Chinese clamp down on 'entertainment'

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-- As of Jan. 1, the Chinese cut entertainment programming on TV by two-thirds, largely because of the sullying influence of Western culture. Besides limiting the entertainment content to two hours per day, stations are required to broadcast at least two 30-minute segments of news ... though the definition of "news" is not specified and the Chinese have one of the least-reliable and most-slanted news systems in the world.

It is hard not to wonder what would happen if entertainment programming were similarly modified in the U.S. Would there be a collective nervous breakdown? On the one hand, a reduction of TV entertainment might help to reshape the merchant mentality (TV shows are largely vehicles for advertising shills), but on the other hand, money makes the world go 'round and money requires a willingness to pander to inconsequential belief systems... even Chinese money.

It's a mind-bender, although I doubt if those living without TV are having their minds bent.

-- Sharks off Australia's coast have been discovered to be interbreeding, a possible response to global changes. It's a 'first.' Scientists seem to be a-twitter at the discovery. No word from the sharks.

-- "Impossible" crystals, once only created in laboratories, have been discovered in Russia's Koryak mountains. It is thought that they probably arrived in meteorites. I wonder if there are little green men in space laboratories creating impossible stuff just to mess with the possibility-limited human mind.

-- Here's an interesting take on monogamy.

-- And elsewhere there is important news: Turmoil in the Middle East; the U.S. Iowa caucuses are finally over after millions of dollars were spent by Republican candidates who know how to smile but seem as incapable as any other politician of delivering a message of substance; an Ecuador court zapped oil giant Chevron $18.2 billion for polluting the Amazon ... somewhere people are desperately hungry and elsewhere they are desperately greedy and elsewhere still, there are pockets and examples of kindness. You can look it up if you like.
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