A new display at my local supermarket:

The whale-meat industry is really trying to get somebody, anybody to eat whale meat. People just don’t buy enough of it to sustain the industry, which officially doesn’t exist–all this meat comes from whales killed for "scientific experiments"…and if you believe that, I have an island to sell you, cheap.

I actually had some whale meat a couple weeks back, at a very swanky dinner (my boss gave me the tickets as a thank you for some above-the-call-of-duty work I did). I ate it because I hadn’t eaten any in a long while–the last time I had any, it was a slice of whale testicle, actually. Anyway, I couldn’t remember how it tasted. Meh–it was nothing special. I think, considering the amount of heavy metals that accumulates in whales, the argument that it’s good for you is particularly specious, and since nobody really wants to eat it, and all the other arguments are empty, the only reason whale hunting continues in Japan is that the whale industry bribes the politicians.