1. from the new york times:
I tell you, russia always has fantastic solutions for their problems...Against the Aging Crisis II: A Day for Mating in Russia
The Lede turns to an android from “Star Trek” for a segue from our last post on Japan’s robotic solution to another interesting bit of aging news today.
“Human bonding rituals often involve a great deal of talking, and dancing, and crying,” the character called “Data” once said on the show.
In 2007, though, who has time for all of that? Leave it to a Russian province worried about its dwindling population to come up with a solution. From Agence France-Presse:
Bureaucrats in Russia’s Ulyanovsk province urged residents Wednesday to do their patriotic duty and make love, with prizes for anyone producing a child on the country’s constitution day, in exactly nine months.
As added encouragement, the governor gave couples the day off from work for the Day of Conception, and promised incentives like cars and refrigerators for anyone delivering the goods nine months from now, The Associated Press added.
It’s just one of many attempts to address what President Vladimir V. Putin called “Russia’s most acute problem today”: plummeting fertility rates. In July, the government reported some progress on the problem, eliciting a plaudit for the parents from Mr. Putin. “We have great champions,” he said.
2. from our favorite standby, cnn.com...
Sometimes I seriously doubt the people in this world..Man dies after 3-day gaming binge
BEIJING, China (AP) -- A man in southern China appears to have died of exhaustion after a three-day Internet gaming binge, state media said Monday.
The 30-year-old man fainted at a cyber cafe in the city of Guangzhou Saturday afternoon after he had been playing games online for three days, the Beijing News reported.
Paramedics tried to revive him but failed and he was declared dead at the cafe, it said. The paper said that he may have died from exhaustion brought on by too many hours on the Internet.
The report did not say what the man, whose name was not given, was playing.
The report said that about 100 other Web surfers "left the cafe in fear after witnessing the man's death."
China has 140 million Internet users, second only to the U.S.. It is one of the world's biggest markets for online games, with tens of millions of players, many of whom hunker down for hours in front of PCs in public Internet cafes.
Several cities have clinics to treat what psychiatrists have dubbed "Internet addiction" in users, many of them children and teenagers, who play online games or surf the Web for days at a time
3. my reports on the German obsession with native americans was covered by the NYT! check it out...
anyway, all for now!
