And dodos made the best wings

Imagine if in the entire world there were maybe 150,000 of something...how "scientific" would it be to spend the last three decades permanently eliminating a twelfth of it? Somebody wants you to think that's great preservation strategy.

Japan insists its programme is scientific, while admitting that the resulting meat ends up on plates back at home. Japan has killed more than 10,000 whales under the programme since 1988, according to Canberra, allegedly putting it in breach of international conventions and its obligation to preserve marine mammals and their environment.

"We killed them in the name of science...and they were DELICIOUS!"

This pathetic joke of putting a whole class of species (which just happens to contain the largest animals in the world) on the road to extinction has been challenged in the world court.

The leading court at the UN will rule on Monday on whether Japan has the right to hunt whales in the Antarctic, an emotive case that activists say is make-or-break for the mammals' future.

Australia took Japan to the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague in 2010, accusing Tokyo of exploiting a loophole by hunting whales as scientific research to get around a 1986 ban on commercial whaling.

Australia has asked the ICJ to order Japan to stop its Jarpa II research programme and "revoke any authorisations, permits or licences" to hunt whales in the Southern Ocean.

Don't worry Japan, you can still lead the world...according to American corporate lackeys...of leading the world in safe nuclear energy.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]