Needlenose

Did you really think an organization like International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), run as it is by countries with a vested interest in fishing for tuna would listen to warnings about the collapsing fishery and impending extinction of the fish and take real action and suspend fishing for a few years until the fish population recovers?  Seriously?

It’s like expecting the International Whaling Commission which includes only whaling countries, several of whom subsidize their <strike>commercial</strike> “research” whaling activities to seriously ban whaling – it’s not going to happen.

Why do we carry on these charades?  Well in the absence of a serious transnational authority over oceanic resources, the only way to get these countries to sit at the table is if they are scared that by not participating, somebody else will destroy the last of the ‘stocks’ first.  I guess it’s sort of a tragedy of the commons situation where all the parties sit around regularly and jawbone about the looming tragedy, then just do whatever the fuck they want to during the rest of the year.

At this point the tuna’s only hope appears to be tiny Monaco’s attempt to get CITES to declare the tuna endangered, thus triggering far stricter action on the part of CITES members:

Environmental groups are now backing a call from Monaco for the issue of bluefin tuna to be taken before a March meeting of CITES, an international body that sets rules against illegal wildlife trade, with the aim of declaring the fish endangered and putting a ban on catching it.

In related news, Pacific whales may have some hope not from positive political action but rather from Japanese government funding cuts that may cut the subsidies that keep their ‘research’ vessels in business.

*Update* Check out the Sea Shepherd’s new speedster

*Update 11/17/09* Found this funny South Park parody of Whale Wars – I think that kid may be onto something

*Update 11/18/09* Speaking of overfishing, prepare to say goodbye to this skate

So you thought the bogus mortgage derivative/housing bubble burst was all the fault of venal Repug politicians killing Glass-Steagall combined with greedy Wall Street Bankers creating and selling worthless derivatives without any oversight from the Shrubya misAdministration?  Well think again!  According to financial services consultant Edward Pinto, it’s all ACORN’s fault!  Shame the Repug College student didn’t prank ‘em a few years ago by walking into the ACORN office with some repacked subprime loan-based derivatives to sell….

In case you are interested, based on his campaign contributions and clientele, Edward Pinto looks like an active Repug, and though I think his ACORN assertions are laughable, he did provide Congress with some pretty good advice on fixing the lending side of the equation.

From HolyTaco.com, follow the flowchart to pick a religion.

…if Rupert Murdoch cuts off their links to WSJ and their other sources of content?   I guess they’ll be limited to Glenn Beck YouTube clips and Drudge dreck.  Cut ‘em off Dark Lord!

“Expanding the settlements” in Jerusalem - the “natural growth” of existing settlements to provide homes for new family members – it all sounds so pleasant – but in crowded Jerusalem, one family’s expansion is another family’s eviction - it’s ethnic cleansing, one family at a time.

*Update* Palestinian leadership seems to be ackowledging the imminent death of the two state solution and are starting to talk again about becoming citizens of Israel – not a bad idea.  Dr Saeb Erekat, head of the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department:

“We are not short of options. If the two-state option is excluded, there is the option of a one-state, as happened in South Africa. The situation in the West Bank is worse than it was in South Africa.”

Ever since they were released last Friday, I’ve been meaning to write about the FBI notes of Dick Cheney’s interview with Plamemania special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.  As is her wont, Marcy Wheeler has already critiqued Cheney’s non-answers from a variety of angles, and multiple media reports have commented on the ex-Veep’s nearly all-encompassing amnesia, best summarized by Watergate whistle-blower John Dean (via Raw Story):

Dean told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann that Cheney attained “something of a record” by refusing to answer or claiming to not recall the answer to 72 questions posed by the FBI during a May, 2004, interview.

“If you’ll recall, former Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman did 150 ‘I don’t recalls’ during his three days before the Senate Watergate committee,” Dean said. “This is 72 in less than three hours, that’s right up there.“

Among the many things that Big Dick pretended not to remember or to have cared about, what stood out to me were these attempts to portray his chief of staff–the now-convicted felon Scooter Libby–as merely answering media questions in such a mundane way that Cheney was barely aware of them:

Routine press inquiries would have gone to Cathie Martin, while some of those involving more substantive matters, particularly in the area of intelligence and national security, would have likely been handled by Scooter Libby.  He [Cheney] provided press guidance to both of them at times … though he can’t recall any specific advice he gave them in the May/June 2003 time frame….

… Vice President Cheney advised he was aware, prior to the unauthorized disclosure of Valerie Wilson’s identity in Robert Novak’s newspaper editorial on 7/14/03, that Scooter Libby was speaking to reporters about Joseph Wilson and his trip to Niger.  He stated that Libby was not required to clear every public statement and press contact because the Vice President had confidence in Libby’s abilities and experience in handling such inquiries….

… The Vice President advised that it was possible while on the return flight [from Norfolk, VA to Washington, DC on July 12th], that he and Scooter Libby discussed media responses to inquiries regarding Joe Wilson’s charges about the use of flawed intelligence.  Though he cannot recall any specific conversation, he would not be surprised to learn that he had such a discussion with his Chief of Staff.

… Vice President Cheney reiterated that Libby’s 7/12/03 handwritten notes look and sound like something he might dictate to Libby, but he cannot specifically recall having dictated such instructions to him on that occasion….

… The Vice President advised that if Scooter Libby had any discussion with any reporters on 7/12/03 upon his return from Norfolk, VA, he must have viewed those discussions as unremarkable, inasmuch as the Vice President was never told the outcome of any conversations, discussions or interviews with the media by Libby.

Why do I find all of this no-big-deal spin noteworthy?  Because of how Cheney attempts to explain away a seemingly damning piece of evidence–a note written in early October 2003 demanding that the White House spokesliar Scott McClellan publicly (and, as events would reveal, inaccurately) exonerate Libby from involvement in the Plame leak:

The vice president stated that the portion of his handwritten notes which read in part, ‘… sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others’, was his reference to the efforts of Libby who was forced to respond to numerous media inquiries involving Joe Wilson because of the incompetence of the CIA.

Uhh, Dick, what happened to your “confidence in Libby’s abilities and experience in handling such inquiries”?  How did conversations with reporters that were “unremarkable” when they occurred in July suddenly become the equivalent of putting one’s “neck in the meat grinder” three months later?

Kind of makes you think that the real “meat grinder” must have been something else, doesn’t it?

I’ll have more on that soon (schedule & circumstances permitting)…

This story is great on so many levels – a bear in Kashmir kills two militants in a cave.  First it’s funny – the two bear-chow boys were armed with AK-47s, and if an unarmed bear can take out some supposed ‘militants’ with automatic weapons…

Second, it’s encouraging from the perspective that apparently all the crazy conflict in Kashmir has resulted in an increase in wildlife in the region as poaching has decreased.  I guess if the bear could only figure out how to use those AK-47s he could probably wipe out the insurgency by himself while improving the odds for local wildlife!

Limbaugh the Nazca denounces the liberal tree hugging alarmism

Well okay, maybe rampant deforestation created conditions for terrible erosion and floods that brought down the Nazca civilization, but otherwise…poppy-cock!  Er…and of course the deforestation of Easter Island had similar consequences…oh yeah, and the Anasazi had a similar problem…but under no circumstances is that anyway comparable to today’s increasing desertification and global warming which of course have nothing to do with human activities and certainly won’t lead to the collapse of our civilization…