In good news for every whale in the ocean the recent blaze on the Nisshin Maru has lead to Japan prematurely cancelling the annual Antarctic whale slaughter, oops research. The slaughter of one of the worlds truly amazing creatures is claimed to be required for scientific research. This is utter baloney, there are better ways to research whales than kill and ingest them. With this news I decided to do a little research on the history of whaling and the rogue states calling for its wide scale return.
It is a well known fact that Japan want the International Whaling Commission (IWC) ban on commercial whaling lifted. Thankfully they have not been successful. That said the Japanese government are accused of trying to rig the IWC vote by bribing other nations to vote with them. The scam according to Greenpeace is to offer assistance to small nations with struggling fisheries in exchange for voting along Japanese lines at IWC meetings. Through this Japan has gathered enough strength to block any attempts at introducing a South Pacific Whale Sanctuary (SPWS). If the scam continues commercial whaling will resume, and one of the worlds true wonders will soon disappear.
The Japanese are not the only perpetrators of this crime against nature. The Norwegians are also in on the act. In fact the Norwegians have an even shakier story to tell. Norway resumed commercial whaling in 1993 based on some contrived data that suggested the Minke whale population was large. Real data does not support this argument. Further, Norway claim that their hunt is small scale and traditional in nature. However, the Norwegians began to hunt Minke whales commercially in the 1930′s during the height of the whale trade, there is evidence that limited hunting of Minke whales occurred before this. Further, it is established that in order to reach the hunting grounds that Norwegian whaling vessels regularly cross international waters and travel more than a thousand miles. That is something I would love to see 12 men with spears in a traditional raft do.
Japan though will be out slaughtering defenseless whales between April an June in the Pacific.
The true driver for the Norwegians is the sale of whale meat. Whale meat though is not a large market in Norway and the current commercial hunt far exceeds the demand in Norway. The true goal is to export the whale meat to the large Japanese market. Such trade is currently prohibited with whale products listed on Appendix I of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Japan and Norway are both lobbying for this restriction to be removed, thus offering legal export. Again such a decision would be a crying shame for one of the seas wonders.
I hope that these two rogue states will continue to be thwarted in trying to reestablish this barbaric industry. In fact I would go further and expect other countries to become more active and prevent the unjustified and inhumane slaughter.
Archive for February, 2007
I have lived in the Hurstville area for 18+ months now and have shopped at Hurstville Westfield many times. First of all for a major shopping centre I am shocked to find there are only 2 elevators in the main shopping centre elevator lobby. There is a third elevator within Myer but is not sign posted well and relies on local knowledge. The two elevators in the main elevator lobby is insufficient. To make matters worse I am yet to see the right hand lift work at all. This means there is one lift to service 7 levels and thousands of patrons, a lot of whom are pushing shopping trolleys. As a result there are constantly 20+ minute waits for a lift that can actually service patrons. It is a complete and utter disgrace and Westfield should be making this a priority to correct. Then again perhaps they have the same engineers that have pissed 6 months against the wall at Mortdale Station.
Users of Sony Ericsson PC Suite beware that there is no Microsoft Windows Vista version, at least not yet. The installer comes up and tells you that Windows 2000 or Windows XP is required and exits. I have asked Sony Ericsson if it will be made compatible.
I have been asked quite a few times about what I think of Windows Vista. I must say it is not too shabby, although one of the most annoying “features” is the approach to security. The approach is comically highlighted in the attached advertisement for Macintosh here. The approach is counter productive, and for anyone not familiar with computer security will be become inneffective after 10 or so clicks of “Allow”. It is a flawed model, however Microsoft can put their hands on their hearts and say “we made the PC more secure”.
