Why won't the Obama say that polar bears are endangered and thus make it possible to use the Endangered Species Act to deal with global warming?

"U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan sent the [Bush administration's] controversial listing decision back to the Obama administration in October, asking officials to clarify the language the agency used when it determined that polar bears aren’t 'endangered' under federal law. Environmentalists ... had hoped that Obama administration officials would ... protections to the species."

I'm guessing that wasn't changed because polar bears aren't endangered and because using the Endangered Species Act to fight global warming is a bad idea.

One third of Britons take a teddy bear to bed.

And 25% of men take teddy with them when they travel.

Corrine Sweet, a psychologist, said cuddling a teddy bear was an "important part of our national psyche... it evokes a sense of peace, security and comfort. It’s human nature to crave these feelings from childhood to adult life. It’s not surprising, then, that taking a teddy bear on a business trip is popular. As a bedtime bear evokes feelings of home, warmth, and can help you nod off – just like in babyhood.”

The study also found that the traditional teddy bear was the most popular cuddly toy among adults, with Winnie the Pooh second and Paddington Bear third.

So... it's a special British thing?

Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?
	Yes. I need to cuddle my childhood toy to get to sleep.
	A little, but I don't really need it and can travel without it.
	Only when my human or living animal bedmate isn't around.
	No, but I do require extra pillows.
	No!
pollcode.com free polls

ADDED: This post brought back a long-lost memory. When I was a child, I wanted to be the child that takes a stuffed animal or doll to bed. I had a mental "ideal girl" image in mind. I tried... and failed. I couldn't put up with it. I liked to sleep on my stomach and extend my hands flat under the pillow, and I cared a lot about the underside of the pillow being very cool. I used to turn the pillow over to get the cool side facing down.

"I kind of see myself as a man of God and being like Joseph."

"In a sense, I feel like a bear, coming out of hibernation. Like, they come out to eat, mine would be coming out to enjoy what I have missed."

Comedy Central cowers in the face of a murder threat/warning against "South Park" creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

The NYT reports:

An episode of “South Park” that continued a story line involving the Prophet Muhammad was shown Wednesday night on Comedy Central with audio bleeps and image blocks reading “CENSORED” after a Muslim group warned the show’s creators they could face violence for depicting that holy Islamic prophet. Revolution Muslim, a group based in New York, wrote on its Web site that the “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker “will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh” for an episode shown last week in which a character said to be the Prophet Muhammad was seen wearing a bear costume. Mr. Van Gogh was slain in Amsterdam in 2004 after making a film that discussed the abuse of Muslim women in some Islamic societies.

A new episode of “South Park” on Wednesday night attempted to revisit this character, but with the name and depiction of the character blocked out. It was unclear how much of the bleeping was Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker’s decision. In a message posted on their Web site, SouthParkStudios.com, they wrote that they could not immediately stream the new episode on the site because:

After we delivered the show, and prior to broadcast, Comedy Central placed numerous additional audio bleeps throughout the episode. We do not have network approval to stream our original version of the show.

On Thursday morning, a spokesman for Comedy Central confirmed that the network had added more bleeps to the episode than were in the cut delivered by South Park Studios, and that it was not giving permission for the episode to run on the studio’s Web site.

Did Revolution Muslim truly threaten Stone and Parker or was it merely warning them? That is, were they indicating that they would commit and act of violence or were they only opining based on their prediction of what others, more extreme than they, would do? Revolution Muslim says it's just a warning:

In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Younus Abdullah Muhammad, a member of Revolution Muslim, repeated the group’s assertion that the post was a prediction rather than a threat. He said that the post on the group’s blog “was intended in a principle that’s deeply rooted in the Islamic religion, which is called commanding the good and forbidding the evil,” tying the group’s complaints about “South Park” to larger frustrations about U.S. support for Israel and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They have freedom of speech too, so the question is whether it's a true threat.

ADDED: I have no end of respect for Stone and Parker. What brilliant artists! What political heroes!

"White House Says Bears Part Of Blame For Senate Loss."

Great headline!

"I have a refrigerator in the garage. He opened it up, drank a gallon of orange juice, opened the freezer above and munched two frozen pizzas and snacked on frozen chicken."

"He broke all the shelves and racks out of the refrigerator, bit into some fruit punch and squirted it all over everywhere, then dragged the trash can outside and took a crap the size of a basketball on the front lawn."

A very large bear. He's not going to kill you. He just breaks in and raids the refrigerator. And takes a crap the size of a basketball on the front lawn.

Improvising with the bear.

TJ Miller really wanted the part of Ranger Smith in the Yogi Bear movie. After 2 failed auditions, desperate, he made this video:



He got the part. Actually, I'm a little suspicious. Maybe first he got the part and then this clip was made. A smarter-than-the-average studio effort at viral video... and I'm the carrier.

"The ice caps are melting, oh ho ho ho ho ho."

Hey, it's the Tiny Tim song Thomas Pynchon was talking about!



This insane song appears on Tim's 1968 album "God Bless Tiny Tim," so all that ice caps melting business has nothing to do with our present-day angst over polar bears and obeisance to the Great God Gore. Unless Tim started it all. Who are those kids anyway? And why did adults subject the youngsters to this trippy apocalyptic weirdness? Perhaps little Al is there, absorbing the crazed wisdom of Tiny. Mysteries! Wow. It's so far out!

And here's the Pynchon book, "Inherent Vice."

At the Sidewalk Café...

... you can stroll in and... dish.

The news from Ouray: An old woman was (perhaps) eaten by a bear.

"It was still unknown Saturday whether a bear killed [Donna] Munson or whether one or more animals consumed part of her body after her death. But people who knew her said she was an eccentric wildlife lover who had been feeding bears, elk, skunks and raccoons for years. Munson [had said] that 'when the time came, she wanted to go out with the bears.'... The night before her death, Munson planned to feed an injured baby bear hard-boiled eggs and yogurt.... And she had planned to swat a large bear that was bothering the baby bear with a broom...."

Put down that broom, large bear!

That was my grammar snark. My real commentary is: It sounds like a bad way to go, but Munson seemed to know what she was doing. It almost seems as though it's appropriate to say something I generally disapprove of: She died doing what she loved.

Some people just get carried away with animal love. Go to the link to read about her (now-deceased) husband, "Ridgway Jack," who made their home an "animal sanctuary" and let a fawn sleep in their bed. And read about her former tenant Tammy York, who said that Munson put wire fencing around the porch after York and her 2 children — a 1-year-old and a 4-year-old — moved in:

The bears would come within 6 feet of the porch and peer in the windows.

"We were in the zoo," she recalled, saying she moved out after about a year because the animals — especially the skunks — "got to be too much." While she lived there, a bear busted York's car window and left bite marks in her seat trying to get some leftover french fries.

Okay. Munson was completely eccentric and foolish, but let's think about York, who had 2 little children and took a year to figure out that she needed to move away. Well, face it: a lot of people are out of their minds when it comes to thinking about animals.

***

Munson was eaten in Ouray on Friday. Meade and I were in Ouray Tuesday through Thursday. It's a beautiful place. Here are 2 more photographs:

"Why Does President Obama Hate The Polar Bears?"

Just one of those things that were terrible when Bush did them.

"You've got that patriotism in ya, that people just so respect."

Says Sarah Palin to the "American Chopper" guy. And check out her sofa:

"But why?" — Werner Herzog.

(Via Bloggingheads.)

IN THE COMMENTS: Pogo said:

That clip makes me think how my own life would seem so much more meaningful and important were I to have a narrator and some choral music in the background.

"Shortly before 6 a.m., we saw Pogo heading straight for the downtown buildings some 7 miles away.

"Dr. Aingly explained that even if he caught Pogo and returned him to his family, he would immediately head right back for the buildings.

"But Why?"

Encounters At the End of Minnesota
A Werner Herzog Film

MayBee said:

The penguin goes every summer to live alone among the grizzly bears.