The Daily Boomerang

The eco-loons from Sea Shepherd who have been responsible for attacking Japanese whalers and then lying and creating a false hostage crisis are now in search of more headlines in the Arctic protesting the annual Canadian seal hunt which is a species that is even more plentiful then minke whales.  However, the Sea Shepherd eco-loons were in for a surprise when French fishermen used Sea Shepherd’s own violent tactics, which they are championed for in the Australian media, against them:

A militant environmental group opposed to the East Coast seal hunt was forced to flee the French islands of St-Pierre-Miquelon on Friday after angry fishermen cut the mooring lines of the group’s flagship vessel.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society sparked outrage earlier this week when the group’s leader, Paul Watson, said the recent deaths of three seal hunters north of Cape Breton was a tragedy, but the continued slaughter of seals "is an even greater tragedy."

On Friday, Watson’s vessel, the Farley Mowat, was confronted at the wharf by two dozen residents of St-Pierre, the capital of the French territory south of Newfoundland.

Police confirmed local fishermen confronted the activists and the ship left after its lines were cut with axes.

Fisherman Carl Beaupertuis, 47, said when he heard Watson’s comments about the sealers killed in a capsizing last Saturday, he was furious.

"We cut the ropes … because the fishermen of St-Pierre don’t accept what Paul Watson said," he said. "He’s not allowed to come in the harbour any more. It’s finished for him."

Watson later confirmed he had left St-Pierre-Miquelon after the tense confrontation.  [Cnews via Tim Blair]

What is really funny is that Watson says he is going to make a legal challenge in a French court against the fishermen for forcibly removing them from the island.  This is especially ironic considering Watson’s group has consistently assaulted Japanese whalers.  Watson should consider himself lucky the French fishermen didn’t throw acid at him like he consistently does at the Japanese.  The Canadian government also said in the Cnews article that they plan on pressing charges against Watson for interfering with the annual seal hunt.  It good to see that the French and the Canadians are not tolerating the eco-loons from Sea Shepherd. 

Here is a perfect example of why politicians love global warming:

Households and businesses had to wait six days for power to be restored after last week’s wild weather, which killed four, blacked out 420,000 homes and caused $80 million damage.  (…)

Premier John Brumby blamed global warming for the damage and warned severe winds would become more frequent.

But industry experts, technicians and the Electrical Trades Union blamed staff shortages, frail powerlines and a failure to prune overhanging trees.

"There are not enough blokes in the industry and not enough are being trained," one experienced line worker said. [Herald-Sun]

Some how I seriously doubt this was the first time in history a wind storm that dropped heavy rain hit Victoria. How can someone claim increasing wind storms are hitting Victoria when in the two years I have lived here that is the first severe wind storm I have seen hit the state.  To claim more severe wind storms are coming is just more fear mongering to obscure the issue that the government failed to prune trees and hire enough utility personnel to fix downed powerlines. 

Last night was the highly publicized Earth Hour which today as expected the Australian media is touting as this great success:

EARTH Hour returned to Australia tonight, with Sydney’s postcard-perfect harbour again temporarily plunged into darkness.

At 8pm (AEDT), the Harbour Bridge and its neighbouring Opera House dimmed from flood-lit tourism icons to still recognisable silhouettes.

Only security lighting remained on the structures, while elsewhere in Sydney’s CBD, the office towers glowed rather than blazed against the night.

As lines of office lights inked out, a crowd of about 100 people at the harbourside park of Mrs Macquarie’s Chair cheered.

“Earth Hour is a call to action. People have now responded and it’s time to introduce some significant long-term changes,” Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said at an official Earth Hour function at the park.

“One inspired idea that began in Sydney just 12 months ago has become a world movement,” she said. [AAP]

However in Melbourne, Earth Hour was a failure:

Melbourne Before

Melbourne After

The Arts Center and its spire was nearly the only building that turned off its lights. The Age got caught last year Photoshopping their Earth Hour pictures in order to make it appear more people turned off their lights then really did. Since they couldn’t get away with Photoshopping pictures this year The Age despite their attempts to gloss over this failure ultimately had to admit instead had to admit that Earth Hour was anti-climactic:

At the top of the Rialto, a small crowd had a sense of anticlimax when there was no widespread blackout at 8pm. In fact, across the CBD rows of illuminated office windows, with little sign of beavering workers behind them, showed not everyone had read the memo. [The Age]

Funnier yet was that Carlton and St. Kilda were playing their night time footy game in the Telstra Dome last night with full lighting. To further emphasize the failure check out the energy demand of Victoria last night from the National Electricity Market Management Company:

Total Energy Demand for Victoria:

If you look at 20:00 (8PM) when Earth Hour started, the demand for energy actually increased in Victoria. It wasn’t just Victoria either, look at the energy demand for the rest of Australia:

Total Energy Demand for New South Wales:

Total Energy Demand for South Australia:

Total Energy Demand for Queensland:

Total Energy Demand for Tasmania:

Looking at these graphs I have to wonder what was going on in South Australia last night at midnight? Energy demand went through the roof. You can also tell by this graph that not a whole lot is going on at night in Tasmania considering their energy demand dropped to next to nothing.

As for myself all the lights in my house were turned off last night, not because of Earth Hour, but because my wife and I had a dinner party put on by my employer to go to which yes all the lights were on. We turned the lights off at our house simply because that is what we always do when we leave the house. The functions we went to was scheduled for months and the organizers decided to hold the function even though the Earth Hour was going on.

The Earth Hour did provide some good discussion at the event last night though with many people I talked to believing that Earth Hour was ultimately pointless and symbolic at best. Many wondered why doesn’t the government do something to create more non-CO2 polluting electricity so people do not have to feel guilty about having their lights on? Another friend of mine may a great point that the Australia 2020 Summit is going to be as pointless as Earth Hour. Instead of the 2020 Summit the government should have an 2020 Energy Summit to come up with an ultimate solution to what the nation is going to do in regards to generating more non-CO2 polluting electricity by 2020.

However, such a summit would require tough political decisions to made; it is much more simple just to ask people to turn off their lights instead.

The Japanese are now calling Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on his government’s hypocrisy surrounding its policies on culling kangaroo populations:

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has shrugged off claims the federal government is being hypocritical by planning a kangaroo cull in Canberra while criticising Japanese whaling.

About 70 people are blockading a former defence site in Canberra’s north where the government plans to kill more than 400 eastern grey kangaroos.

Japanese television and radio have focused on the protest against the kangaroo slaughter and linked it to Australia’s stance on whaling.

Japanese network TV reporter Hiroki Iijima told News Ltd that Japanese people viewed the kangaroo cull as hypocritical.

Mr Rudd on Sunday defended Australia’s position on whaling but refused to go into the specifics of the kangaroo cull. [AAP]

Look at how kangaroo populations are culled:

Australian animal protection groups questioned on Monday a new government guide for the humane killing of kangaroos which recommends "forcefully swinging" the heads of young animals against a vehicle tow bar.

A proposed code of conduct for shooting young kangaroos, called joeys, and smaller wallabies released by the Department of Environment also recommended a single close-range shotgun blast.

"These changes are basically saying the federal government believes it’s okay to blast a defenseless joey to bits with a shotgun," Pat O’Brien, President of the Wildlife Protection Association, told local newspapers.  [Reuters]

Remember this the next time you hear how inhumane Japanese whalers are. 

As I have expressed on this blog I am a big fan of kangaroo meat, in fact I plan on grilling some up tonight, however the Japanese media is jumping all over this hypocrisy with the kangaroo cull because it precisely shows the differences in perception of whales and kangaroos.  Many Japanese look as whales as a food source just like any other animal while many in Australia find them to be smart and cute and cannot imagine anyone wanting to eat them.  Many Japanese on the other hand find kangaroos to be cute and cuddly and couldn’t imagine killing and eating one of them either. 

Neither animal is endangered so why can’t someone eat either of them?   

The violence in the Southern Ocean continues to escalate:

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]

Before I discuss this shooting notice how the AAP called what the Sea Shepherd loons were throwing as "stink bombs" and what the Japanese used as "grenades".  The "stink bombs" the Sea Shepherd eco-loons were throwing is in fact butyric acid that is a weak acid that stinks badly but could injure someone if the acid gets into someones eyes. If you check the Australian Government’s ASCC webpage the acid is classified as a hazardous substance.  Sea Shepherd claims the acid is harmless.  If it is so harmless I dare someone to throw one at the next footy game you attend and see what happens.

Here is what the "grenades" the Japanese were using against the Sea Shepherd eco-loons:

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" when they are not even "grenades".  A grenade you pull a pin out of and throw at someone, this riot control device is shot from the gun like device you see pictured below:

This same riot control device is used by policemen in Australia to include when they battled the anarchist thugs that trashed Melbourne two years ago.  So how come the Australian media doesn’t say the Sea Shepherd eco-loons are throwing "acid bombs" while the Japanese Coast Guard used a "riot control devices" in response?  Draw you own conclusions.  Anyway back to the alleged shooting of Watson:

"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.

The Japanese have denied shooting Watson and this has more eco-drama written all over it.  First of all every picture I have seen of the Sea Shepherd eco-loons not one of them was ever wearing a flak jacket.  So I find it interesting that suddenly Watson is wearing a flak jacket.  Secondly the Japanese have denied shooting him and what purpose would shooting Watson and making him a martyr have?  Thirdly the Sea Shepherd group are known liars that the media continues to let them get away with. 

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?  Once again draw your own conclusions, but I know what I think. 

It is amazing the amount of headlines this is making over a species that is not even endangered. 

A species that flourishes unlike any other in Australia’s environment are reptiles.  The United States has less then one third the amount of reptiles that flourish on the Australian continent.  There are more then 800 species with 90 percent of them only found in Australia.  What is really amazing that one hectare of desert in the Outback contains more reptile species then New Zealand and the United Kingdom combined.  Even more amazing is that it is expected that the many more species of reptiles are still waiting to be discovered in the vast Outback.  Truly incredible. 

However, the most famous Australian reptiles are without a doubt the various species of poisonous snakes.  Australia has 140 species of snakes with 100 of them being venomous.  However, of those 100 only 12 of them are venomous enough to kill a person.  I have actually had my own run in with one of these poisonous snakes, however the most commonly seen venomous snake is the common Brown Snake:

It is actually not uncommon during the summer time here in Australia to see news reports of people bitten by brown snakes.  They may not be the most poisonous but quite possibly the most dangerous here in Australia. 

The most poisonous snake in Australia is the Inland Taipan:

The inland taipan can grow up to two meters long, can vary slightly in color, and are 100 times more venomous then an American rattlesnake.  However, the snake is only found deep in the Outback and is rarely seen by humans.  In fact it is so rare that no known fatalities from this snake has been recorded.  However, a few bites have happened from people handling the snakes and all have been successfully treated with anti-venom. 

In fact the belief that Australian snakes are dangerous is actually quite false.  I can count on one hand the number of snakes I have seen here in the last two years and when you see them they slither off rather quickly.  This is because snakes do not see people as a threat to them here unlike many American snakes such as the rattlesnake that does. 

I highly recommend everyone check out this site that shows the myth of Australia’s dangerous and most venomous snakes really is. 

Another anti-whaling eco-idiot is at it yet again:

WEST Australian Premier Alan Carpenter was manhandled by a protester while speaking at a taxi drivers’ rally on the steps of parliament today.

Taxi drivers converged on the WA parliament this morning to protest changes by the State Government to the industry.

Mr Carpenter emerged from the parliament after drivers demanded to speak to him.

Police spokesman Ian Hasleby said it was understood the Premier was "manhandled" by a man on the steps of parliament while he spoke to the taxi drivers.

"Apparently this guy is not a taxi driver but was at the rally," Mr Hasleby said.

It is understood the man, who was an anti-whaling protester, was tackled by the Premier’s security guards and spoke to the Premier after he was released.  [AAP]

I wonder if he is related to this eco-idiot?

For everyone claming the Japanese kidnapped and held hostage the two eco-loons from Sea Shepherd that boarded their ship back in January take a look at this:

The head of the radical anti-whaling Sea Shepherd Society says the two crew members who boarded a Japanese whaling ship last month bugged it.

The Sea Shephard is now using the bugs to track the whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica.

But a split in the organisation is emerging with the captain, Paul Watson, dismissing the safety concerns of the Australian crew member who boarded and bugged the Japanese ship.

Paul Watson is in the Southern Ocean chasing the Japanese whaling fleet. He’s telling PM reporter, Felicity Ogilvie, how the Yushin Maru was bugged. [PM Radio]

So in other words they have been lying all this time about why they boarded the ship and played the media like the tools they are, but it is okay because they are protecting a non-endangered species. 

Another day and another claim that “the show will be over” for Australia due to global warming. I wonder what the good scientist thinks of the current global cooling, especially this year the world is undergoing?

There probably isn’t a better example of how far apart the differences in opinion between Japan and Australia are in regards to whaling than these two videos.

Video One - Dragonball Z takes on the eco-loons:

Video Two - The Chaser on Japanese whaling:

I’m not saying the Chaser’s segment was racist, but I can understand why Japanese people say it is especially after being subject to this video advocating for the killing of a Japanese man as well.