Boom Boom Splash
You’ve probably heard of the ‘Sea Shepherds.’ If you haven’t, they’re a group of environmental activists who engage in a yearly round of harassment of the Japanese whaling fleet.
Things turned nasty yesterday when a Japanese ship escorting the whalers, the Shonan Maru, rammed a craft belonging to the Sea Shepherds. The smaller Sea Shepherd craft was cut in half by the maneuver.
I have a real problem with the Sea Shepherds. And my problem is this — they don’t use enough torpedoes.
Because that’s clearly what is called for here. Lob a half-dozen modest torpedoes into the midst of the Japanese whaling fleet, and I suspect the Japanese mania for whale slaughter would quickly take a backseat to the Japanese mania for not winding up a bloated corpse on the bottom of the sea.
Maybe somebody should give the Japanese a calendar of some sort. It’s the year 2010. Whale oil provides fuel for very few lamps now, and whalebone corsets went out of style the same year Atlanta burned in the American Civil War.
Whaling, Japan? Really? Slaughtering inoffensive, intelligent whales because you simply can’t invent your own version of the NFL?
It’s time people stopped being so polite to whaling fleets. They clearly need to be taught two basic lessons - one, that whaling is a no-no, and two, that metal ships with suddenly punctured hulls don’t float very well.
I know torpedoes are expensive. So, Sea Shepherds, if you just can’t afford them, I suggest you go low-tech. Catapults and trebuchets are easy to build. The materials are cheap. Either could easily throw an old V8 engine block or a flaming barrel of kerosene through the hull or onto the deck of, say, the Japanese ship Shonan Maru (which is Japanese for “heartless bloodthirsty fiends without a shred of decency”).
It’s a good thing I’m not the Captain of a US Navy warship. I’d blast every last one of those wretched ships into flotsam, and I imagine my cover story (”What? you mean World War II is OVER?”) wouldn’t work very well.
Seriously, Sea Shepherds. Catapults. ‘Nuff said.
In other non-whaling news, I made an attempt to repair my fallen Bose 401 speaker over the weekend. I removed one of the drivers, and used that single 6″ opening to make my repairs to the interior of the enclosure. That was certainly fun. I haven’t tried it yet; I wanted the adhesive to have a full 96 hours to cure before I put it under any stress. I’d say the odds of success are maybe 50/50.
Whaling. Sheesh. What I wouldn’t give to have an old U-boat right now . . .