Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Neat from Neatorama

Neatorama was one of the many blogs I used as inspiration for this one, and remains one of the few blogs I follow on a regular basis. Singularly one of ... well ... the neatest sites on the web, but it's rare (well, rare these days) to repost anything from over there. I thought you might like these two bits.

Dr. Richard Obousy, a physics and technology consultant out of Houston, has created the first theoretical warp drive, which would move along the a wave of dark matter. The only problem, of course, is that we do not have enough understanding of dark matter to harness it.
The shape of the warpship was chosen to optimize the manipulation of surrounding dark energy, creating a spacetime bubble. How exactly the bubble would be created is still a mystery. But once the bubble gets created, spacetime at the front of the warpship would be compressed, and behind, it would expand. Inside the bubble, spacetime remains unchanged; therefore the warpship floats in the center of stationary space while the bubble moves through spacetime.
The bubble itself, containing the warpship, "drives the spacecraft forwards at arbitrarily high speeds," said Obousy. This means the warpship can travel faster than the speed of light.
The picture on the right is the proposed design of the futuristic warp ship, which he asks be built in the hopes that the he can study the possibility.

On the list of crazy records comes the record for vagina lifting, a 42 year old Russian woman recently broke the record.
According to local media, Tatiata has been exercising her vagina for fifteen years. “After I had a child, my intimate muscles got unbelievably weak. I read books on Dao and learned that ancient women used to deal with this problem using wooden balls,” she said. “I looked around, saw a Murano glass ball and inserted it in my vagina. It took me ages to get it out!”
Just in case you haven’t tried lifting weights with your vagina before, Tatiata recommends it to all women who want to improve their sex life. “It’s enough to exercise your vagina five minutes a day, ladies, and in just one week you’ll be able to give yourself and your man unforgettable pleasure in bed,” she said.
Check out the Mayo Clinic article on Kegel exercises. I have no idea if that's the kind of exercises she does, but it's good practice for people, none the less.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

(Anti-)Gay Moscow


The (I suppose) world-famous Eurovision contest was held in Moscow this week. Who cares? I know I don't, but the queer blogosphere was enamored with it. The back story is far more interesting.

Moscow has denied LGBT folks the right to Pride, again, this year. Activists believed that bringing Eurovision to the city would "open it up" a bit and bring international focus on the treatment of LGBT folks in the Russian capital. And boy did the Russian government fuck this one up. A small cadre of activists demonstrated outside the musical Olympics, shouting and chanting for equality and equal treatment. Rather than allow the peaceable demonstration to go on, they were broken up and arrested. Europe is noticing and the international attention that was supposed to spin Russia positively has been tarnished, instead; and Mayor Yuri Luzhkov looks like a real winner, calling the demonstration "Satanic" and homosexuals as "weapons of mass destruction."

Thus giving the queer blogosphere more to talk about -- especially the wording on the back of the police's uniform ("OMOH"). I would say so.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Russian Same-Sex Marriage?

Well, probably not.

Russia is not what we might call LGBTQ-friendly, in all respects. Reports do not indicate a thriving gay scene, and, at best, it's minor and not that open. The gay pride parade planned this Saturday, for example, has been officially banned in Moscow.

However, two lesbians tried to take on the state, suing for their right to marry each other this month. They are trying to use a loophole in Russian law to open up the country:

Gay rights activist Nikolai Alekseyev stepped in after a register office worker breached Russian law by at first refusing to let the couple even apply for the marriage license.

"This is about the private rights of citizens ... and today they (Fyet and Shepitko) were denied this. That means that this country violates a person's rights," he told reporters.

While most marriage applications receive a response within 10 working days, the pair were rejected in just under an hour.

"By the Russian family code, a marriage must be between a man and a woman. This is the law and also my personal opinion," said director of the register office, Svetlana Potamoshneva.

Shepitko said they expected a rejection so they were not disappointed. They are banking on a loophole in Russian law which bans gay marriage at home but does not prevent the recognition of a same-sex marriage that has taken place abroad.

"The Russian constitution must accept our Canadian union," she said.

Potamoshneva acknowledged a grey area existed but said any decision regarding a foreign gay marriage would "have to be one for the court."
The couple, 30-year old Irina Fyet and 32-year old Irina Shepitko, said they wanted to go public because "If society will know about us, see that we are normal, there would be a better relationship for (gays) at work, things would be simpler for us."

Outcome: uncertain, but unlikely.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

GENERAL STUFF: Russian Sumo Wrestlers


I'm not quite sure how this made such a big news splash, but I thought it was particularly funny...

Two Russian sumo wrestlers have tested positive for marijuana use, two weeks after another Russian was banned for life after being arrested on suspicion of possessing the drug.

Roho and Hakurozan, who are brothers, tested positive after urine tests carried out on a total of 69 wrestlers. Shohei Onishi, an official on the Japan Sumo Association's anti-doping panel, announced the results Tuesday.

The tests were carried out after Russian wrestler Wakanoho was banned for life by the association and arrested by police for marijuana possession. Wakanoho's dismissal — the first expulsion of an active wrestler — was quickly announced after an emergency meeting of the JSA executive board.
Really: is marijuana a drug? At least, a drug that matters? And one that needs any sort of "emergency meeting" LOL.