Comments on: Almost Can’t Bear It

By: Smarter than the Average Panda? at Asymptotia

Smarter than the Average Panda? at Asymptotia — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 22:32:43 +0000

[...] Evidently he is from the same designers who brought you other balls of cuteness such as Tai Shan, Knut the Polar Bear (anyone remember Knut?), the cat riding the roomba, and of course, [...]

By: elle mangione

elle mangione — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:19:16 +0000

this is TOTALLY RETARDED! i cant believe u ppl think this is cute. the bear .is ugly and anyway i thought polar bears are extinct..they shud be

By: Himibungi Bananungi

Himibungi Bananungi — Tue, 05 May 2009 18:10:57 +0000

Those evil crazy environmentalists! They want to destroy the world! How could they ever think of killing the adorable white furry teddy bear whose name is Kunt?

By: miley

miley — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 19:06:21 +0000

he is sooooooooooo cute. is he endangered? what kinda of bear is he?=)

By: spyder

spyder — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 23:44:26 +0000

For a variety of hideous and tragic reasons, this old crazed hippy suggests recalling a certain governor of CA saying (paraphrasing the much longer quote): If you have seen one redwood tree you have seen them all, and we are already saving some, so we can clearcut the rest! If Knut is really this special and cute, would it not be in the best interest of our children’s children’s children to ponder protecting the few remaining ones who are drowning in their own natural habitat???? But hey, one cute one seems to be sufficient.

By: Webdesign München

Webdesign München — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 15:50:50 +0000

When Knut was a baby it was very sweet but now it became a huge bear that can’t be mentioned as sweet anymore

By: Twinkle

Twinkle — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 06:17:35 +0000

Oh! That is so cute.I love it.But I think it is in a bit problem for not to be on the ice.
emmm if I could get a cute polar brer like this!

By: amaster

amaster — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 18:10:53 +0000

he is very cute how can someone want to put him down????

By: jacolyn

jacolyn — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 20:20:26 +0000

GET MORE PICTURES

By: emz-jhemily14

emz-jhemily14 — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 01:31:26 +0000

he is so cute! as in super cute!

By: emz

emz — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 01:28:57 +0000

so cute!

By: paitin

paitin — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 00:39:35 +0000

4 letters C-U-T-E!!!!!!!!! he is so cute i cant believe how heartless you would have to be to want this bundle of joy put to sleep!!!!

By: Dom, Quincy

Dom, Quincy — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 20:41:20 +0000

Save knut!!! He is a small bundle of joy how could they think of puting him to sleep that is a crime imagine a world with out knut with out a endangered cute polar bear. I mean he is awsome I mean poler bear kind has given up on him and people want to kill him.Happy birthday Knut!!!! WE LOVE YOU!!

By: Kirrie

Kirrie — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 05:36:49 +0000

I can’t believe an animal rights activist said to put down a baby polar bear for no reasons relating to the health of the cute little thing.

Knut isn’t going to have severe psychological damage either, it only would if he was raised in the wild and then forced to live in captivity. He doesn’t know anything other than the people who raise him and the life he has, how would this confuse him? He looks pretty happy to me.

By: Allie

Allie — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 18:04:19 +0000

Knut is soo ah-dorable!!! My aunt and uncle used to live in Alaska and took care of injured polar bear cubs and penguins. I just hope that crazed lunatic doesn’t come along and kill the poor bear!

By: The n-Category Café

The n-Category Café — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 04:33:48 +0000

Some Notes on Local QFT…

Some aspects of the AQFT description of 2d CFT….

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 10:02:26 +0000

True it’s rather sad that the Panda population in Germany decreased by 50% the same day as polar bear Knut made his public debut. The Berlin zoo had two Pandas, one male which was a present by a former head of PR China (forgot name and job title) to former German chancelor Helmut Schmidt and one female which was a long term loan from China. Unfortunately (and despite many effords on the human side possibly including Viagra and bear porn) the two could not be convinced to mate. I took a few out of focus pictures of them only three weeks ago:

http://mathphys.iu-bremen.de/~robert/pandas/

It’s the female that died now and again bildblog has some background information on the Bild coverage:

http://www.bildblog.de/?p=2172

(in German) the punchline being that besides a small tumor in the liver the panda had an intestinal obstruction both which Bild reports but stilll Bild speculates that it’s Knut’s popularity that broke the Panda’s heart.

By: Samantha

Samantha — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 21:49:43 +0000

Thanks Robert for explaining that…

I am embarrassed to say that I was taken in by the story “German environmentalists want Knut dead.” I gave it no thought whatsoever, just chalking it up to the sort of humorless thing that German environmentalists would say, wouldn’t they. It is horrifying how uncritical one (I) can be about news stories.

By: Clifford

Clifford — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 17:43:46 +0000

NO! Really? What’s the link?

-cvj

By: pedant

pedant — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 17:34:57 +0000

A rather tragic footnote to this tale has been the death, two cages down, of Yan Yan the panda, who had been, prior to the arrival of Knut, the most popular bear in town. A broken heart or a shattered ego could be the COD; Bild has named Knut as the primary cause of whatever it is that took the panda away. And all this reported at length in the London Times.

By: Stephen Uitti

Stephen Uitti — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 15:24:36 +0000

Aww, look at the cute baby shark. It’s so cute. I want to just go for a swim with the entire family.

By: Yvette

Yvette — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 01:44:53 +0000

Robert- ah, ok, thanks for the clarification of the situation! It did sound rather absurd to me, and I suppose it was because of the absurdity of a misquote in the first place.

By: Mary Cole

Mary Cole — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 22:20:33 +0000

This post really cheered me up after an exhausting and rather frustrating day! The pictures are delightful. Bears are simply wonderful (I’ve always thought this), and bear cubs are just too lovely for words.

By: Amara

Amara — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 19:24:31 +0000

Robert: I cannot believe the volume of videos of Knut. THANKS And I can’t believe that I’m completely melting over the little guy myself. Now I know what he sounds like! He has all of the makings of a world sensation…

P.S. I remember Bild…Usually I avoid tabloids, in whichever country I find myself. I hope that there was a reasonably hard response in the general population to their action, this time.

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:26:17 +0000

If it would have been suggested by a crazy hippie… In fact, he never suggested it he was just misquoted by the tabloid paper “Bild” which has a history of causing public uproar by intentionally misquoting people. This animal rights activist was just complaining that a newborn bear at another zoo had been put to sleep with the reasoning that it would not be natural for him if he were brought up by humans and he would suffer severe bear-psychological damage. The crazy hippie was arguing that if that reasoning would have been valid for the other zoo it should also apply to Knut knowing of cause that cute Knut is absolutely save being a celebrity.

It was just Bild’s strive for big headlines when Monday last week they had the coverpage asking “Knut to be killed?”. In their world, whenever they ask a question, of course the answer is “no” given that if there is any doubt they usually just claim the most outrageous thing.

Unfortunately, besides making big money using these techniques (and a history of intentionally writing articles which are just advertisments for their business partners) they also have significant (bad) influence on the public opinion and thus policy makers here in Germany.

There is a blog by professionel journalists discussing these practices:
http://www.bildblog.de/?p=2147