White And Black, The Friendly Bears Of China. White And Black, They Rarely Reproduce.

This may be the worst thing that has ever happened in the history of humanity: China is ending Panda Diplomacy.

For over 1,000 years China has made up for any rampantly heinous behavior by sending out the most lovable, awesome creatures in this or any reality. Yeah, I'm well aware of unicorns, the mogwai and pikachu. They all look like obese, drunken rednecks next to a panda. But I've lost my original point... See, that's what happens! China does something awful, and you want to hate them, but then they whip out Chia Chia and Ching Ching and you melt. It's like the Wookie defense.

Sure, some people will try and come at you from an ethical, conservationist standpoint, arguing that living beings shouldn't be turned into unwilling participants in global geo-political strategies, or exploited to further the economic aims of a nation whose continued prosperity threatens that creature's very survival. But to those people, I say simply "boo!" Pandas are awesome, and anything we can do to make them more accessible to endless crowds of lazy-eyed mouthbreathing lookey-loos is not only ethically justified but is in fact a categorical imperative. And I must point out that here, in the most prosperous nation the world has ever seen (suck on THAT, Denmark), the closest Pandas are an entire time zone away from me.

This is unacceptable.

China should not be choking off the supply of these precious, majestic creatures, just to turn a profit by renting them out for breeding and research. They should be embracing these gentle, roly-poly marsupials as the living, breathing Hallmark Cards that they are. And they surely are not running out of things to apologize for. This is a perfect symbiotic relationship, and it makes no sense for the Central Government to go and screw this up for themselves now.

Take solace in the fact that there are still numerous pandas serving their misguided country in zoos around the world. See them while you can.

Hopefully in one week I'll be gawking at a couple myself.