Pokémon Turns Children into Idiots

Dogasu's Backpack | Pokemon Bashing | Pokémon Turns Children to Idiots

Below is an article sent to me from Lan located on the Agency of Political Information's website. The article was originally in Russian, so what follows is a translation provided by Lan, with a few grammatical corrections by me.

"School Psycologists of Nizhny Tagil-city Think that Cartoon Characters Pokemons Turn Children to Idiots"
.a.p.i. - agency of political information of Ekaterinburg, April 10, 2001

NIZHNIY TAGIL, April 10th. School psycologists of Nizhniy Tagil raises the alarm. Pokemon mania is starting in city schools. Even more, psycologists consider that characters of popular cartoon series, Pokemon, turns children into idiots. Graderschoolers are starting to be behind in intelligence as school progress is decreasing.

We should notice that Pokemon (which initially was computer game) originated in Japan, where this cartoon show is prohibited for the next three years. In US and France, translations of "Pokemon" is also prohibited. There were an accident in USA, in 1997, when a child jumped out of window shouting "I'm Pokemon! I can fly!" There were mass children fightings for posession of Pokemon toys in European schools. Children used razors and others used cold steel.

Gee, I guess we can't say that all the crazies are located in the US, can we? Despite the article's obvious lack of research (the show was never on a three-year ban, there was no such ban of Pokemon in the US or France, and there's been no reported incidence of the "I can fly!" incident), the article just doesn't explain enough. How did they determine that children's intelligence was decreasing? Was a professional hired? On what were the tests based on? Were other variables looked into to see what caused the lowering of school performances?