Just when you thought it was safe to read the Herald...

The Sydney Morning Herald continues its outreach programme for developmentally delayed opinion writers as Miranda Devine, bless her, puts forth her firm and well-researched views on sharks.

Miranda is furious at the attitude taken by so many hippie green homosexualists these days, that sharks have more right to be in the water than humans, and that people, perhaps, know the risk they're taking if they enter the ocean, which is where sharks traditionally live.

Now, personally, I have always found the threat of shark attack to be one of the more easily avoidable in our world. Unlike nuclear war, sharks are relatively limited in their scope, and unlike serial killers, they almost never break into private homes in order to attack. "Stay out of the water" is pretty much the golden, and only, rule, re: avoiding sharks, I thought. Miranda puts us straight.

She begins by waxing lyrical about a "tall, blond, 15-year-old Adonis" of her acquaintance, but let's not delve too deeply into Ms Devine's reverse-Lolita fantasies, and move on to the crux. Apparently the debate has "taken a surreal turn", as people stand up for the rights of those damn sharks.

"'Dirty, stinking humans … scum of the planet and hopefully sharks will be here for millions more years after we're extinct" was typical of one misanthropic comment on a surf website this week.'" she writes. Well, yes, it would be typical. If you're restricting yourself to describing one comment, then quoting that comment will, in general, tend to be quite representative. In a similar way, "I have a dream" was typical of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. Well done, Miranda, you have certainly nailed the rampant anti-human feeling spreading like wildfire through that single person.

Miranda then says that Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald's warning for swimmers to avoid going in the water at times when sharks are most active is "blaming the victim." Indeed. It's a lot like when people say that if a woman goes nightclubbing in a short skirt or low-cut top, it's her own fault if a shark eats her. When will we stop blaming the victim and start blaming the SHARKS? Why don't the sharks take some responsibility for their actions? No means no, sharks! If we say we don't want to be eaten, back off!

"We have been designed to swim and are at home in the water," says Miranda in her defence of humans' rights to swim in shark-infested waters. I'm not quite sure she's on such solid ground here, actually. I mean, a lot of humans LIKE it in the water, but to say we've "been designed" for it may be a stretch, mayn't it? We don't seem to be quite as well-designed to swim as, say, every water-dwelling animal on earth. We're not even as well-designed to swim as dogs. And we're probably more at home on land, really. Where our homes are. Especially when compared to sharks, who are "at home in the water" to quite a drastic extent, relatively speaking. I don't think we're really at the top of the league table in terms of at-home-in-the-waterness.

Still, it's a worthwhile point to make. These sharks have gotten away with the unthinking following of their primal instincts for far too long. It's time to get tough on these vicious bastards. As Miranda says, "if it comes to a choice between a shark life and a human life there just should be no contest".

And if it comes to a choice between a shark life and a human finding somewhere else to swim...ah, but that's greenie thinkin'.