There's a lesson here.

And that lesson is, stop fucking around with dangerous animals:

A California author and filmmaker who became famous for trekking to Alaska's remote Katmai coast to commune with brown bears has fallen victim to the teeth and claws of the wild animals he loved.

[...]

Treadwell's films of close-up encounters with giant bears brought him a bounty of national media attention. The fearless former drug addict from Malibu, Calif. -- who routinely eased up close to bears to chant "I love you'' in a high-pitched, sing-song voice -- was the subject of a show on the Discovery Channel and a report on "Dateline NBC." Blond, good-looking and charismatic, he appeared for interviews on David Letterman's show and "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" to talk about his bears. He even gave them names: Booble, Aunt Melissa, Mr. Chocolate, Freckles and Molly, among others.

Ok, stop right the hell there. The high-pitched chanting alone is enough to warrant a swift end; what the hell would make this idiot think they like that kind of thing? The cutsie-poo names show he failed to respect the essentially dangerous nature of the bears.

A self-proclaimed eco-warrior, he attracted something of a cult following too. Chuck Bartlebaugh of "Be Bear Aware,'' a national bear awareness campaign, called Treadwell one of the leaders of a group of people engaged in "a trend to promote getting close to bears to show they were not dangerous.

Except that they are! They're extremely fucking dangerous!

[...]

Despite that, Treadwell refused to carry firearms or ring his campsites with an electric fence as do bear researchers in the area. And he stopped carrying bear spray for self-protection in recent years. Friends said he thought he knew the bears so well he didn't need it.

Ah, yes. He knew them so well. If only the bears who ate him had been aware of how well he knew them.

U.S. Geological Survey bear researcher Tom Smith; Sterling Miller, formerly the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's top bear authority; and others said they tried to warn the amateur naturalist that he was being far too cavalier around North America's largest and most powerful predator.

"He's the only one I've consistently had concern for,'' Smith said. "He had kind of a childlike attitude about him.''

Those are the people I really despise, the ones who view all of nature as a kind of petting zoo and themselves as gloriously in tune with same. Hopefully his demise will serve as an object lesson for the next would-be natureboy.

"I told him to be much more cautious ... because every time a bear kills somebody, there is a big increase in bearanoia and bears get killed,'' Miller said.

Damn you. Damn you for coining that word.

"I thought that would be a way of getting to him, and his response was 'I would be honored to end up in bear scat.' ''

I hope he remembered that quote as the bears started to eat him.

[There's more. Via the Midwest Conservative Journal.]

Baldwiniana.

Alec Baldwin feels it incumbent upon himself to intercede in Texas politics: he took a box of dog biscuits to a Democratic fundraiser, announced they were for Texas Governor Rick Perry, whom he designated Tom DeLay's "lap dog" (note the extreme cleverness of the whole "lap dog"/dog biscuit thing. Now, that's quality political commentary.) As reported by the AP, he then launched into a tirade about the Texas redistricting strategy, the CA recall, the evil Republicans, and BushBUSHBUSH! But the money quote is the reply from 'Perry spokesman' Gene Acuna:

"Mr. Baldwin's political views against President Bush and Republicans in general are well known and documented. I have no doubt that Texans will give the comments made by the star of 'Beetlejuice' all of the attention they are due."

[Via the invaluable Charles Austin.]

An atheist by any other name.

The Bright movement protests when people accuse them of a certain level of smugness, then they say things like this:

However, since we're now at the beginning of a presidential campaign, it's reasonable to ask not only President Bush, but also each of the ten contenders for the Democratic nomination to state their attitude toward Brights (designated by whatever term they choose).

We might also speculate about which of these candidates might be closet Brights? Which would evince anything like the free-thinking of Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln? Which would put forward a Bright Supreme Court nominee? Which would support self-avowed Brights in positions of authority over children?

Which of them would even include Brights in inclusive platitudes about Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims? Doing so might be good politics. Although unorganized and relatively invisible, Brights constitute a large group to whom politicians almost never appeal.

Maybe because you're unorganized and relatively invisible.

Moreover, it would be interesting to see and hear the squirming responses of the candidates to the above questions.

(Interesting that the author gloms onto Jefferson and Lincoln as would-be Brights. It puts me in mind of a number of famous people who always claim to have been Cleopatra in a previous life. Funny how ditchdiggers and sewer workers don't ever seem to get reincarnated.)

Just what the hell is this need for public approbation, anyway?