Free Republic

Miss Universe is breaking new ground at this year’s pageant with the first transgender contestant to ever compete for the crown, and those betting on the competition are declaring her a heavy favorite. Angela Ponce won her qualifying rounds in Spain and will represent her country at the 2018 Miss Universe pageant in Bangkok, Thailand. Ponce, who hails from Seville, was the first transgender woman to be crowned Miss Universe Spain and is competing to promote gender diversity and equality. As the competition nears, online bookies are taking action, and Ponce has grown to become the clear favorite with...

A Nazi-inspired beauty pageant dubbed "Miss Hitler 2014" is calling for attractive women to participate in the contest held on the Russian equivalent to Facebook . Participants are requested to submit Nazi-themed "selfies" to the competition organized by a neo-Nazi group on VKontakte - Russia's largest social networking service - along with a caption describing why they "love and revere the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler," the UK-based Daily Mail reported. At least 14 females from Russian and Eastern Europe have entered the contest that celebrates the glorification of Nazi Germany and the fascist totalitarian government ruled by Adolf Hitler...

Patricia Yurena, a two-time winner of her country’s national contest and a runner-up in last year’s Miss Universe competition, came out as a lesbian on Instagram this Tuesday.

Runner Up Game at 4:00 PM on ESPN. Brazil vs Netherlands. Brazil needs to redeem itself from humiliation at the hands of Germany in Tuesday's semi-final.

'More beautiful than women, horses and all other animals': Welcome to the Arab beauty contest where million-dollar CAMELS with false eyelashes and lip filler compete for huge prizes • Visitors trek across desert for lavish event in Liwa, United Arab Emirates • Men happily declare they prefer camels to their wives - and all other women • Prize camels can change hands for as much as £1.8million at all-male event • Festival also features camel races and milking competitions Thousands of men leer on, playboys skid around outside in expensive cars, and top models command fees reaching into the millions...

Rick Santorum is likely to win Louisiana’s Saturday primary but a victory there won’t help him much, say Republican strategists. “Winning Louisiana does nothing in the grand scheme of things,” said GOP strategist Tyler Harber. “It won’t give a huge boost of support to Rick Santorum. Winning these contests isn’t as important. It’s now about winning the delegates.”

Over 13,000 camels to join beauty pageantry More than 13,000 camels from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other Gulf Arab countries will be herded inside a massive well-built enclosure in the Kingdom for the region’s largest camel beauty contest, starting on Sunday. Organisers said 13,678 male and female Arabian camels will take part in the event, which will attract 280 camel owners from Saudi Arabia, 22 from Kuwait, 17 from Qatar and five from the UAE. The contest will be held in North Saudi Arabia and will last 31 days, during which three winners will be picked by a committee...

Jais' advice questioned The five Muslim beauty contestants believe they have done nothing wrong The Sarawak Islamic Affairs Department's (Jais) move to advice five Muslims against participating in the Miss Borneo Beautiful 2011 contest has caught state Welfare, Women and Family Development Minister Datuk Fatimah Abdullah by surprise. Surprised because this was the first time JAIS had acted to stop Muslims from taking part in a beauty contest in this state. "I have to talk with (Abang) Shamsudin (Abang Seruji, state Jais director). "I am keen to know what happened and why the advice was given," she told the New...

When Katya Koren, a 19-year-old Muslim girl growing up in the Crimea region of Ukraine, entered a beauty contest, she couldn’t possibly have known what would result.According to her friends, she just liked to wear fashionable clothes. The judges awarded her seventh place — but three young Muslims allegedly thought she deserved a different finish. Koren was brutally stoned to death. Her battered body was buried in a forest and was found a week after she disappeared.Police have opened a murder investigation and are looking into claims that three Muslim youths killed her, claiming her death was justified under...

Miss America officials have decided to kill off their beauty pageant. That's not what they're saying, but you tell me what it means when a beauty pageant that professes to champion America's young women issues a news release with "Rush" and "thrilled" in the same sentence: "We are thrilled to have Rush join us for our pageant this year," said the Miss America Organization's president and CEO, Art McMaster. "We know that the 2010 Miss America Pageant will be filled with new twists and exciting opportunities with him as one of our national judges." No, he's not talking about the...

Breast implants, facelifts and liposuction have taken the place of swimsuits and talent competitions as criterion on which contestants will be judged in a beauty pageant in Hungary. Women competing in the "Miss Plastic Surgery" pageant, which celebrates beauty achieved through cosmetic surgery, must submit their medical records along with their vital statistics. The contest is open to women between 18 and 30 years old who have undergone at least one cosmetic procedure that involved general or local anaesthesia. The contest was started to boost the plastic surgery industry in Hungary, where cosmetic procedures still carry a stigma of artificiality....

Miss Polonia 2008 14.09.2008 Angelika Jakubowska has won the title of Miss Polonia 2008. The pageant finals were held at the Grand Theater in Lodz. The new reigning Polish beauty hails from Luban in south-western Lower Silesia and is 19-years old. Her vital statistics of 90-64-90 at 176 centimeters height are certainly reason for admiration. After the coronation ceremony Miss Polonia 2008 confessed the dream of her life has been traveling to India.

Just caught a blurb on Foxnews that Palin is being investigated by MSM that she somehow 'cheated' during the 1984 beauty contest. No further details at this point. I assume this is just opening another front on the all out destroy Palin campaign (by any means necessary). Will post details as they surface (or I might not because this seems to be pretty stupid).

ROME - An Italian priest, who had planned an online "pageant" for nuns, has suspended the project, saying he was misinterpreted and had no intention of putting sisters on a beauty catwalk. "My superiors were not happy. The local bishop was not happy, but they did not understand me either," Father Antonio Rungi told Reuters by telephone from his convent in southern Italy on Tuesday. "It was not at all my intention to put nuns on the catwalk," said Rungi, a priest of the Passionists religious order, speaking from his convent in the town of Mondragone. Miss Sister 2008Rungi's idea...

Miss Polonia redefines being "politically correct" From Poland A.M. An ideal man, according to the new Miss Polonia, 24-year-old Marzena Cieslik should be, "As wise and honest as the Kaczynski Brothers, as charismatic as Marcinkiewicz, as just as Ziobro, as brave as Wassermann, as stubborn as Dorn, as tough as Wildstein, as caring as Religa and as handsome as Olejniczak". The jury (including among others Wildstein) claims they did not read this before passing the verdict, although the statement had been on the Internet long before the contest started.

Annan succession: first white vote Monday with the Security Council New York (the United Nations) - the Security Council of the United Nations was to hold Monday a first white vote on the four official candidates at the post of secretary-general of the Organization, who aim at succeeding Kofi Annan in January, one learned from diplomatic sources. The result of this white vote, envisaged towards 16H30 (20H30 GMT) in camera, was to be the subject the no official communication of, specified one of these sources. The four official candidates all are originating in Asia, of many countries estimating that...

My translation of the breaking news: 15 de septiembre de 2005 Jictzad Viña, Miss Sucre (province) is the new Miss Venezuela 2005, a young woman full of security, elegance, grace and beauty who happened to convert in her 22 years into one of the most beautiful women in Venezuela. At 7:00 p.m. the contest began, in the majestic cupola of the Poliedro of Caracas, to a new version of the contest more hopeful for the year in Venezuela and the world, the election of Miss Venezuela. They all were accompanied by a great technical and artistic display to reproduce a...

HOUSTON -- Angry Houston athletic director Dave Maggard, calling Nebraska "gutless," accused the Cornhuskers Friday of backing out of a verbal agreement to play next fall and scheduling Division I-AA Maine instead. "This is absolutely unprofessional in every way," Maggard said in online editions of the Houston Chronicle. "It's gutless. Spineless. They're going to have to live with it. I've lost a tremendous amount of respect for that program. I think that for college athletics, it's shameful." Maggard said he arranged a nationally televised game between the Cougars and Nebraska. Then, he said he learned two days ago on a...

NEW YORK Fox will be the new television home of the Bowl Championship Series. The network and the B-C-S announced a four-year, 80 (m) million dollar deal today that gives Fox the broadcast rights to the Fiesta, Orange and Sugar bowls from 2007-to-2010 and the national title game from 2007-to-2009. A-B-C has held the broadcast rights to the B-C-S since college football's major conferences implemented the system to crown a national champion in 1998. A-B-C withdrew from the bidding last week, with network officials saying they were unhappy with the new B-C-S structure, which added a fifth game. Starting with...

The best way to reach the Orange Bowl and play for a national title is to go undefeated. The new scaled-down Bowl Championship Series standings are set to debut on Monday with seven unbeaten teams remaining after a week that began with twice that many. While last season proved that one loss doesn't eliminate a team from the national title chase -- co-champions Southern California and LSU lost one -- at this point the teams with one loss need help and can't complain if they're stuck behind the unbeatens in the BCS standings. ``I don't even know how they figure...