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Cigarettes are addictive, and they cause cancer. But for years, big tobacco companies spent millions of dollars convincing their customers and the American public at large that their products were not harmful. The same is currently happening with casinos––they’re trying to convince everyone that their products, especially slot machines, are not inherently addictive or harmful. Instead, they’re trying to convince people that certain people are more prone to gambling addictions, not that the machines themselves cause addiction. 

Simon Pegg is one of the funniest people on the planet. His movies––especially “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” are brilliantly written brilliantly acted, and pee-yourself funny. In this video, Simon Pegg breaks down the origins of his characters from the following movies.

Jeff Bridges has been in a ton of movies, and some of them have been downright iconic. In this video, Bridges explains the origins of his characters, how he got into character for them, and how he imagines them. You’ll get to learn a little more about your favorite Jeff Bridges roles from these movies.

The congressional elections are coming up, and you know what that means. No, it’s not a chance to enjoy American democracy, it’s a chance for the Russians to interfere with our elections (again). This time, however, the government appears ready. They have already arrested a Russian national, Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova, for conspiring to interfere in a U.S. election. “Khusyaynova was the chief accountant for Project Lakhta, an operation started in 2014 and financed by a Russian oligarch close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and two companies he controls, according to a criminal complaint.”

It seems like the nation is more divided than ever before. But is that the case? The video reminds us that we have been divided before, and much more recently than you might think. During the course of the Vietnam War, the nation split over their support or opposition to the war. The Kent State shootings were the culmination of this divide, and this video explains how this split came to a head.

There is almost zero data on police-involved sexual assaults, but what little data we do have is bad. According to research from Bowling Green State University, police officers were charged with 405 forcible rapes between 2005 and 2013. That means, of course, that there is no data about police who have not been charged. Few victims are willing to come forward for obvious reasons––who are you going to report a police rape to? The police? The article suggests some possibilities for improvement.

Twenty years ago, kids would play with fake guns outside all the time. You used to hear about the occasional accidental shooting, but it was rare. Nowadays, though, you don’t have have to have a fake gun to be shot. This police officer took a few minutes to have a conversation with two kids who were spotted with a BB gun. He reminded them that we live in a different time, and that they need to be careful lest they get shot––if he weren’t trained in the military to make split-second decisions, there’s a good chance these kids would be dead. 

It’s not just the United States, it’s the whole world. The whole world seems more partisan than ever. This piece from The Guardian takes a hard look at their own side of the political spectrum: the left. The general argument is this: by calling everyone on the other end of the aisle “racist,” “fascist,” or “bigoted,” the left is pushing people farther to the right. This is impressive for a few reasons. First, few on the left will even admit this. Second, the video actually takes responsibility for their own contribution to the growing political divide in the nation. 

You probably don’t like bugs. When a spider or a fly or a mosquito enters you’re house, you’re likely livid. Who wouldn’t be? But there are other bugs––and other places that bugs should be. And unfortunately, bugs are disappearing from those places, including an untouched forest in Puerto Rico. In other places, around 75% of flying insects have disappeared, which means that the things that eat those insects are starving and disappearing, too. David Wagner, an expert in invertebrate conservation at the University of Connecticut, said that “This is one of the most disturbing articles I have ever read.” 

Scientists are trying to determine whether climate change is to blame. 

Trump gets called Trump fascist a lot. But that’s a real problem, because if you use that term too lightly then it loses its meaning. This video features an expert on fascism––someone who has studied it for ten years. He walks through the major aspects of fascism and then sees how Trump fits in. The results are not good. He says that Trump behaves in the way that many fascists behave, and that he is scared. 

The Wolf of Wall Street told the story of Jordan Belfort, the so-called (and eponymous) Wolf of Wall Street. Belfort organized a massive pump-and-dump scheme involving a mixture of penny stocks and higher-order stocks. This History Buffs installment investigates how accurate the movie portrayal of this guy was. The result might surprise you: this movie was disgustingly accurate. They really did higher midgets to attend a party (but they didn’t play darts with them––thought they wanted to). 

Movie trailers have become a weird art form of their own. You’ve probably noticed the trends that cycle through trailers. Things like creepy versions of popular songs, for example. You might also notice that there are different versions of trailers based on where you’re watching. Rated R trailers, well, just about anything is allowed. In lower rated trailers, you’ll see that blood is no longer red, but instead they are the color of mud. This video gets into the psychological tricks of movie trailers.