It seems once or twice a year we need to go over this, so here we go again….
 
Yes, polar bears are very cute. And yes, they do, indeed, want to play with you. But no, it will not be as much fun as you thought it was gonna be. For you.
 
For the bears, however, it’ll be a pleasant diversion from a boring day of lying around the pool getting ogled by stupid tourists.

Of course, the big news of the weekend (other than the new Obama dog) was the successful rescue of Captain Phillips from the dread Somali pirates. We’re all happy about that (well, most of us; polls show that 3 out of 4 pirates disapprove of the way the situation was resolved), but there seems to be an awful lot of animosity out there directed toward the pirates. I don’t know why, really. They’ve obviously identified a niche in the market, which they’re attempting to fill.

When their actions result in loss of life or tear apart a family, we call them pirates and criminals. When a CEO decides to move his company’s manufacturing to Indonesia in order to exploit the cheap labor (and, in the process, destroy the lives of hundreds of families), we call him a shrewd businessman. When an insurance company denies a claim for a life-saving procedure to save money, we call it the “best health care in the world.” If a financial institution uses every loophole imaginable to avoid paying taxes, then takes billions in tax payer dollars in order to pay more in annual bonuses than most taxpayers will make in a lifetime, it’s called “contractual obligation.”

At least the pirates don’t hide behind the “invisible hand of the market” and “fiduciary responsibility” to justify their actions. They know the risks and rewards of their chosen profession, and if they wind up with a bullet in the head, well, so be it. They may be greedy criminals who don’t care who they have to kill or ruin to get their way, but at least they aren’t pretending to be saintly, misunderstood captains of industry making the world a better place. They may be scumbags, but at least they’re not lying, pretentious scumbags.

Which I guess is the difference between pirates and capitalists.