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

saw this on

boing boing and wanted to post it. it IS the stuff of nightmares. suspension bridge in japan

rick, this one is for you

i thought it was cool
Scientists to launch paper planes from space
Theory is paper craft may escape worst of friction and heat on re-entry
By Yoko Kubota
KASHIWA CITY, Japan - A spacecraft made of folded paper zooming through the skies may sound far-fetched, but Japanese scientists plan to launch paper planes from the International Space Station to see if they make it back to Earth.
On Wednesday the University of Tokyo researchers tested small, origami planes made of special paper for 30 seconds in 482 degrees Fahrenheit heat and wind at seven times the speed of sound. The planes survived the wind tunnel test intact.
The theory is that paper craft, being much lighter than space shuttles, may escape the worst of the friction and heat that much heavier space shuttles face on re-entry to the atmosphere..........

my question is this: if the origami planes DO make it back to earth and they hit someone or something, would they cause damage?

scientific whaling?

no, it's not. it's whale killing specifically for sushi, sashmi and for all i know, whale b-b-q. putting everything else aside (moral reasons i mean), a lot of whales are endangered OR recovering (if taken off the endangered list). there are bans on hunting to protect them. japan doesn't obey them.
A Clash of Views On Whale-Loving
Creature Is a Delicacy in Japan, a Cause in the West

By Blaine Harden Washington Post Foreign Service
TOKYO, Jan. 25 -- At Ohana, a restaurant not far from the Japanese parliament in central Tokyo, a small plate of chilled raw whale costs $17.50. Grilled whale is $9, while whale in a hot pot goes for $29. The mammalian flesh for these dishes -- available year-round and served mostly to businessmen older than 40 -- comes from Japan's annual whale hunt, carried out, the government here declares, to advance "scientific" knowledge of cetaceans...............
.............The Japanese originally announced that they would take up to 50 humpback whales in the current hunt in addition to 800 minke and 50 fin whales. The humpback kill would have been the first in more than 40 years for a recovering species whose numbers had been reduced by about 90 percent by industrial whaling.
Under pressure from the United States and the European Union, where the humpback holds a special place in environmentalists' hearts, Japan backed away from that hunt. But the fleet is proceeding against the rest of the prey. ..

i've quoted it before and here it is again, from star trek iv: the voyage home
scotty to admiral kirk: 'Admiral, there be whales here'
and here is the amazing judy collins singing farewell to tarwathie accompanied by visions of whales.........

am i odd

(well of course the answer to that is YES i am). but i actually LIKE the sound of this

Soy sauce gets the scoop on ice cream

Soy sauce is such a staple of the Japanese diet that now it's even being put on ice cream.
A Japanese company has made a surprise hit by creating a special blend for ice cream -- said to taste a bit like caramel.
Yamakawa Jozo, established in 1943 and based in the central city of Gifu, said it has sold nearly 6,000 bottles of the soy sauce for ice cream since January, with daily orders picking up to between 70 and 80 a day.
"We didn't expect this product would become so popular as we worried soy sauce and ice cream were too much of a mismatch and people wouldn't accept it," said company president Akio Yamakawa.
The special sauce is brewed more than eight years in wooden barrels blended with sweet rice wine and starch syrup.............

i've cooked down balsamic vinegar with a bit of maple syrup or unrefined sugar in it so it becomes thick and gooey. i've used that on fruit (well that's not new. italians do that all of the time) and over pound cake. i'll bet that wouldn't be bad over ice cream either.

bring it on BRING IT ON!!!

In Japan, it's all games until you break an arm

TOKYO (AP) — Lose a game of chess to a computer, and you could bruise your ego. Lose an arm-wrestling match to a Japanese arcade machine, and you could break your arm.
Distributor Atlus said Tuesday it will remove all 150 Arm Spirit arm wrestling machines from Japanese arcades after three players broke their arms grappling with the machine's mechanized appendage.
"The machine isn't that strong, much less so than a muscular man. Even women should be able to beat it," said Atlus spokeswoman Ayano Sakiyama, calling the recall "a precaution."..........

there's a video

at this link

it's one of the scariest things i have EVER seen

odd

odd

odd

huh?

am i missing something here? our house of representatives passed a (non-binding but still, c'mon....) resolution for japan to apologize to it's 'comfort women'???????????? huh and huh and huh again?

first off weren't we in the slave trade for a while? secondly didn't we treat several groups like the chinese building the railroads out west like pieces of shite? thirdly, didn't we treat immigrants such as the irish and italians coming into ellis island like pieces of shite? thirdly, what about how we treated AMERICANS of japanese descent in wwII?, fourthly, in CURRENT times, are we letting children suffer because they don't have health insurance, are we letting those on the gulf coast suffer because of a natural disaster and ill prepared state AND government assistant plans. fifthly (and i'll stop here but i could go on and on and on and on) didn't we invade a foreign land who did NOTHING to us. NOTHING???????????

oh one more thing, while our men and women are DYING in iraq, the king and his court are breaking practically every law known to women and man - our congress is hinting at what ANOTHER country should do? c'mon now

US urges 'comfort women' apology

US lawmakers have called on Japan's government to formally apologise for its role in forcing thousands of women to work as sex slaves in World War II.
The symbolic and non-binding resolution was passed during a vote in the House of Representatives.
Up to 200,000 "comfort women" from across the Far East were part of Japan's military brothel programme.
Japan says it has shown sufficient remorse over the issue. A spokesman said the resolution was "regrettable".
Chief Cabinet Spokesman Yasuhisa Shiozaki told a news conference that Japan had "handled the comfort women issue with sincerity".
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had "clearly explained his views" on the subject during a visit to Washington in April, he said.
'Nauseating' denials
The resolution calls on Japan - one of the strongest US allies in Asia - to "formally acknowledge, apologise and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner" for the suffering of the women. .........

(p.s. please do NOT misunderstand. i DO think these women deserve MORE than an apology. i just think we better fix our OWN f**kups before we go advising others on theirs)