- India, say hello to Playboy Light. See, the Asian power is
getting a slice of Hugh Hefner’s empire, but it’s a diluted, watered-down
version. The Playboy club franchise is coming to India – no, not the crappy
drama that was canceled after one month on NBC – but it won't have any of the
sizzle of its counterparts in less-conservative corners of the world. In other
words, no Playboy bunnies in revealing outfits. Because India has strict censorship laws and there
is no Indian version of Playboy, the skanks who wait on patrons will not were
the typical black satin bodices, bow ties, cuffs and bunny ears. According to PB
Lifestyle, no decision has been made on what waitresses will wear in India, but
in a socially conservative country where it is frowned upon for couples to hold
hands in public, don’t expect anything too risqué. "The costumes of the
bunnies, who are integral to the Playboy culture, will be based on Indian
sensibilities and morals," Sanjay Gupta, CEO of PB Lifestyle. "Our
clubs will not have any nudity. So there should not be any problem and we are
prepared to deal with it if there is any." Wait….no nudity and very little
skin showing? Then what the hell is the point of a Playboy club? It’s a
magazine Hefner founded to show off naked pictures of hot chicks and promote a hedonistic
lifestyle. Rather than attempt to jam that philosophy into a place where a
major cricket tournament drew criticism and threats when it hired foreign
cheerleaders in short skirts, maybe accept the fact that Playboy and India
don’t mesh and allow all of the randy Indian men to access their Playboy
content the normal way: online. The first faux-Playboy property in India will
be a club in the resort state of Goa, followed by one in Hyderabad. Without the
usual, um, attractions, it’s difficult to see how it’s going to be any
different than any other club in the country………
- Gingers, here’s some more bad news for you. Not only are
you treated like an entirely different species at times and used as the butt of
so, so many jokes, but science now says you have a previously unknown cause for
your higher risk
for melanoma, the deadliest type of skin cancer. Previously, scientists
believed that gingers’ fair and sometimes freckly skin provides less natural
protection against UV radiation from the sun, but a study conducted by Massachusetts
General Hospital in Boston suggests another cause. Dr. David Fisher and his
team have found that genetic factors of the skin pigment that's predominantly
found in redheads may be to blame for the increased melanoma risk. Melanoma is
the leading cause of death from skin disease, so figuring out its cause is
somewhat important. More than 76,000 cases expected to be diagnosed in 2012 in
addition to nearly 9,200 deaths caused by the cancer and thanks to Fisher’s
work, science has a better grip on its root cause. "We've known for a long
time that people with red hair and fair skin have the highest melanoma risk of
any skin type," said Fisher, chief of dermatology at Massachusetts
General. With the findings, Fisher believes it may be possible to develop
better sunscreens and other measures that directly address this
pigmentation-associated risk while maintaining sufficient protection against UV
radiation. As the basis for their study, Fisher and his team theorized that skin
type alone can't explain the rise in melanoma risk among redheads because this
increased risk has also seen been seen in skin areas not directly exposed to
sun. They tested their theory on two strains of mice that were genetically
identical, except one group was bred to have a gene giving them the
pigment-producing gene that causes red hair and fair skin in humans. After
testing to activate genes associated with melanoma, they found that half of the
red mice had developed melanoma within months without UV exposure, compared
with only a few in the other group. After completing their work, they
postulated that higher melanoma risk for gingers may actually be caused by
"oxidative damage," from molecules called reactive oxygen species
(ROS) which damage cells' DNA. With these findings, there is added hope that
melanoma could be a preventable disease, even for gingers………
- Do Americans really need to have their votes counted
correctly on Election Day? Isn't it enough to know that they voted and that
someone, somewhere received that vote? In Arapahoe County, Colo., this question
is up for debate because a group of elector-skeptics are questioning the
reliability of the state’s electronic voting machines. With more than 1 million
Coloradans
having already cast their vote and early numbers from the Secretary of State’s
Office showing 39 percent of early voters are registered Republicans, 36
percent are Democrats, with the rest are unaffiliated, the race for president
and other highly-prized government offices could be close and turn on a few
votes. As the numbers were released, a group led by attorney Paul Hultin came
out with guns blazin’ and looking to shoot down the credibility of the
secretary’s office and the accuracy of votes in the critical county. “It could
compromise the integrity of the entire election in a very close state,” Hultin
said. Hultin has been on this crusade since 2006, when he sued the state,
claiming the electronic machines could be easily manipulated. That tactic
didn’t work and now he has shifted his focus to charging the Secretary of
State’s Office with not monitoring the installation of software to ensure the
security of a ballot. “He hasn’t followed his own regulations to ensure the
touch-screen voting machines meet state standards and he hasn’t done the
inspections to make sure standards have been met,” Hultin said. Amazingly
enough, the secretary’s office disagrees and Secretary of State Scott Gessler
says his office personally monitored over 1,000 voting machines, including over
400 electronic devices like the ones used in Arapahoe County. “This equipment
has held up in the most rigorous condition in the state of Colorado year after
year after year,” Gessler said. Any Arapahoe County voters with doubts can
check a physical copy of their ballot to make sure, but here’s guessing that
very few actually do check……….
- Quick, what do imprisoned Russian punks Pussy Riot, an animated version of Jesus and Cartman have in common? They
all appeared in the most recent episode of “South Park,” that’s what. Pussy
Riot remain at the center of a much-bigger-than-it-should-be sh*t-storm of
controversy for merely exercising their right to free speech in an
anti-government performance at a Russian church. The impromptu show landed
three members of the band in prison and has spawned an outcry of outrage from
artists and free-thinking individuals around the world and the campaign to free
the imprisoned punk rockers has reached the powerful airwaves of basic cable.
In the episode, which according to the pokes fun at people of rallying
behind causes without thinking about what they are supporting, shows cartoon
Jesus telling the residents of South Park how they ought to handle their
activism. " Causes should not be worn on our wrists with a sneer. Let’s
keep our causes where they belong, which is right here,” he says, pulling open
his robe to reveal a 'Free Pussy Riot' T-shirt. "On T-Shirts! Free Pussy
Riot!" Of course, the scene is also a subtle dig at religious individuals
who wear God-centered slogans on their t-shirts and don’t actually live out
what they pretend to believe in, so “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt
Stone got two digs in for the price of one. So far, the crusade to free Pussy
Riot has been partially successful, with band member Yekaterina Samutsevich released on appeal after her lawyers
successfully argued that she hadn't even managed to take her guitar out
of its case before being kicked out of the cathedral. With “South Park,” Björk,
Madonna and Paul McCartney all advocating for their release, the remaining
imprisoned members of the band haven’t had their freedom restored yet……..
- Los Angeles is about to have an NFL stadium. Now if only
the city had an actual team to play in that stadium, the equation would be
complete. For several years, various groups have been campaigning to bring an
NFL team back to the nation’s second-largest media market and replace the Rams,
who left for St. Louis in 1994, and the Raiders, who returned to Oakland in
1995. AEG president and CEO Tim Leiweke
has led the biggest charge in recent years and at long last, half of his
efforts have paid off. Farmers Field is ready for construction after the Los
Angeles City Council last month unanimously approved plans to build the stadium
and the 30-day window for legal challenges to the project passed with no
disputes. Farmers Field is a
proposed $1.5 billion downtown football stadium connected to an expanded Los
Angeles Convention Center and along with AEG, the Play Fair Coalition was able
to secure commitments from Farmers Field on a wide range of community benefits
and measures, including funding for affordable housing, air quality improvement
projects, improvements serving bus riders, additional parks and open space,
neighborhood improvement plans and a community team to promote health in the
surrounding area. At the core of the agreement is a $15 million Housing Trust
Fund that will create affordable housing units in Pico-Union, South Los Angeles
and Downtown Los Angeles, which is a nice way of adding PR-friendly B.S. to the
real purpose of the deal. "With this important milestone, for the first
time in almost two decades, the City of Los Angeles is finally poised to see
the return of the NFL," Leiweke said. "With this settlement in place,
the project can move forward to spur job creation and offer an even more robust
package of measures benefitting the community." Even with all of the
goodwill in recent weeks, the project still cannot break ground until AEG
secures an NFL team. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell sent a memo to all 32 teams
in July stating that any franchise interested in relocating for the 2013 season
must apply between Jan. 1 and Feb. 15, so the window is rapidly approaching.
Any team wishing to move to L.A. must prove as part of its application that it
has exhausted all attempts to remain in its current location. Let the bidding
begin………
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