"..was clubbing a seal to death"

As opposed to clubbing it for fun, or?...

Paul Watson is a lying media whore who will say or do anything because he thinks his goal (funding for his projects) justifies it, and GP knew it would harm their ultimate goal (protecting animals).

That little "he loved animals TOO much to be in Greenpeace, who btw are CONTROLLED BY TEH IRS, so he had to personally help a baby seal" sounds as realistic as Kim Jong Il's birth history retcon.

Top 5%?

That's totally arbitrary.

Like when they've cut the top x% percent of users because they were labeled "abusers".

Give me an absolute number, a number of GB.

Their military might be weaker (I don't know if that's true), but as with real estate , location, location, location....

Didn't they do that in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep for low bandwidth intership communication?

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.

I'm trying to understand your reasoning... Why would proving that 7" is "better" be something negative?

You are why people in marketing have a job. But you probably feel good about it, so win-win?

I think your premise is flawed. No one has a clue about how many *exactly* there are of anything. But we do have estimates. The same thing we have of any wild animal.

I don't see the problem with a .1% population cull, borders or not. If there were conservation issues, sure, it'd need to be regulated tightly. And owning a migrating animal? The whales are born free, and they die free. Sounds like a good deal to me, compared to what the rest of my lunches go through before ending up on my plate.

What kind of twisted mind would infer that from what I said?

Yea, killing whales for "science" is absurd.

Here are some more numbers, courtesy of wikipedia:

"In its Red List of Threatened Species the IUCN lists both the Long-finned and Short-finned Pilot Whales with "Data Deficient" status according to its 2008 assessment. In a previous assessment in 1996 the organization listed the species in the "Lower Risk/least concern" category. However, the IUCN also says that with an estimated subpopulation size of 778,000 in the eastern North Atlantic and approximately 100,000 around the Faroes, Faroese catches of 850 per year are probably sustainable.
According to the American Cetacean Society — a whale protectionist group — pilot whales are not considered endangered. The society cites that there are likely about 1,000,000 long-finned and at least 200,000 short-finned pilot whales worldwide."

and

"Long-term annual average catch 1709–1999: 850
Annual average catch 1900–1999: 1,225
Annual average catch 1980–1999: 1,511
Annual average catch 1990–1999: 956"

The records are pretty good, continuous since 1709, and partially back to 1584

But I'm not talking about endangered whales, nor harpooning.

And as for cetaceans being too smart... They people love to identify with whales without ever having seen one *shrug*.

We have no shortage of pilot whales either, afaik. But most people only hear "whale" and assume the worst.

Pilot whales are not harpooned, but driven up on shore and then their spine is cut. I wouldn't call it painless, but I don't think its savage or torture. Just for reference they are smaller than killer whales but typically bigger than dolphins, FYI.

I've killed a few sheep for food myself, and It does give you a new appreciation for where the meat comes from. It's amazing how some people are outraged by killing "free range" pilot whales only because it is very bloody, with NO thought about what exactly is in their quarterpounder.