Caffeine

Nut jobs abound!

Apparently the Japanese aren't the only ones silly enough to jump into the bear enclosures at a zoo; "lonely Germans" do it as well.

A self-described 'lonely' man jumped into the enclosure of the Berlin's zoo's famed polar bear Knut.

German police say zoo workers were able to keep the 200-kilogram bear away from the intruder by distracting him with a leg of beef. The 37-year-old man, whose name has not been released, jumped over a fence into a water-filled ditch at the edge of the bear's enclosure Monday morning.

Okay so you're probably asking yourself WTF was this guy thinking?

Police said the man initially ignored instructions to leave the enclosure, but was eventually led away unharmed.

Before being let go, the man told them that he felt lonely and the bear appeared lonely, too.

More like he was hungry and waiting for dinner. From my own experiances, I know Polars may look slow and dumb but they sure aren't. I had a memory from years ago "pop" back into my head after reading this.

In the 80's, I lived up in Canada's far north. The furthest south I saw in 6 years was Churchill, Manitoba. For those of you who don't know - Churchill is the "Polar Bear Capital of the Wortld"

I am sure it was in 1982 when a German tourist lost his arm after bopping a bear on the nose. One of the locals used to take tourists out to photograph the bears in a specially built vehicle. If I remember this correctly - the tourist in mind was hanging out the window and wanted the bear to look upwards at him so - he bopped the bear on the nose.

The rest is history and so is his arm.

I spent more than 8 years in the artic and not once did I ever think a polar was lonely. Maybe that comes from watching them bat sea lions out of the water with a single swipe of a paw.

Canada has established an enviable international record for UN peacekeeping and indeed the very concept of peacekeeping forces being deployed under UN auspices to prevent or stop conflicts around the globe is a Canadian invention.

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