SATURDAY NIGHT COLDPLAY, REM.

Coldplay with Talk. Album X&Y (2005).





Using a riff from Kraftwerk's Computer Love (1981), for which they gave permission. The video is by well-known Dutch photographer/director Anton Corbijn, who, not surprisingly if you are familiar with the man's style, chose for a black-and-white clip reminiscent of a 50s sci-fi B-movie.




REM with The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite. From their 1992 album Automatic for the People. Prolly their best one, btw.





And if you ever wondered what that weird thing on the iconic album's cover is, it's a star ornament which used to adorn the Sinbad Motel on Miami's Biscayne Boulevard, near Criteria Studios, where most of 'Automatic for...' was recorded.


Slaap wel.


MFBB.

SWEDEN GOING TO-TAL-LY BONKERS.

I know, it's from RT, sometimes you gotta take what they tell with a grain of salt, but this is real:

"A Swedish municipality is facing backlash after selecting a local Muslim woman wearing a headscarf to be the ‘poster girl’ for its roadside ‘welcome’ sign. Her past ties to a controversial local imam were also discovered.

The image of Suzan Hindi, a local Muslim woman in her early 40s wearing a blue headscarf, now welcomes motorists entering Gavle, a coastal municipality in Sweden about 100km north of Stockholm. The photo is occasionally shown on a digital board along with the message: “Welcome to Gavle!”"

"The municipality said it was a gesture celebrating the diversity of its community, which counts over 100,000 people of various origins and cultures. But some saw it as a signal of support for suppressing women’s freedoms.

“One should think what this is signaling. Some indeed use this garment, the hijab, voluntarily. But not everyone. This a garment that for millions of women around the world represents a lack of freedom,” said Sweden Democrats MP Roger Hedlund, a member of the municipality council, as quoted by the news website Nyheter Idag.

The Sweden Democrats party has an anti-immigration platform and currently holds 62 seats in the 349-seat Swedish parliament. Samhallsnytt, an online publication reportedly close to the party, was quick to dig Hindi’s past ties to a controversial local imam, who was accused of preaching radical ideas and collecting money for terrorists in Iraq and Syria.

Indeed, in 2009 the woman, who called herself Nizam Hindi at the time, was featured in a story by the left-leaning tabloid Arbetarbladet about the opening of a mosque in Gavle. She explained how having their own prayer house was good for the Swedish municipality’s Muslim community, how aid from Saudi Arabia and Qatar helped to buy and furnish the building, and how listening to the imam is important during the prayer.

The Al-rashideen mosque and its imam, Abu Raad, were involved in a scandal a few years ago, after the leading local newspaper Gefle Dagblad accused him of spreading radical Salafist ideas and collecting money for terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq.

The editor-in-chef received death threats over the criticism. The man who issued the threats was sentenced to two months in jail.

It was not immediately clear whether Hindi is still associated with the mosque.

Gavle itself was the scene of a national scandal in Sweden two years ago, when six people were tried for the abduction and murder of 23-year-old Afghan man Ramin Sherzaj over an extramarital affair. Five received life sentences for the crime, while one got a 14-year jail term.

The woman involved in the affair, who was a relative of the defendants, left her husband for a brief relationship with Sherzaj. It apparently ended badly, since the man then sent photos of him kissing the woman to her husband’s family members. This led to them banding together to carry out the honor killing."

Sweden is now officially the Idiotarian Superpower of the world.


MFBB.

IN MEMORIAM ALEXEI LEONOV (1934-2019).

A sad day for humanity as a 'stellar' human being, Alexei Leonov, the first man ever to walk freely in space, has died.






Via Space.com:

"Soviet-era cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who in 1965 became the first person to walk in space before co-leading the first joint mission between Russia and the United States, has died at the age of 85.

Leonov died on Friday (Oct. 11) at the Burdenko military hospital in Moscow after a long illness.

"One of the first cosmonauts of the world space era, forever devoted to his country and his work, he inscribed himself in golden letters in the world history of space," said Roscosmos, Russia's federal space corporation, in a statement. "With Alexei Arkhipovich a whole era has gone."

Selected alongside Yuri Gagarin among the first 20 Soviet Air Force pilots to train as cosmonauts in 1960, Leonov flew twice into space, logging a total of 7 days and 32 minutes off the planet."

Launched on Voskhod 2, the world's 17th human spaceflight, on March 18, 1965, Leonov made history as the first person to exit his spacecraft for an extravehicular activity (EVA).






"The Earth is round!" he exclaimed, as he caught his first view of the world. "Stars were to my left, right, above and below me. The light of the sun was very intense and I felt its warmth on the part of my face that was not protected by a filter," said Leonov in a 2015 interview with the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) on the 50th anniversary of his spacewalk.

"What remain etched in my memory was the extraordinary silence," he said.

Leonov's historic EVA, however, almost spelled his end.

After several minutes outside, his spacesuit ballooned, making it very difficult for him to maneuver. His crewmate, Pavel Belayev, unable to do anything to assist, Leonov made the decision to release air from his suit in order to be able to re-enter his capsule.

"I decided to drop the pressure inside the suit ... knowing all the while that I would reach the threshold of nitrogen boiling in my blood, but I had no choice," Leonov told the FAI, the world governing body that certifies aviation and space records.

Ultimately, Leonov made it safely back inside after 12 minutes and 9 seconds floating outside his spacecraft. He and Belyayev returned to Earth the next day on March 19, 1965, having shown it was possible for a human to survive working in the vacuum in space."

Try to imagine the sheer guts Alexei Leonov must have had, getting out of the relative 'shelter' offered by a spacecraft whizzing around Earth at 27,000 kloms an hour or thereabout, into the Great Icecold Void. Nothing between you and that but a flimsy spacesuit. Respect!




Rest in Peace, Major General. God bless.



MFBB.

A TALE OF ONE CITY: LONDON THEN AND NOW.

Via David Vance, London (and the UK) pre Cultural Enrichment:

Pre enrichment UK. pic.twitter.com/yLPTC2n8Ug

— David Vance (@DVATW) October 6, 2019

And during it:

Street life in Kilburn, London. Machetes and guns carried by thugs. Police nowhere to be seen. Let’s face it - London has turned into a savage land. #Diverse pic.twitter.com/0hU1xPmB6b

— David Vance (@DVATW) October 10, 2019

Happy thoughts to you.


MFBB.

RECOMMENDED VIDEOS: PRAGER UNIVERSITY'S "THERE ARE ONLY TWO GENDERS".

Which for Normals is self-evident of course, but you never know if some dopey lefty or watermelon happens to come across DowneastBlog!

Male/Female. Two genders.
And it's not hateful toward ANYone to acknowledge this. pic.twitter.com/XWtcbRO8WT

— PragerU (@prageru) October 8, 2019

MFBB.