Paul Watson

via earthlyissues.com

“You don’t need a peg leg or an eye patch,” Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel. “When you ram ships; hurl glass containers of acid; drag metal-reinforced ropes in the water to damage propellers and rudders; launch smoke bombs and flares with hooks; and point high-powered lasers at other ships, you are, without a doubt, a pirate, no matter how high-minded you believe your purpose to be.”

And with that very clear explanation, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has declared Paul Watson and his supporters pirates.   Read more »

Cry-Baby: Paul Watson

The incident: Eco-Terrorist and fugitive Paul Watson and his little band of pirates had their ships run over by law abiding Japanese whalers going about their legal business in the Southern Ocean.

“The Nisshin Maru has rammed the Steve Irwin and the Bob Barker, but both vessels continue to hold their positions,” Paul Watson, the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society which runs the protest boats, said.

Watson also accused Japanese coastguard personnel of throwing concussion grenades at their protest ships during a confrontation in the frigid waters near Antarctica and said the Bob Barker was taking on water in its engine room at one stage.  Read more »

We started our Saturday by paying our respects to Norman Schwarzkopf Jr., the hard-charging US Army general whose forces smashed the Iraqi army in the 1991 Gulf War.  He died aged 78.  At The Standard 2012 Worst Political Blog Mike Smith is told some home truths about long term grass-roots Labour families heading for the Greens.  A quick vid on how to put out a boat fire the Kiwi way is next, followed by a vote for Best Minister.  The winner, at 52%, is Judith Collins.  The Whale Week That Was summarised all the stories this blog covered in the previous seven days.  A quite active Saturday Debate (for the time of year especially) led a post calling for nominations for Best Political Blog.  Those who see WOBH as any sort of threat to them (and those that don’t too), should take heed of this Malcolm Tucker quote: “marshal all the media forces of Darkness to hound them to an assisted suicide”.  A CNN piece showing Teachers in Utah taking a class on gun use shows some common sense around the gun debate.  A reader has taken yesterday’s US Fiscal Cliff graphic and created one for New Zealand – great work.  As Cameron Slater predicted from the outset, the Aussie Hoax DJs will not face charges.  The NZ Herald continues to amuse – this time a car crashed into a poll.  The blog then introduces us to two sexy taxidermists showing you don’t have to look like a front row forward to deal with dead animals.  And you’d think we’re picking on an incompetent NZ Herald, and you would be right.  This time they have Jesse Ryder beating himself at Eden Park in Wellington.  Then a hilarious story about a Queensland woman who fell into the longdrop and was there for two hours before being discovered by her husband.   Turns out that during the Falklands War the French tried to send missiles to Argentinia behind Margaret Thatcher‘s back.  Commerce first eh?  The last post of the day highlights a report of a man holding up a Countdown Supermarket with a hammer.  Our readers get fired up about the idea of hammer banning.

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Paul Watson talks the big game…but when it comes to his own skin is nothing but a big coward as he stays in international waters to avoid capture.

He should be arrested in Australia if he comes ashore and the same goes for here. Anyone who flies the jolly roger and attacks ships on the high seas is a pirate:

A DIPLOMATIC headache is developing for the federal government as ground is laid for the wanted Sea Shepherd leader, Paul Watson, to come ashore in Australia.

Mr Watson is wanted by Japan over his Antarctic anti-whaling campaigns, and after skipping bail in Germany has been at sea for months to avoid arrest.

No surprises that the Green taliban of Australia is sticking up for the pirate.  Read more »

Sun News

Ezra Levant tears apart Paul Watson and Sea Shepherd

ᔥ Sydney Morning Herald

The head of the pirate organisation Sea Shepherd (They fly a Jolly Roger), the eco-terrorist Paul Watson, is on the run after skipping bail in Germany:

Paul Watson calls it “Getting out of Dodge” – as in the Wild West’s Dodge City. The hardline conservationist knows when the forces arrayed against him mean it’s time to leave town.

He got out of Dodge once in 2006, just hours before authorities in Hobart were told his ship Farley Mowat should be detained, having been stripped of its Belizean flag.

Since then he has led the transformation of his group from a self-proclaimed pirate outfit, to a small, efficient navy funded largely by Hollywood millionaires.

Now he has suddenly taken flight from Germany, where he was being detained over another 10 year-old decision to get out of Dodge in Costa Rica.

The decision to skip bail in Frankfurt throws into doubt his ability to lead the group he founded 35 years ago.

Pensive and bearish, the Canadian-born Watson, 61, was an original Greenpeace member who broke with the group in the 1970s. Most of those activists have recalled Mr Watson as too much warrior and not enough rainbow.

More like too much yellow as he cuts and runs again from authorities.

ᔥ The Independent

About time someone held this eco-terrorist to account.

An anti-whaling activist, famed for televised confrontations with fishermen, has been arrested for allegedly attempting to use his boat to sink an illegal shark fishing vessel off the coast of Guatemala.

I’m not going to shed a tear for pirate organisation Sea Shepherd as their ship looks like it is going down.

Anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd’s scout vessel Brigitte Bardot has a widening crack in its hull and is being pounded by heavy seas about 2400km southwest of Fremantle.

Its South African captain Jonathan Miles Renecle was confident the ship, which has a 10-member crew, would stay afloat until it was reached by Sea Shepherd flagship Steve Irwin.

Captain Paul Watson, on board the Steve Irwin, said his ship was fighting heavy seas and was expected to take 20 hours to reach the distressed vessel, about 390km to the southeast.

The 35-metre Brigitte Bardot, an advanced design monohull vessel with twin outer pontoons, had been pursuing Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru in six-metre swells. A rogue wave slammed into the Brigitte Bardot’s port side, cracking the hull and severely damaging one of its pontoons.

“The crack has been getting wider as the seas continue to pound the vessel,” Sea Shepherd said.

Pete “The Pirate” Bethune has been sentenced to jail for two years by a Japanese court, but it has been suspended for five years.

Arse! I was really hoping he would have been cooling his heels in a Japanese prison.

“The defendant is sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, suspended for five years from the day of this verdict,” chief judge Takashi Tawada said of Bethune, 45, a former activist of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

He is expected to be deported tonight.

Sharyn Bethune, his wife, said the decision was “awesome”

She did not know when he would be coming home.

“We are letting it all sink in, we’re about to open the bottle of bubbles to celebrate.”

Captain Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd admitted they had “done a deal” with Japan to get Bethune out of jail.

“We are quite relieved to get him out of prison,” he told TV3.

Watson said they had spent US$500,000 on Bethune’s defence.

Uhmmmm, I thought his missus had left him?