Saturday, March 04, 2006
WHEREIN THE BIRTHDAY BOY IS CHALLENGED
I watched an episode of the Larry King Show last night, for the first time. It was not only very entertaining, but I learned something new. It turns out that there is someone more annoying than Paris Hilton in the world, and Paul McCartney married her. The McCartney's were on the show to discuss their recent (and seemingly random) campaign to end the annual seal hunt in Eastern Canada. Danny Williams, (the Premier of Newfoundland), was featured in the last half of the show and attempted to correct the McCartney’s on several point. I write “attempted” because the queen of shrill bitchiness Heather Mills wouldn’t shut the fuck up for longer than 2 minutes to listen to what Williams was saying.
Let’s take a look at some of the more enlightening insights provided by Mr. and Mrs. McCartney.
1) Mrs. McCartney: “…these seals are being clubbed to death so inhumanely and brutally and they say that it's regulated and watched” - First of all, as Mr. Williams later pointed out, clubbing often isn’t used at all, and most seals are shot. But even if they seals are clubbed, the CBC reports “a 2002 report in the Canadian Veterinary Journal found that "the large majority of seals taken during this hunt … are killed in an acceptably humane manner." This study found that 98 per cent of hunted seals it examined had been killed properly.” Williams also began his segment of the show by reading from a letter he had received from the World Wildlife Federation in which the WWF declared the Canadian seal hunt to be “humane” and “professional”. They based this analysis on first hand experience, that being from reports they received from “…a group of veterinarians that were hired by the World Wildlife Fund…” to observe the hunt. So I’m supposed to believe Paul McCartney’s dumb ass wife over the government of Canada, the government of Newfoundland, the WWF and the Canadian Veterinary Journal.
2) Paul McCartney: “It's the commercial fishermen who do this in the off season and earn between $1,200 and $1,500 a year...” – Actually according to a fisherman interviewed during the same show the earnings are between $10,000 and $20,000 a year. If you know anything about Eastern Canada it’s that it is a very economically depressed part of Canada and that kind of money is very significant to the people who participate in the hunt. Not all of us had the opportunity to leech off the talents of John Lennon and George Harrison most of our lives in order to amass a billion dollars. No, some people have to work for a living.
3) Paul McCartney: “Most of them (Canadians) don't want to see the seal hunt go ahead, you know…” Do you have anything to back this up Paul? Like, say, facts? I don’t believe this at all. I happen to live in Canada and I think I understand what people in Canada want a little better than you, you limey fuck. I think most Canadians don’t give a flying fuck about the goddamn seal hunt, and as long as the animals are killed in a humane fashion, (which they are for the most part), and aren’t endangered, (which they aren’t at all).
4) Paul McCartney: “There was a point in the '70s when whale hunting was given up. The whale hunters then had their licenses bought back. They were compensated and then whale watching took its place. And now whale watching is one of Canada's most successful industries.” – Yes, this is true Paul. Canadians don’t have industries like energy, forestry, and manufacturing. Its whale watching that sustains the Canadian economy. How else do you explain all those whale watching millionaires that line the streets of every Canadian city?
5) Mrs. McCartney: “…Humane Society U.S. filmed a young pup dying for an hour and a half before it choked on its own blood.” – Who’s the villain here? Why didn’t they try to help the seal instead of filming it dying for an hour? Well, if the seal didn’t die how could they use it in their media campaigns to garner donations?
6) Mrs. McCartney: “…when you imagine within five days 80 percent of these 250,000 to 300,000 seals are clubbed and hacky-picked (ph) as in a hook and slain around to death and that is not humane, you know.” – This is untrue, as Mr. Williams points out later. Most seals are not clubbed, but instead shot to death
7) Paul McCartney: “…I don't think it's (seal skin) really popular and I don't think it's a great item in the fashion industry but it is used and but I don't think it's really very popular…” – This is completely untrue, in fact seal pelts are more popular than ever. “Despite the continued protests demand continues to grow for seal pelts, as evidenced by record high prices obtained for seal pelts at auctions ($70 per pelt up from $15 in the mid-1990s) that are even higher now than before the campaigns of the 1980s.”
8) Mrs. McCartney: “You know once the federal government, if they you know open up their eyes, put a ban on this then, you know, we are just trying to be mediators. We're not coming here to dictate things.” – Really? Well it sound an awful lot like you are trying to dictate things. You’re telling the Canadian government and the Canadian people that you don’t like what’s going on in Canada and you want them to stop it. You aren’t suggesting, or negotiating, you’re demanding that thousands of people conform to your ideas and take action as a result. I really don’t know what the fuck else to call, but dictating. Who exactly are you trying to mediate for? The fact is that it was the “American Human Society” that organized your little trip to Canada, and subsequent photo op. If this issue is so important to Canadians why is it a foreign organization that is conducting this adventure in obnoxious celebrity bullshit?
9) Paul McCartney: “Yes, we rang him (the Prime Minister of Canada) actually today but unfortunately he was in a meeting. I'm sure that's true.” What does he mean “I’m sure that’s true”? I’d be bothered if the Prime Minister did have time to take out of his day to speak to every screw ball celebrity about their cause du jour. It goes back to that job thingy Paul; running a fucking country is hard work, and you might know that if you’d ever had a job, or lived in reality sometime during the last 40 years.
10) Mrs. McCartney: “We've heard that he's (Steven Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada) a very compassionate man and that he will, you know, find the right solution, you know, be behind this. You know, obviously he cares about what the voters think, what the people think, what he thinks individually and supporting the sealers at the same time. So we, we just think that this is an ideal opportunity for it to happen now and his second name is Harper and these are harp seals, you know. What more can you ask?” – No, I don’t know. Maybe if I had an IQ of 70 like you, I would know. First of all, I don’t think that Steven Harper and “compassionate” have ever been used in the same sentence before, (kind of like the words “Heather Mills McCartney” and “intelligent insight”). Second of all, no one is going to vote for anything based on the seal hunt. Canadians just don’t give a shit.
11) Paul McCartney: “I do like to try and do anything I can to prevent cruelty, particularly in animals because they don't have a voice and this is one of the things being an international celebrity; this is one of the advantages of it.” – Wow. Does a person get fuller of shit than this? I am a successful musician therefore my opinions on things that have nothing to do with music matter. Exactly what credentials do Mr and Mrs McCartney have when it comes to animal cruelty, Canadian politics, and the economics of Eastern Canada? These are the topics that they are discussing, but they’re not Canadian, or veterinarians. They’ve never even been on the seal hunt. All they’ve done is watched a few videos shown to them by organizations that rely on the sympathies of the general public, garnered through inaccurate or out dated information in said videos, for their economic survival.
12) Danny Williams: “First of all, the information that hasn't been given is that 90 percent of these seals are killed by bullet. They're not all clubbed. This was a practice in the past. The club that was used years ago was a Norwegian instrument that was deemed to be the most efficient way of killing seals. When in fact now 90 percent of all seals are actually killed by bullet. It's very effective. It's very efficient and it's very quick. There's another aspect, which I would like to point out to you, that this seal hunt since 1970 has tripled. It has gone from 2 million seals to 5.8 million seals. That's actually 12 times every person in Newfoundland and Labrador.” – I can’t find any information that contradicts Mr. Williams assertions. At the bottom of this post I will include some links. Read them and you will see that what Danny Williams says is much more in line with reality than what the McCartney’s claim.
13) Paul McCartney: “what happened in the 50s and 60s was, there was an over culling of the seal population. And they dropped to a dangerously low level. Where then the government had to step in and actually stop it happening in order to maintain the population. What is happening now is over the last three years, that level of killing is happening again. And so even though at this moment in time there may be enough seals, the population could drop in the same way as it did in the 50s and 60s. And this is what we feel could be dangerous.” – While it is true that seal populations did dip in the 60s and 70s, the population has actually climbed since then to almost 6 million animals, (up from over just 2 million). The annual quota for the hunt is around 370,000 harp seals. That’s just over 5%. I cannot find one credible international organization that believes that the seal population in Eastern Canada is endangered by the hunt in any fashion. McCartney is just making shit up here.
14) Mrs. McCartney: “Well, it's just not true. It's complete and absolute rubbish. It's just not true. Most of them are shot and clubbed in a hacky pick thing, which is a tall, long hook and then they hit them once with it and drag them along the ground. And they only use the one bullet. Again, because it's used for fur. It's not used for any other thing.” – How the fuck do you know? Have you been on the seal hunt? The Canadian government representatives beg to differ. Many international organizations claim that the Canadian seal hunt is among the most human in the world. The Canadian government does regulate the hunt to ensure that it is conducted in a humane fashion and has laid more than 200 charges against sealers in the last 10 years for improper practises.
15) Mrs. McCartney: “People don't eat the seals, and they use it for fashion.” – Actually people do eat seals. In fact among many Inuit communities it is a staple.
16) Paul McCartney: “We are in Newfoundland. And we saw the seals yesterday.” – Actually Paul you’re in Prince Edward Island. PEI and Newfoundland aren’t the same place. Does it get more embarrassing than this? You’re trying to save animals and you’re not even sure where they or you are. What are you doing Paul, taking geography lessons from Jessica Simpson?
17) Mrs. McCartney: “Why do you not want to give the sealers an alternate income…” – Well, why don’t you want to Mrs. McCartney? Isn’t your husband worth something like a billion dollars? Here’s a solution: Paul subsidises the sealing industry for 10 years, ($200,000,000.00). He pays for retraining for the sealers so they can make an income some other way, let’s say $20,000.00 per sealer ($100,000,000). As well, if Mr. McCartney wants to end the hunt then he should take responsibility for ensuring that the over population that is prevented by the hunt is managed. Let’s say another ($200,000,000.00). That totals half a billion dollars. If Paul McCartney really cared about the seals then I think that $500,000,000.00 is a fair price to pay to save them, and the day that he puts up that kind of money to end the hunt I will be happy to support him in his cause.
18) Danny Williams: “I would welcome Paul and Heather to come and take up the cause for the fact that our very rich cod stocks and ground fish stocks have been virtually extinguished by over fishing by foreigners from the European community. I plead with them to take up that cause and see if we can restore those stocks that will create employment for the people that live in my province.” – Of course the McCartney’s refused. You get much more media mileage out of posing next to a nice furry baby seal, than you do from standing with a slimy cod fish. The real wildlife tragedy in Eastern Canada is the depleted cod stocks. It’s been disastrous for that part of the country. The Canadian coast guard is constantly chasing away, and in some cases boarding and commandeering foreign boats that are illegally fishing off the coast of Canada. But no one gives a shit about the cod because they’re ugly as sin.
Overall the McCartney’s came across pretty poorly in the interview. Paul McCartney sounded a little senile, and his wife has got to be one of biggest bitches I’ve ever seen in my life. Even Paul rolled his eyes at some of her bizarre and idiotic statements. They kept cutting Danny Williams off, and overall were extremely rude. They sounded like the stereotypical shrill, annoying, inevitably misinformed left wingers. Their performance may have set the animal rights movement back 100 years. Danny Williams came across pretty good. He had fact and figures, and references from reputable international organizations to back up what he said. The McCartney’s had nothing but hyperbole and propaganda based on half truths and out of context information. It really was pretty pathetic watching them go on and on about a topic they obviously know nothing about. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s watching some asshole musician or actor get involved with political or social causes. They want to lend their voice to help out the world, but just because you starred in “Yentl” or wrote “Silly Little Love Song”, doesn’t mean you have any clue as to what you’re talking about out in subjects outside of making shitty media. If you want to help just make an anonymous financial donation to the charity of your choice and shut the fuck up.
I’d like to send a personal message out to Paul McCartney, because I know that he reads this blog regularly. We don’t tell you what you can and cannot do with your Irish, so shut the fuck up about the goddamn seals, asshole.
Links for further information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_hunt
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/sealhunt/
http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/media/infomedia/2005/im01_e.htm
http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/seal-phoque/reports-rapports/mgtplan-plangest2002/mgtplan-plangest2002_e.htm
Let’s take a look at some of the more enlightening insights provided by Mr. and Mrs. McCartney.
1) Mrs. McCartney: “…these seals are being clubbed to death so inhumanely and brutally and they say that it's regulated and watched” - First of all, as Mr. Williams later pointed out, clubbing often isn’t used at all, and most seals are shot. But even if they seals are clubbed, the CBC reports “a 2002 report in the Canadian Veterinary Journal found that "the large majority of seals taken during this hunt … are killed in an acceptably humane manner." This study found that 98 per cent of hunted seals it examined had been killed properly.” Williams also began his segment of the show by reading from a letter he had received from the World Wildlife Federation in which the WWF declared the Canadian seal hunt to be “humane” and “professional”. They based this analysis on first hand experience, that being from reports they received from “…a group of veterinarians that were hired by the World Wildlife Fund…” to observe the hunt. So I’m supposed to believe Paul McCartney’s dumb ass wife over the government of Canada, the government of Newfoundland, the WWF and the Canadian Veterinary Journal.
2) Paul McCartney: “It's the commercial fishermen who do this in the off season and earn between $1,200 and $1,500 a year...” – Actually according to a fisherman interviewed during the same show the earnings are between $10,000 and $20,000 a year. If you know anything about Eastern Canada it’s that it is a very economically depressed part of Canada and that kind of money is very significant to the people who participate in the hunt. Not all of us had the opportunity to leech off the talents of John Lennon and George Harrison most of our lives in order to amass a billion dollars. No, some people have to work for a living.
3) Paul McCartney: “Most of them (Canadians) don't want to see the seal hunt go ahead, you know…” Do you have anything to back this up Paul? Like, say, facts? I don’t believe this at all. I happen to live in Canada and I think I understand what people in Canada want a little better than you, you limey fuck. I think most Canadians don’t give a flying fuck about the goddamn seal hunt, and as long as the animals are killed in a humane fashion, (which they are for the most part), and aren’t endangered, (which they aren’t at all).
4) Paul McCartney: “There was a point in the '70s when whale hunting was given up. The whale hunters then had their licenses bought back. They were compensated and then whale watching took its place. And now whale watching is one of Canada's most successful industries.” – Yes, this is true Paul. Canadians don’t have industries like energy, forestry, and manufacturing. Its whale watching that sustains the Canadian economy. How else do you explain all those whale watching millionaires that line the streets of every Canadian city?
5) Mrs. McCartney: “…Humane Society U.S. filmed a young pup dying for an hour and a half before it choked on its own blood.” – Who’s the villain here? Why didn’t they try to help the seal instead of filming it dying for an hour? Well, if the seal didn’t die how could they use it in their media campaigns to garner donations?
6) Mrs. McCartney: “…when you imagine within five days 80 percent of these 250,000 to 300,000 seals are clubbed and hacky-picked (ph) as in a hook and slain around to death and that is not humane, you know.” – This is untrue, as Mr. Williams points out later. Most seals are not clubbed, but instead shot to death
7) Paul McCartney: “…I don't think it's (seal skin) really popular and I don't think it's a great item in the fashion industry but it is used and but I don't think it's really very popular…” – This is completely untrue, in fact seal pelts are more popular than ever. “Despite the continued protests demand continues to grow for seal pelts, as evidenced by record high prices obtained for seal pelts at auctions ($70 per pelt up from $15 in the mid-1990s) that are even higher now than before the campaigns of the 1980s.”
8) Mrs. McCartney: “You know once the federal government, if they you know open up their eyes, put a ban on this then, you know, we are just trying to be mediators. We're not coming here to dictate things.” – Really? Well it sound an awful lot like you are trying to dictate things. You’re telling the Canadian government and the Canadian people that you don’t like what’s going on in Canada and you want them to stop it. You aren’t suggesting, or negotiating, you’re demanding that thousands of people conform to your ideas and take action as a result. I really don’t know what the fuck else to call, but dictating. Who exactly are you trying to mediate for? The fact is that it was the “American Human Society” that organized your little trip to Canada, and subsequent photo op. If this issue is so important to Canadians why is it a foreign organization that is conducting this adventure in obnoxious celebrity bullshit?
9) Paul McCartney: “Yes, we rang him (the Prime Minister of Canada) actually today but unfortunately he was in a meeting. I'm sure that's true.” What does he mean “I’m sure that’s true”? I’d be bothered if the Prime Minister did have time to take out of his day to speak to every screw ball celebrity about their cause du jour. It goes back to that job thingy Paul; running a fucking country is hard work, and you might know that if you’d ever had a job, or lived in reality sometime during the last 40 years.
10) Mrs. McCartney: “We've heard that he's (Steven Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada) a very compassionate man and that he will, you know, find the right solution, you know, be behind this. You know, obviously he cares about what the voters think, what the people think, what he thinks individually and supporting the sealers at the same time. So we, we just think that this is an ideal opportunity for it to happen now and his second name is Harper and these are harp seals, you know. What more can you ask?” – No, I don’t know. Maybe if I had an IQ of 70 like you, I would know. First of all, I don’t think that Steven Harper and “compassionate” have ever been used in the same sentence before, (kind of like the words “Heather Mills McCartney” and “intelligent insight”). Second of all, no one is going to vote for anything based on the seal hunt. Canadians just don’t give a shit.
11) Paul McCartney: “I do like to try and do anything I can to prevent cruelty, particularly in animals because they don't have a voice and this is one of the things being an international celebrity; this is one of the advantages of it.” – Wow. Does a person get fuller of shit than this? I am a successful musician therefore my opinions on things that have nothing to do with music matter. Exactly what credentials do Mr and Mrs McCartney have when it comes to animal cruelty, Canadian politics, and the economics of Eastern Canada? These are the topics that they are discussing, but they’re not Canadian, or veterinarians. They’ve never even been on the seal hunt. All they’ve done is watched a few videos shown to them by organizations that rely on the sympathies of the general public, garnered through inaccurate or out dated information in said videos, for their economic survival.
12) Danny Williams: “First of all, the information that hasn't been given is that 90 percent of these seals are killed by bullet. They're not all clubbed. This was a practice in the past. The club that was used years ago was a Norwegian instrument that was deemed to be the most efficient way of killing seals. When in fact now 90 percent of all seals are actually killed by bullet. It's very effective. It's very efficient and it's very quick. There's another aspect, which I would like to point out to you, that this seal hunt since 1970 has tripled. It has gone from 2 million seals to 5.8 million seals. That's actually 12 times every person in Newfoundland and Labrador.” – I can’t find any information that contradicts Mr. Williams assertions. At the bottom of this post I will include some links. Read them and you will see that what Danny Williams says is much more in line with reality than what the McCartney’s claim.
13) Paul McCartney: “what happened in the 50s and 60s was, there was an over culling of the seal population. And they dropped to a dangerously low level. Where then the government had to step in and actually stop it happening in order to maintain the population. What is happening now is over the last three years, that level of killing is happening again. And so even though at this moment in time there may be enough seals, the population could drop in the same way as it did in the 50s and 60s. And this is what we feel could be dangerous.” – While it is true that seal populations did dip in the 60s and 70s, the population has actually climbed since then to almost 6 million animals, (up from over just 2 million). The annual quota for the hunt is around 370,000 harp seals. That’s just over 5%. I cannot find one credible international organization that believes that the seal population in Eastern Canada is endangered by the hunt in any fashion. McCartney is just making shit up here.
14) Mrs. McCartney: “Well, it's just not true. It's complete and absolute rubbish. It's just not true. Most of them are shot and clubbed in a hacky pick thing, which is a tall, long hook and then they hit them once with it and drag them along the ground. And they only use the one bullet. Again, because it's used for fur. It's not used for any other thing.” – How the fuck do you know? Have you been on the seal hunt? The Canadian government representatives beg to differ. Many international organizations claim that the Canadian seal hunt is among the most human in the world. The Canadian government does regulate the hunt to ensure that it is conducted in a humane fashion and has laid more than 200 charges against sealers in the last 10 years for improper practises.
15) Mrs. McCartney: “People don't eat the seals, and they use it for fashion.” – Actually people do eat seals. In fact among many Inuit communities it is a staple.
16) Paul McCartney: “We are in Newfoundland. And we saw the seals yesterday.” – Actually Paul you’re in Prince Edward Island. PEI and Newfoundland aren’t the same place. Does it get more embarrassing than this? You’re trying to save animals and you’re not even sure where they or you are. What are you doing Paul, taking geography lessons from Jessica Simpson?
17) Mrs. McCartney: “Why do you not want to give the sealers an alternate income…” – Well, why don’t you want to Mrs. McCartney? Isn’t your husband worth something like a billion dollars? Here’s a solution: Paul subsidises the sealing industry for 10 years, ($200,000,000.00). He pays for retraining for the sealers so they can make an income some other way, let’s say $20,000.00 per sealer ($100,000,000). As well, if Mr. McCartney wants to end the hunt then he should take responsibility for ensuring that the over population that is prevented by the hunt is managed. Let’s say another ($200,000,000.00). That totals half a billion dollars. If Paul McCartney really cared about the seals then I think that $500,000,000.00 is a fair price to pay to save them, and the day that he puts up that kind of money to end the hunt I will be happy to support him in his cause.
18) Danny Williams: “I would welcome Paul and Heather to come and take up the cause for the fact that our very rich cod stocks and ground fish stocks have been virtually extinguished by over fishing by foreigners from the European community. I plead with them to take up that cause and see if we can restore those stocks that will create employment for the people that live in my province.” – Of course the McCartney’s refused. You get much more media mileage out of posing next to a nice furry baby seal, than you do from standing with a slimy cod fish. The real wildlife tragedy in Eastern Canada is the depleted cod stocks. It’s been disastrous for that part of the country. The Canadian coast guard is constantly chasing away, and in some cases boarding and commandeering foreign boats that are illegally fishing off the coast of Canada. But no one gives a shit about the cod because they’re ugly as sin.
Overall the McCartney’s came across pretty poorly in the interview. Paul McCartney sounded a little senile, and his wife has got to be one of biggest bitches I’ve ever seen in my life. Even Paul rolled his eyes at some of her bizarre and idiotic statements. They kept cutting Danny Williams off, and overall were extremely rude. They sounded like the stereotypical shrill, annoying, inevitably misinformed left wingers. Their performance may have set the animal rights movement back 100 years. Danny Williams came across pretty good. He had fact and figures, and references from reputable international organizations to back up what he said. The McCartney’s had nothing but hyperbole and propaganda based on half truths and out of context information. It really was pretty pathetic watching them go on and on about a topic they obviously know nothing about. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s watching some asshole musician or actor get involved with political or social causes. They want to lend their voice to help out the world, but just because you starred in “Yentl” or wrote “Silly Little Love Song”, doesn’t mean you have any clue as to what you’re talking about out in subjects outside of making shitty media. If you want to help just make an anonymous financial donation to the charity of your choice and shut the fuck up.
I’d like to send a personal message out to Paul McCartney, because I know that he reads this blog regularly. We don’t tell you what you can and cannot do with your Irish, so shut the fuck up about the goddamn seals, asshole.
Links for further information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_hunt
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/sealhunt/
http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/media/infomedia/2005/im01_e.htm
http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/seal-phoque/reports-rapports/mgtplan-plangest2002/mgtplan-plangest2002_e.htm
