cash for comment Jennifer Marohasy strikes again.

Kenny, Your comment is very offensive. Nobody has paid me, or asked me, to write about whaling. You fail to recognise that I am motivated by a desire to understand the world around me and I try, through my writing, to get as close as possible to the truth.

Kenny, unable to muster a single logical argument against anything the author said, falls back on childish personal attack. Predictable.

The Minister responsible for garnering a sufficient proportion of votes from the religious enviro-cult (the worshipers of Baal?) has made a suitable offering of emotive posturing, invective and plain old whales-wollop. It was a spectacular show that cost him nothing more than his dignity. But at least he was no longer demonising members of his own community, for a change.

The east coast sperm whale herd increases by 700 per annum, the west coast, the coasts of Africa and Sth America, who knows? The Japanese who have an equally long history of whaling as the Norwegians, want to harvest 50 of them from the ocean that feeds all these migrations.

As a raping and pillaging Greek just back from the Trojan War, I observe that a lot of things we do have no scientific basis. Writing to this Forum is one. For example we don't eat human beings, foetuses, placentas (think of the iron in them) or dogs in our country and koala bears are off limits too although our native brothers may have once.
There is no p value for this. We choose to think as a species on this threatened planet that whales are our brothers (the whale people) and we don't eat them. I eat chooks but not my dog. Chooks deserve to be eaten as this has been decreed by God...The Jews do not eat stuff the French think is good bush tucker and the Vietnamese may eye off your Fido while licking their lips. Whales are cute and make us all feel warm and fuzzy as well as being good for tourists. Their brains are bigger than those of most politicians and journos.
Increasingly, we humble Homo sapiens (means thinking....wise...IQ stuff) see the whale family multiplying in our polluted seas as fellow travellers on planet Earth and not just worthy of a Tokyo sushi train. Boarders in the late Cretaceous...Cetus et Homo...the great brains bound for extinction together..
Now I am going back to look up my favourite recipe for tabby cat as I just saw one go past my window...I think it is Rusty from next door...goes terrific in a tarjine and I can use the pelt for my bedroom. I eat p values and r correlations as appetisers.
Conflict of Interest Statement: My wife wears perfume and my mother's maiden name is Norwegian.

Odysseus - Just when I thought you were totally bitter and twisted, you made me laugh. Maybe you're just way more ironic than I have given credit to you in the past (eg DV thread).

Jennifer - while I am not in favour of whaling (brudders frum da sea) I do believe you have presented a balanced and well reasoned article. Yes, we do need to approach whaling in a calm and reasoned manner. However, the Japanese are not fooling anyone. At least the Norwegians are honest.