Eat 'em up, yum yum

BBC News reports:

Japan plans pro-whaling alliance

Japan has drawn up plans to replace the International Whaling Commission, whose annual meeting will start on 19 July. Members of Japan's ruling party now say they are prepared to go it alone and establish a new pro-whaling alliance.

The IWC imposed a moratorium on commercial whaling, in effect since 1986, to let the whales recover from centuries of industrial whaling which had left some species near extinction.

Japan, Norway and Iceland want the moratorium lifted, and say there are enough of some species for a small annual catch.

Japan has threatened for years to leave the IWC if it did not get its way: the politicians' proposals show it is taking the possibility more seriously than in the past.

Can you see it? The entire Japanese Parliament, looking like those racist caricatures used during WWII, but all dressed up like little Shirley Temple in Curly Top singing and dancing in the halls of government:

Animal crackers in my soup
Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop
Gosh oh gee but I have fun
Swallowing animals one by one*

*Koehler/Caesar/Henderson