Miranda Devine, Adonis on a beach, Netting, Greenie nonsense and kill all the sharks

For a minute there I thought Miranda the Devine was going to join our heroic campaign to kill all the sharks, and convert them to flake, so that once again fish and chips could rule as the take away of choice throughout this fair land.

Instead she's just joined in the standard tabloid shark hysteria with an amount of verbiage and blather excessive even for her. First there's the heading Needless slaughter in the water. What the heck does that mean? Needless? Doesn't that imply a solution? Isn't it kinda opposite to needful? Surely she's talking about killing all the sharks. She's going to join our campaign. Hah! What to make of this?

No one disputes that sharks are a crucial part of the ecosystem and no one is advocating wholesale slaughter.

Eeerk! She's turned into a touchie feelie greenie leftie eco environmentalist warrior and writer of gaia type whole earth nonsense.

But if it comes to a choice between a shark life and a human life there just should be no contest.

That's better Miranda. But how ya gunna do it? I mean that's a pretty abstract proposition isn't it? Between a shark and a human, chose the human. It's very rarely just sharko a mano, one on one - the pesky things sneak up and take you out just when you least expect it.

We have to take a pre-emptive strike, just like we do with land based Taliban and Al Qaeda. These sharks are marine terrorists, and we're in a war with all forms of terror (and don't laugh there's a link, as my forthcoming book, The Selachimorpha Ultimatum, proves, by providing convincing, irrefutable evidence that fundie Islamics have turned sharks into anti-Oz eating machines using wifi technology in devastating, devious new ways).

I think we need to bomb all waters off Sydney beaches in a shock and awe move designed to teach the sharks a lesson, before entering into a long post-war shambles where we mop them up in a piecemeal way until there's none left. Not one. Zip, nada, nil, nihil. It worked in Iraq, and now it's time to bring representative democracy to the oceans of the world.

My poor heart wept to read the Devine's sweet prose:

A tall, blond, 15-year old Adonis with a peeling pink nose and a wetsuit ...

And this poor lad, a boy who would have graced any painting by Leonardo, was beached, while cruel, dangerous, wired sharks patrolled the ocean in search of succulent flesh and misanthropes wrote letters to the paper attacking dirty stinking humans as the scum of the earth  and hoping sharks and cockroaches would survive once we'd devastated the planet.

Oh tear my flesh from my bones, the humanity of it all, I can't bear the tragedy. But say on Devine, your column surely isn't one of those cheap tabloid tales exploiting the populist excitement of having exactly three shark attacks in the past few months, none of them fatal.

Well sure commercial fishermen get a mention, claiming government protection has led to a local explosion in shark numbers. (You know they caught so many white pointers in the past to feed mouths hungry for the tang of lemon and salt on shark flesh).

Oh and apparently there's a move to get rid of the nets, which have been tremendously effective, and prevented many shark attacks, but somehow failed to stop the current ones that have led to all the hysteria ... hmmm ... must think ...

Oh that's right nets aren't foolproof, and were never designed to provide a barrier between sharks and humans (they're just designed to deter and catch resident sharks feeding near popular beaches. Phew, for a minute there I was worried about all that evidence that back in the old days there were 15 fatalities between 1922 and 1936 when commercial fishing was in full swing. Must have been hopeless fishermen or an abundance of sharks).

Good oh, carry on then Miranda. You came late to the shark tales - Piers beat you by days and days, but better late than never I suppose, except for your unfortunate shark loving sentiments. A crucial part of the ecosystem! Pshaw. The great white shark listed as an endangered species. Proof please! It's humans who are endangered. All this mumbo jumbo about global warming increasing the nutrients and the feed for sharks. And it's supposed to get worse next season!

Leftie gibberish. What a shark suck you are Miranda. It's a choice between humans and sharks. There can be no middle ground. 

What are you going to do Miranda? Give in to greenie nonsense, all this talk of saving the sea horse? It's time to take a stand.

Until you join us in our campaign to kill all the sharks, right here, right now, we just have to list you as another feckless, morbid columnist spruiking a passing summer sensation,  albeit partially redeemed by an unhealthy interest in teenage Adonis's.

Sob, will we ever be allowed to go back into the surf again? Pass me another lamington, before I forget what it is to be Australian.