Greenpeace Draws The Line...Finally!

[homesweethome]

And you might try to reign in that condescending attitude since you know nothing about my life or my experience.

I would say that hammer has two heads that hit in both directions.

[Mulboyne]

Across the front of today's UK Independent is a picture of a Greenpeace inflatable being hosed by whalers trying to haul a whale on board. Some other images on the Greenpeace site here.

Independent: 20 years on and whales are under threat again
Dust down the slogan, it's needed once again: Save The Whale. Twenty years on from the introduction of the international whaling moratorium that was supposed to protect them, the great whales face renewed and mortal dangers in 2006...In the biggest whale slaughter for a generation, more than 2,000 animals are likely to be directly hunted by the three countries continuing whaling in defiance of world opinion, Japan, Norway and Iceland. And in a crucial political move, this year the pro-whaling nations look likely to achieve their first majority of votes in whaling's regulatory body, the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
...Japan is leading the way on both counts. Its whaling fleet is firing harpoons right now in the Antarctic Ocean, hunting 935 minke whales, more than double the number it took last year, all of them under the guise of "scientific" whaling...It is also hunting 10 endangered fin whales - the second-largest animal on earth, after the blue whale - and over the next two years will seek to harpoon 40 more fin whales, and 50 humpbacks...What especially angers environmentalists is the fact the Japanese hunt is taking place in the Southern Ocean Whaling Sanctuary, an area encompassing 21 million sq miles of sea around Antarctica which the IWC declared off-limits for whaling in 1994. Japan ignores it.
...But time is pressing if the anti-whaling countries want to act, because in June, at the IWC meeting to be held in St Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean, the whaling nations seem likely to secure a voting majority for the first time...Mark Simmonds, international director of science for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, believes the Japanese already had their majority at last year's IWC meeting in South Korea but administrative hitches meant they were not able to exercise it. This year, he thinks, they will.

[kurohinge1]

Well, a British lady may have found a way to stop the illegal whaling ... marry them:

British woman weds dolphin

British tourist Sharon Tendler has finally made her dream match - by "marrying" a dolphin she has been visiting for 15 years in the Israeli resort of Eilat, the mass-circulation Yediot Ahronot daily reported.

Tendler, 41, has been visiting the city on the Gulf of Aqaba two or three times a year to spend time with her 35-year-old underwater sweetheart.

"The peace and tranquility under water, and his love, would calm me down," the Israeli daily quoted her as saying.

Last week Tendler finally plucked up the courage to ask the dolphin's trainer for the mammal's fin in marriage.

The wedding took place Wednesday, with the bride, wearing a white dress and watched by amazed spectators, walking down the dock to where the groom was waiting in the water.

She kissed him, to the cheers of the spectators and then, after the ceremony was sealed with some mackerels, was tossed into the water so she could swim away with her new husband.

"I'm the happiest girl on earth," the bride was quoted as saying.

"I made a dream come true. And I am not a pervert."

[Greji]

"I made a dream come true. And I am not a pervert."

Why would any woman want to marry a bottle nose-, oh wait, I think I'm beginning to understand!

[kurohinge1]

... Why would any woman want to marry a bottle nose-, oh wait, I think I'm beginning to understand! ...

You could say that they have at least one thing in common ... they both have blowholes.

[homesweethome]

... Why would any woman want to marry a bottle nose-, oh wait, I think I'm beginning to understand! ...

You could say that they have at least one thing in common ... they both have blowholes.

Now wait a minute, I think this woman has something going on she is not letting the rest of us in on. Dolphins are prolific breeders right? Well if you are tired of the drab old human relationships and boring sex, become a dolphin. It's easy.

How to shape-shift into a dolphin
http://www.insolitology.com/guides/shapeshift.htm

If you have failed in your attempts to mate with a dolphin, reviewed in another guide, you might want to try becoming a dolphin yourself. This may seem biologically impossible, but don't worry, this time there can be no failure. This is the right guide for you.

This book on the Internet was written by one "J. G. Dolphin", in large fonts. The first thing for you to know is that, unfortunately, you cannot survive the shape-shift to dolphin in your current state. This may be a let-down, but don't worry, the authors of this site explain the process with the example of Selkie and Seaflight (which is said to have actually happened). Selkie was a female dolphin shape-shifter, and Seaflight was a human male, although with a name like that, I'd want to become a dolphin too. So, let's follow their example.

Here is how to proceed :


1. Finding a merfolk teacher

Yes, you need a teacher - more precisely, a person that is already changed into a dolphin. One may object that this would make the first shape-shifter impossible, and therefore makes no sense, but that's because you are ignorant. There are many such people in existence, and all you need to contact them is to "overlap your awareness" with them. How to do this is unclear, but it seems it helps to be happy. Something about psychic momentum.


If the empathic connection becomes very strong, a physical meeting may follow. Strong feelings may draw the human to a sea or river. Often the initial meeting will be with the dolphin in Dolphin form. If a friendship is established, a meeting with the dolphin in Human form may follow.
(...) By improving the quality of life and self, a meeting with a Merperson becomes more probable.

Then it seems to help if you can make him/her fall in love with you. Depending whenever you like the smell of fish, this may not be your cup of tea. Love or not, the merfolk will obligingly teach you how to become a shape-shifter (they're pretty passive people, looks like).


2. The Shamanic lessons

Once the merfolk/water person/whatever has knocked on your door, made an emotional connection with you, and lives in your house like a leech, she (let's go with she, since there is sex involved and I don't want to feel nauseous) should now proceed to teach you Shamanic lessons to prepare you to shape-shifting. Do not be surprised if she starts splashing around in your bath at one in the morning too. That comes with the territory.

Shamanic lessons are designed to raise the human's "species-level" so that he can experience more love and compassion. The shape-shifter changes form whenever he likes, and can even use these changes for sexual purposes, as in the example of Selkie :


Selkie used these minor shifts for didactic purposes. She used them to demonstrate the reality and practicality of shape shifting, and later in the context of romantic art. She used minor shifting in sexually exciting ways. She would take on the form of various fantasy women from her husband's imagination.
(...) When in sexual union with her husband she was able to engage her full god-power within the empathic link. During orgasm, she was able to launch her husband into full nomadic consciousness. Life in multi-form on the nearby planets of the Freemendom became a second level of relationship.

However, you have to be careful, because during this sexual connection the shape-shifter will sometimes put your skills to trial thru psychic confrontations with other shape-shifters. This is said to help improve your skills, but I think it's because shape-shifters are nasty bastards, but don't sweat it : one way or another, you can't get hurt.

Most sexual activity with a shape-shifter, though, are used to make "romantic compositions". There are three kinds :


In the first, which was original to the Delphinoids who built the first star ships, multiple forms are experienced sequentially. Selkie and her husband, in sexual embrace, would shift through a series of life forms, experiencing climaxes in each one.

In the second, which was a relatively recent artistic creation, multiple forms are experienced simultaneously. Selkie and her husband would link telepathically with many other life forms who happened to be in sexual embrace and share culturally unique romantic compositions with them.

By the end of the first year, Selkie began to employ a third, and by far more engulfing romantic art form. Rather than experiencing a romantic composition from a Human or Dolphin perspective, the alien perspective was assumed. The two lovers forgot, temporarily, that they were Human or Dolphin and became individuals of the species that had created the original romantic masterpiece.

But enough about sex. You want to keep going and learn how to shape-shift right ? Then tell your bride dolphin to stop the sex theater and proceed to the next step.


3. Finding a place of microcosm

This step is not mandatory, but may accelerate the development of your skills. Finding a place of microcosm and practicing your skills there (although not sex, unless you want to risk getting arrested) can deepen shamanic understanding.

The method to find such a place is called Emotional Surfing.


In this game the players enter a special state of awareness of their feelings, especially their feelings toward each other. As the players move from place to place, they register and talk about how their feelings are changing. When they simultaneously register extraordinary changes, they explore its potential as a site for a multi species village. If a major place of microcosm is discovered, the area should be purchased.

The process to create a multi-species village is also detailed here, but there is no need to get into that. After all, this is only about you, and you just don't have that kind of money. Let the others bother with creating their little human/dolphin communes. Just find a place of microcosm and practice there until you are ready to get to the final stage, the actual shape-shifting.


4. The art of changing form

At the beginning of our instructions to change form, we are advised that :


The act of changing species is performed in a state of temporal compression. A vast complexity of acquired techniques must be applied in a very short period of time. The shift proper is performed outside of the fixation of waking perception. The perception of the shifter leaves the temporal stream, performs the techniques of the shift, then reenters when the shift is complete.

What does this mean ? I have no idea. Ask your mermaid.

The shape-shift is accomplished with the use of symbols. These symbols are : the momentum of Freedom (encoded in a story), the Mouse-Bear (a powerful vibration of awareness), a human baby (this wipes your genome clean and regresses you to a single cell in an instant - no doubt a traumatic experience), a flying reptile (which activates the evolutionary potential to dolphin form), and a crystalline pyramid (which seems to be there just for show). Each symbol has a story, told in Dolphinese, that is supposed to activate its power.

The shift itself is done in two ways : either from a lucid dream state, or by sheer shamanic mastery. The lucid dreaming state permits one to live on dolphin star ships, and unlocks the secrets of "immortality, transcendental technology, integration with trillions of advanced species and social contact with planets and stars". Shamanic mastery only permits one to shape-shift on this Earth, but is still a considerable skill. In fact, it helped quite unnatural explorers in the past :


There are islands that were originally colonized by humans who shifted to Dolphin form, crossed the sea and shifted back to Human form. These waves of colonization ended in the 68th century BP. Because mostly shape shifters colonized the islands, the cultures that developed were strongly shamanic. Some of the shamanic lineages that developed on the islands persist to the present time.

This is not nearly all that can be read on this wonderful web site. However, I have given you here the basics on how to become a shape-shifter and hopefully, find the sexual gratification you desire. Until then, don't piss a dolphin off, or he might shift back and kick your ass.

Never let it be said that FG is not a serious forum

[Mulboyne]

Mainichi: Japanese whaling ship collides with Greenpeace vessel, activists say
A Japanese whaling ship collided with a Greenpeace boat in Antarctic waters on Sunday, a spokesman for the environmental group said. No one was injured. Greenpeace expedition leader Shane Rattenbury said his ship, the Arctic Sunrise, was carrying 25 people when it was rammed by the Nisshin Maru, a factory ship belonging to a Japanese whaling fleet. He called it "deliberate"...more...

[kurohinge1]

One of the more bizarre moments of the current carnage - Greenpeace helping a whaler find a mortally wounded whale so it can be put out of its misery:

Mercy Shot

Today ended with a sad and bizarre scene. At first we thought they had missed. Both of our boats were caught far out of position - on the whaler's starboard (right), while the whale was to port (left) and ahead. Then the Hughie (heli pilot) reported blood in the water. A huge amount of blood. The whale had been hit. It was mortally wounded, but for the first time we have seen the harpoon had not set. Our boats fell to the back of the Yushin Maru No. 2, well out of its way - hoping the whalers would end the animal's suffering.

It is an unpleasant oddity, this moment when Greenpeace activists and the whalers want the same thing...the end of a whale's life. We put our boats in the way, we put our safety on the line, we endure freezing cold spray and brutal conditions to protect whales. But after the harpoon hits home, it is only a matter of ending the poor thing's pain. We often see that taking minutes - sometimes five, sometimes ten, sometimes longer. This time it took roughly half an hour.

The whalers reloaded the harpoon and took a second shot. A miss. Then the whale slipped away from all of us. The whalers, our helicopter, everyone. We knew it was dying, in pain and barely able to swim. Another whaling vessel, the Kyo Maru, came to look for it. For a brief twisted period we found ourselves on the same side, both Greenpeace and whalers working together ...

At one point, the whale was seen off our starboard side. Frank (captain) actually called the whalers on the radio to tell them (in no uncertain terms) where to find it, and to finish it.

Well over twenty-five minutes after the first shot we heard the third harpoon, and then saw the man with the rifle fire from the Yushin's deck, finally putting the whale to rest. ... more

[Mulboyne]

It has certainly been hotting up while FG has been away...



Japan accuses Greenpeace of prolonging whale deaths

Video proves Greenpeace hit whaler: Japan

Military may defend Japanese whalers

[Mulboyne]

Kujira no Obake - A spin-off of Antarctic Ocean scientific whaling on sale at FK Pubrising

[kurohinge1]

[SIZE="5"]New Zealand air force watching Japanese whaling[/SIZE]

[B Gallagher]

Free Pick Up Only From New Zeland

49 whales, dead less than 24 hours.
Suitable for "scientific research"

Please contact the local Maori to arrange collection

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10362112

Can you be my local Maori then? I am keen on picking up some whale from somewhere. :P

Now.. how to fit it in my room... :S:(

[kamome]

[quote="kurohinge1"]New Zealand air force



]
I didn't realize NZ was that sophisticated!

[B Gallagher]

[quote="kamome"]I didn't realize NZ was that sophisticated! ]
Neither did I!!! :O

[ichigo partygirl]

Neither did I!!! :O

Me neither. I hitched a ride on a dodgy Indonesian drug ship to get here

[B Gallagher]

Me neither. I hitched a ride on a dodgy Indonesian drug ship to get here

Meh. You're lazy. I swam.

[Mulboyne]

The Age: Sophisticated media machine blows whalers out of the water
IT IS a hot battle in one of the world's coldest places, but the real heat is not in the confrontation between Japanese whalers and environmentalists or even the warm cetacean blood spilt for supposed research. The crucial heat is in the three-way struggle to harpoon public opinion...In the public opinion war Greenpeace's real rainbow warriors are...on the other side of the lens. The organisation has contracted four world-class image specialists: two still photographers and two video camera operators who record the action and pump it out for the world's media...more...

[Mulboyne]

ABC: Protesters Put Dead Whale at Japan Embassy
Environmentalists positioned a dead whale in front of the Japanese Embassy in the German capital on Thursday to protest against Japanese whale-hunting. Greenpeace activists brought the 55-foot fin whale on a truck from the northern German coast and parked it in front of the embassy beside banners saying: "End senseless whaling." Stefanie Werner, a Greenpeace official, said Japanese officials had refused to meet with the protesters. The truck returned the whale later Thursday to Germany's Baltic Sea coast, where experts from a marine museum were to perform an autopsy to see why it had perished there earlier this week.

[Greji]

The truck returned the whale later Thursday to Germany's Baltic Sea coast, where experts from a marine museum were to perform an autopsy to see why it had perished there earlier this week.

The whale will then be disposed of by sealed bids submitted through the Japan Institute of Oceanography Research and the Tsukiji Chamber of Commerce!

[Mulboyne]

CaribbeanNews: Japan agrees to fund four additional schools in Grenada

ST GEORGE'S, Grenada: The Japanese Government continues to come to the aid of the Education Sector in Grenada post Hurricanes Ivan and Emily. On Friday morning Embassy officials informed the Ministry of Education that they have approved funding for four additional rehabilitation projects under the Japanese Grass Roots Initiative. The four schools fall under the forth phase of assistance granted by the Japanese Government to Secondary Schools throughout Grenada...more...

Outside Magazine: The Whale Hunters

Japan started giving St. Vincent and several neighboring islands tens of millions of dollars in economic aid after the imposition of an international moratorium on whaling in 1986. The aid was ostensibly to develop local fisheries, but American environmental groups charged that Japan was simply buying votes on the IWC. The suspicions were well founded: St. Vincent, Dominica, and Grenada have received substantial amounts of money from Japan, and all have voted in accordance with Japan's whaling interests over and over again.

[Mulboyne]

[Mulboyne]

The Standard: Japan denies island grant is bribe to battle whaling ban
Japan has pledged hundreds of thousands of dollars to the tiny Pacific nation of Tuvalu as it struggles under the weight of imported fuel costs - and denied that the funds were a bribe to win support for its whaling. Tokyo inked similar deals last year for two other small nations in the Pacific, Nauru and Kiribati. All three nations are members of the International Whaling Commission and support Japan's drive to reverse the IWC's 20-year moratorium on commercial whale hunting. They "absolutely" support Japan, said Geoffrey Palmer, New Zealand's commissioner to the IWC. "All recently joined the IWC and all are Japan supporters." But Yujiro Akatsuka, an official at the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Economic Cooperation Bureau, denied the grants were linked to the nations' backing for Japan's whaling push. "We want to support continued economic development in these countries," Akatsuka said Friday in Tokyo. "These kind of projects have no relation to their support in the IWC"...more...

[Mulboyne]

SMH: Japanese fishers flee whaling

JAPANESE fishing companies are giving up their whaling fleet under pressure from a consumer campaign, Greenpeace claims. Some have been whaling since the 1930s, including Nissui, which has indicated it will end its 72-year history in the business. But the operator of Japan's program, the government-backed Institute of Cetacean Research, vowed to redouble its efforts to maintain the only ocean-going whaling fleet in the world. "These companies' shareholders have been deeply concerned by the backlash they are experiencing," said Danny Kennedy, the campaigns manager for Greenpeace Australia Pacific...more....

ABC: Whaling operations unaffected by shareholder change

Japan's government says its scientific whaling operations will not be affected by the change in shareholding of the company that runs its whaling fleet. Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha operates the fleet used by Japan's scientific whaling program. It is owned by companies that were engaged in commercial whaling before the imposition of an international moratorium. Japan's Institute for Cetacean Research says it and other non-profit corporations will take over shares in the company. The Institute already shares the same office, telephone number and fax line. A spokesman for Japan's Fisheries Agency says the move means the scientific program will now be more broadly backed by the nation, not just a small group in the private sector. Environmental group Greenpeace says the decision is the result of consumer pressure being felt by the companies' other fishing operations...more...

PIDP: SOLOMONS SCHOOLS RECEIVE JAPANESE SUPPORT

Eight community high schools in the Solomon Islands Western and Malaita provinces that commenced this year without permanent infrastructure will receive funding assistance from the government of Japan. Gerasi, Buri, Lengana and Rarumana schools in the Western province and Naomia, Gwounabusu, Baunani and Waisisi schools in South Malaita have been selected to receive funding for the construction of new twin classroom buildings, desk-stool sets, toilets and water tanks. The Japanese Government funding of about SB$1.4 million [US$200,000] will be provided through the Grassroots and Human Security project scheme administered by the Embassy of Japan...more...

N.B. The Solomon Islands voted against Japan's whaling proposals last year.

[ichigo partygirl]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10377762

......Of course, culture plays a part. Many Japanese are bewildered by what they consider Western sentimentality, and hypocrisy, about whale-eating.

In a typical comment, Kiyoshi Okawa, the boss of a company that makes pet snacks from whalemeat, recently said: "I can't understand how people can consider whales cute.

Lambs are much cuter to me than whales, and I don't eat them." Argue that lambs are not going extinct and you will invariably be told that neither are all species of whale............

[Ketou]

The Institute of Cetacean Research, a Japanese government-related organization, said Tuesday that it has set up a whale meat wholesale company in anticipation of an increase in catches of whales for scientific research.

The company, Geishoku Labo, plans to sell the whale meat mainly to hospitals and company restaurants. It aims to sell 1,000 tons by spring 2007..more

How do they keep a straight face?

[Ketou]

Whales vanishing as Tokyo increases catch

JAPAN'S scientific whaling program could be doing even more harm than previously thought, with a report warning that whale population estimations have been wildly exaggerated.

University of Auckland conservation genetics professor Scott Baker says minke whales, once thought to have bounced back to as many as 750,000, are more likely to be a third that figure judging by recent surveys across the South Pacific.

Humpback whales are scarcer still, with populations around Pacific islands such as Fiji described as "vanishingly small"...more

Lies, lies I tell you! They are eating all the tuna!

[Ketou]

Dart spares whales painful death

A PINCH as strong as a mosquito bite was all the damage the Japanese needed to inflict if they wanted to gather scientific information on whales, federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell said today.

Senator Campbell was unveiling a small electronic dart as the tool of choice for scientists looking to collect information on the mammals.

The 20cm metallic implement, which is fired from an air gun, has been designed to lodge in the blubber of targeted whales and causes minimal damage........

......."We regard it as a rather benign alternative to the much larger version that the Japanese use ... which see most whales spend between 15 to 30 minutes drowning as they are dragged backwards through the water," he said....more

But..how can you do scientific study and not kill it?? Does not compute.....

[kamome]

Really, the IWC should just do away with that loophole about scientific studies if it wants to prevent itself from looking foolish. Every time Japan takes another whale, it underscores the IWC's ineffectiveness.

[kurohinge1]

... if it [the IWC] wants to prevent itself from looking foolish . . .

That doesn't seem to be in their mission statement . . .

Enforcement under the IWC

There are substantial constitutional limitations on the IWC's authority as to both lawmaking and compliance. First, the IWC's power to "legislate" a moratorium or quotas is very restricted, because any member state may opt out of a quota or moratorium simply by objecting to it. Second, even as to states that agree to be bound by such quotas, the IWC has no authority or means to enforce them ... more

A bit like an ashtray on a motorbike.

[kurohinge1]

[SIZE="4"]Sea Shepherd 'Leviathan' to challenge Japanese Whaling[/SIZE]

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has purchased a bigger, faster and more powerful boat in its campaign to assert international law and stop Japanese commercial whaling. The 'ice class' vessel, 'Leviathan', is undergoing a refit in the Carribean before it joins the 'Farley Mowat' in Melbourne ahead of the next Japanese whale hunting season in the Southern Ocean in December.

. . . The Leviathan is a 54 metre, ice class, long range ex-patrol vessel that has the capacity to catch the whaling fleet. The $2.6 million ship is currently being refitted and made campaign ready. "We plan to be in Australia by early to mid-November. In the meantime, we have a helicopter to be serviced and the Farley Mowat to prepare, as well as a crew of volunteers to recruit, so this will keep us quite busy for the next few months." said Paul Watson.

. . . Last whaling season the Japanese whaling fleet fled at high speed when the slower Farley Mowat intercepted them. The Greenpeace ships were able to keep pace and their protests hindered whaling efforts and brought graphic coverage to the world of the illegal commercial whale slaughter, done under the name of scientific research.

The 2006/2007 whaling season will see the whaling fleet chased by two Greenpeace vessels and by two Sea Shepherd vessels. Japan will be targeting 850 Antarctic piked (Minke) whales, 50 endangered humpbacks and 50 endangered fin whales. Ninety percent of the whales that are targeted will be in the Australian Whale Sanctuary.

It has been reported that the Japanese fleet will be increasing its defences. "I am unconcerned about whatever plans Japan has to defend their illegal activities," Captain Watson said. "We are quite willing to instigate an international incident over this." . . . more

Perhaps they need to recruit a few of the Sakhalin Russian Border Patrol - they have a very effective method of dealing with poachers.

But forget about boats! They can see those coming!

They should be investing in [SIZE="3"]submarines [/SIZE]. . .



. . . to send these lilly-livered whalers down to Davy Jones' Locker.