Thanks goes to Fitz on Sunday in the Sun Herald (July 14, 2019) for this one.
Monday 15 July 2019
Sunday 14 July 2019
Government of Japan sponsored whalers finally leave the Southern Ocean
 |
| Nisshin Maru is seen after it returned to port in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture at the end of its final whaling voyage into the Southern Ocean Japan Times |
ABC
News, 2 July 2019:
Amid international criticism, several vessels left ports across the nation for the first for-profit hunt in 30 years. But this time, they are only going to hunt whales in Japanese waters.
Last December, Japan quit the International Whaling Commission, the body responsible for protecting global whale populations.
That meant the country could return to commercial whaling, but Japan had to give up a legal right to its so-called 'scientific whaling program' in the Southern Ocean.
Last year alone, Japan killed 333 minke whales in the Southern Ocean in the name of science.
Exiting the IWC and giving up that Southern Ocean whaling program was a "stupid" decision according to Japan's former chief IWC negotiator Masayuki Komatsu.
"We should go because it's a common property of the ocean," Mr Komatsu said.
Japan's
factory whaling mothership, the 'Nisshin Maru' has scrubbed
'research' from its hull and set out to sea as part of the country's
resumption of commercial whale hunting.
Amid international criticism, several vessels left ports across the nation for the first for-profit hunt in 30 years. But this time, they are only going to hunt whales in Japanese waters.
Last December, Japan quit the International Whaling Commission, the body responsible for protecting global whale populations.
That meant the country could return to commercial whaling, but Japan had to give up a legal right to its so-called 'scientific whaling program' in the Southern Ocean.
Last year alone, Japan killed 333 minke whales in the Southern Ocean in the name of science.
Exiting the IWC and giving up that Southern Ocean whaling program was a "stupid" decision according to Japan's former chief IWC negotiator Masayuki Komatsu.
"We should go because it's a common property of the ocean," Mr Komatsu said.
"The
more Australia claims that it is their own territory and their own
oceans, the more that Japan [should keep going] because Australia is
a minority.
"Japan
and the US and other nations — China and Russia — we are a
majority," he said.
Whaling
Senator
WHISH-WILSON (Tasmania) (12:05): I seek leave to amend general
business notice of motion No. 10
Leave
granted.
Senator
WHISH-WILSON: I move the motion as amended:
That
the Senate—
(a)
notes that:
(i)
Japan has turned its back on the international community by
recommencing commercial whaling for the first time since 1988,
(ii)
Japan has also turned its back on a rules-based order by leaving the
International Whaling Commission (IWC) which has been integral to
preventing some species of whales from becoming extinct,
(iii)
Norway and Iceland have reduced commercial whaling in recent years in
response to the negative impact it is having on tourism, and
(iv)
whale watching is a viable business in many parts of the world, and
that it is a much more sustainable business than killing whales; and
(b)
condemns Japan, Norway and Iceland for their commercial whaling, and
implores them to support whale watching rather than whale killing.
Senator
DUNIAM (Tasmania—Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries and
Assistant Minister for Regional Tourism) (12:05): I seek leave to
make a short statement.
The
PRESIDENT: Leave is granted for one minute.
Senator
DUNIAM: The Australian government is disappointed that Japan has
resumed commercial whaling, following its withdrawal from the
International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling and its
decision-making body, the International Whaling Commission. Australia
has publicly urged Japan to return to the convention and the
commission as a matter of priority. The government welcomes Japan's
decision to stop whaling in the Southern Ocean and its commitment to
continue to cooperate with the commission. The government's position
on whaling has not changed: we remain resolutely opposed to all forms
of commercial and scientific whaling. Japan is well aware of our
position.
Question
agreed to.
Humility personified
Peter FitzSimons has these comments in his The Fitz Files’ What they said in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald.
Ash Barty quotes from The Little Mermaid, when asked how she made her shot selection: “The seaweed is always greener in someone else’s lake.” Barty on her Wimbledon elimination : “I didn’t win a tennis match. It’s not the end of the world. It’s a game ... It’s disappointing right now. Give me an hour or so, we’ll be all good. The sun’s still going to come up tomorrow.
More’s the pity/shame/disgrace a couple of Australian male tennis players also playing on the international stage cannot display the same good grace.
Credits: Peter FitzSimons and The Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday 13 July 2019
Tweets of the Week
Hey @LacyMartini this @PubChoir performance by 1500 Brisbane locals will make your heart sing 😍 #TurnSoundUpLoud— Noely ⚡️⚡️ (@YaThinkN) June 30, 2019
Note also helped raise money for @blkrnbow so even more sensational.https://t.co/SEJWemwIMD
🌎 🌍 🌏— Tom Hall ☘ (@TomHall) July 3, 2019
How can Americans NOT
find the United States
on a World Map?
🌎 🌍 🌏#Sad #Geography #FourthOfJuly #IndependenceDay #instagramdown pic.twitter.com/KHf5ujeN8V
Quotes of the Week
"All
billionaires want the same thing – a world that works for them. For
many, this means a world in which they are scarcely taxed and
scarcely regulated; where labour is cheap and the planet can be used
as a dustbin; where they can flit between tax havens and secrecy
regimes, using the Earth’s surface as a speculative gaming board,
extracting profits and dumping costs. The world that works for them
works against us.” [Journalist
George
Monbiot
writing in The
Guardian
on 3 July 2019]
"Scott
Morrison loves “quiet Australians”. The Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison
government especially loves quiet charities, quiet scientists, quiet
environmentalists, quiet journalists, quiet human rights
commissioners, quiet workers in quiet unions and a quiet public
broadcaster. It will burn for anyone who stays quiet – and threaten
to burn down anyone who raises their voice.” [Pastor
Brad
Chilcott writing
in , 8 July 2019]
Friday 12 July 2019
Australian society in 2019
It
seems when it comes to personal wealth only the poor admit the truth
of their financial situation.
Those who are financially well-off in Australia apparently refuse to recognise their good fortune.
This rather strange state of affairs was very obvious during the 2019 federal election campaign.
Last month the national public broadcaster asked its online readers to guess where they stood on the income scale and this was the result.....
This rather strange state of affairs was very obvious during the 2019 federal election campaign.
Last month the national public broadcaster asked its online readers to guess where they stood on the income scale and this was the result.....
ABC
News,
2 July 2019:
People were asked to estimate which bracket they sat in, and were then asked to enter their weekly take-home pay.
After removing certain outliers with outlandish responses (we're looking at you, Mr or Ms $1 trillion a week) there was a marked difference between those in the top and bottom halves of the income distribution when it came to estimating their place.
Respondents in the top seven brackets (earning more than $800 per week) fared far worse at guessing their place than those in the bottom six brackets. In fact, our lower-earning respondents were 2.6 times better at estimating their place than their higher-earning counterparts…….
But it was those in the third-highest bracket — earning between $1,750 and $2,000 per week — who fared the worst at estimating their position.
Only 2.85 per cent of respondents in this bracket correctly identified their place and the average guess was 3.2 brackets lower than reality.
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