Dave, I'm curious about Watson

[JohnS_AZ]

Hey Dave, this is totally non-electronics, but I'm really curious...

What's your take on the whole Paul Watson / Sea Shepard thing? On TV here they make him out to be a folk hero in AU.

For the record, I'm impressed with and support the guy and his mission. I just keep waiting to see them launch a DIY Drone off that ship.

[EEVblog]

I like it when people actually do something instead of talking about it, and stick it to 'em.
Especially when I'm passionate about the whales too.
so my hats off to him and the other involved for that, I think it's great.

But there has been some stuff exposed that not so great. Like (I think I heard) he ordered that the Ady Gill be sunk as publicity stunt or something like that.

No such folk hero status here in Oz that I am aware of, he's Canadian I think, not Australian, so nothing to do with us really.
But Australia does take a more active role in Whales conservation that most countries, because it's usually happening somewhere in our waters.

I wish our government they'd spend more time trying to stop the Japanese whalers than the boat people. The $500M we just spent greasing up the Indonesians to help with the boat people fiasco would have bought a lot more legal action against the Japs.

Dave.

[PetrosA]

Funny how you get a certain impression of other countries from TV... I recently watched all the episodes of Sea Patrol I could get a hold of.  It was interesting how the RAN plays the same role as our Coast Guard does here, probably with the same shortage of man power, too. I think the show does a pretty decent job of showing the issues of illegal fishing pretty well, although I don't recall any episodes specifically dealing with Japanese whalers. Too politically sensitive maybe?

[EEVblog]

Funny how you get a certain impression of other countries from TV... I recently watched all the episodes of Sea Patrol I could get a hold of.  It was interesting how the RAN plays the same role as our Coast Guard does here, probably with the same shortage of man power, too. I think the show does a pretty decent job of showing the issues of illegal fishing pretty well, although I don't recall any episodes specifically dealing with Japanese whalers. Too politically sensitive maybe?

Yeah, that would be taboo I think, considering the Aust government have been the first to take Japan to court over it.

Yes, the RAN do the same job as your Coast Guard in protecting our shoreline, although we have a shit load more coast to protect, with I'm sure fewer resources!

Given that the Australian navy has little in the way of the international projection of power, they do send most of their time hunting down boat people and drug smugglers.

Dave.

[johnboxall]

Australia is always going to make a bit of noise but generally *do* nothing when it comes to whaling - Japan is our number two trade partner and a defence ally.

Same with China, they can get up to all sorts of tricks as long as they keep buying our minerals.

[TheDirty]

Damn Canadians.