Environmentalists pursue Japan's whalers

[Yokohammer]

Why, oh why? What do they gain from being so damn bloody minded?
Nothing but condemnation and ill will from the international community, of course.

Immature, uncooperative, obstreperous kiddies. You'd think they'd understand the damage they do to themselves, but I guess it doesn't matter. As long as they win. Getting what they want is all that matters. Fuck the rest of the world.

Not dignified, not honourable, and not smart.

That seems a bit harsh. The usual Aunty Podean thing aside, most Australians I have met aren't the out and out Loud, Proud & White is Right! pedantic cunts these government finger waggers seem to be. I agree they seem to be standing On Principle, which is usually a euphemism for childish peeve, but aside from the extraterritorial hubris and the obvious subterranean racism of the Australian position this is a very, very important issue to people with nothing better to do and not much to do it with, and the Green Party probably knows that and are playing to their natural base, the mentally indigent cat ladies that think cute counts more than right. No worse than the Sea Shitbirds, really, though it would be nice if they would all grow up and mind their own billabong.

The real problem is what a screaming waste of resources this is for all involved. While the Japanese are right to defend their rights it all seems so pointless I would prefer if they just gave it up and hunted for their mercury meat in home waters.

Not harsh at all. You are missing the point.

There's this thing called "international law," see, and unless everyone honours it in the same way it is no law at all, is it? Japan promised to abide by the ruling handed down by the International Court of Justice. The fact that they participated fully and wilfully in the proceedings sort of makes that a moral mandate, doesn't it? This sort of behaviour, saying "yes, lets settle this in a court of law!" and then when the outcome isn't the one they wanted simply turning around and saying "that's the wrong ruling, we're going to ignore it!" is childish in the extreme. Japan is being seen more and more as a country that can't be trusted to keep its word. The nuclear issue, the recent constitutional travesty in the diet, insistence on doing things that the rest of the world is trying to agree not to ... all the sly, underhanded manoeuvres do not help to improve Japan's image or international standing.

It's not Japan vs. Australia or anyone else, Kurogane, it's Japan shooting itself in the foot big time through self-serving bloody mindedness. Who loses? You figure it out.

[kurogane]

Here's a rather vague but decent summary of the issue:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_ ... _Sanctuary

Much less cut and dried than the whale meat they get from their scientific research. More later.

[wagyl]

It sort of reminds me of Japan's withdrawal from the League of Nations. That didn't end well. For anybody.

[Samurai_Jerk]

As an American it's hard for me to get too sanctimonious about international law.

[wagyl]

Don't be too concerned, SJ. Truth be told, International Law is a misnomer. You can't really call it Law without a method to compel compliance, and there is none (you can't really call the rest of the world going "Tut tut tut" and refusing to share its cake and drinks with you a real effective sanction). It truly is the same as the elementary school playground: he who is the biggest bully and can get a posse together is the winner, and has a pretty free hand as long as he is not too outrageous in his activities. Currently that might be the US. That might not always be so.

[Yokohammer]

Don't be too concerned, SJ. Truth be told, International Law is a misnomer. You can't really call it Law without a method to compel compliance, and there is none (you can't really call the rest of the world going "Tut tut tut" and refusing to share its cake and drinks with you a real effective sanction). It truly is the same as the elementary school playground: he who is the biggest bully and can get a posse together is the winner, and has a pretty free hand as long as he is not too outrageous in his activities. Currently that might be the US. That might not always be so.

Yes, it's sort of a gentleman's agreement type thing. But if you go into a deciding procedure with the group, saying "we'll go along along with whatever the group decides, because that'll represent the will and best interests of the group," and then get all pissy and walk out when the group doesn't decide in your favour, you are definitely not getting any cake. And people are not going to think very highly of you or invite you to any more important meetings.

This has been sort of a historical pattern for Japan, as in your (somewhat scary) recall of the League of Nations walkout. There are quite a few scary patterns going around these days like, for example, Abe's state secrets law and reinterpretation of the constitution sort of mirroring Hitler's subversion of Germany's quite liberal Weimar Constitution in order to consolidate his own power. But Aso did let it slip that that's just what they were considering doing, so I guess we shouldn't be too surprised.

There's a huge disconnect between "100 million hearts beating as one" within the country (or according to Abe's latest slogan, “Society in Which All 100 million People can be Active”) and working in harmony with the international community. I'm just not seeing it.

[kurogane]

It sort of reminds me of Japan's withdrawal from the League of Nations. That didn't end well. For anybody.

Not to mention the angry racist (redundant?) white Australians that assumed Brownie was a joke to be laughed at and now want to tell them how to live to make up for having had their asses handed to them. Or their mates' ass. Grilled, on a plate.
But great hyperbole. At least we're matching gears with the fatties.

[Yokohammer]

It sort of reminds me of Japan's withdrawal from the League of Nations. That didn't end well. For anybody.

Not to mention the angry racist (redundant?) white Australians that assumed Brownie was a joke to be laughed at and now want to tell them how to live to make up for having had their asses handed to them. Or their mates' ass. Grilled, on a plate.
But great hyperbole. At least we're matching gears with the fatties.

Jeez, you really need to get over your irrational obsession with Aussies and fatties. Were you ass-raped by a fat Australian or something? Your disdain for "racist white Australians" is kinda racist, eh?

And just to get this off my chest, as a fat Australian: fuck you.

You may now continue with your obsessive blathering without further interference from me.

[kurogane]

It's cute to see you guys using multisyllabics. Like the Special Olympics without the charm.

Gold star.

Your disdain for "racist white Australians" is kinda racist, eh?

Your English isn't even good enough to know why that can't be so, is it, you fuckwit trog? Astounding what half a lifetime of unquestioned white privilege will do to even a pea brain like yours. You argue like an 8 year old, but you think like a 4 year old.

Keep at it, you might make First World status..................if you live to 300.

[wagyl]

To be fair, the disconnect between what Australians do and what they say is being noted currently.

And I fail to see any hyperbole. In both cases, Japan is saying "I don't like the decision made under the rules of engagement, so I now decide that those rules do not apply to me. But I would be the first to say that I keep to the rules if it the decision had gone my way."

[kurogane]

Not to mention the hilarious hypocrisy of a not very articulate or rationally inclined people that used to hunt other people complaining that other people (and them damn slanty eyed Chinkies, no doubt!) hunt things that people used to hunt but now people that used to hunt people think shouldn't be hunted.

Talk about a great place for all the refugees. Touch of a full fat white land whale cull and Sheila's your billabong, didgeradongee. Fucking Trogs................

[Samurai_Jerk]

Looks like someone is posting drunk again.

[kurogane]

that used to hunt other people complaining that other people (and them damn slanty eyed Chinkies, no doubt!) hunt things that people used to hunt but now people that used to hunt people think shouldn't be hunted.

Rubbish. I was working, but I am fully tired of mentally mediocre Baby Boomers thinking that Feeling Something is True!! (GUSH!) makes them right. It's time for a cull.

BTW, try typing out that quoted piece in one fell swoop. That's my proof, ferschur cheers on ya matey shiver me timbers in the billabong.

[Yokohammer]

Looks like someone is posting drunk again.

I'm not so sure. The same fetishes come up so many times that I can't help believing this is the "real Kurogane".

That last edit was so cute I had to make a screen snap for future reference.

[Samurai_Jerk]

that used to hunt other people complaining that other people (and them damn slanty eyed Chinkies, no doubt!) hunt things that people used to hunt but now people that used to hunt people think shouldn't be hunted.

Rubbish. I was working, but I am fully tired of mentally mediocre Baby Boomers thinking that Feeling Something is True!! (GUSH!) makes them right. It's time for a cull.

BTW, try typing out that quoted piece in one fell swoop. That's my proof, ferschur cheers on ya matey shiver me timbers in the billabong.

So you really are using a Japanese-style red herring??

I've made it pretty clear I'm not a big fan of the anti-whaling brigade but their past sins have nothing to do with what's happening right now.

[Russell]

that used to hunt other people complaining that other people (and them damn slanty eyed Chinkies, no doubt!) hunt things that people used to hunt but now people that used to hunt people think shouldn't be hunted.

Rubbish. I was working, but I am fully tired of mentally mediocre Baby Boomers thinking that Feeling Something is True!! (GUSH!) makes them right. It's time for a cull.

BTW, try typing out that quoted piece in one fell swoop. That's my proof, ferschur cheers on ya matey shiver me timbers in the billabong.

Have you now started talking to yourself?!?

[kurogane]

[

So you really are using a Japanese-style red herring??

In what way? The ICJ ruling acknowledged the hunt was scientific. What it rejected was that the hunt as it stood was not sufficiently so, hence this rather ridiculous Whale Hunt 2.0. That is hardly a damning of the hunt itself. Plus Japan disputes the propriety of the declared sanctuary under the IWC treaty, which all sounds like they are using the available mechanisms to resolve the issue, rather than the damning weight of hypocritical sanctimony to force others to do as they're told. Unless, and I don't mean you, one assumes that because one doesn't like the hunt they have to stop and that it it was an unqualified ICJ victory. Which it wasn't. Unless you think like a 6 year old and argue like an 8 year old.

PS Nobody worth listening to gives 2 flying turds if the Japanese hunt whales. And the more anybody does the more a signal it is that they're worthless turds.

[kurogane]

Have you now started talking to yourself?!?

I'll talk to you if you promise to be interesting for a change.

[Takechanpoo]

so about time to lift the ban of commercial whaling limited to non-endangered whales and designated quotas in each whaling countries based on real demand.
and will be fixed all.
i guess the ones swarming around paul watson can no longer put up with the contemporary world in which everything are relativized, but they dont feel like worship trite christianity now and still want to cling to something absolute. in other words their motive is insincere and pre-modern. this is a kind of war between modern and pre-modern. the two sides are eternally at cross-purposes and don't seem able to resolve their differences.
who should be kicked the butt is those whale cultists not whalers.

[wagyl]

Looks like someone is posting drunk again.

I'm not so sure. The same fetishes come up so many times that I can't help believing this is the "real Kurogane".

That last edit was so cute I had to make a screen snap for future reference.

My guess: he has seen in the past that if he presses this button he gets a reaction, and the lab-rat inside him is hooked. No different to a troll, really, and we can break that cycle by not providing him with feedback. Make it as boring for him as his behaviour is to us.

[wagyl]

so about time to lift the ban of commercial whaling limited to non-endangered whales and designated quotas in each whaling countries based on real demand.
and will be fixed all.

An interesting idea. Is there in fact any real demand for whale products in Japan?

After all, the arguments presented by Japan up until now have been the necessity to kill whales for science (just like you can't study ants without killing them: how else are you ever going to know how long their thorax is or if they are beyond juvenile stage. It is a physical impossibility otherwise). There has never been an argument that a harvest of whales is necessary for commercial purposes. Even for the policy makers who can come up with spurious scientific arguments, commercial arguments for whaling in the present day are a step way too far.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Looks like someone is posting drunk again.

I'm not so sure. The same fetishes come up so many times that I can't help believing this is the "real Kurogane".

That last edit was so cute I had to make a screen snap for future reference.

My guess: he has seen in the past that if he presses this button he gets a reaction, and the lab-rat inside him is hooked. No different to a troll, really, and we can break that cycle by not providing him with feedback. Make it as boring for him as his behaviour is to us.

It's already been established that he is a troll. He's admitted that he's mostly doing shtick.

[Takechanpoo]

so about time to lift the ban of commercial whaling limited to non-endangered whales and designated quotas in each whaling countries based on real demand.
and will be fixed all.

An interesting idea. Is there in fact any real demand for whale products in Japan?

After all, the arguments presented by Japan up until now have been the necessity to kill whales for science (just like you can't study ants without killing them: how else are you ever going to know how long their thorax is or if they are beyond juvenile stage. It is a physical impossibility otherwise). There has never been an argument that a harvest of whales is necessary for commercial purposes. Even for the policy makers who can come up with spurious scientific arguments, commercial arguments for whaling in the present day are a step way too far.

it is simply because of moratorium of commercial whaling in 1982, as you know. after that, japan had to restart whaling under the name of something scientific. on the other hand, iceland, norway etc just ignore it and thick-facedly continue hunting whales. but they arent blamed so much as japan. at least japan is a little bit more "faithful" than them, though.
the fact that so-called scientific research is no more than a camouflage is an open secret. you didnt know that? really? oops

[Russell]

Have you now started talking to yourself?!?

I'll talk to you if you promise to be interesting for a change.

Thanks for replying.

But no need to bother, kuro...

[wagyl]

so about time to lift the ban of commercial whaling limited to non-endangered whales and designated quotas in each whaling countries based on real demand.
and will be fixed all.

An interesting idea. Is there in fact any real demand for whale products in Japan?

After all, the arguments presented by Japan up until now have been the necessity to kill whales for science (just like you can't study ants without killing them: how else are you ever going to know how long their thorax is or if they are beyond juvenile stage. It is a physical impossibility otherwise). There has never been an argument that a harvest of whales is necessary for commercial purposes. Even for the policy makers who can come up with spurious scientific arguments, commercial arguments for whaling in the present day are a step way too far.

it is simply because of moratorium of commercial whaling in 1982, as you know. after that, japan had to restart whaling under the name of something scientific. on the other hand, iceland, norway etc just ignore it and thick-facedly continue hunting whales. but they arent blamed so much as japan. at least japan is a little bit more "faithful" than them, though.
the fact that so-called scientific research is no more than a camouflage is an open secret. you didnt know that? really? oops

Getting serious: I don't bring the subject up myself but if it is raised I do discuss it, and I am yet to come across anybody born in this country who has thought at all critically about the "scientific reasons" argument. I use the "ant research" example like above, and for the first time people start to wonder whether the stated reason is the true reason. The secret is not as open as you suggest.

The Norwegians, like Japan, stated their objections to the moratorium on commercial whaling which meant that they could continue commercial whaling, which they have done. I am not sure that it is bad faith to have done this, and good faith to have objected to the moratorium, but not continued commercial whaling as commercial whaling, but to have continued commercial whaling named as scientific research (thank God that secret is now out).

The reason that Japan later accepted the moratorium on commercial whaling was under pressure from the US (International Law bullying in action) which threatened to deny Japanese fisheries of all species access to Alaskan waters. This meant that the whaling-for-research malarkey was the only option left available to Japan. Presented with a choice of continuing commercial whaling but being denied access to Alaska, or stopping commercial whaling and continuing access to Alaskan waters, Japan pretended to make a choice but in reality continued commercial whaling but named it scientific research, and got access to Alaskan waters (for a short time, until the US revoked that access because -- get this -- they were not happy with Japan's non-scientific commercial whaling. Whoops!

So, is there any real demand for whale products in Japan?

And what scientific results have the Institute for Cetacean Research produced?

Is this a satisfactory use of the taxes you pay?

[dimwit]

You got me intrigued about whaling in Norway as I had assumed that it was being done by indigenous people. Not so apparently, and I found an couple of interesting article demostrating the parallels between the Japanese and Norwegian whaling industries.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/onearth/n ... 00432.html

http://munchies.vice.com/articles/whale ... -in-norway

[Samurai_Jerk]

You got me intrigued about whaling in Norway as I had assumed that it was being done by indigenous people. Not so apparently, and I found an couple of interesting article demostrating the parallels between the Japanese and Norwegian whaling industries.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/onearth/n ... 00432.html

http://munchies.vice.com/articles/whale ... -in-norway

Aren't Norwegians indigenous to Norway?

[dimwit]

Aren't Norwegians indigenous to Norway?

Yes but they don't live in subsistence conditions so they don't count.

[Wage Slave]

They do like a bit of whale. Every medium price and better restaurant in Oslo offers whale steak.

There is a bit of racism in the way Japan gets targeted but on the other hand Norway doesn't pretend they are doing scientific research, they hunt their whales sustainably where they have always done, in the north Atlantic close to home. They don't go and hunt in Antarctica which the international community is trying to preserve as the last real wilderness on earth..

And they eat what they kill. Or at least used to. I see from those articles that they too are running into oversupply. The damn stuff just doesn't taste very good.

[wagyl]

What the US embassy in Norway had to say about the Norwegian situation in a diplomatic report, through the wikileaks section of a Norwegian newspaper. Norwegian newspaper through Google translate.

Perhaps most interesting is the recognition by anti-whaling groups that the industry is in its death throes and will fade by itself, and protesting would only polarise opinion and risk unwarranted support from the previously indifferent, for nationalistic reasons. Sound familiar?

The Norwegians certainly don't have a full market for their output. They have in the past tried to sell whale meat to Japan, when they can find some without dioxin poisoning.

Also, the whales in Norway are fighting back.