General Chat Topic #9

Originally posted by vanquish:[..]

Not much, it's Tasmania, the song 'Van Diemen's Land' captures it's sleepy quaintness perfectly.

It's like the Australian equivalent of Maine, you visit it for the scenery, my mum's organised the trip.
So we'll be going to chocolate factory tours, visiting model villages and doing the usual nature walks, cruises to see penguins/whales etc., you get the picture.

Originally posted by haytrain:[..]

That sounds cool. Speaking of whales and Australia....have you ever heard of The Sea Shepherds? They're this organization that takes direct action against the Japanese whaling ships down in the Antarctic. There's a TV show about them here in the US, and I think a lot of them are Australians. Didn't know if you'd heard of them before.

Originally posted by vanquish:[..]

Oh, there's always Australian ships protesting against the Japanese whalers it's common news down here, I don't know how they do it exactly, I think once they tried to board them and that caused a big hoo ha as you can imagine.

I don't know whether the Sea Shepherds are an organization, or an anti-whaling ship though, Greenpeace seems to run some of it as well.

Are you a greenie?

Originally posted by haytrain:[..]

Not in the sense that those people are. In fact, it was the people from the Sea Shepherds that boarded the Japanese ship, and were held for a few days. (it was all chronicled in the TV show). I mean, I think we need to do a lot to actually care for the environment and make sure it's gonna still exist in 50 years, but throwing vials of acid on the decks of Japanese ships so they can't pull the whale carcasses up there doesn't seem like the answer either.

Originally posted by vanquish:[..]

Yeah, some people are nuts, they would rather see animals protected than humans.

I personally think that if the Japanese want to kill whales, they should do so in their waters, and not poach them in Australian waters.

BTW you might be interested in this article I posted in the 'General Politics Discussion' thread today
http://www.counterpunch.org/eno01022009.html

Originally posted by haytrain:[..]

Well, I think the problem is that the whales aren't in their waters. They wait until the time of year when they go down off the coast of Antarctica (Int'l waters) and say they're doing research....and part of international law says that no part of the whale can go to waste if you're doing research, so they just happen to put that on menus in Tokyo. Tough situation, that's for sure.

I skimmed the article you posted. I'll read it again more closely. Israel/Palestine is a messy situation if there ever was one.

Originally posted by vanquish:[..]

Did you see who it was by?

Originally posted by vanquish:Oh, don't you like him as a producer?

BTW I was looking at atu2 and they have this up:

NEW @U2 IF BONO SAYS IT, IT ...
January 09, 2009
posted by: m2

We received a couple emails alerting us to a conversation Bono and Adam reportedly had Thursday night in Dublin with fans outside the band's studio. Bono apparently told the fans two pieces of news worth passing along:

* The new single will be released to radio on January 19 (see below, too).
* The tour will begin in Spain before the end of June.


If that's correct, then I'll miss the single cause I'll be in Tasmania .
Oh, well I'll suppose I have to take my laptop with me and hope to hell, there's an unprotected wireless connection somewhere.

Originally posted by haytrain:[..]

I don't know....I think my dislike for Eno comes from his bad background vocals on Miss Sarajevo in the Sarajevo show. Probably unfair on my part. I think I'll miss the release too, since I'll be in Washington DC, and won't have my computer with me. Oh well, I'm sure I'll hear it.

Originally posted by vanquish:[..]

Well, I have to go get ready, am going out to a friends house, so cya and have a good night!