Reply #87: Okay, now

[apaflo]

Originally Posted by fivegan:I'm just tired of your attempts at horseshit arguments.

Ahem. You seem to have nothing but bovine excrement, so where do you get off complaining that his is equine?

Originally Posted by fivegan:
The whales are the important issue here. So, there's one "policing force" out there. Do they go after the Inuit who have a certain "right" to take a small number of whales or do they go after a large scale, illegal whaling expedition in a whale sanctuary? Shit, I wish I could figure that one out.

Paul Watson is not a "policing force". He's a criminal. And please do note that the Japanese research whaling is absolutely a legal operation in every sense of the term. It is clearly authorized by the intent if the ICRW treaty.

Originally Posted by fivegan:
You were making an attempt to draw a parallel between the Japanese whaling ships and the "ships" that whalers in the US and Russia use. Semantics, my ass. Comparing the Nisshun Maru to what is little more than a 3 person kayak is idiotic.

Your comment is vastly ignorant.

Just to begin with, nobody in the Arctic hunts whales in a 3 person kayak, or even close. Moreover, the Nisshun Maru is a processing ship and as such does not even come close to the shore based processing facilities used in the Arctic! (In Barrow, for the fall hunt, the "fleecing deck" is an old 3000 foot runway. They typically process three Bowhead whales at a time, but have done as many a 7 at once.)

There in fact are differences in the boats used by the Japanse to hunt whales and the power boats typically used in the Arctic. Boats used by the Japanese are not shore based, and they must operate in significant seas and winds. Boats used in the Arctic are shore based and do not venture out in high winds and/or seas. But there simply is nothing as small as a 50 hp outboard used in the open ocean in US Arctic waters.

(And don't be confused by the use of umiaq skin boats for hunting from the ice in the spring. Open leads in the ice cannot be hunted with large power boats, and an umiaq is the superior technology.)

Originally Posted by fivegan:
Last I checked, having Obama "blow them up" and have someone arrested is a pretty damn big difference, but again, we're back to someone "attacking" an Inuit boat. More than likely Obama's response would be, "what the fuck are you talking about?"

Your perception of Watson's idiocy is amusing. He isn't stupid enough to try sinking a whaling boat in the Arctic Ocean off of either Russia or the US. He would not survive, and Obama's response (as would be that of anyone who is reasonable) would be along the lines of, "Watson's gone? Good."