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   caniscandida Posted 11:02 pm
   08 Mar 2008

   "unforgivable"As much as I dislike his government's policies regarding whaling, I must agree with Machimura-San on this point.  (But if he used a word which is accurately translated "cute," then he is wrong there; toy whales, and cartoon pictures of whales, may be "cute," but whales themselves are not "cute," they are spectacularly beautiful.)
   And Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd gang are complicating matters disgracefully, by their vaguely violent intrusions.
   In what is considered by many the best of the Star Trek movies, "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home," Kirk interposes his cloaked hijacked Klingon bird-of-prey between the humpback whales whom he is trying to save and a whaling vessel whose crew is about to harpoon the whales.  (The whalers are apparently European, presumably Norwegian, so what they are doing in the North Pacific is a good question for the Star Trek trivia brigade.)  The whalers shoot a harpoon, but it bounces harmlessly off the invisible hull of Kirk's vessel.  Then Kirk decloaks, and the Norwegians are terrified, and withdraw in panic.
   Now, if the harpoon had bounced back onto the whaling ship, and injured one of the crew, would that have been an "unforgivable" injury of a human being for the sake of defending whales?  I would say, most regrettable, but not unforgivable.
   And indeed, it should be noted that the Greenpeace anti-whaling activists have explicitly denounced the Sea Shepherd tactics, and much prefer the tactics of interposition, at great risk to themselves.
   
   Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

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