dieseltaylor

Yes we used to put that less metal into battleships pre-39. It is just possible I missed it previously - I await the link : ) That bulldozer!!!!! Sheesh!

Interesting thought. Make someone rich and famous relating his illegal acts. I have always had a distaste for the celebrity crim. I hope his wife and son are happy with a discreet profile. You seem to think GTAIV , because the character is torn between which way to go killing is in some way OK because of this. Lets resolve a problem - kill someone. The media studies I have quoted which shows effects of media violence do exist - why not lets talk about them? Simply saying I think its great game and I am OK; is not really a very deep debating point as to whether society is improved by screening/having available so much violence. Ok so it is tough to argue against several thousand studies but perhaps we junk them as being irrelevant to todays life style and that the effects - at only a 15% contribution are not worth considering a change in society. God forbid what it would do to Hollywood and TV if theywere only allowed one murder per day as an average over a week say. Cripes we could have programs on gardening, art,reading!, live music, playing board games, life style improvements - starting with food and health would not be a bad idea. Political corruption another.

So after the Maus the Germans did not give up: http://americatopten.blogspot.com/2006/11/largest-earth-mover-in-world.html

No...... but Wikipedia is very thorough. I did play GTA2 I think it was. It is interesting that throughout history the concept of a hero , a good guy has seemed to be fairly universal. Dealing with drugs , killing people, shagging prostitutes just does not seem a great role model for disaffected youth. They should look to people like G W Bush to see what a man can make of himself : )

Pak43 I haven't read any of those books or seen any of those films so for me a fruitless list. I do have probably over 1000 books in house and about 15 out from the library at any time so its not like I cannot read. Films are generally disappointing so I wait for them to arrive on TV - and then ignore the ones which will probably irritate me or lower my mood. I think that covers the films then : ) I have a theory that modern society is good at providing a daily dose of downers for all thinking people who understand news etc. Why one would wish to get further pissed by seeing a film God knows. Now if the film is going to make me feel better - a comedy or rom-com then that is great. The brain reacts to good things with a nice dose of chemicals : ) BUT perhaps being entertaining is actually not a good bar to judge whether something is good or bad for society as a whole. I am curious whether the ancient sports of throwing Christians to the lions, or fights to the death between gladiators are also OK because they were entertaining. I know some youths take great delight in having very powerful speaker systems in car so that they can drive around damaging their hearing - and possibly incidentally disturbing the peace of other people. Here in the UK I will no doubt be required to pay a disability allowance at a future date for all the hearing impaired. Did you know that only France cottoned on to the damage the I-pod can do to hearing and demanded a limiter be fitted. Should society/govt have intervened or was the fact that people were being entertained and Apple making stonks of money be sufficient reason not to regulate. Is it just possible that people are not auditory doctors and unknowingly could damage their hearing irreparably - andd for some misguided reason they think Govt or the manufacturer are going to look out for them .... If it entertains its' OK - 'fraid not.

Straight from cinema to wood near you! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/8022946.stm Its dangerous to give the simple-minded ideas it seems. Perhaps all that research on violence in the media is right!

Hooray! And strangely Apple have pulled a little game after a couple of days where the idea was to stop babies crying by shaking them violently. You have to marvel at the intelligence level of game designers and even more so at the marketing arm. Makes me want to cry -- no hold that perhaps a very violent shaking might help them to engage brain!!!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Chapman or for the hero Eddie Chapman http://www.victoriacross.org.uk/bbchapma.htm I think I prefer the latter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OjUVjLuu5o&feature=related I don't know what program they used for this air battle but the effects are very believable

His son, no brother. : ) Apparently the conspiracy theory would fail as it was his staff who sorted it all out and he just ambled around for the photo opps and habit.

Wiki to the rescue

http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/chapter_06.htm Gives an interesting insight, whether it is all totally true I cannot say but certainly it seems a well documented piece. Possibly Ford felt it would be ungracious to thank Hitler for the highest medal to be given to a foreigner by producing fighter engines for his potential enemy. "Ford later reconsidered and agreed to construct a large new government-sponsored facility to manufacture aircraft at Willow Run. The Willow Run Aircraft plant, completed in 1942" ..., http://www.michiganhistorymagazine.com/extra/willow_run/willow_run.html Shows that no planes flew from there until September 10th 1942. However the fudge about reconsidering -- and actual engine production is not clarified so your "12 months" may not be accurate. However reading about Willow Run is interesting.

Just browsing and found that quite interesting. How long "in time" is I do not know but any delay in providing engines was not very helpful when fighting the Germans.

To be honest in some of the trashy US offerings it seems to me that the plots are incredibly stupid, and the actors to over-emote so that even the thickest of the audience can understand what is going on. Pandering to the lowest level does tend to lose the upper percentiles . In any event I think one would have to be moronic to put up with all the adverts. I assume there are places like PSB where you can watch for a whole hour or more without being interrupted.!1? When people realise how much of their lives are being wasted with adverts ...... it almost makes spam look respectable because it is easier to get through.

You nailed it Tero. US actors with Botox can no longer show facial expressions - other than surprise : )

Well I am off away for a few days so not much further to add currently. The book I recommended from which you can read for free many sections does seem a good basis for taking any further arguments. Page 268 has this nugget; For White Americans and Canadians the murder rate increased by about 92% between 1945-74 when television was becoming pervasive. In South Africa the murder rate for White South Africans living in comparable economic conditions dropped 7% during the same period. Of course they did not have TV until the following year - and then the murder rate began climbing. page 268 http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cSPigYNkeNcC&pg=PA259&lpg=PA259&dq=murders+per+hour+on+US+tv&source=bl&ots=CMQjugBYUY&sig=_tq-1HSnwLYrUz2mqTbyiIaKqjo&hl=en&ei=-lzmSY69MIHH-AaGqbnfBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8#PPA268,M1 It would be nice to think humans are not easily fooled/swayed/played but every piece of research over the last century has revealed mankind as irrational creatures who are driven by various triggers. I would like to think there are some exceptions who counter their irrational side : )

A cognitive psychology of mass communication By Richard Jackson Harris Is the book I linked to. There are many interesting excerpts/pages to read in the book but the one that is perhaps most valid is that the studies tend to come out with a 10-15% figure attributable to the media for violence. Obviously not as important as poverty etc etc but significant in being a controllable factor. Incidentally it mentions the V chip which are fitted to US TV's to allow the easy filtering of violence - a failed attempt. Children , before they leave elementary school will have seen 8000 murders and 100000 acts of violence. Way to go, problem solving in easy lessons?

No offence taken : 0 1963 murder rate lowest at 4.6, below 5 1961-64, hovering at 5.5 in 2000's Violent crime rate 160 in 1960 , 2007 466. I am glad you mentioned the declining rate from the 1990's. There has been a presumption that more effective policing is the sole cause. However the real reason is probably more to do with the age profile of the population. Older people and babies are less criminal than other age bands. Here are some graphs showing the bulge of potential criminals http://www.nationmaster.com/country/us/Age_distribution I could argue that the violence would be even less without games and violent films. Also that the drop in the US is because many people who might be violence statistics are in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact that is almost a certainty I would think. Why the US crime rates are higher than Western Europe I attribute to American society and the larger inequalities in society. This is exacerbated by the dream world as portrayed by TV programs and adverts to which the majority of the country cannot reach. Also the level of general corruption, higher than most of Western Europe, and the way media and political felons are resurrected leads to a possible feeling that the only way to get ahead is not being honest. Where a country cannot respect its politicians and judges, the feeling that it is an unfair society perhaps becomes pervasive. People do not like unfairness. As an aside this is also true of animals. Dogs have been shown to get very peeved if they are rewarded unequally in dog biscuits for the same activity. A natural sense of justice would appear to be innate in animals. Rubbing the faces of the have nots in the glossy world of the haves by an all pervasive media may well be divisive and disruptive of society. That is my feeling about violence and general lawlessness. As for violence by film, TV, and video games - is that just showing how it can be done, and commonly it is done in TV land http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cSPigYNkeNcC&pg=PA259&lpg=PA259&dq=murders+per+hour+on+US+tv&source=bl&ots=CMQjugBYUY&sig=_tq-1HSnwLYrUz2mqTbyiIaKqjo&hl=en&ei=-lzmSY69MIHH-AaGqbnfBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8 Interestingly this psychology books claims that 99.5% of the 3500 studies 1950-2000 show a negative effects of violent entertainment. One for C'Rogers to contemplate. : )

Naturally per thousand : ) I would not, and need not stoop to playing with figures. You mention things have changed since the 1960's other than the media. I was curious what you might be suggesting had happened to cause the increase if it is not the media. As for the restrictions on Manhunt in the UK - you really don't believe that had an effect do you! Oops - do friends play the same games together .... ! Gosh thats a tricky question.

I imagine most singers do not have blood on their hands. And of course many singers have recognisable talent though I do agree the world is a little loopy in the way "stars" are made/paid. FI driver on £15M a year - but then if you can only enter two cars you would want the best. But what kind of business can afford tha kind of lunacy ... oh yes "entertainment". B'liar's fame rests on him being image shaped as a wise leader. Of course presiding over a mad unsustainable boom in the UK, and lying to take the UK into an unjust war, are minor detractions. His elevation of spin to an art form and suborning of the civil service should not be despised.

MSBoxer I was around then and must have missed the bombardment ...Still I don't think role-playing or figure gaming was in any way as insidious as video simply because it was considerably slower and also group played. I wish I could be as certain to think that what I believed thirty years ago was still as valid when applied to different media. : ) Essentially I think the effects of violence in the media are as Costard quoted Bill Waterson. However to look solely at rates of violence/rape is to ignore what I consider the more dangerous threat and that is the breakdown of society. Consider how we as children played in the 50's, 60's ,70's and now see how kids are today. Has there been a change? Why so? Sexualisation of children at an early age. True/False? Beneficial or not? Fear of strangers. Higher or lower? But first am I barking up the wrong tree ? Is the US less violent and lawless than in previous decades? Apparently not. http://bjsdata.ojp.usdoj.gov/dataonline/Search/Crime/State/statebystaterun.cfm?stateid=52 So those who wish to quote that the media has no or little affect perhaps may like to help me understand what is going on in Society. For those who cannot access the details murder rate up 10% since 1960, violent crime 300%, ... in fact most crimes rape, larceny, car theft, aggravated assault etc are up by double or treble. And just to add something less solid to the frame and for those who blessedly have no knowledge of Manhunt and what a good game it is - this from Wkipedia Manhunt released November 2003. Just saying ......

I had never realised you could have your own home CNG kit. Anyway Honda declare/create a bankruptcy to avoid paying workers ...nice people. http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2009/04/06/455943.html you have to scroll a way way down a blank page to find the story. Of course Honda seem to be working on kicking themselves in the goolies[balls] what with ditching F1 racing just before the team carries on and wins the first two Grand Prix of the season. Nice going. There also perhaps worse in that Mercedes now provides the engines which drive the successful car. Button, the winning driver, is reputed to have said that the Mercedes powered car drives faster in reverse than the Honda engined car could go forwards. Rather a blow for a company which has made great play of its engine prowess.

Yep criminals the pair of them.

c'rogers I know the Japanese have low crime rates for both rape and murder. The interesting point is I think how in a fairly rigid society people are constrained to behave "better". I was wondering if anyone would bite and actually find the video game objectionable.

And never would Lebanese sources have an axe to grind with the Syrians. Heaven forbid that a nation has actions attributed to it so that the US feels it has to go to war. That would never happen! Remember