It’s one thing when you are bombarded daily by news articles, it’s quite another when you want to buy a custom teddy bear and are treated to a video lecture on global warming. That’s why I’ll never buy anything from this company and advise my family and friends with children to avoid them also.
www.buildabear.com – their main page below looks just like any normal toy page with a Christmas theme, but visit the games section and you enter a whole new winter wonderland.
Apparently “build-a-bear” is quite the fad, now in 17 countries. But they had a dirty little secret, they were pushing an agenda under the guise of a cartoon designed to entertain the kids.
Maura Flynn writes at biggovernment.com
Attention Santas:
This missive is directed at the guardians of, and donors to, tiny humans. If you fall into that category you likely are already familiar with Build-A-Bear, a world-wide corporation that provides the most innocent of services. They sell customizable stuffed animals. Make your own bear, dog…penguin. Cute concept.
So cute, in fact, that the Build-A-Bear empire sweeps across nearly every state and into 17 other countries. You’ll find their outlets in shopping malls everywhere and even some ballparks. The company also has a website called Build-A-Bearville.com where children can play an interactive video game that, on it’s surface, is unlikely to raise suspicion or sound alarms.
But when your unsuspecting tot logs on and hops a virtual train to the North Pole…you should know that he or she will be informed — by Santa Claus — that Christmas may be canceled this year due to Global Warming. Below is part two of the 3-part video.
Here’s an excerpt (1:07-2:22):
Girl Elf: Santa, it’s gone!
Papa Elf: It’s gone, It’s gone!
Santa: What’s gone?
Girl Elf: Tell ‘em, Dad!
Papa Elf: The North Peak.
Santa: A mountain? A mountain’s gone? How is that possible?
Ella the polar bear: Santa, sir, that’s why I’m here. That’s why we’re here. The ice is melting!
Santa: Yes, my dear, we know, the climate is changing. There’s bound to be a little melting.
Ella: It’s worse than that, Santa, a lot worse! At the rate it’s melting, the North Pole will be gone by Christmas!”
Santa: My, my…all of this gone by next Christmas? I don’t think so.
Ella: No sir, not next Christmas, this Christmas! The day after tomorrow!
And this is merely the tip of the dialogue iceberg, if you’ll forgive me for putting it that way. You can view parts one and three here and here. Children of the world can look forward to priceless exchanges such as, “Oh my! Where will the polar bears live?” and my personal fave: “Where will the elves live?”
I suspect you’d like to think it can’t get any worse than that. Thus, it pains me to tell you that animated characters actually break into a discussion of satellite photos and that Mrs. Claus conducts a rather unscientific experiment involving ice cubes.
Needless-to-say, this constitutes brainwashing on the sleaziest and most sinister level. The good news is that this nonsense isn’t coming from our government this time and the rocky economy is our friend here. People, we have the means, if we have the will, to topple these charlatans who shamelessly prey on little children. So boycott Build-A-Bear. And, more importantly, tell the world why.
They apparently have been getting overwhelmed with letters, because today they posted this:
December 22, 2009
We have received inquiries regarding our online webisodes and would like to provide you with the following information.
Our goal is to entertain and engage the imagination of children with our stuffed animals, our store environment, and online. Our intention with the Polar Bear story was to inspire children, through the voices of our animal characters, to make a difference in their own individual ways. We did not intend to politicize the topic of global climate change or offend anyone in any way. The webisodes concluded this week with Santa successfully leaving on his journey to deliver gifts around the world. The webisodes will no longer be available on the site.
I started Build-A-Bear Workshop as a place for families and children to come for a fun experience combining imagination, creativity and empowerment. I have always placed great value in the trust that our Guests have in our brand.
At Build-A-Bear Workshop we also strive to encourage kids to help others by participating in their communities. We listen to parents and kids about topics that they are interested in and care about. We especially value the input of parents. We are listening and taking all points of view into consideration for the future.
If you have questions, please contact us:
Guests with questions should contact:
Guest services
314-423-8000
866-232-7269
Media with questions should contact:
Jill Saunders
314-423-8000 ext. 5293
314-422-4523 (cell)
Investors with Questions should contact:
Investor Relations
314-423-8000 ext.5353
Sincerely,
Maxine Clark
Founder and Chief Executive Bear
Build-A-Bear Workshop
There’s an important word missing from that letter, that word is “apology”. Global Warming and Christmas have no business being together, and hopefully this will be a lesson for other companies that try to put an agenda into children’s stories. Sadly, I suspect we’ll see more of this though.
If you already bought one of these, my advice is to call their customer service and ask for a full refund.
(toll free) 1-877-789-BEAR (2327)
Icarus (03:11:12) :
Of course we can’t read the minds of the Build-A-Bear employees who came up with this theme, so it could be a purely commercial attempt to exploit a current topic, but equally we could give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was a genuine attempt to help educate kids about just how serious global warming is. After all, today’s kids are the ones who are going to have to be dealing with it when they’re adults.
I guess you are afraid your wings will melt?
Have you studied this well documented sequence of the temperature changes the last 400.000 years in Greenland and the antarctic?
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/noaa_gisp2_icecore_anim_hi-def3.gif
Can you honestly study these graphs and say that the danger comes from overheating? The current temperatures are a blip in the climate scheme, where one sees oscillating temperatures. 400.000 years say: “what goes up will come down”.
Except if you are not able to read graphs.
The danger these kids will face will be of cold, not of heating, is what the history says.
If you want to really drive your point home, and at the same time make the pro-AGW crowd so insanely angry their heads will explode, then anti-AGW realists should band together and buy a Super Bowl commercial. If CBS refuses to air it, make a big stink about censorship. As in, go to CBS’s home office and protest every single day crying CBS censorship. Such a commercial will rate low on the interest scale, but it will have a large audience. And the best part is, it will cause the rich pro-AGW zealots to make a desperate response. But the next Super Bowl sized audience won’t be until 2011.
If the pro-AGW crowd gets Build-a-Bear and the news and the children and the governments and the ignorant and the corrupt, then the anti-AGW side can at least threaten their source of income and power. Of course, if AGW falls throw, these very same people will change the scare tactics.
Ok, aren’t we just a wee bit off the end of the hyperbole scale using words like indoctrinate and brainwash? This is Build-a-Bear. If you are going to be concerned, be concerned about what your children are taught, and not taught, at school.
Many organisations, including the WHO, are wondering why there’s a massive growth in the incidence of depression.
If you give people essentially no future, or one that’s not worth having, why wouldn’t they get depressed?
And yet, it seems to me like no one wants to see the connection.
Ray (09:40:57) :
“Santa is a big fat idiot to believe those doom-sayers animals”
Did you mean Santa – or Santer!
Poor Bilderbear. The economy has tanked and they are facing bankruptcy. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
But the real Grinch in this tale, the culprit who wrecked Christmas, is the banking cabal that gambled away $trillions and left the economy in ruins.
Their new strategy, to recover their frittered loot, is to establish “carbon markets” ala ENRON. Buy, sell, short, and derivativize a fiat non-commodity, force everyone to purchase the “stock”, and steal like there’s no tomorrow.
Algore and his buddies are the Grinches who killed Santa Claus.
Indeed, if ice sank, it is postulated that there would be little or no life on earth? Why? The oceans would be one solid block of ice and the earth would be frigid. The current temperature of water at the bottom of the oceans is cold enough (about 4 C), but if all the ice sank every winter, it would just pile up and eventually fill the ocean basins with little hope of ever melting. What would melt every summer if sinking ice were the norm would be a top thin layer and that’s about it.
A frozen ocean would wreak havoc on the earth’s climate because the massive transport of heat-bearing water via ocean currents would grind to a halt (indeed, many hypothesize that the disruption of the great conveyor belt oceanic current is what causes the glacial epochs–Europe is much farther north than the US and it currently has a climate similar to the US because of ocean current heat transfer; stop that current and European temperatures would plummet.)
Just as an aside (and appropriate to the season), my uncle once worked as a chemist for a crystal growing company in California and he was put in charge of the drinks at their Christmas party one year. He had some elaborate high-pressure equipment at his disposal so he created some high density ice to cool the drinks. During the party, he would circulate and ask all the revelers why the ice in their drinks was on the bottom, which invoked some rather perplexed responses as they checked out his observation. Eventually most of the drinks were left unfinished (and put in some very unusual places), which resulted in the most sober Christmas party anybody could remember (or the only Christmas party many could remember).
I hope Al Gore isn’t convinced that normal ice sinks… (Maybe Al was at that party and it was the only time he’s ever observed ice. Maybe that’s why he believes the polar bears are having difficulty finding ice to walk on. How does one counter such lack of intelligence?)
The only other videos I could find of a polar bear and a penguin together are also cartoons featuring Chilly Willy
At least the only myth they portray is polar bears and penguins being at the same place at the same time. (Other than the fact that they can talk).
Legend of Rockabye Point
Polar Fright
The international Build-a-Bearer conspiracy!
Just heard they pulled the ad-anyone else?
3×2 (05:44:25) :
Perhaps we could have a WUWT version … “Hey kids look at the real Arctic (or the Polar Bear gets a 303 to the head)“
.303 British, the old Enfield round? While suitable for deer and humans, there is too little delivered energy, it would have to be a very well placed shot. Even .30-06 may be questionable. If you think you can aim and time that head shot as the polar bear is charging at you with their usual head-bobbing gait, then you’re a better shot than… virtually everyone.
I will defer to the judgment of the esteemed and sorely missed Col. Jeff Cooper, who with extensive ballistics testing combined with personal experience hunting large game concluded that “large and slow” beats “small and fast” when comparing energy at the muzzle to energy delivered at the target and the resulting effectiveness. Consider the older cartridges that likely started as blackpowder rounds suitable for buffalo, starting around .45 and going upwards, with proper bullet selection of course.
anna v (09:59:44) :
An alternate way of looking at it is to distract while the pocket is picked.
Hey, look, up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane ….no it’s…
SuperGlobalWarming Man.
Icarus, I’m just glad to hear you haven’t gone the way of almost all Polar Bears yet! Do you live in a Zoo?
kadaka (11:15:26) :
I will defer to the judgment of the esteemed and sorely missed Col. Jeff Cooper, who with extensive ballistics testing combined with personal experience hunting large game concluded that “large and slow” beats “small and fast” when comparing energy at the muzzle to energy delivered at the target and the resulting effectiveness.
I don’t know, I ain’t no ballistics expert, but given Kinetic Energy, K, with projectile mass, m: K = 1/2 mV^2 = 1/2m[VV]. So concerning Polar Bears, Grizzlies, Kodiacs/Great Browns – all related – I’d go for maybe an M16 or a Bazooka.
Lewis and Clark had to shoot a bunch of Grizzles when they started swimming after them as L&C were innocently floating down a river. The Grizzles apparently thought they were some kind of tasty big game themselves. So there’s that.
But didn’t the Build-a-Bear site simulate that for Polar Bears, also master predators? If not, I’d say there’s not much of practical value there.
In marketing terms the end of the world will be very big. Anyone trying to save it should remember that. (Ben Elton – This Other Eden) – Discuss.
Douglas DC (08:28:31) :
“My belief in Santa disappeared when I caught my Pop assembling a kiddie car
back in ‘58 when I was 4. This was never forgotten by me- also the language Pop
was using during the assembly.Though it was usually reserved for reluctant tractor
and combine parts.”
That was no reason to lose belief in Santa. It’s important for kids to believe, since Santa IS real. He is the spirit of giving, and we have all seen him. They need to be shown that he exists, to personally experience the results of giving, not only their own but more importantly of other’s. I see none of this in that video. Santa is just a dude somewhere far off that is worried about his home being lost.
To be fair though, something I hadn’t thought of earlier, is that the company has decided to discontinue the webepisodes, and it appears that they may have realized this goes over the top, so instead of being boycotted perhaps they should be given a chance. Their names may be on the list, after all.
It is being reported that the webisode has been pulled:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2413979/posts
I don’t see why Santa can’t just relocate to Antarctica. There’s plenty of snow and ice there, and no polar bears.
A high velocity, V, small mass, m, projectile is effective given the size of the recipient [its ability to “absorb” energy without it doing major damage], because the energy, K = 1/2 mVV, gets transmitted from where the projectile hits to more distant parts of the body. It might even travel from the arm [bone] to the chest [heart, lung], spine [spinal cord and vessels], or skull [brain and bleeding vessels around it]. It also “cavitates” below the surface where it hits, so that the “entry” wound does not reflect the “interior” damage even if no bone is directly hit. And the projectile also fragments.
In theory, you can also use the formula for energy use and conservation compared to the velocity of a regular motor vehicle, so that travelling at 50mph uses about 1/2 the fossil fuel, or any other, energy that travelling at 70mph does: 2500 = about 1/2 of 4900.
It goes without saying that the Build-a-Bear site wouldn’t have any interest to care about travelling Bears.
J.Peden (12:08:39) :
Guns in the hands of children is like temperature records in the hands of corrupted bad scientists… it leads to a disaster.
I found it interesting that this is what they wrote to anoter complainer (see the blog)
“Thank you for writing to us and voicing your candid opinions and sharing your point of view. We are sorry that we disappointed you.
At Build-A-Bear Workshop we have always empowered and encouraged kids to help others by participating in their communities and the world. our Huggable Heroes program honors kids throughout the USA for making the world better. We listen to parents and kids and take the lead from them on things that they are interested in and care about.”
The UN has been pushing the concept of being a “citizen of the world” to children to further their global governance agenda.
The video has been pulled without apology.
http://www.buildabear.com/aboutus/OurCompany/Letterfrommaxineclarkwebisodes.aspx
Blog-o-sphere 1 Buildabear 0.
J.Peden (12:45:19) :
In theory, you can also use the formula for energy use and conservation compared to the velocity of a regular motor vehicle, so that travelling at 50mph uses about 1/2 the fossil fuel, or any other, energy that travelling at 70mph does: 2500 = about 1/2 of 4900.
Is the purpose of life to waste time on a freeway? The earth is energy rich. I think it is quite acceptable to use it.
We need to make a movie for kids called: “Gems of Science from Al ‘The Liar’ Gore”. We just need to make sure they don’t sit too close to the surface of the Earth.
J.Peden (12:08:39) :
So concerning Polar Bears, Grizzlies, Kodiacs/Great Browns – all related – I’d go for maybe an M16 or a Bazooka.
The M16 is nearly always chambered for the 5.56x45mm NATO cartridge, with the “civilian” version being the .223 Remington. (The difference is due to military preferences for specifications, the quick rule is .223 works in 5.56 weapons but not the reverse.) The small cartridge was designed for automatic fire from a handheld weapon with reasonable accuracy at a distance, getting several hits on a target quickly. Using such a lightweight .22-size bullet, the nickname “poodle shooter” came into use. Given the large mass of a polar bear, the effect of an M16 on full auto would be similar to using a full auto BB gun on a deer. As the battlefield experience goes, the 5.56 can produce large numbers of wounded but it is lacking on killing ability. (Note that we are often facing enemies who would rather abandon their wounded for us to take care of rather than they themselves, thus we are the ones burdened.)
“Small and fast” relies on hydrostatic shock, the sudden transfer of kinetic energy from a lightweight bullet at a very high speed causing an intense pressure wave in the soft tissues leading to damage. Thus bones are not impressed, nor are thick hides, and penetration can be insufficient on large game. “Large and slow” has heavy bullets traveling at more modest speeds, relying on the time-honored tactic of punching in a large deep hole.
As a practical matter you can only get so much chamber pressure in a firearm, thus only so much muzzle velocity and so much energy imparted to a bullet. To get twice as much kinetic energy at the muzzle, thus more at the target, it is far easier to double the bullet mass than it is to quadruple the velocity, which is likely considered impossible.
Additional: Concerning (12:45:19), the concept of “cavitation” with high velocity small bullets hasn’t worked out as well in real life. Punching big holes works better. Besides, “small and fast” leads to too much meat loss.
And did you forget that 55 mph was chosen as the former US maximum speed limit as around there the coefficient of air friction, or whatever the official terminology is, changes from being based on velocity to velocity squared, thus above 55 would use far more gas than a slower speed for the same distance traveled?