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Last updated on August 8th, 2017 at 02:18 pm
The way things are looking, celebrations for Castro’s death will happen first:
Ken Livingstone is planning a “massive festival” across London to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolution.
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 …
Speaking at a recent public meeting at Central Hall, Westminster, Mr Livingstone said: “We’ve got the backing of the Cuban government for a massive festival to celebrate 50 years of justice in Cuba.”
Interesting that he defers to a foreign government. Poodle. Meanwhile:
The 300th birthday of Great Britain is to pass next year without any major celebrations.
- Will a 12-hour day of cutting sugar cane be included in the festivities too? And let’s not forget “Raul bobbing for coke” contests—with a Cayman Island’s bank account as the winner’s prize.
And, BTW, how long are lord mayors in office for? (Although he probably could win reelection between now and then, I suppose, unless London gets nuked, or the like, in the interim.)
Posted by andycanuck on 2006 12 28 at 06:16 PM • permalink
- Sad about the anniversary – I’ve always believed that the union of Britain has been one of the most positive developments for civilisation.
And why is it that Lord Mayors (Lords Mayor?) are always insane and/or socialists? (In Newcastle, ours is spending $15mn on a ‘Civic Cultural Precinct’ while a quarter of our streets are unroadworthy.)
- Odd, this concept of “justice”, which sees families risking their lives braving the Atlantic in trucks converted into barely pond-worthy boats in order to escape it.
Anyway, if whichever of Trudeau’s idiot sons wrote that weepy vomit-inducing tongue-bath editorial earlier this yeear extolling the virtues of the World’s Greatest Mechanic ends up going to Londonistan for this Massive Festival of Compleat Ignorance, can Red Ken please just keep him?
My country thanks you in advance.
Posted by Crispytoast on 2006 12 28 at 06:21 PM • permalink
- “Ken Livingstone”
Isn’t that English for “maggot”?
Posted by Dave Surls on 2006 12 28 at 06:29 PM • permalink
- Political parties, other than the Communist Party, are prohibited in Cuba, as are free trade unions. Freedom of expression is banned and, according toAmnesty International, there are 70 prisoners of conscience.
That can’t be good.
There is no press freedom and Cuban citizens are not allowed to travel freely – they are also affected by a US economic blockade.
Huh?
Severe racism against Cuba’s black minority is reported by human rights monitors.
Wait a minute. Let’s get back to that U.S. economic blockade. Those bastards!
“It is almost as if the Government is embarrassed about our history.”
“Almost”? America had a major blow out for the Bicentennial in 1976…..on top of the normal Fourth of July festivities. Britain is ignoring its 300 hundred years history.
I don’t have much standing to say such things, but man, England is fucked.
Two things, PW:
1. You do have the standing to say such things. If naught else, as an intelligent person.
2. You’re spot on. England is fucked. All the smart Brits need to leave that country now.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 12 28 at 06:49 PM • permalink
- “Let’s get back to that U.S. economic blockade.”
Sure. Back in the 1950s/60s the Cuban commies “nationalized” (that’s commiespeak for “stole”) just about every dime Americans had invested in Cuba, so, for once, our jackass government actually did something that made sense and slapped an EMBARGO (not a blockade) on the thieving, murdering bastards.
And, if Red Ken doesn’t like it, he can kiss my red, white and blue American ass.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2006 12 28 at 07:05 PM • permalink
- #4 Ian Deans, you’re forgetting the $35m for a new art gallery; roads and gutters and footpaths be damned. Gotta wonder about our council.
This is nothing compared to the maggot that lives in Red Ken’s brain. Where does Cuba factor into London culture, that London taxpayers should be paying for Cuban birthday celebrations? Cuba was a Spanish colony, then a US colony, then a Russian colony. Pathetic old Ken can’t see an inch past his communist blinkers. Unfortunately, neither can the rest of London’s losers, otherwise they’d have tossed him in the Thames years ago with an anchor chain around his ankles.
- I wonder if it was like this when Rome was falling.Posted by boxofmatches on 2006 12 28 at 07:08 PM • permalink
- #11 – No, the smart ones not only need to stay, they need to wake up and take control of running the country again.
I’ve never lived there or even been there, but I know enough about its history – the thought of the UK becoming like fwance brings a tear to my eye….Posted by Rachel Corrie’s Flatmate on 2006 12 28 at 07:11 PM • permalink
- #4 Livingstone is simply the Mayor of London. There is a Lord Mayor of the City which is simply a ceremonial role.
If you include the Act of Union with Ireland of 1801, Britain should have celebrated its bicentenary the same year Australia celebrated its centenary. The contrast in official attitudes was noted at the time (though the Irish question is a mitigating factor).
As an Australian of Scottish descent, I think the Celtic nations did very well out of the union, with many of us making our fortunes in association with a model polity. Both Ned Kelly and the man who ordered him to be hanged were Irish.
- Street parties?
Sheesh. This from the same folks who had subpoenas and harsh obits (rightly or wrongly) for Pinochet. This while aging Soviet and East Bloc commissars putter around Europe, safe in retirement.
In a sane world, given his brutal mis-management of Cuba—including his shabby brand of universal health care and a literate population living in squalor—Casto’s passing would be noted by embarrassed silence by those on the Left who lionized the old jail-keeper all these years.
But the world is not sane.
During which, all the homosexuals in London will be thrown into camps.
Well Livingstone has already had an Islamic cleric, Sheikh Qaradawi, over to fellate. Qaradawi believes that homosexuals should be executed so relatively speaking Castro who believes that they should just be locked up is a moderate.
- #16 – Holy crap! Another conservative Novocastrian. I was beginning to think I was the only one!
Council spent $40mn on ‘Recreation and Culture’ last fiscal year and only $10mn on the roads. 23.4% of them failed the roadworthiness test and the Council doesn’t intend to completely fix them until 2011.
Meanwhile, the first page of the Annual Report is a long-winded apology to the Aboriginals for the hurt caused by the ‘British invasion’.
end rant.
- Also, I don’t think that you can really say that England is fucked and people should leave. Do they have their problems? Yes, of course. But within five years, Red Ken will be gone. So will Tony Blair and Labour will probably be out of power.
The important thing is that intelligent, conservatively-minded people stay there and work for change, regardless of how shitty things become.
We’re conservatives, not nancy-boy leftistas: we have more grit than to pack up and flee when the going gets tough.
- If, as Red Ken claims, Cuba has such a great health service it should be celebrated in London, why has a Spanish doctor been rushed to the workers’ paradise to tend to an ailing Castro? Don’t they trust their own doctors?
Personally, I think people such as Red Ken and George Galloway, our own Bob Brown and/or Ellis say and do these outrageous things because they have no other way of fulfilling their desire for publicity. They could never rely on talent, ability or intelligence like most people.
- Pfft- if you want a government agency to organise a ‘celebration’ of British history all to have to do is get off your lazy butts and start organising some grievance groups in order to establish a celebratory theme attractive to the elites. In this instance I would go with something like ‘the Scottish/Welsh alliance against British oppression’- throw in a few nationalist organisations and events like ‘oppression- how far have we really come’, ‘the sun never set on the British empire- but was it enlightened, a post- modern analysis of British history and it’s ramifications for today’ etcetc and I’m sure something major would be organised within a year.
We’re conservatives, not nancy-boy leftistas: we have more grit than to pack up and flee when the going gets tough.
I’m glad to hear that, Ian, but y’all need to belly up to the bar right soon, else emulate Guy Fawkes (excepting getting caught, I mean).
Or would that be “Winston Churchill”?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 12 28 at 08:23 PM • permalink
- Ian Deans, MareeS I hear you. I moved from Newcastle to Melbourne two years ago, I still remember the idiotic local-council bureaucracy. I presume they’ve still got that bloody big rock blocking the road near Nobbys Head?
The ‘Civic Cultural Precinct’ is a terrible idea; I went to meetings five-six years ago when it was still being ‘developed’, and it sounds like they haven’t got much further now.
We’re conservatives, not nancy-boy leftistas: we have more grit than to pack up and flee when the going gets tough.
Well, do you see any movement? Any hope at all? Is anything going on now that appear to reverse the trends? Getting your guns back? Dismantling the ubiquitous cameras? Taxes going down? Respectable and electable leaders talking the talk and walking the walk?
Sorry bud, Jeffs is right – look around and extrapolate the past 5 years out to the next. It doesn’t look good.
- #37 TimT, the rock has gone by popular request. Unfortunately the moonbat councillors who caused the rock situation are still pushing the “civic cultural precinct,” to no avail because there’s no money. The council big spenders got smashed a few months ago when ratepayers like us said, No way would we pay an extra few million for work the council should have already budgeted.
BTW, now that you’re no longer a Novocastrian and are residing in Victoria, you can have Janet Dore back, she’s a mexican who should have never have been allowed north of the border.
Cheers, Maree
- Number XVII:
363 Disaster and death of Julian. Retreat of the army which proclaims Jovian emperor. Humiliating peace with Persia. Renewed toleration decree.
(Emphasis mine, seemed the most pertinent juncture for a snapshot. It took another hundred years, mind you, and a lot of Goths, Vandals and Huns and what-all, but you get the drift…)
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 12 28 at 08:54 PM • permalink
- One of the best things Thatcher did was getting rid of Red Ken and disbanding the Greater London Council- the odious little prick slithers back in under a Labour govt, and London steadily turns into Stalingrad on the Thames.
I know the Poms have become increasingly jellybacked in recent times, but why do they put up with this bollocks?
(Probably for the same reasons we put up with ratshit marxist local and state governments. Time for some pointy heads on pikes, methinks).
- 10 There is no press freedom and Cuban citizens are not allowed to travel freely – they are also affected by a US economic blockade.
what about …There is no press freedom and English citizens are not allowed to travel freely in bikinnis – they are also affected by a Arab economic blockade.
hey, it’s also Friday and that’s sing song day… Guess what else?
It’s stone throwing at Satan time in Mecca!!!
- The leader of the “Conservatives” writes for the Guardian for fucks sake.
Speaking of which, have a read of what said organs resident buckethead Polly Toynbee (or should that be Polleeeeeee?) has to say about the future direction of Labour. Most of it reads like current Liberal Party policy, which is of deep concern.
I can’t think of a single country that has anything remotely resembling a conservative/libertarian government.
- Here’s a policy in Brackistan that looks to be inspired by Castro:
Water wasters face shower ban
MELBOURNE’S serial water wasters will not be able to shower under stage 3 restrictions.Under a new three-strike rule, repeat offenders will have their water turned down to a trickle – just enough to dampen a washcloth.
A new year crackdown will give water police the power to go into homes and reduce water pressure.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2006 12 28 at 10:01 PM • permalink
- “About 140 water police in 90 vehicles will patrol Melbourne,….”
You simply can’t make this stuff up.
The first thing I would do is get someone to do an enviornmental impact study on the 90 cars that are going to be bipping around Melbourne all day long and presumably well into the night. Unless, of course, they plan on staking out some poor sod who happens to drip a few drops onto the hood of his car while washing the windshield.
“Yesterday, in a daring pre-dawn raid, the water police apprehended Fred Slovenly for dripping water on his windshield.”
- O/T – TCS announces that Jimmy Carter wins the 2006 Hokum award as the world’s finest political comedian. Excerpt:
Fellow comedian and dual-Hokum winner Bill Clinton explained, “Carter was taking a big risk by entering the Middle-East Inanity comedy genre. This field has been dominated by second rate-comedians such as Yassar Arafat, the ‘Assad Family Comedy Act’, the ‘Saudi Royal Family Variety Revue’ and members of the Sayyid Qutb vaudeville school. Not well known in the United States, these comedians have long been famous for using the same punch line for every joke, ‘The Jews did it.’ Jimmy Carter has adapted that cut-rate comic trope to his own side-splitting style.”
Posted by walterplinge on 2006 12 28 at 11:06 PM • permalink
- no birthday party for Britain- ‘the mother of the free’- how shall we extoll thee?- not at all it seems
meanwhile- a Castro street fair held right beneath Nelson’s column to honour a man notable for killing homosexuals, among many others
poor confused Kenny
Posted by eeniemeenie on 2006 12 28 at 11:10 PM • permalink
- #59- thats just jive talkin ian- you can tell by the way he use his walk he’s a woman’s manPosted by eeniemeenie on 2006 12 28 at 11:34 PM • permalink
- Many Poms have already taken to the lifeboats – Nora and I know of at least two ‘new Australians’ from the UK who talk like refugees. In fact, one of them admits a major reason he came to Australia was to flee the increasing religious persecution. He’s a Christian.
The unfortunate thing is you can’t migrate from the UK to Australia after you’re 45 and it usually takes quite a few years for how bad England is to dawn on the younger people – by which time it’s getting too late.
Australia has also just closed the post-45 ‘business migrant’ loophole. It used to be you could get in by putting up a business plan that would hire a few people when you got here. But we were recently told by someone who just scraped in before they nixed it that the only ‘business migrants’ now are company directors and the like. Older Pommie plebs are going to have to go down with the ship.
—Nick
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2006 12 29 at 12:11 AM • permalink
- Two Latin American countries famously ruled by dictators: Cuba and Chile.
Which country, and society, is better off today? Which dictator left office willingly? Which dictator is praised by the self-appointed intelligencia?
No people deserve 50 years of Stalinist “justice”.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 12 29 at 12:39 AM • permalink
- Hey! What’s with the bold? I didn’t put that there! It wasn’t there on “preview”!Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 12 29 at 12:42 AM • permalink
- In the far future, once enough time has passed for the historians to look over events, I suspect that 2 major causes for these decades, and possibly centuries, of troubles will be pegged.
1. The trend toward not fighting wars to their necessary conclusions.
2. Allowing the abomination that is communism and its fellow socialistic utopianisms to “sell themselves” as simply differences of opinion rather than the betrayals that they truly are.
- grate, Sincere congratulations on introducing a fantastic new tactic in “sticking it too the man”(woman in this case)
I was personally struck so dumb and incandesant with self rightous rage at your hithro unheard of tactic of posting a link to an unrelated porn site.
I have seen the error of my ways in engaging in rational debate, and swaying people with reasoned arguement and logic. I have now become a Gaurdian reading, vegan, free ta refugees, card carrying member of the greens. I shall start constructing my oversized paper mache head of John HoWARd immediately.
All because of your stunningly original tactic.
(Bring out Bertha)Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 12 29 at 05:00 AM • permalink
- #62 Nick, I’ve got a mate in Oz at the moment over from England (Sheffield). He’s in Melbourne at the moment, and we’ve caught up a couple of times and he says the same things.
He hates Britain with a passion, and can’t believe the way it’s gone downhill in the last few years. I’ve given him my copy of Londonistan just to cheer him up.
He got bashed by a group of chavs a couple of days before he came out here for the first time ever. He’s 36, and half chinese, and they were calling him ‘chinga chonga’. He’s never experienced anything like that in his life there.
The atmosphere over there is oppressive, and people seem to be apathetic. That’s the impression I get from my mate, at least. He’s been wanting to come out here for years, but I don’t know what the market is for IT geniuses.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2006 12 29 at 06:49 AM • permalink
- At telegraph.co.uk: we read
“The fate of Saddam Hussein hangs in the balance”
Like Fiddel?
Posted by stackja1945 on 2006 12 29 at 07:11 AM • permalink
- They’re just reporting on NBC that Castro is on life support and could be dead at any moment. First Pres Ford and now Castro, time to break out the bubbly me thinks [I think we could all do with a visit to the Magic Kingdom, so the url has been altered to help us on our way. The Management.]Posted by The_Real_Jeff8 on 2006 12 29 at 07:18 AM • permalink
- #53, #54, What are the water wasters going to do about life’s (ahem) necessary flushings if their water flow is to be so tightly restricted? There’s always the bush solution, dig a hole in the backyard, fill with lime and place a plank over the top. Or, as we do on the boat, use a bucket. In our case the product goes overboard, but in suburban Melbourne the gutter’s the only option when the loo doesn’t flush.
What lunatics in the green nazi caliphate came up with this method of water conservation?
- Probably some lickspittle of John Thwaites. He’s the Minister for Depleting Water, if I recall.
I didn’t vote Labor in the elections! It’s not my fault!!
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2006 12 29 at 07:44 AM • permalink
- Testing the tag gates… one..two…Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2006 12 29 at 07:45 AM • permalink
- I must be getting slow in my old age, it didn’t even occur to me that #65 was trolling. Although I did wonder what the connection was between the enormous cock and Castro….Posted by Daniel San on 2006 12 29 at 08:43 AM • permalink
- That’s what trolls get when they think of El Weirdo Beardo.Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 12 29 at 09:44 AM • permalink
- #62 there is a a huge loophole for people with skills in short supply – which handily excludes knuckledraggers from the sink estates & lefty arts graduates. tell all your educated pommy mates to fish around the web for an aussie employer looking for their skills & they’ll be on the fast track pronto. perhaps some smart person could also set up the Pommy Artisan Convoy Organisation
- O/T: I’m a strong advocate of the Second Amendment, but I have to wonder about this .
#84: the Pommy Artisan Convoy Organisation. I like it, KK!
“The Mayor associates himself with some of the most odious people around and it’s Londoners who are being asked to pay out. Sooner or later, there will be a reckoning.”
It’s too late for “sooner” and may even be too late for “later”. No wonder it’s becoming “Londonistan”. Everybody else is fleeing.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 12 29 at 12:57 PM • permalink
- New in the “stupidist thing ever heard”.
Talkin head on FNC was either reading a view email question/statement or some “expert” was talkin into her ear through that thing they wear…
“a prisoner of war can not be handed over to his adversaries because that would violate the rules of war and the Geneva Convention, so the US can not hand Saddam over to the Iraqis because the Iraqis are Saddam’s adversary”.
It was countered with the guest expert saying Saddam isnt, technically, a prisoner of war.
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During which, all the homosexuals in London will be thrown into camps.