You have to give the eco-loons credit because they sure will come up with anything to draw attention to themselves:
Japan has dismissed as a lie claims by the captain of an anti-whaling ship he was shot at during the latest confrontation with a whaling vessel in the Southern Ocean.
Paul Watson, captain of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society protest ship the Steve Irwin, said he felt a thud and found a bullet lodged in his bulletproof vest during a clash between the two vessels.
He said crew members on the Steve Irwin were throwing stink bombs at the whaling ship the Nisshin Maru when Japanese coast guards responded by throwing flash grenades.
The anti-whaling group said besides Mr Watson, two other crew members, both Australians, were hurt in the incident. [AAP]
The Japanese Coast Guard has of course denied shooting Watson, but here is what Watson claims happened:
“I felt an impact on my chest at one point and didn’t think too much of it at the time and then when I opened up my survival suit - I had a bulletproof vest (on) - and there was a bullet lodged in it,” he told ABC Radio.
The bullet hit him on the upper left side of his chest and bent a badge he was wearing underneath, Mr Watson said.
“If I wasn’t wearing the vest it would have been pretty serious,” he said.
However, Mr Watson said he did not know who had shot him.
“I didn’t see anybody shoot at me and it was pretty hard for any of the crew to see anything because everybody was ducking from these flash grenades.”
The ship’s doctor, David Page, was filmed prying the bullet from Mr Watsons’s Kevlar vest, and saying “You have been hit by a bullet,” Sea Shepherd said in a statement.
This whole incident has more eco-drama written all over it. I find it interesting that suddenly Watson is wearing a flak jacket when in every pictures I have seen of the Sea Shepherd eco-loons not one person was ever wearing a flak jacket. It seems quite fortunate that the one time Watson is wearing a flak jacket he gets shot. Also what purpose would the Japanese have shooting Watson and making him a martyr? Finally the Sea Shepherd group are known liars. For example everyone remember when they claimed their people were kidnapped and held hostage by the Japanese? It turned out that they in fact did illegally board the boat and plant GPS tracking devices on the whaling boat before being captured by the Japanese. Of course the Australian media covered up their lies and promoted the hostage mythology instead.
Judging by the past performance of the Australian media does anyone think they will properly investigate these shooting claims from Watson now or just accept what he says with no challenge? To help you form your own opinion take a look at the wording of this AAP article. The article claims the Sea Shepherd eco-loons used “stink bombs” while the Japanese responded with “grenades”. So how come the Australian media didn’t say the eco-loons threw butyric acid which is what they did throw. If you check the Australian government’s ASCC webpage the acid is classified as a hazardous substance.
The “grenades” the Japanese used on the other hand were not even grenades but a riot control device:
Mr Inwood, the New Zealand-based spokesman for the Institute of Cetacean Research, said there had been some “retaliation” when the coast guards fired seven warning balls at the Sea Shepherd vessel.
Mr Inwood said there were seven rounds fired from officers aboard the Nisshin Maru.
A coast guard spokesman said the warning balls go off in the air and do not harm anyone.
“What we threw for the warning were ball-like objects … a bit bigger than tennis balls,” he said.
“We used two types of them: ones that flash in the air and ones that make loud noise.”
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Japan had denied firing any shots during the confrontation.
Japanese officials had told the Australian Embassy in Tokyo that warning balls had been fired by the Japanese ship, he said.
“Japanese officials have advised that these devices are designed to make a loud noise but not to injure and that no gunshots had been fired.”
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura later told reporters in Tokyo that the government “has to take necessary measures, which includes the use of warning balls”.
“Whales might be cute, precious animals, but injuring human beings to protect whales is unforgivable,” Mr Machimura said.
The Australian media calls a riot control device used by trained Japanese Coast Guard personnel “grenades” as if they are some killer explosive. These riot control device are used by policemen around the world to include Australia and I think it is safe to say that when a bunch of eco-loons are attacking civilians with acid bombs it should be considered a riot. You can form your own opinion about Japanese whaling, but at least get the full story before believing the eco-drama from the eco-loon media whores known as the Sea Shepherd Society.
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10:21 am on March 8th, 2008 1
thats the problem with the left wing loons they want to act like nuts and then when the consequences bite them in the ass they bitch and whine about how they were treated
i wonder what made them shoot him (if they even did)
reminds me of that loser who got tasered in FLA
you act like an ass
get treated like one!!!
5:41 pm on March 8th, 2008 2
The ocean is a dangerous place even without lunitics trying to interfere with you. The dude deserves to get shot at and hopefully killed. Perhaps in a brilliant stroke of irony he will get killed by a stingray while swimming off the coast of Austraila. Hope springs eternal.
8:36 am on March 9th, 2008 3
Why are the Japs hunting whales? For scientific research - right? I guess you believe that. What goes on in the sea stays in the sea so you have no idea what happens out there other than what is written in the media. Call them eco loons or what ever you want, but I’m glad there doing something. If the japs were to rape your mother or force your father to walk to his death, would you care then? Anyone who rapes the planet of its resources in the name of greed should die, and the sooner the better.
12:51 pm on March 9th, 2008 4
Maybe you should stop reading the propaganda and instead read facts such as the Minke whale the Japanese hunt is not an endangered species and is in fact expanding thus rendering your entirely distasteful rape argument quite mute.
In fact the 2007 Australian of the Year Tim Flannery, a guy every eco-loon loves even admitted that he has no problem with Japanese whaling because of the abundant whales and the sustainable way the Japanese go about whaling:
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22987914-5001021,00.html
You can say what you want about scientific research but once again the facts clearly show that the Japanese are following international law as established by the IWC unlike the North Europeans who openly commercially whale. I guess you would prefer to have the Japanese openly commercially whale without set quotas put on them on by the international community like the North Europeans?
7:05 am on March 10th, 2008 5
Speaking of Eco-loons, did you hear about the protesters at London Heathrow Airport a few weeks ago?
Apparently they flew down on a domestic flight, waited until all the other passengers had got off & then ran through a side door to get airside. Once there, they climbed on top of the jetbridge and on to the aircraft itself and unfolded a banner protesting the building of a third runway at the airport (God forbid that airplanes actually land, instead of waiting around either to land or take off!) and, and here’s the kicker, the increased number of domestic flights in the UK
Sadly, the BAA didn’t see fit to call up a deicing truck & a tank of boiling glycole. And the UK Government were too scared to kick in the anti-terror laws (breech of airport security = major no-no, except when it’s done by ecoloons)
7:23 am on March 11th, 2008 6
Let’s just hope that they don’t mistakenly throw stink bombs at a NK ship. The commies will actually return fire.
8:22 pm on March 11th, 2008 7
I sure am glad some of you guys were not part of the founding fathers of the USA. You would have had a lot of trouble with the 1st Amendment to the constitution. I understand your comments if your not American, and if you are an American, you’ve probably never read the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights nor the Constitution anyway.
2:45 am on March 12th, 2008 8
I’m a product of the public education system so maybe you will need to point this out to me, but I don’t know of any section of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution that authorizes eco-loons to throw acid at others, illegally board ships, plant tracking devices, continuously lie and make false claims, or violate major airport security laws.
7:34 am on May 21st, 2008 9
Eco-loons nice one Not
If you havd spent many years trying to get media coverage on the wrongs of this world with little success then the next step is to go beyond convention Captain Paul Watson is a bit quirky but what he is doing is more than saving whales or sharks or this year’s main objective seals . He is unwittingly trying to save us all from our greed.
Let’s just ignore him shall we lets go forth and kill all the sharks fine.
Now all the sharks are gone the top predator has gone which nature created by the way.
So all these fish that would be controlled over populate despite over fishing with global warming the fish will mass and inherently eat all the carbon disposers and oxygen producing organisms (which is about 70% of world oxygen producing organisms on last check depending on which paper you read).
Most of the fish will then die global warming would increase at such a rapid rate, reduced oxygen increased temperatures mean less crops less food (and the world faces a food crisis as it is). Meaning death of huge amounts of humans, plants and other organisms and the western societies will be hit hardest as many do not produce enough food as it is.
So let’s allow this to carry on let’s call him left wing, a loon but if as a race we survive the next 100 years it will be because people like him act and get the public’s attention in any way they can and he will be considered a hero of mankind no matter what you say so the choice I ask you is are you part of the problem?
And by problem you are as much of a problem by ignoring these things as the people who continue to strip nature
Or are you going to be part of the solution?
9:11 am on May 21st, 2008 10
Save me the Gaia sermon, I already found religion a long time ago, I don’t need another.
You might want to go talk to these 31,000 scientists that say global warming is rubbish:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/31000_sceptical_scientists_outed/
It might also help if the globe was actually warming since global cooling has been happening since 2008:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/09/do0907.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/04/09/ixworld.html
1:24 am on May 22nd, 2008 11
I wonder how many of those scientists (not that they are) you talk about are on directives from the government.
do you work for the government by any chance oh and I am part of a science team doing test models into the effects of global warming, we might be having a cool year but that does not mean global warming is a myth I suggest you take your head out of your arse because your article should never have been up on a board as it is using evidence from unreliable sources anyone that believes that global warming is a lie then you are having the wool pulled over your eyes it is very real and very much a problem the main problem is that people want to ignore it as it would mean a change (although small) to the live styles we have say what you like GI Korea have you ever read the facts or realised how much money there is to be made from feeding lies to the general public while having a influence from corrupt government systems hmmmm a tough choice for one so uneducated
If you accept the fact or not the world we live in is changing fast the only times environments have changed faster on global scales are ice ages or events similar to the one that killed off the dinosaurs.
1:42 am on May 22nd, 2008 12
“I am part of a science team doing test models into the effects of global warming”
Why bother with your fake tests, when you have already seemingly made up your mind, and all of your funding depends on creating hysteria.
3:28 am on May 22nd, 2008 13
The whole point of doing forecast models on the rate and effect of global warming is to provide information in how to help prevent lose of live if things continue they way they are were working on the fact that most people will not believe the evidence that is out there and are trying to help make the right decisions for events that could happen as a direct response to the lack of intervention on global warming were hopefully going to save lives with our research a lot more would be saved if everyone realised what is going on but as you just confirmed no one cares but a few because everyone thinks that it will never effect them and I truly hope is does not affect everyone but from the research and models we have done later to be published in our annual report if anyone gives a dam then most will be in for a wakeup call when temperatures rise to prevent crops putting the cost of food up by over 600% (predicted markets prices in such an event).
Then will you accept it or will you just keep ignoring the problem like the rest of the drones in society and despite how much I hope things will not get to this stage let alone the others that follow it looks more and more likely with every passing day everyone ignores the truth.
You may think of me as just trying to scare everyone this could not be further from the truth I would love to say everything is a lie but it is not this is very much a reality and I shall not lie about what is happening hence why my salary has been dropped as I was offered a huge salary my the government to disprove global warming and then I would have become part of the problem I’m trying to do some good either accept it or not
Oh and just for some info the organisation I work for is charity funded
3:32 am on May 22nd, 2008 14
typos in the above !!!
11:53 pm on August 6th, 2008 15
you know what if yous want to kill whales go for it just dont do it in our waters. The whales might not be nearly extinct but think if you kill them long enough they will. Now dont go all ape shit crazy when i throw my five cents worth in iam only 15. Iam just telling you that i care about the whales and yous might be doing it for research but just go do it were your wanted easy as that.