i try my darndest to avoid writing about her

i restrained when she was all over the news the past couple of weeks (note: she was in the news because she has not been getting any press of late and decided she didn't like that. soooooooooooo she has been giving more interviews in the past couple of weeks than the whole time she was running as the republican vice presidential candidate. she's been giving stupid as shite interviews as well. nothing newsworthy. just the same old crap no one cares about).

well i have to post THIS story because it involves something i care about. the earth and it's creatures - both of which are dying due to the human populations.

Palin: Don't Save the Whales
................In 1994, there were some 650 Cook Inlet belugas living off the coast of Anchorage, but their numbers were nearly halved by 1997. This sharp decline was largely attributed to overharvesting by Native hunters, and by 2005 this already small whale population reached an all-time low of 278, by one government estimate. Presently, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimate the number of Cook Inlet belugas at 375.

In 2000, the whales were protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, but government scientists eventually concluded that this wasn't enough. "In spite of protections already in place, Cook Inlet beluga whales are not recovering,” James Balsiger, the acting assistant administrator for the NOAA’s Fisheries Service, said in October, announcing that the whales had received endangered species protection.

Palin begs to differ. Her administration argues that that the belugas are faring just fine under the protections in place, and the population is even beginning to show signs of recovering. For this reason, the state of Alaska contends that additional regulation is unnecessary. “The State of Alaska has worked cooperatively with the federal government to protect and conserve beluga whales in Cook Inlet,” Palin said last week. “This listing decision didn’t take those efforts into account as required by law.”

At the heart of Palin's objections are concerns that additional safeguards will interfere with oil and gas development, among other lucrative projects. “I am especially concerned that an unnecessary federal listing and designation of critical habitat would do serious long-term damage to the vibrant economy of the Cook Inlet area,” Palin said in 2007. Similar fears led Palin's administration to launch a legal challenge in August to the listing of polar bears as a threatened species. (And it was no surprise when a host of business groups, including the American Petroleum Institute, followed her lead. The cases have have been consolidated, and the litigation is ongoing.) ...............

and this, coincidentially was in the wapo

U.S., Japan Negotiate Over Whaling Limits
New Type of Hunting May Be Allowed
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
The United States is initiating a closed-door negotiation that could open up new areas to whale hunting for the first time in decades, part of an attempt to end a long-standing impasse over whaling limits with Japan, the world's most avid whaling nation.

The tentative plan, outlined in documents obtained by The Washington Post, seeks to achieve a breakthrough in the dispute that has raged since the International Whaling Commission voted in 1986 to ban commercial whaling. Faced with the reality that Japan and its allies have continued to hunt whales and have succeeded in blocking new conservation efforts, commission Chairman William Hogarth -- an appointee of President George W. Bush -- has been trying this weekend in Hawaii to craft a pact that would permit a new type of "coastal whaling" in exchange for a commitment by Japan to scale back its "scientific" whale hunts.

The proposal is running into stiff opposition from whaling opponents, however. ......

and i've posted it SEVERAL times before, but i'm going to continue to post it