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Okay, I know who I’m nominating for next year’s Pulitzer. Nicely done!

“Amid the tensions, a poll published Wednesday said that nearly two-thirds of Americans back beef consumption, although support is apparently waning among vegetarians.”

Some vegetarians support beef consumption?

My Icelander friends are adamant in their support of whaling. It’s always fun to remind them of the time the Washington Post declared Iceland a rogue nation.

“Because the arcane rules of high-seas fishing are largely defined by consensus, even small countries that are genuine moral outliers in world attitudes toward oceans can prevent agreement.”

Blame Iceland – WaPo editorial, Dec 3 2006.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/02/AR2006120200937.html?referrer=facebook

Younghusband:

It’s all cultural imperialism. India is always trying bully us into adopting their views on the “holy” cow!

Gogol Ganguli uh? Well timed post considering The Namesake is at the top of my Netflix queue.

But then again,that photo had gave crucial influence upon some of the veteran Japanese whaling supporter to turn-around.

C.W Nichol,the writer of a Welsh born ex-Brit,ex-Canadian,Japanese citizen whom I have been reading for 28years had wrote this on Japan Times on Feb.9th.

“However, with this new lack of judgment in taking a minke calf, which no boatswain directing the movements of the ship from the crow’s nest, and certainly no harpooner worth his salt could mistake for an adult, I feel I can no longer justify further support for Japan’s Antarctic whaling.”

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080209f3.html

Japan Catacean Institute have denied that the whales were a mother and a calf,and were hunted to obtain different size of specimens to have statically accurate data.

Getting a little personal,but my first encounter with the business of whaling was in the article of dolphing hunting(slaughtering by the author of article)in Iki,Nagasaki on the Japanese edition of National Wildlife Magazine way back in Feburuary of 1981.And Nichol was one of the commenter in the discussion in relate with the article.
There,he was a pro-whaler,but he change his stance on one time and another.
I’d assume Nichol nolonger wants to share the notriety of being pro-whaling with the rest of us anymore after all these 28 years.

Say you ain’t so Nick san!

“I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”

Umm, Aceface, care to fill the rest of us in on why the Japanese bother with whaling? Is there really a market for whalemeat in Japan, or do the whalers just have (forgive me) one whale of a lobbying group?

Michael:

In my opinion whaling that Japan practice is environmentally sustainable.Their target species are carefully selected like Minke whales which have enough population that whaling wouldn’t effect to the survival of the species.Anyway if there is any objection to the Japanese decisions there is always IWC,which was supposed to be a forum to discuss about the sustainable whaling and impact on whale population,but somehow tranformed into international arena of vote-buying since Greenpeace and Sea Shephards starts to send their own delegation by buying up the seat of small states to transform IWC into a place to put international presssure to whaling nation.

From my own experience(and believe me,I’m a conservationist.
Being a member of WWF JAPAN for 22 years..)Anti-whaling movements in abroad are seen by majority of Japanese public as Anti-Japanese,and confused everyone to recognize the difference between animal rights movement and wildlife conservation movement.Thus making every effort of conservationist to spread their ideas to public as chilish and radical acts either that is for the protection of mountain gorillas or protection of the rain forest of Borneo.WWF JAPAN’s membership went up no more than 5000 during the 80’s,big enigma for the head quarter in Geneve and that had made Prince Phillip coming to Japan three times in that decade.

In another words I think anti-anti-whaling sentiment is the biggest reason why green politics is still a marginal topic in Japan(global warming is a big exception.Even the internationally famous right-winger like Ishihara Shintaro is an avid supporter of Kyoto Protocol in Japan)and the reason why many conservationists can’t say no to the popular support on whaling.

I don’t want start a friendly fire,curzon.
But I don’t buy “keep whales in check because they eat enough fish as it is”thesis.That propaganda started by bunch of fishery agency was criticized heavily by numbers of fishing industry people and marine biologist in Japan as baseless and harm Japan’s credibility on whaling issue.(what ever that is).

There is a good site in Japanese discussing on commercial whaling by industry people(In Japanese)
http://kaiseki.ori.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~katukawa/blog/study/0475/

((The US State Department has condemned the Indian government and media for “creating emotional propaganda to mislead the public.” The Agricultural Department has further asserted that instead of publication of images that insight fear and hate, “we must handle the issues calmly and avoid damaging friendly relations.” ))

This is exactly a comment that should have directed to Australia when they have excitedly released a picture of Japanese whalers pulling over the catches. Australians are sending so many of their cows and sheep to the death camps as shown at http://www.savethesheep.com

Aceface: Understood—would like to hear more on that.

Parkmount: do I understand your position to be that Australia shouldn’t eat cows AND Japan shouldn’t hunt whales, or that Australia is throwing stones from a glass house? To assert that slaughter of livestock is barbaric does not amount to a rebuttal of whaling unless you take the later argument.

Aceface’s explanation makes sense, unfortunately:P Two of the more fundamental urges in human nature seem to be the urge to tell other people what to do and the urge to do what other people tell you not to do.

Curzon: A non-rhetorical question. How easily could those small communities you mentioned be switched over to other livelihoods? Retirement communities (if they’re small and pretty enough), bedroom communities for nearby metropoli and aquaculture all come readily to mind.

hmm…i wonder why Korean’s (or Chinese) dog-for-food breeders are not trying to issue the same statement using the find/replace function…...

Curzon Here you go rationalizing to prove your point of view. Not sure of all the answers, but I am convinced that even a bit of “intellectual honesty” would shed a lot of lot on the subject or any other subject discussed.