Stuff Iceland

[AndyF]

Problem is, no-one's actually allowed to do what they want with their own land. It's amazing.

Yeah, why can't I open a dioxin plant on this bit of land I own on Mendip?  :-\

hehe....or build some nice georgian style mews homes to sell to Londoners....

 

[Les W]

Did the pendant's spellchecker miss something?


In modern parlance the story of Canute/Cnut has been bastardised more akin to my usage of it above; the pendant's version is the historically more accurate although a refinement is that his advisers were so fawning over the King's supreme powers that they were convinced that he could achieve anything - thus he set out to reverse the tides to prove to them that he was human like everyone else - thus ruining the King/Pharoah/Pope/God mindset stereotype.

It is rumored that Canute new of the double tides that exist in Southampton Water (the location chosen for his attempt) and that he was going to make the tide go out and then return for a second time, but got the times wrong. 

 

[whitelackington]

I think we must all on our island, be modern day Canutes if we think that by shutting down everything in the Uk it will make a blind bit of difference to USA, India or as I keep repeating but nobody is listening CHINA.
CHINA are opening a new coal fired power station every week.
WOT possible difference will anything we do make.
Lets start eating Whales! :yucky:

 

[cap n chris]

Has anyone tried shagging whales? - there's quite a few local chavs who do this regularly, if my eyes don't deceive me.

 

[AndyF]

.....as I keep repeating but nobody is listening CHINA.
CHINA are opening a new coal fired power station every week.
WOT possible difference will anything we do make.
Lets start eating Whales! :yucky:

Per Person CO2 emissions (2000):

China  0.76 tons
UK      2.59 tons
USA    5.37 tons

No point bleating about China based on growth rate, its absolutes that count and we are four times worse than China, so yes there is a point to it.

 

[Dep]

.....as I keep repeating but nobody is listening CHINA.
CHINA are opening a new coal fired power station every week.
WOT possible difference will anything we do make.
Lets start eating Whales! :yucky:

Per Person CO2 emissions (2000):

China  0.76 tons
UK      2.59 tons
USA    5.37 tons

No point bleating about China based on growth rate, its absolutes that count and we are four times worse than China, so yes there is a point to it.

Ok, bring those figures forward by 6 years and multiply by the population of the respective countries - per capita is irrelevant, it is the overall national figure that matters -although that is not to excuse the UK or USA both of whom should damn well know better by now!

 

[whitelackington]

Has anyone tried shagging whales? - there's quite a few local chavs who do this regularly, if my eyes don't deceive me.

I know people who go to Wales to go shagging, they say you've got to be a complete "dork" if u can't pull :blink: in Wales!

 

[Peter Burgess]

White-lowerthetone-ington.

 

[Les W]

I know people who go to Wales to go shagging, they say you've got to be a complete "dork" if u can't pull :blink: in Wales!

Welsh Rarebit - a Virgin in Cardiff 

 

[AndyF]

Back OT for a moment, I got a reply fromIceland Stores...

Thank you for taking the time to contact Iceland Foods Ltd.

I would like to apologise for the delay in replying. We were really
interested in your comments and are currently looking into your enquiry.
As soon as we have some answers for you, we will be back in touch.

In other words, "Oh sh*t, we better think about what we say here!" Followed a few days later by..

I now have a response to your query regarding companies that source
Icelandic products.

"We appreciate that as a consequence of our name some customers may
associate recent press articles on Icelandic whaling activity with our
stores. Iceland stores are in no way involved in, or condone, the practice
of Whaling. "

This shows a simple e-mail can cause a stir in a far away company. Customers sensitivity has clearly been noted by these people. Well done "Iceland Store", I will continue to shop there. 

No response from Tesco yet.....or anyone else....

 

[Clarie]

Much of the organic food in the UK is produced outside of the UK and so lots of aviation fuel is used to burn it.
 

At our local organic supermarket, they take air miles into consideration when sourcing food - consequently most of it is British, and much of it grown local to Bristol.

Being ethical in shopping is always a matter of weighing up the options (e.g. buying local compared to buying organic.) I don't think that's an excuse to not do it.

 

[francis]

Norway hunts whales too, the minke whale. They started in 1993 after a 5 year break. There are 112.000 minke whales in the northern atlantic and 72.000 in the central atlantic (this was in 2005). A yearly quota is something like 700 whales  +/- and the population in carefully monitored by scientists to make sure that the populatin won't sink. I think that if whales are hunted in this way then it's sortof ok. I have had whale steak before on a few ocasions and it's very nice!

Francis

 

[AndyF]

Norway hunts whales too, the minke whale. They started in 1993 after a 5 year break. There are 112.000 minke whales in the northern atlantic and 72.000 in the central atlantic (this was in 2005). A yearly quota is something like 700 whales  +/- and the population in carefully monitored by scientists to make sure that the populatin won't sink. I think that if whales are hunted in this way then it's sortof ok. I have had whale steak before on a few ocasions and it's very nice!

Francis

Its the method of hunting that is barabaric though, not just the numbers. Shooting a harpoon into a whale is like killing pigs with a bow & arrow from fifty yards.. It takes half an hour to two hours to actually kill the whale. This is an extremely long, painful and distressing death for any animal, and cannot be acceptable by any civilsed country. Not good.

 

[Walrus]

Fish are left to suffocate in nets by the thousand, lobsters & crabs are boiled alive and potatoes are ripped mercilessly from thier beds. What is 'civilisation' when its at home? 




ok, I struggled a bit for the third example

 

[gus horsley]

I can sympathise with the potatoes - the same thing happens to me every Sunday.

 

[AndyF]

Fish are left to suffocate in nets by the thousand, lobsters & crabs are boiled alive and potatoes are ripped mercilessly from thier beds. What is 'civilisation' when its at home? 

Don't even start me on boiling lobsters & crabs...... 

 

[Hughie]

It is quite possible to dispatch crabs and lobsters humanely - but apparentley only if one is squeamish about dropping them in boiling water. I would go for the humane option every time.

AndyF - I had previously thought that an electric charge was delivered to the whale via the harpoon cable - or is that what the whale hunters would have us believe.

I'm a great believer in quick, efficient, humane, dispatch when necessary. I also think fishing is cruel - and often debate this with a neighbour (a vegetarian) who thinks eating trawled fish is fine and has no problem with it.

 

[AndyF]

It is quite possible to dispatch crabs and lobsters humanely - but apparentley only if one is squeamish about dropping them in boiling water. I would go for the humane option every time.

AndyF - I had previously thought that an electric charge was delivered to the whale via the harpoon cable - or is that what the whale hunters would have us believe.

I'm a great believer in quick, efficient, humane, dispatch when necessary. I also think fishing is cruel - and often debate this with a neighbour (a vegetarian) who thinks eating trawled fish is fine and has no problem with it.

AFAIK electricity is not used on the harpoon, I'd be very surprised if on the water washed desk of a ship they had lethal eletrical voltages floating around.

The "myth" is actually that they use explosive tipped harpoons. These exist, but an explosion tends to mess the meat up, so they tend to remove the charges in real life to increase the value of the catch.

 

[cap n chris]

:doubt: Just thought I'd say that I think you're all nuts. It's only my opinion and it might change.

 

[Peter Burgess]

Chestnut stuffing! Yum, Yum.