The Bear Market

(Pictured: Knut the Polar Bear. Not Pictured: The pile of carcasses he leaves in his wake.)

Where did bears show up in the media today? Let’s have a look, though be warned it’s mostly Polar Bear news today. Keep children away from the screen while you read this:

1. Slate.com reports that Polar Bears should be placed on the endangered species list. In other news, Neville Chamberlain III writes for Slate.

Actually, a lot of people are reporting this, including CBC and ABC News. The general argument is that since the polar bear’s natural habitat is melting, why aren’t we naming them an endangered or threatened species? The answer: Because according to Laura Barton of the Guardian, they are “the serial killers of the Arctic.” Serial killers do not hunt for food, they do it for the sheer hell of it. Does that sound like an animal we should keep around in the future?

(Fun Fact: the official term for killing a bear is “ursinicide”.)

(Funner Fact: We make up words on this blog.)

2. Congress questioned whether President Bush’s long-delayed plan for drilling for oil in the Arctic (Hey, frozen solid oil is easier to transport) might harm polar bears in the region. Nonsense, says Bush.

(Above: Congress tries to play dead to avoid the “serial killer of the Arctic” behind them. This is why Congress always keeps their lunches in a plastic sac tied up to a tree out front.)

3. You might remember Knut,the polar bear/assassin-in-waiting who stole the hearts of Germans last year. And god knows Germans don’t get carried away easily. Now, Knut’s future wife, born last month in a Nuremberg zoo (come on, Nuremberg. That should set off alarm bells.) is starting her rise to fame. She has been named Flocke (German for snowflake), and just this week, opened her eyes. Sources cannot confirm whether or not they were glowing red. Seriously, watch this clip and try to tell me those aren’t the screams of a demon:

Thankfully, there is a strong chance that the coddling in German zoos is giving way to a slow descent into madness for the bears. Biologist Peter Arras admits that humanity may have dodged a bullet after all:

But according to expert Arras, the chances of the furry celebrity — who is, after all, fixated on humans — being able to successfully breed with his Bavarian counterpart are slim. “I can guarantee that Knut wouldn’t know what to do with a female,” he says.

4. The financial world continues to tank due to the fallout from the sub-prime mortgage crisis. We would like to think that bears are not prominently involved in the sabotage of international commerce, but then again there’s a reason why they don’t call them “subprime mortgage fallout markets”. We pray for the day when a bull market comes back.

Where are you when we need you???

Thank god, President Bush is stepping in to eradicate this new bear market. Is there any bear defense this man can’t mount?

5. Slovenia doesn’t make the bear news often, but when it does, it makes a splash. Animal rights activists are furious that the hunting of brown bears, a protected species, has not been banned. We here at The Bear Market fully support the government. After all, these are the types of “animal rights” activists they’re dealing with. This man actually leaves out a picnic for bears. You’re playing right into their hands!

6. And finally, chess legend Bobby Fischer has died at age 64. Possibly killed by a bear. He was living in Iceland, which has no indigenous species of bear, but due to global warming has seen an influx of iceberg-riding bears bent on destroying the peaceful island nation. Seriously.