Crocodiles - smarter than you think

Salt water crocodiles of the Indian/Pacific Oceans routinely ride currents for hundreds of miles, know when to ride them, and can not only figure out when they're going the wrong way, but know how to get out of the current and wait until it switches to the direction they want:

One satellite-tagged crocodile, 12.6-foot-long male (3.8 meters) - left the Kennedy River and travelled 366 miles (590 km) over 25 days, timing its journey to coincide with a seasonal current system that develops in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Another croc - a 15.8-foot-long male (4.8 meters) - traveled more than 255 miles (411 km) in only 20 days through the Torres Straits, which are notorious for strong water currents. When the reptile arrived at the straits, the currents were moving opposite to his direction of travel - he then waited in a sheltered bay for four days and only passed through the straits when the currents switched to favor his journey.

Amazing.

They also don't drill holes in the ocean floor, which makes them even smarter.

Looks like whaling is making a comeback

I can't even be sarcastic about this one, it's just so fucked and saddening. We are going to need another Rod Coronado, and Sea Shepherd is going to need way more fucking money. Fuck these people. Fuck. Dirty, piece of shit humanity. I have no respect. At least Australia's trying to do something about it. They are pretty much the only country telling these people (Japan, Norway, Iceland) to go fuck themselves. Indignant assholes.

Here's an article about what's going on at the moment.

A fragile plan to resolve the global feud on whaling is coming under attack from all sides, with Australia seeking more concessions from whalers and Japan vowing never to end its hunt completely...

The plan would let Japan, Norway and Iceland hunt the ocean giants openly despite a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling. In return, whaling nations would agree to reduce their catch "significantly" over 10 years...

But Japan and Australia, whose relations have been stained over Tokyo's annual whaling missions in the Antarctic Ocean, remained deeply at odds.

Japan, which says whaling is part of its culture, said it had been seeking a compromise despite "extremely difficult domestic coordination" and deplored that other nations sought an eventual end to whaling...

But Australia said the draft plan offered nothing from whaling nations.

"The draft 10-year compromise falls well short of a result that Australia could accept," wrote its commissioner to the IWC, Donna Petrachenko.

"To date there has been no tangible engagement from whaling nations to define 'significant reductions'" in their catch, she said.

This is so profoundly troubling. Lately, I haven't been able to help but feeling that pretty much everything is getting worse, that I am/we are living through a serious period of human decline on the way to the bottom, much more rapid that anything seen before, and this only serves to confirm it. Talk about a fucking step backwards. We're going from a whaling ban to "regulated" whaling. WHAT THE FUCK. But only for ten years, and then they'll stop. Except Japan says right now that it won't ever stop.

Do you know why? If you've read this far, yes, you do. They say it's part of their culture. FUCK YOUR CULTURE. As though any piece of any culture is immutable or necessarily good. Racism is a part of American culture. So is rape. So was slavery. So was women staying home and not being able to vote. Let's bring all those back, just for the fuck of it. It was part of American culture, so it must be good. It's culture, after all. It will be great. We'll have so much fucking culture that we won't know what to do. Maybe we'll choke on it. If only.

Yeah, so anyway, other governments are foaming at their filthy mouths to start their own whaling programs, like South Korea:

South Korea was unusually vocal in its comments, saying it "strongly" opposed language that would restrict whaling to those nations that currently catch the ocean giants.

"The draft is unfair and unduly restricts (countries') rights to sustainable use of whale resources without reasonable grounds," it said.

South Korea officially does not allow whaling. But whale meat is sold legally in South Korea if the mammals are accidentally caught in fishing nets, in what environmentalists say is an easily exploitable loophole.

"South Korea's position is a clear indication that this is a slippery slope," said Phil Kline, senior oceans campaigner for Greenpeace USA.

"If you restart commercial whaling, you know that others are going to be waiting in line," he said.

I wish there were an actual line. Cause then someone could do a drive-by on it.

And of course, that line would be leading to an office (which would be amenable to fire), which would be staffed, at least in part, by the wonderful government of Iceland, where I'm sure whaling is part of their "culture" too. Their bankrupt, penniless, produce-nothing fucking government is just so angry that anyone try to tell them that they cannot sell the butchered pieces of stolen whale lives abroad. They aren't satisfied with being able to murder and keep the bounty domestic. No, they want to try to dig themselves out of their massive, self-made financial greed hole with whale bones.

Read as one of them blames everyone else for Iceland's potentially unrestrained whaling:

“If US authorities won’t budge on this issue it is clear that we cannot reach an agreement and, if so, we will declare that they are responsible for it,” Tómas H. Heidar, Iceland’s main representative on the IWC, told Morgunbladid.

Yes, of course, it makes perfect sense. Everyone knows that Icelanders have a genetic predisposition to kill whales, and that it is patently unfair to hold them accountable for it in any way. We have to coddle them and be gentle. Arrogant fucks. What will they do when they've killed all the whales? Be broke again? Good. I hope you all fucking starve and watch your children suffer.

Fuck anyone who supports this, in any way, for any reason.

The Coconut Revolution

Fucking amazing. The people of the Bougainville, a small Pacific island nation (in waiting), defeated not just the people who run a major multinational corporation and their efforts to subjugate them into economic colonialism (it's really more plundering than colonialism), but the Papua New Guinea military and the Australian government's economic and military efforts to keep them silent and obedient. They started out with stones against helicopters and then went on to perform the fabled dismantling of the master's house with his tools. Literally. They fucking built guns out of the things the piece of shit mining people left when they were sent packing. Then they beat the shit out of the invading military forces and captured their machine guns.

All the while, they were busy improvising and making beautiful inventions to get by with what they had, being under a military blockade and all. Seriously incredible.

I don't know much about the society they have made, or the politics that govern it, but their environmental principles are incredible. What a wonderful vision of another world. This is pretty much the best-case post-collapse scenario. The people of Bougainville understand that everything around them is finite. They have a palpable respect for the land, not simply for economic value. Bougainvilleans aren't alienated from the land like we are. If only. I wish we still had the sense to say fuck off.

Sea Shepherd, twelve days ago

One of the Japanese whaling ships rammed and eventually sank a Sea Shepherd boat:

SYDNEY - The high-tech anti-whaling boat damaged in a collision with a Japanese whaler sank off Antarctica on Friday, but posed no threat to the pristine environment, a conservation group said.

The bow of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's Ady Gil was sheared off Wednesday in a collision with a far larger Japanese whaling ship, in the most serious clash in what has become an annual confrontation off the frozen continent.

The whaler, Shonan Maru No. 2, suffered no apparent damage. Both sides blame the other for the collision, which occurred as the Ady Gil harassed the Japanese fleet.

No, it's not the same thing, as the Japanese ships are engaged in poaching. They are not only hunting in violation of international law, but they also do much of their hunting in a whale sanctuary:

Japan kills about 1,200 whales a year in Antarctica under what it says is a scientific program allowed by the International Whaling Commission despite a moratorium on commercial whaling. Critics say the program is a front for illegal whaling, and Sea Shepherd sends ships to Antarctica each season to try to stop the hunt — an effort portrayed on the Animal Planet TV series "Whale Wars."

The whaling is conducted in international waters, but usually within the huge patch of ocean that is designated Australia's maritime rescue zone and that Canberra considers a whale sanctuary.

Also, Sea Shepherd doesn't ram speedboats.

Anyway, here's Rachel Maddow talking about the ramming, and then brings in Bob Barker who seems pretty awesome, especially for an eighty-six year old man:

Damn, Bob! Five million? That's something else. Good for him, good for Sea Shepherd. I hope they sink the Japanese whaling fleet physically and financially. Fuck them.