Good afternoon.  Today I come to you with a serious issue that is corrupting our society as I speak.  It affects people of all ages and sexes, but most of all the children.  As we all know, we must protect the children for they are the future of the Earth, and inherit it from us when we pass on to the next world.  What is this terrible foe, you may ask?  It is the latest craze, similar to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of my day but it has a new name?. Pok�mon.

Now back when I was a colonel in 'Nam, there was two main things that I stressed to teach my men.  Two important things that they needed to survive.  The first one was "Know thy enemy".  The second was "Fry thy chicken".  But as my pressure cooker is in the shop, I aim to inform you the first defense of these Pok�mon.

The name pok�mon was created from the original Japanese title of Pocket Monsters.  It was changed for a few reasons.  Japanese text tends to say a lot more in a smaller space and direct translation would involve changing a lot of the borders and spacing in the game.  Nintendo also felt that the name was too similar to another earlier fad in America known as Monster in my Pocket.  So Pok�mon is just a combination of the first few letters of the original title, with an accent on the "E" added for style.

Pok�mon are separated into 15 different types.  Normal, fire, water, grass, bug, flying, electric, rock, ground, ghost, dragon, poison, fighting, psychic and ice.  Each of these types has strengths and weaknesses against other types.  Most of these make logical sense.  Water puts out fire, fire melts ice, and ice freezes grass.  Some don't make too much sense at all, who would think that psychic would be weak against bug and ghost attacks or that fighting doesn't fair very well against flying assaults.  A person would think a fighter would be prepared for all types of attacks be they aerial or terranean in nature.  This is one of the most important things to know in Pok�mon.  The choice of attacks is what gets you ahead when against the pok�mon menace.  But don't go thinking that a water type will have only water attacks.  It is very often that a pok�mon can learn attacks of a different type.  This creates variety and strategy in the pok�mon world. 
The next problem stopping the eradication of pok�mon is the fact they are constantly changing.  As they battle, they grow stronger and gain new attacks.  Some are direct physical attacks, others affect the opponent not so directly.  Pok�mon have the ability to paralyze, poison, confuse, freeze, burn and cause sleep.  Other attacks can lower attack and defenses of the opponent while others slow the opponents speed.
You would think this would make the task difficult enough, but there is more.  Some pok�mon have the ability to change and evolve into new, more powerful forms.  Some evolve multiple times.  Some do not evolve at all.  There are three ways that this is triggered in a pok�mon.  The first way is just through basic experience.  When a pok�mon reaches a certain level of growth, they will change into a newer form, more formidable than the previous.  This level is different for each of the 151 pok�mon in American society.   The next method of evolution is through exposure to certain special stones.  There are five stones in the pok�mon world : thunder, moon, water, leaf, and fire.  Thunder stones affect some electric types. Water stones affect certain water types. Fire stone only change a few fire types while moon stones affect other areas not covered by the four others.  When a pok�mon is exposed to a stone, it evolves regardless of level or experience.  Very few pok�mon actually do react to the stones as of now.  The final way of change is through trading.  Pok�mon revolutionized the Gameboy through the aspect of collecting and trading these creatures though a Game Link cable.  Four of the pok�mon in the game will only evolve when passed into another machine through the trading process.  The usual practice is to trade a pok�mon to a friend, have it evolve then trade the evolved from back to the original owner.

I hope you all have enough information now to help slow the pok�mon takeover.  They might die out just like Astroboy, but they might be here for a while like Transformers.  Who knows what the future holds, we can only hope for the best.  As for me, I am soon traveling to the Great Plains of Saskatchewan where I can watch my cat run away for four days.  I hope to see all of you in the next term.  Peace out.