Day: May 6, 2002

Judge Issues Temporary Restraining Order in Makah Whale Hunt Dispute

A federal judge granted a 10-day restraining order barring the Makah Indians from hunting any gray whales pending a May 15 hearing on the matter.

At that hearing, U.S. District Judge Franklin D. Burgess will hear arguments from The Fund for Animals on their request for a preliminary injunction barring the Makah whale hunt until a lawsuit it has filed has been settled one way or the other.

Under the provisions of a treaty the Makah signed with the United States in 1855, the Makah retain rights to hunt whales. After the gray whale was removed from the Endangered Species List in 1994, the Makah sought to resume hunting them.

In 1999, they resumed hunting and managed to kill a whale. The tribe also hunted in 2000, but did not manage to kill any whales.

In 2001, Makah whale hunting was suspended for a year after anti-whaling forces successfully sued and a court ordered the National Marine Fisheries Service to draw up a study of the environmental impact of the limited Makah whale hunt. That initial success turned into a nightmare for anti-whaling forces when the report not only said that hunting five whales would not impact the population of 26,000 gray whales, but also extended the area where the Makah could hunt.

The Fund for Animals and other groups are now challenging that report in court, arguing that the study was not done properly.

Sources:

Federal judge grants temporary restraining order against whale hunt. Elizabeth Murtaugh, Associated Press, May 4, 2002.

Makah ordered not to whale for at least 10 days. KomoTV.Com, May 3, 2002.

What Count As Extreme Right Wing In Europe?

Courtesy of National Review, this is Pim Fortyun’s extremist right wing position on Muslim immigration in the Netherlands,

Large groups in the community are lagging behind in social and cultural terms. These groups often originate from countries which did not participate in the Judeo-Christian-humanist developments which have been taking place in Europe for centuries. These shortfalls in development are highly regrettable, as they result in a divide in society and form a threat to the functioning of our large cities. This must be tackled vigorously, on the one hand by paying extra attention to housing, schools and cultural education for these groups, but on the other by requiring these groups to make a maximum effort themselves. Cultural developments which are diametrically opposed to the desired integration and emancipation, such as arranged marriages, honour revenge and female circumcision, must be fought by means of legislation and public information. Discrimination against women in fundamentalist Islamic circles is particularly unacceptable. In a democratic society like ours, all citizens have the same rights and obligations, irrespective of race, gender, beliefs and nature. There is a division of Church and State in the Netherlands, and therefore also of mosque and state. Thanks to the division of powers (the executive, legislative and judiciary powers), citizens can develop themselves in relative freedom. Our hard-fought freedoms are worth protecting against increasing fundamentalism. We must carry out a study into whether the introduction of a social and military service for boys and girls of eighteen years of age or older can contribute to integration.

Damn, he opposed honor killings. What a nut!

Spot New Celestial Bodies from the Comfort of Your Own Web Browser

Why not look for new comets from the comfort of your laptop or desktop computer? Sebastian’s Comet Hunt outlines the basic steps in finding previously unknown comets from images taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) satellite and available on the Internet. Wired has an article about the SOHO comet hunters.

Pim Fortuyn Shot, Likely Dead

Several news sites are reporting an assassination attempt against Dutch right winger Pim Fortuyn. According to CNN, Dutch Radio is reporting that Fortuyn was shot several times in the head after leaving a radio interview.

I caught most of a radio interview with Fortuyn last week related to the strong showing by his party, Livable Netherlands. Fortuyn was the leader of LN until the party removed him after he said that laws banning discrimination against immigrants should be overturned.

The thing that caught my attention in the interview is that Fortuyn is not a typical right wing politician. He’s an openly gay man who is opposed to immigration from Muslim countries on the ground that Islam is a backward religion because, among other things, it is intolerant of homosexuality.

Fortuyn wrote a book about his views, “Against the Islamicization of Our Culture” and found rather surprising levels of support for LN. He was especially popular with young voters, half of whom in some surveys said they would vote for LN.

Elections in the Netherlands are set to take place on May 15.

Update: CNN now reports that Dutch police confirm that Fortuyn is dead.

Indiana Poultry Plant Targeted by Arson

In the early morning hours of Friday, May 3, somebody tried but failed to set off a series of explosions at the Sims Poultry Co. in Bloomington, Indiana. The plant has a history of being targeted by animal rights activists.

The culprit rigged a refrigerated truck to explode and connected that truck to several others nearby with a trail of gasoline. The refrigerated truck exploded, but the other trucks failed to catch fire. Police and fire officials were called to the scene and extinguished the fire quickly.

Sims Poultry has been the target of animal rights extremism in the past. In 1993 a man was arrested for painting slogans such as “ALF” and “Meat is murder” in the dock area of the poultry plant, and the method used is consistent with previous Animal Liberation Front attacks as well as with techniques included in ALF-related guides available for download from the Internet.

Source:

No one has claimed responsibility. Paula Freund, Herald-Times (Indiana), May 4, 2002.

Authorities say blast at poultry plant was deliberate. Hoosier Times, May 5, 2002.

Explosions investigated at Sims Poultry. Bethany Swaby, Hearld-Times (Indiana), May 3, 2002.

Lawyer Who Cowed McDonald's Goes After Pizza Hut

Fresh from winning a settlement with McDonald’s over whether or not its french fries were vegetarian or not, Seattle attorney Harish Bharti is now looking to target Pizza Hut’s Veggie Lover’s pizza.

Bharti’s proposed lawsuit claims that Pizza Hut “intentionally market their pizza to the vegetarian community, knowing full well that the foods are not vegetarian.”

As with the lawsuit against McDonald’s, Bharti’s suit is weak but Pizza Hut might choose to settle, like McDonald’s did, for the public relations value of doing so. The problem is that the word “vegetarian” has a very loose meaning which Bharti himself illustrates when criticizing Pizza Hut. According to Bharti,

While they claim it’s a vegetarian product, they have a beef product in their cheese.

Cheese? The last time I checked, that was also an animal product.

As with the McDonald’s case, if there is any beef byproduct in the pizzas (and Pizza Hut claims there is not), it is used as a flavoring in the pizza sauce. Given that, for Bharti, vegetarians include people who eat animal products such as cheese, I don’t think Pizza Hut would face much of a challenge demonstrating that products which contain small amounts of beef byproducts for flavoring could nonetheless be described as vegetarian, and that consumers interested in products without any animal byproducts should be looking for those labeled as vegan.

Source:

Lawsuit claims ‘Veggie Lover’s’ pizza contains a ‘beef product’. Sam Skolnik
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 2, 2002.