Programming children to accept a culture of violence

A study has found that characters in children's cartoons are twice as likely to be killed off than actors in movies aimed at adults. In 'Finding Nemo,' Nemo’s mother is eaten by a barracuda just four minutes into the movie

It's something long-suffering Tom and his tormentor Jerry must have known for a long time.

Children's cartoons are apparently more violent than films aimed at adults, and filled with 'murder and mayhem' according to research.

Animated characters are more than twice as likely to be killed off than actors in movies aimed at a grown up audience, the study claims.

In fact, cartoons released between 1937 and 2013 were described as 'rife with death and destruction'.

The authors of the research concluded: 'Rather than being innocuous and gentler alternatives to typical horror or drama films, children's animated films are, in fact, hotbeds of murder and mayhem.'

Death and violence on screen can be particularly traumatic for young children, they said, and the impact can be intense and long-lasting.

Because of this many parents will not let their children see the 'gore and carnage' in some films aimed at adult audiences.

So the study, published in the Christmas issue of the British Medical Journal, assessed the amount of violence young children might be exposed to when watching films targeted at their age group.

It examined the length of time it takes for key characters to die in the 45 top-grossing children's cartoons, between Snow White in 1937 and last year's hit Frozen.

They also looked at whether the first on-screen death was a murder or involved a main character's parent.

The study found that two-thirds of the cartoons depicted the death of an important character, compared with half of the adult films.

Grisly deaths in cartoons were common, with shootings in Bambi, Peter Pan, and Pocahontas, stabbings in Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid, and animal attacks in A Bug's Life, The Croods, How To Train Your Dragon, Finding Nemo, and Tarzan.

Notable early screen deaths included Nemo's mother being eaten by a barracuda just four minutes and three seconds into Finding Nemo, and Tarzan's parents being killed by a leopard four minutes and eight seconds into Tarzan.

After taking account of total running time, children's main cartoon characters were two and a half times as likely to die as their counterparts in films for adults, and almost three times as likely to be murdered.

Parents of main characters were more than five times as likely to die in children's cartoons as they were in films targeted at adults.

Researchers Dr Ian Colman and Dr James Kirkbride, from the University of Ottawa in Canada and University College London, also found no evidence to suggest that the level of violence has changed in children's films since Snow White.

Almost 80 years ago, Snow White's stepmother, the evil queen, was struck by lightning, forced off a cliff, and crushed by a boulder while being chased by seven vengeful dwarves.

Comment: While some could argue that death is a part of life that children will eventually be exposed to, one has to wonder at the overall point in needlessly traumatizing very young children. These grisly scenes of violence and death have been shown to make children more aggressive and research has shown that action and violent programming makes children more vulnerable to the advertising.

It is horribly sick to realize that young minds are being warped for corporate profitability. However this becomes understandable when you consider the effects on society when psychopathic individuals finally gain control. At that point they are able to spread their immoral precepts throughout society to the point where people begin to accept these values as normal. This describes what Andrew Lobaczewski called the process of ponerization in his book Political Ponerology: A Science on The Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes :

The actions of [pathocracy] affect an entire society, starting with the leaders and infiltrating every town, business, and institution. The pathological social structure gradually covers the entire country creating a "new class" within that nation. This privileged class [of pathocrats] feels permanently threatened by the "others", i.e. by the majority of normal people. Neither do the pathocrats entertain any illusions about their personal fate should there be a return to the system of normal man.

They only begin to lose their grip on society when sufficient numbers of people educate themselves and are then able to inoculate themselves against further deterioration, while taking positive steps to reorganize society and forge new societal links.

See also:

Ponerology 101: Snakes in Suits

Ponerology 101: The Psychopath's Mask of Sanity

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UK: Real Junk Food Project has fed 10,000 people, using 20 tonnes of unwanted food in a country crippled by "austerity" measures

The Real Junk Food Project feeds punters on goods that would otherwise have been thrown away by supermarkets, independent grocers and food banks

The founder of a quietly-growing empire of social cafes has called on a change in the law to prevent the UK's "criminal" levels of food waste - especially by supermarkets - while so many go hungry.

Adam Smith, founder of The Real Junk Food Project, in Armley, Leeds, feeds his punters on goods that would otherwise have been thrown away by supermarkets, independent grocers and food banks.

The 29-year-old trained chef cooks up stews, casseroles, soups and cakes with the unwanted food, charging a "pay as you feel" policy - allowing punters to pay what they feel they can, and if that is nothing, they can help with the washing up.

In just 10 months he has fed 10,000 people on 20 tonnes of unwanted food, raising over £30,000.

The cafe has had such resonance in a world with such high food wastage and high hunger levels it has inspired 47 other "pay as you feel" cafes to spring in the past few months in Manchester, Bristol, Saltaire - with the concept even exported as far away as Los Angeles and Brazil, Warsaw and Zurich.

But Mr Smith says The Real Junk Food Project - which is in the process of being registered as an official charity - is about more than simply feeding those who might otherwise go hungry.

"It is bringing people from different demographics together that doesn't involve money. People are opening Junk Food Projects because they have had enough of what is going on in society and care about what is happening to other human beings," he said. "It is a revolution."

Mr Smith wants the law to be changed to prevent supermarkets throwing so much food away for fear of prosecution - and he wants more pressure on supermarkets to be compelled to work with organisations like his.

Currently, a retailer will be prosecuted if it sells food after the use-by date, but not before the "best-before" date. Despite this, supermarkets from across the sector regularly throw food out before its "best-before" date and, in Mr Smith's experience, are scornful about working with enterprises like his, which would happily take it.

"Supermarkets are a pain in the arse," Mr Smith said. "They do not want anything to do with us. Many look down on us, I've had one manager of one well-known supermarket even spit in my face. We are breaking the law in their eyes. But we want to fight the law and take the fight to the general public."

Mr Smith said the cafe regularly sources its food from some rather unorthordox sources.

"We regularly take food from supermarket bins if we have to," he said. "We watch them throw it away, then we go and take it back out again 10 minutes later. Over 90% of the goods are perfectly fine."

He said he recently took several jars of caviar which did not go off until December 2015 from one supermarket bin and he has also served punters salmon, scallops and even steak in his cafe from donations.

However, the tide is starting to turn, and Mr Smith revealed he is currently in talks with a national supermarket to provide food to his cafe. Nandos restaurant chain has also been "fantastic" and has agreed to help Real Junk Food Projects around the country. "We now get all our chicken from them," Smith said, which equates to around 100-150 kilos of frozen chicken a week. "They have a 'no chuckin' our chicken' motto" he said, adding: "They give it to us because legally we will take responsibility for it."

When asked if he was concerned about being prosecuted under the law himself, Mr Smith said: "Environmental Health came to inspect us and gave us three out of five stars. Everyone is completely aware of what we are doing. We want the law changed on best before dates to get better regulation - we have fed 10,000 with this food and not one has got ill."

Customers at The Real Junk Food Project, in Armley, Leeds (The Real Junk Food Project)

Andrew Opie, British Retail Consortium director of food and sustainability, said redistribution of surplus food at retail level only makes a small contribution to alleviate poverty and is "not a solution to hunger in the UK."

"We currently have both food poverty and food surpluses and retailers have proved very willing to step up and make sure that useable excess stock goes to charities and redistribution organisations across the UK."

The publication of an all-party report into Hunger in Britain last week revealed 4m people in the UK were at risk of going hungry, while 3.5m adults could not afford to feed themselves properly, and 272 food banks had sprung up across the UK.

Britain experienced the highest rate of food inflation in the world the report said, rising 47% since 2003, compared with 30.4% in the United States, 22.1% in Germany and 16.7% in France.

"Attempting to respond immediately to lift free of hunger our fellow citizens, we see as an equivalent to a social Dunkirk," it found. "This extraordinary achievement has been done without the assistance of central government."

The report added: "We believe it is indefensible that huge numbers of people are going hungry in a country which wastes such vast quantities of food that is fit for consumption," it added, whilst urging the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) to set food retailers and manufacturers targets of doubling the proportion of surplus food they redistribute to food assistance providers and other voluntary organisations.

After the report was released, Conservative peer Baroness Jenkin of Kennington sparked controversy by saying that hunger in Britain was caused in part because people didn't know how to cook.

Mr Smith agrees more needs to be done to teach people the basics of cooking in schools.

"We cook the basics in the cafe because many people don't know how to do the basic things with food," he said. "I know people who think they don't know how to make a fruit salad and they are 40-years-old. They didn't get it was just chopping up fruit and putting it into a bowl. We have realized there is a serious lack of basic education in the UK in terms of food awareness, what to make and where it comes from

"We cook basis sides, sauces, stews, casseroles, cakes, to get people eating this sort of food again and it is so easy to make."

A new "pay as you feel" cafe which opened in Saltaire, West Yorkshire, at the weekend, The Saltaire Canteen, hopes to address this issue by providing cookery workshops for single men.

It too hopes to strengthen the community with the free cafe.

Andy McNab, local outreach coordinator for St Peter's Church in Shipley, who is running the cafe, said: "We want to debunk some of the stereotypes about the people who use food banks. The reality is anybody can end up using one. It doesn't take anything to get into a place where someone ends up losing their job and their social networks weren't as strong as they thought they were to fall into food crisis. It can happen very suddenly."

Despite the success of his cafe "revolution" and its spin-offs, Mr Smith has come across a hurdle - the landlord of the building where it is based has offered to sell it to Mr Smith, who is now trying to raise £130,000 to buy it and carry on running the project in there. He has set up a crowdfunding platform on Indiegogo, where he has already raised £9,786.

He said: "I am confident we will raise enough money to buy the building, the fundraising hasn't been going on for very long and there have been pledges coming in from all over."

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Record nine inches of rain drench San Francisco

9.14 inches of rain has fallen on San Francisco so far in December 2014, exceeding levels not seen in more than 165 years of record keeping.

Major cities in the Bay Area are experiencing record rainfall during the first half of December, the National Weather Service said Tuesday.

National Weather Service meteorologist Charles Bell said:

"It's the wettest start ever for December."

San Francisco has seen more than 9.14 inches of rain through early this morning. The previous record of 7.10 inches was set in 1889. Data go back as far as 1849, Bell said.

The amount of rain in the first 15 days of December in Oakland is more than two and a half inches above the previous record set in 1950. San Jose has seen the wettest December since 1906.

The amount of rain that has fallen in San Jose is more than two inches above the 1906 record. For the year, San Francisco has received 12.58 inches of rain through 3 a.m. this morning, Bell said. As of 4 p.m. Monday, that was 184 percent of the normal amount of rain the city receives each water year, which starts July 1 in California.

Last year, San Francisco was at 31 percent of normal, Bell Said:

"It's a substantial increase from a year ago."

The amount of rain that has fallen in Oakland this year is 191 percent of normal and the amount of rain this year in San Jose is 244 percent of normal, according to data from the National Weather Service.

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Deer enters store in Charlotte, North Carolina

A dust-up between the people of Walmart and a confused deer inside a North Carolina store was caught on camera by a customer.

The deer, apparently a doe, wandered into the store Monday afternoon in Charlotte's University City neighborhood and ended up being tackled and pinned to the ground by a group of Walmart workers and customers.

Witness Edmond Ratcliffe captured cellphone video of the incident.

"You never know when you have seen it all... I'm in Walmart today and a wildlife shopper decided that he needed to stop by Walmart for a celebrity appearance," Ratcliffe posted on Facebook.

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He said the deer tacklers had a "struggle, but they got him."

"It was kind of a stay out of the way situation because I know if I'm in the way, it could be trouble," he told WSOC-TV.

The deer was taken away by Animal Control officers. Its fate after leaving the store was unknown Tuesday.

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Paul Craig Roberts on the collapse of the ruble and the meaninglessness of markets

Paul Craig Roberts - Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury

Former Assistant Treasury Secretary Dr. Paul Craig Roberts thinks the only thing that explains the plunge in the Russian ruble is that it is being attacked by America. Roberts contends, "It is not a currency crash in the sense there are no economic reasons for the ruble's fall. Unlike the United States, which has a massive trade deficit, and if the currency markets were not rigged, the dollar would be collapsing, the Russian economy has a trade surplus. Therefore, there is no pressure on its currency for economic conditions." Dr. Roberts goes on to say, "This is not some independent action of market forces. So, it's either hedge funds, currency speculators like Soros, or it's an Act of War on behalf of the United States government by the Federal Reserve or the Exchange Stabilization Fund. . . or possibly both hedge funds working with the federal government."

Manipulating the markets, any market, is supposed to be illegal, but don't count on the bankers going to jail. Dr. Roberts, who has a PhD in economics, thinks,

"The big banks, the big Wall Street money, are essentially agents of the government. This is why they don't get prosecuted. This is why they can break all kinds of laws, commit felonies and settle with a fine. This is what we've been watching in the financial arena. When these financial gangsters are caught, instead of being indicted and put on trial, they pay money."

How could the Russians retaliate? Dr. Roberts says,

"If the Russians wanted to do payback, it's very easy for them. The next time all of these contracts, paper gold contracts, are dumped on the futures market, the Russians need to go and buy them all up, then demand delivery because there is no gold to deliver. The whole system would collapse. So, the Russians could cause a gold squeeze here anytime they want. . . . They would blow the system wide open because they can't make delivery."

On war, Dr. Roberts says recent resolutions passed in Congress certainly point to it. Dr. Roberts explains,

"These resolutions demonize Russia and define it as a great threat. They call on Obama to arm the Ukrainians so we can use the Ukrainians to fight Russia. In other words, we are going to fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian. Of course, the Ukraine can't fight Russia. The whole purpose of this is to have the Russians slap them down, then we can go to the Europeans and say see, see the Russians invaded and look how dangerous they are. You're next. They will be in Berlin tomorrow. They'll be in London by the end of the week. Paris will fall, and Rome will burn. We can't wait to tell the Europeans this because the whole purpose of this is to completely break every kind of relationship, economic, political and cultural, between Russia and Europe. That's what Washington's goal is. That's what it's all about. This includes attacks on the ruble and sanctions. They are setting up a war that nobody can win, for what reason? For American superiority? You don't have superiority if the world is awash in radioactive waste and there is nuclear winter. The climate has collapsed. The whole thing is an absurdity."

On the teetering economy and possible economic collapse, Dr. Roberts says,

"We know something serious is wrong. The only provision of Dodd-Frank that has any teeth is the provision that says if the big banks are going to be casinos and gamble on derivatives, they cannot do that in the depository institution where depositors have their accounts. They have to farm it out into subsidiaries. So, if the subsidiaries get into trouble, the subsidiaries have no access to depositors' money. This is the only real reform part of Dodd-Frank. Citigroup got put into the recent spending bill, the repeal of this, so they can gamble on derivatives, and taxpayers and depositors are on the hook for the losses. Why would you do that unless you had a lot of derivatives trouble. It could easily be the oil derivatives. . . . The banks can gamble all they want and they are covered by the FDIC, which has no money. . . . This gives the banks access to depositors' money. . . . This is sick, and it shows the United States government is the most corrupt government on earth, far more corrupt than Russia or China."

Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with economist Dr. Paul Craig Roberts.

(There is much more in the video interview with Dr. Roberts.)

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After the Interview:

Dr. Roberts produces articles every week for the public to read free of charge on his website, PaulCraigRoberts.org. Roberts sells no products and has no advertising. If you would like to contribute to offset the expenses of keeping the site on the internet, please click here.

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Ukrainian Freedom Support Act - The Devil's in the details

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The latest anti-Russian bill to come out of Washington does a lot more than simply arm Ukraine, although that's destabilizing enough as it is. Contained within the Act are powerful provisions that expand NATO's influence in Russia's backyard and continue the War on Syria.

The Ukrainian Freedom Support Act (UFSA) is essentially the actionable successor to the recently passed House Resolution 758, which itself has been referred to as the declaration of the New Cold War. It's exceptionally noteworthy for fulfilling John McCain's threat to arm Ukraine, but it's the other decrees within it that have gone unnoticed by the mainstream media, although they're just as troubling, if not more so. And unsurprisingly, Congress somehow found a way to group its War on Syria into the UFSA, showing that it truly exploits any opportunity to push through its agenda of regime change there even if it has absolutely nothing to do with the bill at hand.

The Three Amigos


UFSA is just as much about Moldova and Georgia as it is about Ukraine, as all three countries are collectively grouped together except for when it comes to assisting with internally displaced persons. For example, when it comes to 'the three amigos', UFSA says that sanctions will be imposed if:

• Russia (or any actor affiliated with it) sends "defense articles" to those countries without the consent of its government'


• And Russia "withholds significant natural gas supplies from countries such as Ukraine, Georgia, or Moldova" and NATO members.

And that the three are to be 'rewarded' with:

• Major non-NATO ally status (which allows them to purchase weapons only reserved for NATO allies);


• And a prioritized information campaign run by Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, where these countries are given a greater focus than the other former Soviet states.

Putting it all together, it is clear that the US has strategically incorporated Moldova and Georgia into its legislation about Ukraine, providing proof that it is Washington and not Moscow which is 'widening the battlefield' of the New Cold War. This isn't the first time either, as all the amigos were first lumped together in May when the so-called Russian Aggression Prevention Act of 2014 was unveiled, which served as the predecessor of House Resolution 758.

The reasoning for this is rather simple, actually. The US wants to coordinate its push against the former Soviet periphery and is pulling out all the stops along the way. The primary objective is NATO expansion all the way to the Russian border, as well as the destabilization of Russian interests in or near these countries. Russia has a military base in the de-facto independent Transnistrian region of Moldova, while the historic reunification of Crimea and Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia's independence from Georgia are well known. It is these precise interests and territories that the US wants to threaten with the Act.

The Big Tent


Another observation that's lost on the mainstream media is that the Act creates a 'big tent' of American interests in Eurasia. When addressing the non-consented transfer of Russian defense articles to "specified countries", other than the three amigos, it describes these as being "any other country of significant concern for purposes of this Act, such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and the Central Asia republics." It's obvious that the US would place its NATO allies under this designation, but to spread the umbrella over the Central Asian republics is a strategy that has more to it than originally meets the eye.

Russia in no way supports separatism in Central Asia, and aside from neutral Turkmenistan, it actually has constructive military and anti-terror relations with all of the regional states as a result of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). This group has explicitly stated its opposition to terrorism, separatism, and extremism, and all of its members are now watching the violent situation in Afghanistan with the trepidation that it may move northward next year.

Within this context, the US is sending smoke signals to those governments that it is open for cooperating with them, but with the implicit understanding that they have to abandon their alliance with Russia and accuse it of the fantasy-driven treachery of arming separatist groups.

Slick Talking About Syria


Congress understood that the current anti-Russian climate meant that the UFSA was surely bound to pass, so it added a completely irrelevant clause relating to Syria in order to strengthen the war effort against it. Specifically, the Act mandates that sanctions be imposed against any Russian company or related individual that sells defense articles to Syria. This is the complete opposite standard that it is applying to the 'big tent' countries. Congress says that Russia can't transfer such units to the 'big tent' without the consent of their governments, but such transfers are prohibited to Syria when its government consents to it.

So what's going on here?


The US and its allies don't recognize the legitimacy of the Syrian government, despite President Assad having been democratically re-elected with 88.7% of the vote back in June, and the fact that they support regime change within the country. They'd rather give weapons to the insurgents fighting to overthrow the government (even if such arms sometimes end up in the hands of terrorists) than approve of Russia's continued support for the government's anti-terrorist war. The Syrian Arab Army is once more on the upswing (backed by Russian support), so it's not coincidental that such a provision was made at this time. Nonetheless, such bullying by the US will never result in Russia abandoning its support for Syria, especially at this critical time, and should be seen as nothing more than the naked intimidation tactic that it is.

Andrew Korybko is the political analyst and journalist for Sputnik who currently lives and studies in Moscow.

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Death threats, beatings and intimidation is daily life of Ukraine opposition: Former Ukrainian depute Elena Bondarenko's open letter to the citizens of the world

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Although it has been written a few months ago, it is still important today and will remain on the pages of history as a testimony to the situation of lawlessness perpetrated by those in the highest ranks of power in Ukraine:

My friends, here is my declaration. I ask that you share it to the extent possible. If you can translate it into other languages, please do!

I, Elena Bondarenko, People's Deputy from the Party of Regions, finding myself in opposition to the current power in Ukraine, wish to declare that this administration has resorted to direct threats of physical elimination of the opposition in Ukraine; has resorted to suspending the right of freedom of speech, in parliament and out, and is implicated in complicity in crimes not just against politicians, but even against their children. The everyday life of an opposition deputy is this: constant threats, unofficial ban from the airwaves, targeted persecution. Everyone who calls for peace is immediately branded as an enemy of the people, just as in 1930's Germany, or in McCarthyite US.

A few days ago, Arseniy Avakov, the Minister of the Interior, an ardent adherent of the so-called Party of War of the Ukraine, said the following: "When Elena Bondarenko comes to the podium to speak, my hand automatically reaches for my gun." This, I emphasize, are the words of a man entrusted with the supreme police power of the country. Further: exactly one week ago, Alexander Turchinov the Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament, deprived me of the right to speak from the podium as a member of the opposition Party of Regions, only for this: I declared "Any power that commissions its army to bomb its peaceful cities, is criminal." After which, he magnanimously gave the radical parliamentarians the option to call for shooting the opposition. Considering that my car was shot at last year, when the extremists were already arming with weapons, [a fact on record with the police, on my complaint] such threats aimed at me must be taken seriously.

Further, I will inform everyone, who does not already know it, that the current leadership is covering up those who dared to raise a hand against the son of another opposition politician, Vladimir Oleinik. Ruslan Oleinik, performing his duties as regional prosecutor, was beaten up at his office, endangering his health, and even his life. Di they investigate the beating of a prosecutor performing his duty? No. Did they investigate the monstrous pressure on the leader of the opposition? No. Instead, this administration fired the prosecutor!

Every day, from his colleagues I learn of beatings of their aides, of attacks on their companies, of threats, yes, even attacks, on their lives, their health, their property.

The Ukrainian media is completely sanitized from this information, and the typical Ukrainian has no idea that a criminal struggle is taking place against the opposition, and that the constitutional right of free speech is suppressed in every way. The journalists who overcome their fear and work honestly are subject to attack by nationalist mobs, but the organizers and participants of these pogroms are not punished, even when they are recorded on videos and photographs.

I call upon those international organizations that proclaim their support of democratic principles not just to notice this declaration, but to involved in this struggle for the preservation and respect for the democratic rights and freedoms of the citizens of Ukraine. The methods of the junta in their struggle for power, or rather, for the establishment of a Ukrainian dictatorship, have nothing to do with any concept of "democracy." If the international community does nothing in the face of these egregious acts, it will look like complicity and silent approbation of all these crimes which are being committed in Ukraine. The free world will lose an outpost, Ukraine. All who fight for democracy, rule of law, and the rights of man, together, can achieve a lot. But only together can we stop the junta and the fratricidal war in Ukraine.

With my respect, People's Deputy of Ukraine,

Elena Bondarenko.

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