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When Aisha Salim marries her fiance in Pakistan next March, it will be the wedding of her dreams. Wearing a veil and gown, she will be every inch the fairytale virgin bride and as befits her strict Muslim religion, after the ceremony, she will hand her blooded wedding-night sheets to her in-laws as proof of her virginity. But far from being the traditional untouched bride that many Muslim families demand, she is a modern-day university graduate who has smoked, drunk, made love to - and even lived with - a previous English boyfriend. To disguise the fact that she has...

On her wedding night, Aisha Salim will hand her blooded sheets to her in-laws as proof of her virginity, according to a story in The Daily Telegraph of Australia. But there’s one problem. Being a modern English university graduate, she is far from the traditional untouched Muslim bride. Like most woman her age, Salim has smoked, drank, had sex and even lived with one of her past boyfriends. However, if the devout Muslim family of her soon-to-be husband – or even her own family – knew this, she could be murdered. Aisha has opted to have her virginity surgically restored...

Ave Maria! In the Tuesday-Wednesday, July 30-31 Italian Edition of the L'Osservatore Romano on page 4 an article appeared called Enamored of The Virgin by Fr. Giovanni Velocci which gave a strong promotion of Marian Coredemption and Mediation of all Graces. This breaks a five year silence on the issue and ... is so resoundingly positive.Based on St. Alphnoses de Ligouri's The Glories of Mary Fr. Velocci argues on a thomistic basis relating and conjoining Mary's participation in the redemption to her Divine Maternity and specifically as Mother of the Redeemer. Here are my rough translations of excerpts from the...

Scientists: Hammerhead has 'virgin birth' in zoo's shark tank By David Fleshler South Florida Sun-Sentinel May 23, 2007 A hammerhead shark captured in Florida Bay gave birth without sex, according to scientists who said they used genetic analysis to account for the mysterious appearance of a pup in a tank of female sharks. The research was to be published today in the British journal Biology Letters. The phenomenon, known among biologists as a "virgin birth," had been observed before among some snakes, lizards and birds, but never a shark, the scientists say. The issue arose in late 2001 at a...

This qualifies as one of the outrages of the year: Virgin Atlantic Airlines is showing the evil, dishonest 9/11 conspiracy film Loose Change as inflight entertainment.

Muslim women in France regain virginity in clinics Mon Apr 30, 2007 2:20AM EDT By Alexandra SteigradPARIS (Reuters) -- Sitting in a cafe near the Champs Elysees, the 26-year-old French-born woman of Algerian descent looks like any other Parisian. But two months ago, she did something none of her friends have done.She had her hymen re-sewn, technically making her a virgin again."I'm glad I had it done," said the woman, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity. "I wanted to reconstruct part of my life, to reconstruct myself so that I could feel better about myself."This 30-minute outpatient...

Burt Rutan, the iconoclastic aerospace designer behind Virgin Galactic's fleet of suborbital spaceships, is fond of saying that NASA (or "Naysay," as he jokingly pronounces it) stands for "No Adult Supervision Apparent." His California-based company, Scaled Composites, and the Virgin Galactic team have been cast as nimble mammals, running rings around the dinosaurs of the traditional space establishment. Was there ever an instance of mammals and dinosaurs helping each other out? Well, in the space business there is: Today NASA announced an agreement with Virgin Galactic to collaborate on items ranging from spacesuits to spaceships. NASA's news release said a...

An agreement signed this week by NASA and Virgin Galactic, a subsidiary of Richard Branson's Virgin Group, could lead to "very exciting" collaborations in the future, NASA officials say. But it's too early to know how big a presence Virgin Galactic will have at the NASA Ames Research Center at Mountain View's Moffett Field. The details of what sort of projects might be developed at the research center will be determined during negotiations on a "space act agreement," a formal document that will serve as a blueprint for how Virgin Galactic and Ames will work together, said NASA spokesman Michael...

HERE'S a sobering thought: Sir Richard Branson getting around at three times the speed of sound. If you thought the Virgin founder was already packing a lot in lately, wait until he goes galactic. In a dizzying past few weeks, Sir Richard, 56, has launched a new health bank to store the stem cells from babies' umbilical cords; sprayed the Virgin Media logo all over cable group NTL and produced a $US25 million ($32 million) prize for whoever cracks extracting greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

Virgin Lobster Fails to Spawn By Bill Ray Published Friday 19th January 2007 07:02 GMT Virgin mobile has sold "considerably less" than 10,000 of their mobile-TV-enabled Lobster handsets, despite Pamela Anderson’s advertising and cutting the price to below a hundred quid, according to The Guardian. Virgin won't confirm the figures, but it's clear that sales are disappointing. This should not come as any surprise: the Lobster was never an attractive handset, and in a business largely driven by owning the coolest-looking handset it was always going to be a hard sell. How this reflects on the viability of mobile video...

Virgin Galactic is in discussions with the spacesuit industry and preparing to release a request for proposals. As work continues on its Scaled Composites-designed SpaceShipTwo (SS2) vehicle, the UK suborbital tourism provider wants a fallback position for environmental control. It envisages a lightweight suit with no hard points and perhaps a moveable face plate. "We want the safest possible system. We are pursing our own pressure suit [as an option]. I'm going to pursue both [a spacesuit and a shirt-sleeve cabin environment]," says Virgin Galactic chief operating officer Alex Tai. Under US Federal Aviation Administration rules published on 15 December,...

Below are all the biblical references to Mary, the mother of Jesus that I could locate. Anything beyond Scriptural references is conjecture, the philosophies of men and not God. Would anyone care to construct a Scripturally accurate portrait of Mary, leaving behind extra-biblical sources? Please include your Scriptural references in support of your description. Isaiah 7:13-14 Matthew 1:13-25; 2:11, 14, 20-21; 12: 46-50; 13:54-56 Mark 3:31-35; 6:3 Luke 1:26-56; 2:1-7, 16-19, 27, 33-35, 39, 41-51; 8:19-21 John 2:1-12; 6:41-42; 19:25-26 Acts 1:14

CHESTER, England - As Christmas approaches, a virgin mother is anxiously awaiting the arrival of her offspring. She’s Flora, the Komodo dragon. In an evolutionary twist, Flora has managed to become pregnant all on her own without any male help. It would seem the timing is auspicious: The seven baby Komodo dragons are due this festive season.

Yes, I would like to commit to a rosary for Our Lady's Victory over the Culture of Death and renewal of a Culture of Life! (enter your name and e-mail address at the link above or below)

NEW YORK - British business mogul Richard Branson on Thursday pledged to invest about $3 billion over the next decade to combat global warming and promote alternative energy, saying that it was critical to protect the environment for future generations. Branson, the billionaire behind the multi-platform Virgin brand, said the money would come from 100 percent of the profits generated by his transportation sectors — trains and airline companies. It will be invested in efforts to find renewable, sustainable energy sources in an effort to wean the world off oil and coal. The so-called "rebel billionaire" — wearing a dress...

Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson has committed £1.6bn over 10 years to fight global warming.... will hand over all the profits from the Virgin Group's transport business to support the cause. (snip) [Branson] said the profits from Virgin's train and airline businesses would be invested in efforts to find renewable, sustainable energy sources.

British business mogul Richard Branson said Thursday he would invest about $3 billion to combat global warming over the next decade. Branson, the billionaire behind the multi-platform Virgin brand, said the money would come from 100 percent of the profits generated by his transportation and airline sectors. It will then be invested in efforts to find renewable, sustainable energy sources in an effort to wean the world off of oil and coal. Branson made the announcement on the second day of the Clinton Global Initiative, an annual conference of business, political and nonprofit leaders hosted by former President Clinton. "Our...

SIR RICHARD BRANSON has joined forces with two of America’s top venture capitalists to slake California’s thirst for environmentally friendly fuels. Branson has injected more than $60m (£32m) into Cilion, a company that will make bioethanol from corn. He is investing alongside Vinod Khosla, the renowned Silicon Valley entrepreneur, and Ron Burkle, a Los Angeles billionaire who counts Bill Clinton among his advisers. The project is the start of a move by Branson’s Virgin empire into environmental businesses, a plan known internally as the Gaia Capitalism Project, after the environmental theory developed by the British scientist James Lovelock. Virgin Fuels,...

Only the first, of 72!

LONDON (AP) -- Designer Philippe Starck, former soap star Victoria Principal and ``Superman Returns'' director Bryan Singer have booked their flights for tourist trips in outer space, an official from the company selling the galactic voyage said Monday. Virgin Galactic, a Virgin Group company, has sold some 200 tickets to passengers for suborbital flights, starting in 2008, said Will Whitehorn, the company's president. It has collected 8.5 million pounds (US$15.6 million, euro12.4 million) in deposits for the flights that cost 109,000 pounds (US$200,000, euro158,000). "Right now we're headed right on schedule," Whitehorn said. "Things are looking good from our perspective."...