred, so I claim that privilege on this thread.
I was just reading Hugh’s post and feeling sadness for the city where I no longer feel at home in the borough where I grew up when the news came on my local Essex commercial radio station that :-

“A former worker at London's Euston Station who claimed he was sacked for refusing to trim his beard has lost his religious discrimination claim.
Mohsin Mohmed, 23, of Ilford, Essex, said he was repeatedly asked by Virgin Trains managers to trim his beard and told not to wear a religious skullcap.
He said his Islamic faith meant he could not trim his beard.
An employment tribunal dismissed his claims of racial and religious discrimination and unfair dismissal. “

Even the Bleedin' Biased Corporation carries the story.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/essex/4166319.stm

Sorry to interrupt but I had to share this. As for Ken Livingston please don't get me started on his transport policies.
And Thanks Hugh.

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at January 12, 2005 5:26 AM

I just saw the twit Ken Livingstone on BBC 1 news calling the head of the gay & lesbian association an Islamophobe. You couldnt make it up.

Posted by: freestar at January 12, 2005 5:35 PM

It was a 'conference' and Ken's niaviety was ingratiating. I cant quite believe this man.

Posted by: freestar at January 12, 2005 5:39 PM

Moe's Foe'-

"...Shakespeare was a Sufi..."

You mean Francis BACON was a Muslim!

In the words of the Bard:

"Oh Father Abram! what these Christians are,
Whose own hard dealing teaches them [to] suspect
the thoughts of others!"

(-The Merchant of Venice.)

And from his 'lost' play- "The Mayor of London":

"Lo! The city's gates are as porous
As the skull of yon Lord Mayor,
Who with rouged tongue and brains of wind,
Leads the dull citizn'ry to the incarnadine ways
of mincing Moorish subterfuge.
Gad! Bring me tea, before I vomit!"

(with apologies to Will. Or Francis.)

Posted by: profitsbeard at January 12, 2005 9:04 PM

Ha! Nice quotes. Have you seen this article?

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=4&article_id=10527

Posted by: Moe's Foe at January 12, 2005 9:16 PM

I question the reasoning of inviting scum to London.

Posted by: flameon1 at January 12, 2005 10:30 PM

Moe's Foe-

Thanks for the horrifying link. I nearly puked.

And I sent them an email comment recommending that the next festival needs to be in Mecca, where the Muslims admit that Mohammed plagiarized the Koran from the Old and New Testaments.

I'd be willing to provide the audio-visual display, to be flashed on the sides of the the Kaaba, as they desecrated the walls of the restored Globe with their taqqiya crap.

And I noted that it was instructive that they brought up the figure of Othello as a Muslim paradigm, since he was an easily duped fool who destroyed the one who loved him.

Sounds about right to me.

I'll keep an eye on this publication. It looks like the 'Volkischer Beobachter' (sp?) that the Nazis used to supply allied POW's with in the Stalag camps.

They wisely used it for W.C. tissue.

If I had a cyber toilet, I'd do the same with 'The Daily Star'.

(A better name would be 'The Death Star'.)

Posted by: profitsbeard at January 12, 2005 10:36 PM

Profits Beard:

For sheer emetic value, see if you can find the article the Toronto Globe & Mail reprinted an Op-Ed from the Beirut Daily Star's Rami Khouri, blaming the lack of democracy in the PA on... ...Israel! You'd never know from reading this piece of crap that it had nothing to do with Yasser's demise, or that Hamas and the other Islamists were pressing for a boycott of the election.

Posted by: waterdragon52 at January 13, 2005 10:10 AM