Tofurkey of the week

Since I'm back to blogging, it must be time for a Tofurkey, the Daily Suppository's own faux-poultry plinth celebrating all those who act like a complete turkey in the name of the environment, climate or the oft-misused clarion of "sustainability". This week's inedible enviro-fail award goes to none other than Al Gore himself.

Al has embarassed himself by using footage of the recent Brisbane floods to spruik the dangers of anthropogenic global warming on youtube, when even Julia Gillard's own pet climate commission populated by alarmists conceded they were not.

Tofurkey of the Week # 6

Ahh, the Tofurkey. The Daily Suppository's award for all those found acting like a total turkey in an environmentally sensitive manner. This award has become somewhat of a fixture around here, athough everyone has been very kind to not point out that it hasn't been as weekly as the name would indicate.

Regardless, I have found another candidate for the award, and this week it goes out to the wife of fellow Tofurkey alumni, Pete Bethune.

Pete Bethune, erstwhile "Captain" of the doomed Ady Gil Trimaran and all 'round danger to the public, has just landed in Japan, where all his, um...tofurkeys, have come home to roost in the form of an arrest for tresspass. This charge is for his ill-advised boarding of the whaler Shonan Maru II, and may attract a sentence of up to three years or a hefty fine. Pete can console himself with the fact that it could have been worse, he could have been charged with piracy.

Sharyn Bethune, Pete's wife, has earned herself a tofurkey for expressing "shock" at his arrest.

Sharyn was quoted as saying:

“You can't just shrug it off. It's a long way for his kids to go and see him - a Japanese jail.”

Which came as a bit of a shock to me, too, as I assumed given the way Pete has been gallivanting around the southern ocean throwing butyric acid missiles around and generally having a, forgive me, whale of a time, that he mustn't have any kids.

Blind Freddy could have seen this arrest coming, so the Tofurkey is also awarded on the basis that people with dependent children should not knowingly put themselves in such a compromising situation and then plead for sympathy when the inevitable happens.

The New Zealand foreign minister has also stated that he is not going to intervene on Pete's behalf, and is happy to leave him to the tender mercies of the Japanese judicial system. Which, as mentioned previously, has a track record of a 98% + conviction rate.

Tofurkey of the week # 5

This weeks Tofurkey (for acting like a turkey in an environmentally sensitive manner), goes out to Massachusetts college student Christopher Potter.
Young Mr. Potter has been sleeping outside the University of Massachusetts in a tent for over 120 days to protest the use of fossil fuels for energy. Responses to this demonstration range from:

1) A distinct lack of concern from an unnamed Boston utility company.
2) A slightly more concerned mother. (Did you pack your long underwear, Chris?)
3) A presumably happy college room mate, who may or may not have reported being "stoked" with having the dorm room to themselves.

The police response to this protest was to do the only reasonable thing and took the protestors tent when he wasn't looking, forcing young Christopher to schlepp down to the police station to re-claim it. (I love this, in other parts of the world this guy would have been introduced to the wack-wack stick, but the Boston constabulary contented themselves with just pinching his tent for a bit of a giggle.)

Christopher has limits to his high-mindedness, however, and has allowed himself leeway when it comes to charging his i-pod:

Though he doesn’t live inside, he says he charges his electronics with “dirty fossil fuels,” because “right now there’s no escaping them, and it makes us all contribute to climate change, unfortunately.”

Yes son, they "made" you do it. Damn those evil Mac bastards.

When asked what he wants to do for a career, Potter says he wants to continue pushing for clean electricity.

Good for you, son. We'll keep a spot under a highway overpass warm for you.

Tofurkey of the week # 4

Its been awhile since the award for being a turkey in an environmentally sensitive manner has been bestowed. Thankfully, The Daily Suppository can count on the antics of idiots "conservationists" such as Pete Bethune, erstwhile captain of the Ady Gil, to deliver the goods. I had previously considered bestowing a Tofurkey on the Ady Gil crew for crashing the equivalent of a water-borne sports car into the maritime equivalent of a tractor, but so much was written on it at the time that I just statisfied myself with bitching about it privately. Luckily for me, Pete Bethune gave me another chance when he decided that illegally bording the Shonan Maru II and attempting to make a citizens arrest (aka unlawfull detention) of the Shonan Maru II captain, then demanding $3 million dollars, or thereabouts, was a good idea.

Apart from being really stupid, his actions could also be construed as piracy. Being a maritime person (or so he would have us believe) 'ol Capt'n Pete should be aware that in many parts of the world, they haven't changed the maritime piracy laws in a good long while, hence the punishment for piracy in sovereign waters is sometimes something like "hanging till dead in the public square." (FYI: Piracy in Japanese waters can get you 5 years to life, or death if you killed someone during the act of piracy.)

The event occurred in international waters and Japan has a bit of a sticky issue here, due to their defence force caveats prohibiting use of force for anything other than national self defence. Fortunately for Japan, Pete made this easy for them by boarding a vessel that cannot be construed as anything other than Japanese, demanding money from what effectively amounts to the Japanese state, and interfering with Japan's national interests. Additionally, Im no expert on international law, but according to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, if the act of piracy occurs on the high seas, then ANY nation can seize said pirates and / or vessels and then try them subject to the laws of that country. Which brings us back to the 5 years to life. I think they have a solid case to try him at their leisure. If the piracy thing sticks, they also now have an argument for mobilising their "self-defence" force to protect their interests on the high seas.
And FYI: Japan's legal system has a 98% + conviction rate
Good one, Pete.

Tofurkey of the week # 3

Tofurkey - the award for those people who have been a complete turkey, but in an environmentally sensitive manner.

I'm not sure if this really rates as a Tofurkey, due to the name of the award being a foodstuff, but given the relative inedibility of faux-poultry, and the fact that many people would probably rather starve than eat it, I argue that the award stands.

A CARLTON student 38 days into a hunger strike has shrugged off the threat of death and vowed to continue. Paul Connor has been fasting on the lawns outside Parliament House in Canberra since November 6 in protest at government inaction on climate change.

He initially was fasting with a mate, 61 year old Michael Morphett, who pulled out of the fast last tuesday when doctor's advised him he might come down with a serious case of death if he didn't eat something. I don't know about you, but when I hang out with my friends we prefer to do fun stuff, involving drinking, smoking, loud rock 'n' roll and strippers. (Or sipping cups of earl grey and watching The Bill, which is almost the same.) Generally, though, we don't suddenly decide to sleep in a tent in front of parliament house and starve ourselves to death for a bit o' a laff.

Paul Connor has vowed to continue at least until the end of the Copenhagen climate summit, which would bring his total fast to 42 days.

Dr Alan Barclay from the Australian Dietitians Association last month said Mr Connor would be tempting fate by following through on his plan to fast for 42 days. “I think, based on the research, they’re definitely playing with death so I hope they’re very well supervised,” Dr Barclay said...

...He said doctors had made him aware of the risks associated with continuing fasting. Mr Connor disputed comments by Dr Barclay that 50 days was as long as the body could cope without food. “The IRA guys in 1981, their average (survival time) was about 60 days but one of them carked it at 46 (days),” he said.

Oh. Dear. Somebody point out to him that those IRA guys, apart from presumably being Irish (which it has been my experience comes with quite an inherited constitution for physical hardship), probably ate meat and three veg every night for their entire lives up until that point. I'm thinking that they probably had a couple of weeks on a generation Y, vegetarian liberal arts student from Carlton.

I'm not going to bet on this, that would be bad taste. However I bet that the young man in question is betting on the health care profession to nurse him out of this should things go pear shaped. And we will. Because thats what we do.

Tofurkey of the Week #2

And here was me worried that it might be awhile until someone else acted like a complete turkey, but in an ecologically sensitive manner. (For the last winner, see here.)

This weeks faux-poultry plinth goes out to conservationist Leon Deschamps of Western Australia, who recently pet a feeding tiger shark in the mistaken assumption that:

1. Tiger sharks aren't aggressive. (They are, Leon. They really are. These guys were just distracted by the giant dead whale they were munching on. Tiger sharks are notoriously territorial and aggressive and accounts of their behaviour can easily be found as far back as the 1600's, when tiger sharks would follow big sailing ships for days on end. I double-dog dare you to go out in the open ocean and thrash around on the surface like a wounded fish for awhile, then ask the tigers for a cuddle when they show up. FYI: When they put their pectoral fins down and start arching their back, thats when they really feel like a pat. Heh.)

2. And for assuming, like most annoying hippies, that the organism in question actually enjoyed your impromptu back-rub.

"They were sedate in their movements and far from aggressive, despite it being a time when they are supposed to be at their most ferocious — I think they enjoyed the experience. "

With biology skills like that, a) I pity your girlfriend and b) sense a future Darwin Award in the making. I'm also suprised, given our intrepid shark botherers weren't wearing gloves, that no-one pointed out that fondling a shark can be about as much fun as humping sand paper due to the unique structure of their scales. (And here were we thinking that Movember stubble-rash was a pain in the...ummm...oh, never mind. Personally, I'm getting my own back by instigating Fanuary...but thats another post for another time.)


How to tell if your tiger shark wants a cuddle

But hang on a minute, now I'm confused! Isn't global warming going to make sharks more aggressive? At least that's what Dr. Biro of the University of New South Wales said, after he spent our taxpayer funded dollars on taking damsel fish fresh out of the larval stage, dumping them in an aquarium and randomly fluctuating the temperature. Not un-suprisingly, the poor little damsals started acting a bit wierd, and some of them got tetchy. Apparently, this is now proof that global warming is going to make sharks more aggressive. (One small segue for science, one giant leap for logical thinking everywhere.)

Ha! If this is science, I might go and read some homeopathic "research" on the grounds that it adheres more strictly to scientific process. At least homeopathic researchers, unlike Dr. Biro, don't expect you to pay for their field trips to Lizard Island, an island paradise so elite that only marine biologists and resort patrons in the Sultan of Brunei's tax bracket can afford to stay there.



Lizard Island: I am clearly in the wrong profession.
Note: Don't get me wrong, I actually like sharks. They are important to me both culturally and personally, especially tiger sharks. I also (as you might have guessed) have more first hand experience of applied marine biology than the average layperson, but sadly I cannot wax autobiographical on why that is so at this time, just suffice it to say I didn't always live in the suburbs of Sydney. Regardless, a tiger shark is a tiger shark, and they tend to act accordingly. All those teeth are generally the give away.

Tofurkey of the Week #1

This is the award for all those people who have been a prize turkey, but in an ecologically sensitive manner. Also considered as a title was "Turducken of the Week" for being a turkey AND completely over doing it, but Tofurkey works for me on so many different levels.

This weeks winner is 27 year old Tim DeChristopher, who the NY times describes as:

A college student who bid on and won more than $1.8 million in federal oil and gas leases last year without the intent or ability to pay will not be allowed to argue in court that he acted out of necessity to protect the environment, a federal judge ruled on Monday.
He has said he believed the looming dangers of climate change and environmental impact from drilling were so great and urgent that he had no choice but to take whatever action he could to stop the drilling program. His lawyer, Ronald J. Yengich, recently asked that the jury be allowed to consider a defense of necessity, or “choice of evils,” when the trial begins, perhaps early next year. But Judge Dee Benson said in his ruling that Mr. DeChristopher had not met the threshold requirements under federal law. First, the harm that Mr. DeChristopher perceived from the lease sale was not imminent, the judge wrote, in the sense of a crisis like a fire or unfolding crime scene.
Nor, the judge said, could Mr. DeChristopher have known with a reasonable certainty that a bad result for the climate or the environment would definitely occur if he did nothing.

I've never been much for the protest movement, it always seemed, so well....cringe worthy. I once lived at a logging protest camp when I was 15 (there were teepees and everything!), but that was because I had been kicked out of home. The hippies took me in and fed me and gave me a place (*cough* teepee) to stay. Well, when I say "fed", the food was yams fried in coconut oil and washed down with Chai tea, but it beat being on the streets hands down. Since then, however, protestors and I have agreed to go our seperate ways.

In the spirit of this, I would like to extend my congratulations to Mr. DeChristopher. For your inept climate activism and general "what could go wrong?" attitude, the Daily Suppository awards you the first ever "Tofurkey of the Week" prize.

This one goes out to you Tim, you'd better get a lawyer, Son, you'd better get a REAL good one: