Now THIS is Being Sentimental about Animals

CNN: Panda Bites Student Seeking Hug

(The panda didn't want a hug.  He just wanted lunch!)

BEIJING (AP) -- A college student in southern China was bitten by a panda after he broke into the bear's enclosure hoping to get a hug, state media and a park employee said Saturday.

...

"Yang Yang was so cute, and I just wanted to cuddle him. I didn't expect he would attack," the 20-year-old student, surnamed Liu, said in a local hospital, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Read it again and just soak in the enormity of this person's stupidity.

I'm bringing this up as a result of some of the implications that came up in our tumultuous bumblebee discussion.

What if a panda set up camp in your yard?

Well, pandas are mostly vegetarian, but they're still giant, lumbering animals with sharp teeth and very strong muscles.  Adorable? Yes.  Domesticated? NO!  Safe for children and adults?  NO!

Now, I would frown on just shooting the panda because it rolled up in your yard, but like slaughtering a hive of bees, it's definitely an option under the right conditions.

I recommend the following course of action.

First, stay away from the panda.  Again: STAY AWAY.

Second, if possible, do keep tabs on the panda lest it sneak up on you or blunder its way into mistaking you and yours as a tasty clumps of bamboo or a threat to its own peace.

Third, whilst keeping an eye on the beast, dial 911.

Pandas, like pretty much any animal, can likely get feisty, so do not toy with the panda.

If the panda does start rampaging around your house or whatever, shoot it dead.  Not the best of all possible outcomes, but that's life.

Final step: find out how the hell a panda came to be in your yard because something probably went seriously wrong somewhere and I bet you could get someone to pay to have the panda brains scrubbed off of your dining room ceiling.

Hat tip, Diana!

Posted by: Flibbertigibbet at 08:50 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Category: In the News
Post contains 344 words, total size 2 kb.

The Last to Know??

Did you know that Michael Crichton died yesterday?!  I just found out via one of my friends' Facebook status message.

I enjoyed his early books up to Jurassic Park.  Every book after that was really bland and read like a treatment for a movie or something.  But his early work showed some really creative potential both in form and content.

Thematically, I wasn't terribly inspired because he often seemed to harp on the danger of technology, apparently falling back on that old canard about the woes that come of "playing god."

Nevertheless, I'll miss him.  If nothing else, I could count on him to produce a good beach read.

UPDATE: Careful reading reveals that he died on Tuesday, not yesterday.

Posted by: Flibbertigibbet at 08:14 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Category: In the News
Post contains 124 words, total size 1 kb.