Ken Livingstone looking for a new job

Friend of Hugo Chavez does not think he will win the mayoral race.

18 Doughty Street has a series of videos on Livingstone's other friends.

Gateway Pundit has more on Ken's loss.

UPDATE
London bridge is falling down.

This just in:
Boris Johnson poised to become London Mayor as Tories seal local election success

Boris Johnson is preparing to be unveiled as the new mayor of London later today following Labour’s collapse across Britain in the local elections.
Senior Conservative sources said they would be “gobsmacked” if Mr Johnson did not win the mayoral contest and even Downing Street aides appear to have conceded that Ken Livingstone has lost. Confidence of a Tory win was boosted after one bookmaker announced it was paying out on a Boris Johnson victory hours before the official result is expected later this evening.
...
Winning the London mayoral contest is expected to cap an historic electoral win for the Conservatives with David Cameron’s party on course for more than 44 per cent of the national vote. Labour is now expected to finish with as little as 24 per cent, humiliatingly pushed into third place by the Liberal Democrats on 25 per cent.

Good-bye to Red Ken
Break out the champagne!



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The Puerto Rican Pre-Raphaelites, and other Sunday items

The Telegraph has an interesting article about how a lot of Victorian and Eduardian paintings made it to Puerto Rico:
Pre-Raphaelites from Puerto Rico

On the day before he died of a heart attack in 1898, the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones was busy at work on The Sleep of Arthur in Avalon, a massive oil painting inspired by Malory in which a mortally wounded King Arthur is laid out on a bier.

The artist had been working for 17 years on his unfinished magnum opus, which had been commissioned in 1881 by George Howard, later ninth Earl of Carlisle, for the library at Naworth Castle in Cumberland.

But that was not where the painting ended up. For the past 45 years, the 21ft by 9ft canvas has hung in an obscure museum in the crumbling colonial town of Ponce on the south coast of the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico.

The last time I was in Ponce it wasn't crumbling, and this is what the Museo looks like. The museum is closed for repairs, which is why the paintings are on loan to the Tate in London.



The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon is a huge canvas, and when I lived in Puerto Rico I spent a lot of time enjoying its details. This (and The Avengers) was the start of my Anglophilia. After I had moved away from Puerto Rico, graduated from college and started working, one day I decided I would study one art movement in detail and chose the Pre-Raphaelites which - as far as art movements go - were a small group. I spent my first trip to England visiting the Tate, Lord Leighton's house and other locales related to the Pre-Raphaelites.

Of course some of their stuff is best described as "Victorian monstruosities", but that only adds to the fun.

I have forgotten most of what I studied then. Time flew while I was having fun, for sure.

While not a Pre-Raphaelite, Lord Leighton's masterpiece Flaming June was also exhibited in the same room at the Museo de Ponce. Unfortunately the drama of the painting is greatly reduced by photography and by not showing it framed. Frames are an important element in Victorian and Eduardian painting, especially in the case of the Pre-Raphaelites who included some of their poetry in the frame. They in turn inspired William Morris, the creator of the Arts and Crafts movement.

The Puerto Rican Pre-Raphaelites will be in loan to the Tate in London until February next year.
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The WSJ's Five Best Books, on New York society, selected by Frances Kiernan:




(As a side note, when entering "Washington Square" in the Amazon search, it yielded "Good In Bed", not quite what one expects.)
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Today's shoes:
Ralph Lauren Women's Nadine Wedge Pump in navy,

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Pat has the Carnival of the Insanities. Go check it out.

More blogging later.



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18 Doughty Street looks at Ken Livingstone

This is the third ad campaign from 18DoughtyStreet.com and this week's two minute ad attacks the high spending, low delivery record of London Mayor Ken Livingstone. Everything the advert says is sourced here.

At that link, I find items 8, 9 and 10 particularly interesting,

8 Al-Qaradawi is the strongest force for the modernisation of Islam
"Unbelievably, Mayor Livingstone asserted in the question period that Yusuf al Qaradawi was the "strongest force for modernization of Islam - he is the future of Islam."
9 Qaradawi describes suicide bombing against Israel as duty
'Recently he told Al-Jazeera that he was not alone in believing that suicide bombings in Palestinian territories were a legitimate form of self defence for people who have no aircraft or tanks. He said hundreds of other Islamic scholars are of the same opinion. In this respect, he is very much in tune with what the vast majority of people in the Arab world believe. Defending suicide bombings that target Israeli civilians Sheikh A-Qaradawi told the BBC programme Newsnight that "an Israeli woman is not like women in our societies, because she is a soldier.'

Go to the link for item 10, and all the others.

And 18 Doughty Street doesn't even mention Hugo

Livingstone also spent taxpayer's money suing Aleksander Boyd of VCrisis. Here's the latest from VCrisis: Guardian's Comment is Free censors Vcrisis

Cross-posted at MNM

technorati tags Ken Livingstone, London, terrorism

Venezuela: Ken loves Hugo, Hugo loves subs

Just like Joe Kennedy, Ken Livingstone is fond of Hugo. It has been a rocky relationship, but they appear to have made up.

With a little help of a lot of money:


Mayor signs Venezuelan oil deal

Ken Livingstone has signed an oil deal with Venezuela - providing cheap fuel for London's buses and giving cut price travel for those on benefits.

V Crisis sums it up nicely: Dictator Hugo Chavez to give up to $32 million/year to Livingstone

Chavez is to give up to $32 million/year to Europe's richest city.

World Politics Watch reports on the ongoing Venezuelan arms race, Venezuela Preparing for 'Asymmetrical' Showdown With U.S.

Venezuela is beefing up its military capabilities by land, sea and air in preparation for what one senior official called a possible "asymmetrical conflict" with the United States.

Venezuelan Ambassador to the United States Bernardo Alvarez said that while his country is preparing for possible warfare with the United States -- a notion President Hugo Chavez has repeatedly asserted -- Venezuela is nonetheless in complete compliance with international and regional non-proliferation treaties.

By characterizing a warfare scenario with the United States as "asymmetrical," the ambassador was acknowledging the distinct firepower and personnel advantage of the United States, though he noted his country was preparing itself for defense nonetheless.
...
The ambassador's remarks follow a recent report that Venezuela's latest arms improvement will focus on the country's navy, which is said to be interested in purchasing nine additional submarines.

Having already spent $3.4 billion on Russian arms, including assault rifles and fighter jets, the Venezuelan Navy is planning to spend $3 billion more to create the largest submarine fleet in the region by 2012, according to Venezuelan Navy Vice Adm. Armando Laguna.
...
The submarines will be the "diesel-electric variety," said Laguna in a recent communiqué, quoted earlier this month by Brazil's leading newspaper, Estado de Sao Paulo, and will weigh in at approximately 1,750 metric tons apiece. The Venezuelan Navy is currently considering bids from German, France and Russia, the odds-on favorite, for the new vessel contracts.

The French must really know how to forgive and forget.

Meanwhile, Venezuela to Al-Qaeda: Do not menace us, we are anti-imperialists!! (h/t MNM)

Woman hurt by London letter bomb, denial ensues

London letter bomb injures woman

A woman was taken to hospital with minor injuries after a letter bomb exploded at an office in central London.

Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism unit was investigating the "small explosion" at a business address in Victoria Street less than a mile from the Houses of Parliament.

In its characteristic state of denial, the BBC's anchorwoman, Martina Hingis, declared "there is no reason to believe the attack is related to terrorism."

The way I see it, any letter bomb is a terrorist act, whether it is for individual reasons or for the reasons of a group.

Update The gay news website Pink News has more details:

What is thought to be a letter bomb detonated in the Capita building near well-known gay venue The Stag in Victoria.
...
Capita runs the Criminal Records Bureau for the government and manages the London Congestion Charge, as well as providing a range of IT and personnel services to public bodies like the BBC.

It is a FTSE 100 company with over 30,000 employees.

Daniel Pipes vs Red Ken

When Ken Livingstone is not spending $70,000 of taxpayers' money in travel, and suing bloggers at taxpayers' expense, he gets into debates:

Gates of Vienna has a 7-part video, and posts,

Red Ken spoke first, and gave a very urbane speech about the need for multiculturalism and a coming together of different cultures to form a "world civilization". He referred repeatedly to the defects of the United States, and gave his opinion that the era of America as the premier global power is even now coming to an end.

Mr. Pipes expressed a strong disagreement with the mayor.

"The problem is not so much a clash of civilizations," he said, "but a clash between civilization and barbarism... The 'clash of civilizations' idea fails; it does not fit the facts; it is not a good way to understand the world." He went on to detail the dangers of the largest and most violent barbarism of all, radical Islam. He singled out Britain, and in particular London, as the world's principal haven for Islamic terrorists.

Watch all the videos.

Preached from the pulpit, 2

A friend just sent the link to Dispatches: Undercover Mosque which you can now view as a 45-minute program. Watch it, if you haven't already.

Ken's idea of a good time = celebrate tyranny's Golden Jubilee

When he's not using taxpayer money to pay for high-ticket lawyers to defend him from bloggers, Red Ken's always looking for a good time.

What better, then, than to pull out all the stops in 2009 to celebrate 50 years of communist paradise in Cuba?

And it's going to be an all-out all-city event:

The event, to be staged in 2009, will involve street parties, sports venues and some of London's leading museums as well as the closure of Trafalgar Square.

Although the Mayor's office refused to provide budget estimates, it could cost up to £2 million.

Even when Ken says,

"We've got the backing of the Cuban government for a massive festival to celebrate 50 years of justice in Cuba,"

one can't help but realize that
1. the Cuban government's backing won't include financing
2. Ken's idea of "justice" is, in a word, perverse.

However, since the celebration won't take place for another 2 years, here's to hoping that by then Cuba will enjoy a free society.

Now, that would be cause to celebrate: I love Trafalgar Square - I might even join in.