Vietnam may ban itty bitty titty committee.
HANOI, Vietnam — Vietnam is considering banning small-chested drivers from its roads — a proposal that has provoked widespread disbelief in this nation of slight people. Labels: bizzare news, health news, international news, women
The Ministry of Health recently recommended that people whose chests measure fewer than 28 inches would be prohibited from driving motorbikes — as would those who are too short or too thin.
The proposal is part of an exhaustive list of new criteria the ministry has come up with to ensure that Vietnam’s drivers are in good health. As news of the plan hit the media this week, Vietnamese expressed incredulity.
“It’s ridiculous,” said Tran Thi Phuong, 38, a Hanoi insurance agent. “It’s absurd.”
“The new proposals are very funny, but many Vietnamese people could become the victim of this joke,” said Le Quang Minh, 31, a Hanoi stockbroker. “Many Vietnamese women have small chests. I have many friends who won’t meet these criteria.”
It was unclear how the ministry established its size guidelines or why it believes that small people make bad drivers. An official there declined to comment.
The average Vietnamese man is 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighs 121 pounds. The average Vietnamese woman is 5 feet, 1 inch tall and weighs 103 pounds.
Statistics on average chest size were unavailable.
The draft, which must be approved by the central government to become law, would also prohibit people from driving motorbikes if they suffer from array of health conditions like enlarged livers or sinusitis. The rules would cover the vast majority of Vietnam’s 20 million motorbikes. It would not apply to drivers of cars or trucks.
Motorbikes account for more than 90 percent of the vehicles on Vietnam’s chaotic roads, which are among the world’s most dangerous.
Nearly 13,000 road deaths were recorded last year, and Vietnam has one of the world’s highest rates per 100,000, according to the World Health Organization. The majority of accidents involve motorbikes, which many workers in the nation of 85 million need to do their jobs.
When Nguyen Van Tai, a motorbike taxi driver, heard about the proposal, he immediately had his chest measured. Much to his relief, Tai beat the chest limit by 3 inches.
“A lot of people in my home village are small,” said Tai, 46. “Many in my generation were poor and suffered from malnutrition. And now the Ministry of Health wants to stop us from driving to work.”
Vietnamese bloggers have been poking fun at the plan, envisioning traffic police with tape measures eagerly pulling over female drivers to measure their chests.
“From now on, padded bras will be best-sellers,” said Bo Cu Hung, a popular Ho Chi Minh City blogger.
Newspapers were inundated with letters on Tuesday from concerned readers who worried that they wouldn’t measure up.
“I’m not heavy enough, what am I going to do?” Le Thu Huong asked in a letter to the Tuoi Tre newspaper. “And what about people whose chests are small? Most of them are too poor to afford breast implants!”
0 comments
Email?... Permalink?
Worst Cheerleader Pyramid Ever.
Police and firefighters were called to the University of Texas' Jester Hall to free 26 cheerleaders who had crammed themselves into an elevator. Labels: bizzare news, sports news, women
A group of 14- to 17-year-olds attending Texas Cheer Camp in Austin decided to see how many girls they could squeeze into the elevator around 6 p.m. Tuesday, campus police said.
The elevator successfully descended from the fourth floor to the first, but the doors refused to open.
The panicked girls managed to wiggle a few cell phones free to call for help. But it took about 25 minutes before a repairman was able to fix the door, police said.
“It’s dangerous actually,” said Rhonda Weldon, director of communications for the UT Police Department. "They’re lucky that that’s all that happened."
One teen fainted and was treated and released from a nearby hospital. Two others were treated at the scene.
“Take the sign seriously,” Ms. Weldon said. “There are signs everywhere: No more than 15 people or 3,000 pounds.”
1 comments
Email?... Permalink?
Inmates and Wardens Gone Wild!
ARAPAHO, Okla. (AP) - Authorities have charged a western Oklahoma sheriff with coercing and bribing female inmates so he could use them in a sex-slave operation run out of his jail. Labels: crime drama, nakedness, sex, women
Custer County Sheriff Mike Burgess resigned Wednesday just as state prosecutors filed 35 felony charges against him, including 14 counts of second-degree rape, seven counts of forcible oral sodomy and five counts of bribery by a public official.
Burgess, the top officer in the county of 26,000 since 1994, appeared in court Wednesday was released after posting $50,000 bail.
A message left at Burgess' home Thursday was not immediately returned.
Among other things, Burgess is accused of having sex with a female drug court participant who was in his custody. The crimes are to have occurred between October 2005 and April 2007.
A federal lawsuit filed in October claims Burgess told one drug court participant he would have her sent to prison if she didn't comply with his sexual demands.
The lawsuit, filed by 12 former inmates, alleges the sheriff's employees had them engage in wet T-shirt contests and offered cigarettes to those who would flash their breasts.
One prisoner alleged she became a jail trusty with more freedom after agreeing to perform a sex act on Burgess, but lost that status when she later refused.
Burgess also faces two counts each of sexual battery, rape by instrumentation and subornation of perjury, and one count each of engaging in a pattern of criminal offenses, indecent exposure and kidnapping.
He could be sentenced to 467 years in prison if convicted on all counts, special prosecutor James Boring said, though a lesser sentence would be more likely.
0 comments
Email?... Permalink?
Dolly Pardon delays tour. Blames her breasts.
LOS ANGELES - Dolly Parton’s breasts may be two of the wonders of the entertainment world, but the country music icon says they are a pain in her back. Labels: celebrity news, health news, music news, women
Parton, 62, said on Monday she would postpone her upcoming North American tour after doctors told her to take it easy for six to eight weeks to rest her sore back.
“Hey, you try wagging these puppies around a while and see if you don’t have back problems,” the folksy singer-songwriter said in a statement.
The tour was due to begin on Feb. 28 in Minneapolis, two days after the release of “Backwoods Barbie,” her first album of mainstream country music in 17 years. She hopes to hit the road in late April.
Parton, also famous for her big voice, big wigs and big smile, has long joked about her famous bust. When she received a songwriters award in New York last year, she noted that she’s been known for two things throughout her career.
“I’m talking about my music and my lyrics,” she said.
Parton, a member of both the country music and songwriters halls of fame, has been enjoying a renaissance since she released the first of a trio of bluegrass-tinged albums in 1999.
As with other veterans such as Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard, Parton found that she was no longer welcome at country radio, and changed tack by delving into roots music. Her releases garnered widespread critical acclaim and a fond examination of her 40-year career.
1 comments
Email?... Permalink?
Don't listen to him! Send them to me instead!
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Popular actor and singer Edison Chen apologized on Monday after images appearing to show the Hong Kong star partially nude in the company of several starlets leaked onto the Internet. Labels: China, nakedness, women
In a video statement Chen, 27, called the postings of the photographs "intentionally hurtful and malicious."
"I hereby use this opportunity to apologize to anyone who has been affected by this strange, strange ordeal," Chen said.
Police believe the images were copied from Chen's computer when it was serviced last year.
"If you ever downloaded any of these images, please do not forward them to anyone ... If you are still in possession of these images, I urge you to please destroy them immediately," a subdued-looking Chen added in the video.
The photographs, which appear to show Chen in bed with singer Gillian Chung, along with suggestive images of actress Cecilia Cheung, were recently posted online, sparking a media frenzy in the celebrity-mad former British colony.
Hong Kong police said some 1,300 private shots of celebrities had been stolen from a faulty personal computer.
"A person had taken his computer to be fixed, but during the maintenance period, someone used dishonest means to take some information from the computer and distributed this information indiscriminately to others," assistant police commissioner Wong Fook-chuen told reporters.
While the police gave no specific names, Hong Kong's Ming Pao newspaper reported the photographs belonged to Chen.
"A person in the shop found hidden inside (Chen's) computer, confidential nude pictures of naked female stars, which were then secretly copied," Ming Pao reported, quoting an anonymous source.
The computer shop was subsequently raided by police officers in a widening investigation across the territory, which has led to eight arrests for infringement of obscene material laws, and the seizure of over 1,000 explicit images, including four women whom were public figures, the police said.
Hong Kong's police commissioner, Tang King-shing, said the case was being treated seriously and warned the possession and distribution of such images might be illegal.
0 comments
Email?... Permalink?
"Lust, Caution" prompting odd warning by Chinese officials.
Chinese doctors have warned moviegoers not to try some of the more ambitious sexual positions featured in the uncut version of the film. Labels: China, movies, sex, women
The movie has been a big hit in China, reaping 90 million yuan ($12.12 million) in its first two weeks, despite losing seven minutes to the censors, and has been tipped by some to be the year's biggest box office success.
Set in World War Two Shanghai, "Lust, Caution," features long and sometimes violent sex scenes that director Lee has hinted were real.
Lee, who won the best director Oscar in 2005 for his controversial gay cowboy drama "Brokeback Mountain", personally cut on-screen sex and other scenes in "Lust Caution" to allow it to pass Chinese censors and screen on the mainland.
The cuts, however, prompted a flood of Chinese moviegoers in southern China to cross the border into Hong Kong to see the full version.
Chinese doctors warned moviegoers not to try some of the more acrobatic positions featured in the uncut movie, according to a report posted on Xinhuanet, a news portal for the official Xinhua news agency.
"Most of the sexual maneuvers in 'Lust, Caution' are in abnormal body positions," the report quoted Yu Zao, a deputy director at a women's hospital in southern Guangdong province, as saying.
"Only women with comparatively flexible bodies that have gymnastics or yoga experience are able to perform them. For average people to blindly copy them could lead to unnecessary physical harm," Yu said.
"Lust, Caution" won the Venice Film Festival's top award, the Golden Lion, earlier this year.
The film has so far earned $3,864,735 in the US as of November 15th.
0 comments
Email?... Permalink?
BAWWWWWW!
PENSACOLA, Fla. — Joe Francis, founder of the "Girls Gone Wild" video empire, has engineered an ad campaign to call attention to his legal woes, which began in Panama City Beach in 2003 and now have him in a Nevada jail cell. Labels: court drama, nakedness, sex, women
"Marketing is what I do best," Francis, 34, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Francis, who makes at least $29 million a year from his videos of young women baring their breasts and in other sexually provocative situations, said he's now in a marketing fight for his freedom.
"I have been vilified," he said.
Francis said he's been treated like a terrorist and likens himself to an enemy combatant in legal filings. He says that's why he chose to feature a picture of himself taken during a 2004 White House visit — a campaign donor's perk — in a series of online advertisements running on newspaper Web sites from Pensacola to Tallahassee.
He has been in jail since April, when he was cited for contempt after yelling at attorneys during mediation in a federal lawsuit brought by women who were underage when his production company filmed them in 2003.
That lawsuit has since been settled, but Francis' bond was revoked on criminal charges related to the 2003 filming when he was charged with having contraband — $700 and prescription anti-anxiety medication — in the Bay County jail.
Federal officials then extradited him to Nevada to face tax evasion charges.
Francis could bond out of jail on the federal charges, but would face extradition back to Florida to face trial on four felony charges related to using minors in a sexual performances and two misdemeanor prostitution charges. The charges are all that remain in an original 73-count indictment in the 2003 "spring break" filming.
He would rather stay in jail in Nevada than return to Florida.
In a 62-page prosecutorial misconduct motion filed Tuesday by his Miami attorney, Roy Black, Francis asks that his case be dismissed and alleges Bay County officials have a vendetta against him dating to 2003 when he successfully sued Panama City Beach for First Amendment violations after the city threatened to ban him from filming spring break.
Joe Grammer, a spokesman for State Attorney Steve Meadows, said Tuesday afternoon that he and Meadows were still reading the motion.
0 comments
Email?... Permalink?
Japanese cult draws police attention.
Police raided the headquarters of a secretive, female-dominated cult yesterday after one of its followers was beaten to death, allegedly for failing to carry out a group ritual properly. Labels: crime drama, Japan, religious news, women
Detectives believe that about ten followers of the Kigenkai cult subjected Motoko Okuno, 63, to an hour-long ordeal of kicks and punches, and there are fears that the cult may have carried out more violent attacks in the past.
Four hundred police officers raided several of the sect’s premises and hauled in for questioning more than 20 of its leaders - all women. Several of those led away from the cult’s compound were teenagers.
Detective initially suspected Ms Okuno’s husband, daughters and son-in-law, who all said that the violence was the result of persistent family quarrels. But when they discovered that the family were all members of the sect, they began to focus their investigation on the cult itself.
One of the cult’s many rules is that when a person becomes a devotee, their whole family must join and it is believed that Ms Okuno, who owned a sushi restaurant, was coerced into the sect. Police further suspect that Ms Okuno was attacked at one of the cult’s properties, which include an elaborate Shinto-style shrine. Her husband, 35, remains under suspicion and has been rearrested for destroying evidence.
The public image of religious sects in Japan has been forever coloured by the atrocities of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, which was responsible for releasing sarin gas on the Tokyo underground in 1995. The gas killed 12 people and injured 3,800, and Shoko Asahara, the cult’s leader, awaits the death penalty for masterminding the attacks.
Another Japanese cult known for displaying bizarre behaviour is the Panawave Laboratory, whose devotees expected Armageddon in May 2003 and draped trees and river banks in white sheets to protect themselves from it.
The Kigenkai cult, whose main office is in the northwestern prefecture of Nagano, is thought to have about 300 followers across Japan and has been active for more than 35 years. For the past decade, it has been officially registered with the Ministry of Education as a religious institution. But what began life as a relatively straightforward group of fortune-tellers has, say critics, evolved in a stranger direction.
Residents of Komoro, the town nearest to the group’s headquarters, take a dim view of its activities, which include making votive offerings to the local river by hurling fruit, vegetables and fried food into it. The group is notorious for its methods of extracting “donations” from followers: it has been known to sell ordinary pebbles as so-called “spiritual stones” for about Ł1,200 each.
The cult also offers a mineral elixir called “kigensui”, which, it says, cures diseases such as cancer. The bottles, which sell for about several hundred pounds, are thought to contain little more than normal water. Soaks in a full bath of the supposedly magical liquid are also available for a price, and many members take them because cult rules forbid them from visiting mainstream doctors.
The cult’s religious convictions are based loosely on Shintoism, the traditional animist belief system of Japan that makes deities out of trees, waterfalls and other natural phenomena.
0 comments
Email?... Permalink?
Bras not leathal weapons? So soon we forget Madonna's cone bra.
COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho — Security guards refused to allow a woman into a federal courthouse until she removed a bra that triggered a metal detector. Labels: court drama, nakedness, women
Lori Plato said she and her husband, Owen Plato, were stunned when U.S. Marshals Service employees asked her to remove her bra after the underwire supports set off the alarm.
"I asked if I could go into the bathroom because they didn't have a privacy screen and no women security officers were available," Plato said Wednesday. "They said, 'No.'
"I wasn't carrying a shank in my bra. If it's so dangerous, why did they give it back and let me put it on?"
Patrick McDonald, the U.S. Marshal in Boise, said appropriate security protocols were followed in the Sept. 20 matter, and guards suggested she simply remove the bra in her car outside, or find a restaurant bathroom.
"She's inflating it," McDonald said. "All of a sudden she just took it off. It wasn't anything we wanted to happen and it wasn't anything we asked for her to do. She did it so fast."
Plato, of Bonners Ferry, said she was parked on a busy street and wasn't familiar with downtown Coeur d'Alene businesses. So her husband held up his coat to shield her from the rest of the people in the courthouse lobby while she removed her bra underneath her shirt.
Generally, McDonald said, undergarments aren't considered a danger to security.
"I don't think they're considered a weapon, really, the last time I looked," he said.
He declined to discuss other ways the federal courthouse guards could have screened Plato for weapons.
Plato wants the Marshals Service to apologize and stop forcing women to disrobe.
"It was very humiliating," her husband, Owen Plato, said. "They could have handled it with a much more professional attitude."
0 comments
Email?... Permalink?
Monk washes his hands after he washes his hands.
CHICAGO — The gender gap has widened when it comes to hygiene, according to the latest stakeout by the "hand washing police." One-third of men didn't bother to wash after using the bathroom, compared with 12 percent of women, said the researchers who spy on people in public restrooms. They reported their latest findings Monday at a meeting of infectious disease scientists. Labels: boys, health news, women
Two years ago, the last time the survey was done, only one-quarter of men didn't wash, compared with 10 percent of women.
"Guys need to step up to the sink," said Brian Sansoni, spokesman for the Soap and Detergent Association, which co-sponsors the survey and related education campaigns.
The latest study was based on observations last month of more than 6,000 people in four big cities.
Frequent hand washing is the single best thing people can do to avoid getting sick, from colds and the flu to germs lurking in food, doctors say. And a recent Harris Interactive survey found 92 percent of Americans said they always wash up after using the bathroom.
But researchers for the American Society for Microbiology found that only 77 percent actually do, when it comes to public restrooms. That's a 6 percent decline from a similar study in 2005.
1 comments
Email?... Permalink?
My humps, my humps, my humps!
A woman in Australia has been killed by her pet camel after the animal may have tried to have sex with her. Labels: animal news, Austrailia, bizzare news, raep, sex, women
The woman was found dead at the family's sheep and cattle ranch near the town of Mitchell in Queensland.
The woman had been given the camel as a 60th birthday present earlier this year because of her love of exotic pets.
The camel was just 10 months old but already weighed 152kg (336lbs) and had come close to suffocating the family's pet goat on a number of occasions.
On Saturday, the woman apparently became the object of the male camel's desire.
It knocked her to the ground, lay on top of her and displayed what the police delicately described as possible mating behaviour.
"I'd say it's probably been playing, or it may be even a sexual sort of thing," the Associated Press news agency quoted Queensland police Detective Senior Constable Craig Gregory as saying.
Young camels are not normally aggressive but can become more threatening if treated and raised as pets.
0 comments
Email?... Permalink?
2 Arrests in Dunbar Village brutal gang-rape
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Mother and son huddled together, battered and beaten, in the bathroom — sobbing, wondering why no one came to help. Surely the neighbors had heard their screams. The walls are thin, the screen doors flimsy in this violence-plagued housing project on the edge of downtown. Labels: boys, crime drama, Florida, raep, shota, women
For three hours, the pair say, they endured sheer terror as the 35-year-old Haitian immigrant was raped and sodomized by up to 10 masked teenagers and her 12-year-old son was beaten in another room.
Then, mother and son were reunited to endure the unspeakable: At gunpoint, the woman was forced to perform oral sex on the boy, she later told a TV station.
Afterward, they were doused with household cleansers, perhaps in a haphazard attempt to scrub the crime scene, or maybe simply to torture the victims even more. The solutions burned the boy's eyes.
The thugs then fled, taking with them a couple of hundred dollars' worth of cash, jewelry and cell phones.
In the interview with WPTV, the mother described how she and her son sobbed in the bathroom, too shocked to move. Then, in the dark of night, they walked a mile to the hospital because they had no phone to call for help.
Two teenagers — a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old — have been arrested. Eight others are being sought.
Welcome to Dunbar Village, a place residents call hell.
(unfortunately alot more graphic details here)
0 comments
Email?... Permalink?
No boys allowed
On the Italian Adriatic coast, where romance reigns and beachcombers bask in the sun, the notorious Latin lover looks for his prey and he hunts his conquest with chat-up lines. The women are fed up.
"We run away from Italian men," said Tiziana Andreoletti. "They're such a drag."
And it happens all the time. Boy meets girl and boy annoys girl. So, the Italians have enacted an interesting solution to this problem. They have created a beach strictly for women. No men, children or loud disco music are allowed.
"It's a simple idea," said beach owner Fausto Ravaglio. "We have given the women their own world.''
Known as "Pink Beach," the area opened a week ago and is complete with exercise classes, water aerobics and makeup and manicure tips. It greets men with a pink sign that reads: "No Men."
The 50-mile stretch of coastline linking Rimini to Riccione also restricts traditional beach food such as deep-fried squid and chips.
Women can enjoy the sun, sea and sand without the lustful leers of men.
Beach-goer Marianna Sandu said she hit the testosterone-free sands to meet new friends and talk about "women stuff."
But for some men the idea is a little farfetched. One man said the concept might be good for women, but it would fall flat with men.
The beach does have one man.
"The lifeguard must be a man," Ravaglio said in a foreign newspaper interview. "You clearly need a man to save women in the sea. It's a question of muscles."
0 comments
Email?... Permalink?