might i suggest that the japanese whale hunting is esential a nationalistic endevour, (bushido bobs will probably prove me right by attacking any criticism).

>> simply to "feed" the ego of a rich customer. It seems to me that destruction of any animal for the sake of "gourmet" tastes is immoral<<

'Twas ever thus Peter. Think caviare. Think lark's tongue.

Yours is still a heavily relativistic argument, but I expect you meant it to be so. At one end of the "ok" scale is killing pigs and using every single piece as food, and right at the other end, in the "not ok" basket, is killing whales. I personally have no problem with this as a philosophical position, but it doesn't actually make much progress in the whaling debate. After all, I expect the whalers take great care not to over-fish (over-mammal?) the whaling grounds, on the basis that they would have a very short-lived industry. So in their way, they are adopting a relativist position too. Kill some, eat some, leave some.

If morality were the foundation point of this discussion, I would expect it to be far closer to the "do we have the right to kill at all?" position of my partner, the vegetarian, than whether it is more moral to kill for a little food, or a lot of food.

Look Bushido Bob and Samurai Kid, I suggest you do a bit of brushing up on your history lessons and also speak to a a few thousand World War Two Veterans as I have done over the past 30 years. I have also seen the sharp end of a bayonet in Active Service and lots of dead people. The Japanese war atrocies were appalling.

As for their taste in whale sushi, they are a race incapable of loss of face, facing up to their past or to any sensitivy with regards whales or for that matter most animals that are comestible.

The recent protests by the Chinese were about the Japanese history syllabus on 1939-45.

The fact that their birth rate is falling is a blessing. The rest of the planet should follow suit. I have travelled and studied in Japan.

Odysseus. That you have read a few internet articles about WWII does not make you knowledgeable about WWII so do not presume to be.
So now we've taken the inevitable step from Japanese whaling to WWII - remarkable how these two issues are so closely intertwined. That in itself renders the anti-whaling hysteria redundant.
I'm glad you have looked into some of the unfortunate events of WWII. Has it ever entered your feeble mind whilst bleating on about Japanese "atrocities" that greater crimes were committed by Allied Forces? It saddens me that I should need to remind you that the greatest of all war crimes was perpetrated upon two Japanese cities in August 1945 by the Allies, which (remarkably) still enjoys widespread support throughout those Allied nations to this day. These crimes greatly outweigh any allegations of Nanking, Changi and Burma but escapes the imaginations of people like you, Odysseus, due to a lack of television mini-series depicting them.
And to support Chinese rantings about "history" is absurd. The hypocracy of Chinese accusations about not only human rights abuses but even education of history is laughable. They may not have written it in the Daily Telegraph you surely read, but China is an abysmal abuser of humans rights to this day and their education and press systems are comparable to Soviet ones circa 1930.
Do some reading mate - open your eyes.

thank you bushido bob, you have vidicated my proposition that japanese whaling is a nationalistic excersise.

your last post sounds remarkedly simmilar to some of the statements comming from far right groups in germany at the time of the 60th aniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps. in the same way that you attempt to deflect the conversation onto the bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki, the neo nazis attempt to place the bombing of dresden on a par with the holocaust. your posts show all the hallmarks of a holocaust denier

the concept of satisfying your petty nationalism by somehow comparing the scale of attrocities is repulsive.

now, back on topic.

i agree with viking that there is a significant difference between the world second largest economy hunting whales and the fishermen of the bering sea, as for many whale meat is the primary or only source of protien. ( i remember watching a documentary on these fishermen some time ago which described the massive amount of protien used by the body just to keep warm in that climate).

it appears to me then that there is absolutely no real or pressing reason for japan to hunt whales, particuarly the highly threatend humpback, (even norway prohibits the hunting of species on the threatend or endangerd lists)

See this comment "Illegal Japanese whaling in the Australian Whale Sanctuary" by Chris McGrath-Barrister

its a pdf file...

http://www.hsi.org.au/news_library_events/images/Whale%20Case/Casenote_HSI_v_Kyodo_%5B2004%5D_FCA_1510.pdf