🐝 David Peters 🐝

Japan is living in 2050

In Turkey, an elderly man who makes a living by shining shoes is visited every morning at the same time by a cat who asks him to brush his fur.

A new Banksy sculpture has appeared overnight in central London Installed in Waterloo Place, the sculpture shows a suited man stepping forward from a plinth, his face completely hidden by a large flag

Often called one of Europe’s best-preserved medieval streets, The Shambles in York is lined with overhanging timber-framed buildings that date back to the 14th century, creating an intact glimpse of the past.

@cspencer1508 What a handsome devil!

Intrigued by a sighting of our alpacas….

@CrazyDaysPoster Did someone say KFC?

Wednesday, April 29, 2026 Blind Item #11 What once was the most well known chicken franchise in the world is apparently about to go bankrupt.

Unbelievable. We have personal iPhone footage from an astronaut going around the far side of the Moon capturing the Earth setting behind it.

@BarkJack_ I think we enter dangerous territory when we immediately shut someone down due to the length of time elapsed before issues raised. Let the truth come out, either way, as it should. It’s harmful to those that have genuinely suffered such trauma to see people shot down. ❤️

Police in Australia are taking the allegations by Ruby Rose about Katy Perry seriously! Why did it take Ruby so long to come forward about this? What do you think caused her to speak out now?

I spent three hours reading Ben Roberts-Smith court documents this morning and found something pretty incredible. TLDR: Previous court cases addressing Ben Roberts-Smith war crime allegations relied on the testimony of illiterate Afghan villagers who called him an infidel. Part of the war crimes claims made against Ben Roberts-Smith relied upon the testimony of Afghan villagers who openly told Australian courts that they viewed Roberts-Smith and Australian soldiers as infidels. Nine Media relied upon the testimony of three key Afghan witnesses in order to support the claim that Roberts-Smith executed a farmer named Ali Jan who he claimed was a Taliban spotter. These men were illiterate subsistence villagers who expressed hatred for ''infidels'' including Australian soldiers during the trial. Hanifa, pictured in court drawings wearing a green shawl, acknowledged directly that foreign soldiers were called ''infidels'' or ''kafir'' and that he did not like them. He also confirmed that persons killed by soldiers were called ''martyrs'' and that he hated Australian soldiers for going near ''our women.'' He said: "If they are coming to our houses, go inside to our women, of course that's what we call them infidels." Mangul, pictured in the court drawings wearing a blue shawl, expressed hatred of foreign soldiers and confirmed his view that they were infidels or kafir and that those they killed were martyrs. He said he did not like the Taliban but still referred to Australian soldiers as infidels. According to Daily Mail court reporting, when asked if he hated the soldiers who invaded his country and did not share his Islamic faith, Mangul said: ''Yes, it is like that.'' Hanifa also told the court that when the soldiers arrived by helicopter, he took a donkey from Ali Jan in an attempt to make them both appear to be nomads: ''I took one of the donkey from him thinking that we will look like nomads and the foreign forces will think that we are nomads.'' The actual mechanics of their testimony is incredible in and of itself. Hanifa told the Federal Court that a man named ''Dr Sharif'' paid for his accommodation, food and transport for up to a year in support of his ability to testify against Roberts-Smith. Dr Sharif worked for representatives of Nine newspapers as a fixer in Afghanistan. Each Afghan key witness said that a local representative for Nine Media paid their family's living expenses since moving to Kandahar, then Kabul, earlier in the year. According to Daily Mail court reporting, one key witness was accompanied by his wife and five children, another by his wife and six children and a third had 14 relatives with him. And the logistics regarding court translation were incredible. The only available court-certified Pashto interpreter lived in Ontario, Canada. When hearings commenced at 10:15am in Sydney, it was 8:15pm in Ontario and 4:45am in Kabul. The Afghan witnesses therefore gave evidence about murders in a Taliban stronghold through a three-way international audiovisual link at dawn, interpreted by someone in a different hemisphere. The court-certified Pashto interpreter conceded that he had difficulty translating from classical Pashto to the rural Pashto dialect the men spoke. All three ultimately testified that they did not see the alleged shooting execution of Ali Jan, but two said they directly observed Roberts-Smith kick him off the cliff. Roberts-Smith has always maintained that Ali Jan was a Taliban spotter in a village that was a Taliban stronghold. It is a matter of historical fact that there was confirmed armed Taliban presence in the village of Darwan the day of the raid and that Roberts-Smith killed a confirmed armed Taliban militant during the wider operation. Roberts-Smith was operating in the village of Darwan while searching for Hekmatullah - a Taliban sleeper agent in the Afghan National Army who massacred three Australian soldiers in cold blood as they prepared to sleep on their own base. This massacre of Australian soldiers was technically a Taliban war crime. By enlisting in the Afghan National Army and wearing its uniform, Hekmatullah had presented himself as a co-belligerent fighting alongside Australian forces - not against them. This made him guilty of the war crime of perfidy. Judge Besanko ultimately dismissed the infidel/kafir argument in a single paragraph for each witness, bracketed with the Dr Sharif financial support argument, writing: ''However, I do not consider (the infidel argument), or indeed the other general motive to lie advanced by the applicant of the sustenance (food and transportation) provided by the respondents through Dr Sharif, to be strong motives for Mohammed Hanifa to lie." In my opinion, this represents an instance of the Australian legal system failing to grapple with the cultural gulf between Australian morals and Pashtunwali morals - raised in a deeply conservative Pashtun culture in which foreign soldiers are categorically viewed as enemies of the faith, living day to day in a Taliban stronghold village, I believe the hatred that these men had towards Australian soldiers means that their testimony cannot be fully trusted. Roberts-Smith's barristers directly put it to Mangul that his religion permitted lying to infidels in some circumstances. Mangul rejected the suggestion — but the mere fact that Roberts-Smith's own counsel felt compelled to raise the question in open court speaks to the cultural gulf I am describing. It must be said that their testimony was not the only testimony against Roberts-Smith that day - their words were held up as corroborating the words of an Australian soldier, Person 4. Besanko J and the Full Court both wrote that even setting aside the Afghan witnesses' evidence, Person 4's account stood. That said, it feels deeply wrong to me that the Australian courts did ultimately choose to rely upon the evidence of men who openly admited they viewed Australian soldiers as infidels and subjects of contempt. It feels like a particularly troubling example of misplaced institutional deference - treating the admission of deep religious hostility as insufficient to question the reliability of evidence. These Afghan witnesses may now testify again in the criminal trial against Roberts-Smith where the standard of proof is ''beyond reasonable doubt'' rather than the civil ''balance of probabilities.'' The criminal standard of ''beyond reasonable doubt'' is substantially higher than the civil ''balance of probabilities'' standard at which the defamation findings were made. It is hard to see their evidence alone passing muster at a criminal standard.

Daily Wordle! APR. 10th 2026 🟢⚪⚪🟡🟢🟢 🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢 This Month 📅 10/30 Total Completed 📋 1433 #WordleApp Join me: wordle.go.link/?adjust_t=m4d9…

Daily Wordle! APR. 10th 2026 🟢🟢⚪⚪🟢 🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢 This Month 📅 10/30 Total Completed 📋 1433 #WordleApp Join me: wordle.go.link/?adjust_t=m4d9…

Having received a multitude of complaints about King Charles III's failure to mark the most important day in the Christian calendar, the day of Resurrection, despite having marked Ramadan and Eid, and having recognised that his Christian subjects' just concerns should be listened to and acted upon when doing so costs very little and will reap dividends above and beyond the effort expended, while failing to do so might ultimately prove to be irreversibly damaging, I hope he will begin listening to the complaints of his subjects, and not fall prey to the error which his first cousins three times removed, Tsar Nicholas II and the Tsarina Alexandra, made in the months before February 1917. Had Nicholas and Alexandra simply listened to the valid concerns of their subjects, rather than ignoring them in the mistaken belief that they were too trivial to warrant attention, all that happened after February 1917 might well have been averted. While resolve is a valuable quality in a leader, pigheadedness is not. Unless The King begins to listen to the concerns his Christian subjects have that he is promoting the interests of Islam over those of Christianity, he runs the risk of unnecessarily alienating the very people who are a cornerstone in the edifice of his Crown. I do appreciate that Easter addresses have not been a traditional part of the Monarch's remit, but since addresses relating to Ramadan and Eid have not been either, he might consider that the virtue of evenhandedness will prevent many of the problems that are arising when the Supreme Governor of the Church of England neglects to mark the most important day of his Church's calendar while having marked similarly significant dates in the Islamic calendar. And let's not forget Diwali. He managed to mark that too. All very noble and inclusive and a means of showing respect for others' faiths, but let's also not forget that charity starts at home, and before one endows others with one's largesse, it might be sensible to apportion an appropriate degree of attention closer to home. Otherwise one runs the risk of taking for granted those whom one should not be ignoring, and whom one might ignore at one's own peril.

@BabesMatrix @GBPolitcs That’s funny!

@GBPolitcs How unfortunate

🚨BREAKING: Buckingham Palace has confirmed King Charles will not issue an Easter message this year

#EXCLUSIVE: Dezi Freeman has been shot dead by heavily armed police this morning after more than 6 months on the run. @7NewsMelbourne @7NewsAustralia