The Blues Brothers turns 46 today, and the behind-the-scenes stories are legendary.
Cars dropped from hundreds of feet over Chicago. Malls wrecked. Belushi crashing at a stranger’s house.
Just another day at the office for Jake & Elwood.
A behind-the-scenes Sting Cut.
JUST IN: IRANIAN FM ARAGHCHI:
“The end of the war will not be complete without the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories they occupied in Lebanon.
Any military attack by Israel on Lebanon and the continued occupation of Lebanese territories from now on, in our opinion, is a violation of the MoU.”
It’s not people with different ethnic heritages that frighten me in Australia, it’s these angry, ignorant white bogans being cultivated by One Nation. They make me feel ashamed to be Australian. #auspol
Dr. Marandi: "Netanyahu wrecked the last ceasefire by carpet-bombing Lebanon - killing hundreds of civilians in minutes. Iran responded by blocking ships from Gulf states. Now we're at the edge of a global energy crisis.
If Netanyahu doesn't end the genocide in Lebanon and Gaza, Iran won't abide by its commitments. We will go over the cliff"
Prof Jeffrey Sachs, American economist and public policy analyst. Columbia University:
"AUKUS is designed to bill the Australian taxpayers and enrich the US military industrial complex. You have been had Australia, sorry to tell you. And your politicians should own up it."
Ukraine shot down Russian Kalibr cruise missiles. Then took them apart — board by board, component by component.
What Ukraine's Ministry of Defence @DefenceU found inside should be uncomfortable reading for Western regulators and sanctions enforcement agencies.
More than 80–90% of the guidance system electronics: foreign-made. Every part marked. Every manufacturer identified. 🧵👇
This is biblical.
A woman in her eighties. Ten years into Alzheimer's. Hadn't spoken a full sentence in five years.
Takes one, 5 gram dose of psilocybin.
She slept 19 hours and woke up and spoke for hours about her life, recognized family and held real conversations. She regained bladder control after five years, walked on her own. and dressed herself. Gains held for weeks.
I am more than familiar with Palestine history during the British occupation -its crimes and legacy - and yet. Watching #Palestine36 was a gut-wrenching experience.
Gentle as it can be, Palestinian storytelling cannot hide the horror of the crimes Palestinians have endured.
So far at the 2026 FIFA Epstein Cup before a ball kicked:
- Senegal & Uzbekistan squads treated like criminals upon arrival given full cavity searches;
- Africa’s best referee sent back to Somalia despite having a diplomatic passport;
- Iraq team photographer sent back despite valid visa;
- AIPS (international sport journalist association) calling on FIFA to sort out unacceptable visa issues of African & Iranian journalists;
- 90% of Moroccan fans with tickets denied entry
- 14 members of Iran backroom staff denied visas
Not a word from Gianni ”today I feel black/gay/disabled etc” Infantino.
Israel flunkies are now going back in history to whitewash earlier colonial conquests and genocides in an effort to whitewash their own criminal enterprise.
As with their own history, they also fabricate an invented past to make their case.
Contrary to the claim below, the French conquest of Algeria had nothing to do with the enslavement of Europeans and Americans.
For centuries, corsairs, or state-sponsored pirates, operated throughout the Mediterranean.
North African corsairs captured European (and later American) ships, seizing their cargo and capturing their crew and passengers in order to enslave or ransom them.
European corsairs similarly captured Ottoman and other ships and enslaved or ransomed their crews and passengers.
The various corsairs also raided and plundered coastal settlements in southern Europe and northern Africa.
By the time French troops occupied Algiers in 1830, the seizure of US ships had already ended as a result of the Barbary Wars.
North African corsairs had stopped attacking US ships in 1805 at the conclusion of the First Barbary War, but had resumed their activities during the War of 1812 after they were encouraged to attack American shipping by Britain.
The attacks on US ships definitively ceased in 1815 with the end of the Second Barbary War.
The French invaded Algeria, then known as the Regency of Algiers, in 1830.
By that time both North African and European corsairs had already largely ceased operations.
The proximate cause of the French conquest of Algeria is what was known as the Bakri-Busnach Affair.
Two Algerian merchants, Bakri and Busnach, had during the Napoleonic Wars supplied the French military with large amounts of grain. Napoleon refused to pay his bills, as well as others incurred by previous French governments to the duo’s company.
As a result the merchants were unable to repay the large loans they had taken from the ruler of Algiers to finance their dealings with France.
The Affair was therefore not just a commercial dispute between Algerian merchants and their French clients, but also a diplomatic one between the governments of Algiers and France.
Bakri and Busnach were Sephardic Jews, whose families had found refuge in Algiers after their expulsion from Spain.
At one point their company sent two representatives, Jacob Cohen Bakri and Simon Abousaya, to France to collect their debts and use the funds to settle their loan. Instead of paying up, the French authorities arrested them.
Intervention by Algiers secured their release, and also an agreement to settle the debt. The French however declined to fulfil their commitments, and further efforts by Algiers and the merchants to recoup their losses similarly came to nothing.
Tensions increased further when Algiers suspected Paris and the merchants were colluding to deprive Algiers of funds it was owed, and thereby weaken it vis-à-vis France.
In 1827, in what came to be known as the Fly Whisk Incident, the Algerian ruler Hussain Dey hit the French Consul, Pierre Deval, in the face with a fly whisk at a public gathering, and ordered him out, in exasperation at being informed by Deval that there had been no progress in the Affair. For good measure Deval had also made various disparaging remarks about Islam and Muslims.
Paris seized upon this as a casus belli, at a time when the French monarch, Charles X, was facing increasing domestic challenges and eager to divert attention to a patriotic campaign abroad.
Fortified by support from Istanbul and Britain, Hussain refused to apologise, and the subsequent French blockade did more damage to French commerce in Marseille than to Algiers.
The crisis was ultimately resolved by the French occupation of Algiers in 1830.
By the time France consolidated its rule over Algeria in 1875, between 500,000 and one million Algerians, out of a total population of some three million, lay dead. Many scholars describe the French pacification campaign as a genocidal war.
The above details notwithstanding, France’s motivations in seizing Algeria were ultimately no different than those that led it and other European powers to occupy and colonize other territories around the globe.
It had everything to do with France’s commercial interests and its rivalries with other powers, and absolutely nothing to do with what it liked to call "La mission civilisatrice".
The pretensions of Israel flunkies aside, it is useful to bear in mind that colonialism and its associated crimes is infinitely more vile than the worst of its victims.
Absolutely right, Australia cannot be a global police force. The only reason Labor is pretending we can is because they want to draw us closer to the US and it's next war.
Defense should do just that, defend Australia not threaten our neighbors.
https://t.co/wsbkuFMaMP
En la noche de ayer, el conflicto en Líbano se saldó con cuatro ataques de mortero a la base española Miguel de Cervantes, un casco azul serbio fallecido y dos españoles heridos.
Nuestra condena más absoluta a la violencia y todo nuestro apoyo a quienes se juegan la vida por defender la paz bajo la bandera de las Naciones Unidas.
Esperamos que todas las partes cumplan íntegramente el alto al fuego anunciado ayer y que las hostilidades terminen. La paz es el único futuro.
The Govt has committed to buying 3 US Virginia Class subs, without first negotiating a price🤦♂️. Yesterday it was revealed they also haven't negotiated a warranty for the second-hand subs🤦♂️. Would officials personally buy a car like that? No! #dumb#OnlyYOURMoney#AUKUS#auspol
Approximate passports costs:
🇨🇦 Canada = ~$170
🇬🇧 United Kingdom = ~$195
🇺🇸 United States = ~$180
🇳🇿 New Zealand = ~$225
Australian 🇦🇺 passport cost...$422
Passport fees and charges are expected to generate $1.12 billion for the 2029/30 FY. In the same FY, expected revenue for PRRT is projected to be $1.25 billion