A New Direction for the Potemkin

Saturday, 9 November 2002

ABC's AM reported this morning on Japan's continuing struggle to revive its decimated whaling industry. ABC on-line also has a slightly more credible report on the issue. AM's report featured some Green drop-kick who asserted that only 4% of the Japanese population actually bought whalemeat and that Japan's current whaling effort couldn't possibly be regarded as scientific because they still haven't "crunched" all the data they have gathered from previous scientific whaling expeditions.

This is pretty damn typical of the Greens' anti-scientific anti-human agenda. It's a shame that whales have become so much of an environmental sacred cow in this country that even Federal Environment Minister David Kemp is forced to toe the "save the Whales" line, with proposals for a whale sanctuary in Antarctic waters. For little miss Greenpeace's information, Japan has a population of around 127 million people so that mere 4% is 5 million people. What are the Japanese supposed to feed them - Kobe beef? Still, what do a few million malnourished Japanese matter when the future of an environmentalist icon is at stake?

Perhaps she'd prefer that the whale carcasses were left in the water to feed up the shark population. I wouldn't mind that myself, if we could be sure that the increased shark population would confine their hungry attentions to Greenie nudist air-heads when they came swimming round Australia's beaches. And as for all that "uncrunched" data, Ms I-don't-know-science-but-I-know-what-I-like, it should be obvious that the Japanese can't "crunch" it until they've killed enough whales to arrive at a realistic estimate of whale populations.

If I may digress into self-congratulation, I think this is a pretty good start to the new editorial policy here at the Potemkin. Of course, I shall have to come up with a new pseudonym. Right now I'm torn between Chico Lamarck and Harpo Lysenko.