The latest in the battle against Japanese whaling

In case you haven't been following the battle of oceanic activist group Sea Shepherds vs. the Japanese whalers, this video from World News Australia shows the latest. Apparently, a Sea Shepherd guy snuck onto a Japanese whaler with a bill for a destroyed ship; the Japanese government took him into custody.

By the way, here's a snippet from a Sea Shepherds' press release:

Captain Peter Bethune is no longer just a man who set a world record in boating and had the courage to defend the whales. He will now be the very symbol of the citizens of New Zealand and Australia and their love for the great whales.

The last time a Kiwi was taken prisoner to Japan was in their great war of imperialism went they attempted to enslave both Australia and New Zealand. They have now returned to plunder Australian and New Zealand waters and once again they are arrogantly flaunting the law and taking prisoners.

Interesting...

Comments

[twitter.com/bluemagister]

Whales are tasty and whaling is part of Japanese traditional culinary culture, just as it is in the independent Inuit nation. There are better ways to stop it than being stupid and claiming "a courageous act".

Japanese courts do NOT work like US courts. They will be lucky to get a ruling in 2 or 3 years...and the judges are not impartial.

[Isao]

As an expatriate Japanese I don't look at whaling industry as the symbol of evilness, but as one of the dying professions. As in the old saying, they are just doing their jobs. Hopefully they will have a peaceful death before nationalism catches up with Greenpeace's activities in a wrong way (= everybody is too busy bickering and nobody remembers what the core issue was about).

[Johnkung]

Whoa whoa -- they're not Australian! Paul Watson is Canadian, Peter Bethune is a New Zealander, the group is headquartered in the US and their ships are registered in the Netherlands. They use our ports, and that's embarrassing enough, but they are definitely NOT Australian!

[Kittylovesjapan]

The diatribe that the Sea Shepard guys spout only goes to show that they are glorified terrorists, full of their own self-inflated importance.

They do NOT speak for Australians. You'll be hard pressed to find any Australian that agrees with what the Sea Shephard does, or stands for.

Deliberately steering your ship into the oncoming bow of another ship, then blaming them for hitting you is ludicrous, but this is what the SS guys did.

Now they board a ship without invitation, and are claiming the Japanese are in the wrong?

They might want to check out International Piracy laws, because boarding a ship without permission is just that - piracy.

None of that SS group is respected, liked nor welcome in Australia.

They all need to be charged with the crimes we see their TV show glorify all the time.

[Kell]

I can't believe that people would stand in the way of legitimate scientific research. It is shocking what people will do when they don't understand how important this research is to (mmmm) culture and (yummm) science of a proud and honourable (delicious) country

[Samantha Booker]

At the risk of attracting your flaming comments, Australians may not stand behind the sea sheperds actions, but generally they do not like japanese whaling near our coasts.

Whaling under the banner of "research" is pretty obvious that its not research at all, its fishing for food. It's been proven this research can be done without slaughtering whales. Cant you just be honest? Inuits dont take as many whales as japan does and nor does Norway, as the population is a fraction of the size. It the overfishing that bothers us.