A member of the Russian State Duma has blamed computer games and the Internet for the rise in violent crime in Russia, especially for the sharp surge in racist attacks and killings.

The Rosbalt news agency quoted Alexander Gurov, a member of the parliamentary security commission as saying that the Russian crime rate has risen to become the highest in the world, with 21 murders per 100 thousand population committed in 2005.

“The spread of violence into all the pores of social life is evident,” Gurov said. “The Internet is awash with violence and computer games have gangsters and killers, Nazis and Japanese militarists as main characters,” he said.

The MP said that the spread of such information technologies was one of the causes of the rise of nationalist and extremist tendencies in Russian society.

“In Russia, only games where the Nazis always lose should be available, but so far the opposite is happening,” Gurov said.

Yes, if only the games had Nazis losing all the time then the murder rate would be lower. Could it possibly be that people playing these video games are well, too busy playing games to kill anyone? Especially if they are playing a game like Civilization 4. Russia’s social problems run much deeper than video games.

The First Moscow Open Alco-Checkers Championship has been held in Moscow. Participants used glasses of tequila instead of draughts that made their game much more funnier. After a draught is taken, the glass must be drunk.

The Whites played with silver tequila and the Blacks with golden.

The winner, Olga Bakalkina, has drunk much most of the glasses of her rivals. An intellectual game, thus, became a sport for drink-lovers.

[.more pictures.]

more funnier, eh?
Although I do know the rules, was never really that good at chess.
That does look like fun.

Found this picture on mosnews.com, every once in awhile they have some interesting news stories. The picture is from an article stating The Bush administration should stop pretending Russia is a genuine strategic partner and adopt a new policy of “selective cooperation” and “selective opposition” to the authoritarian government of President Vladimir Putin, a U.S. bipartisan task force has concluded. [.continue.]

Anyway not too interested in the article, but the picture is well interesting. I thought some interesting quotes could come out of this.
Like They won’t let me use the military to invade Iran, so I am coming for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, personally.

or

You can rest assure that Vice President Dick Cheney wont be shooting anyone else. Earlier today I had him thanking me and asking for another.

There is a cricket quote in their somewhere, but I just don’t know the sport enough.

Submit your own Bush with a paddle quote.

Russians could suffer a shortage of their national tipple next week because a bureaucratic mix-up has brought every vodka distillery in the country to a halt.
Distillers have been waiting since Jan. 1 for tax authorities to send them new excise stamps, the anti-counterfeit stickers that by law must be attached to every bottle of vodka.
“We are selling vodka left over from last year but those stocks are getting smaller all the time,” Vera Bragina, a spokeswoman for Russia Smirnov Trading House was quoted by Reuters as saying. [.continue.]

Reading the rest of the article, it doesn’t sound as bad as the headline says.
I do wonder if this would affect the US vodka market at all.
You should always keep an extra bottle on hand just in case reserves run low.
Reminds me, I need to make a trip down to Penn-Mar.

Retired Russian colonel Stanislav Petrov received a special World Citizen Award at a UN meeting in New York on Thursday. Petrov was honored as the “Man Who Averted Nuclear War”.
In a meeting held at the UN Dag Hammarskjold Auditorium on Jan. 19, the Association of World Citizens (AWC) presented the retired officer with his award. … it was determined that sunlight reflecting off clouds in Montana had caused a faulty satellite computer assembly to report a missile launch flash.[.continue.]

Holy crap that was close!
Thank you Colonel Stranislav Petrov!

She has the world at her feet, but no man in life, and that makes U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice incomplete, claims Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
According to this Russia’s Liberal and Democratic Party leader, Rice has no business to tell Moscow to ‘act responsibly’ in supplying natural gas to Ukraine.
Describing Rice as a cruel woman who had failed to attract the attention of men, Zhirinovsky was quoted by the New York Daily News as saying “If she has no man by her side at her age, he will never appear. Condoleezza Rice needs a company of soldiers. She needs to be taken to barracks where she would be satisfied.” [.continue.]

Vlad is apparently very concerned about the ladies. First he says there are too many lonely women in russia. Now he think Dr. Rice needs to hookup.
Sounds like fighting words to me.
I’d pay to see that.

Deputy speaker of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, has called the idea to introduce polygamy in Chechnya “absolutely right” and proposed to spread it for the whole Russia.

“We must welcome (this idea) and spread (polygamy) for the whole Russia because we have 10 million lonely women,” Vladimir Zhirinovsky was quoted by ITAR-TASS news agency as saying. [.continue.]

10 million lonely women? Wow, so this is why I keep on hearing from russian ladies on ICQ.

Deputy Speaker of the Russian State Duma Vladimir Zhirinovsky has offered France help to restore order in the violence-stricken country, RIA Novosti reported Wednesday. Special units of Russian football fans and Zhirinivsky’s LDPR party activists could end the riots within 48 hours, he claimed. [..continue..]

Yeah if Canada sends some hockey fans, US sends some baseball fans and the UK sends some cricket fans, I am sure that will solve the rioting problems in France.

A deputy of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic faction of the Russian State Duma, Aleksei Mitrofanov, has said in a parliamentary speech that bird flu was invented by Americans who wanted to dominate the world’s poultry markets.
“There is no such thing as bird flu, just as there is no AIDS, tulip or mad cow disease,” Mitrofanov was quoted as saying by the Rosbalt news agency. [continue]

Somehow that picture of him seems to fit his apparent insanity.
The birds do not look impressed.

A meteorologist in Pocatello, Idaho, claims Japanese gangsters known as the Yakuza used KGB inventions to cause Hurricane Katrina, Wireless Flash reported Thursday.
Scott Stevens says after looking at NASA satellite photos of the hurricane, he’s is convinced it was caused by electromagnetic generators from ground-based microwave transmitters. [continue]

Why is it, that the only place I can read about this crazy fool is a Russian news site?