Typed up a nice long response that got lost which fucking royally pissed me off... just came back to post my main point:
Those Sea Shepherds are borderline noble for doing what they do... it doesn't matter how stupid and ineffective their tactics are, what matters is that they are making their voices and their message heard while governments and other groups who might be concerned fail to take any kind of action.
You can't expect the governments ever to do the right thing... sure, they might make one sound decision here and one ethical choice there, but it's all purely coincidental. More and more I'm learning that politicians only have one thing in mind, which is maintaining or perhaps increasing their popularity so they win re-election, thus guaranteeing success both in their public and personal lives. Sometimes the lucrative choices are the right choices, but that's often not the case.
You can't expect the Japanese government to do anything, even if they saw whaling as a problem they would never change things because whaling is part of Japanese tradition and they would never be re-elected if they banned it. You also can't expect other governments to do anything because Japan is a powerful economic and military power and a first world country, so more or less an ally. So if there's any hope of anyone doing the right thing, it's these so-called hippies and environmentalists that most of you unfortunately seem to vehemently hate.
Plus, even when you look at the facts of the whole whaling thing it makes no sense. It doesn't matter if they're only killing a tiny percentage of the whole whale population... they're killing wild living beings just to do research on them. It would make more sense to me if this was commercial whaling, since then there would be a point.
They kill hundreds of whales every year, so they can do such basic research as determining their age and the population of their species? This make no sense... these are not lab rats, but large and majestic wild animals which should not be killed for such bogus reasons. The Nazis would argue the same fact too... sacrifice a small number of people so we can learn more things about human physiology and advance medicine, therefore doing a greater good for humanity as a whole.
And since I've pretty much made all the points from my original post which got lost, here's the last point: How do you figure these Sea Shepherd are pussies as indicated in the thread title? They might not be that prepared and their cause of saving whales (that aren't near extinction yet) might not seem that noble to you, but one thing is for sure, these people are out there in bad, inhospitable environments risking their lives... and their stupidity, if anything, make me more sympathetic because they are put at even greater danger by it.
So yeah, if I am right in thinking a pussy is a cowardly person, then these are definitely not pussies. They do the best they can with the equipment and know-how they have, that's something at least.
Please people, don't just get into a huff whenever you see the words hippy or environmentalist somewhere... look at the facts and judge for yourself (and hopefully you're not getting your facts from a reality show). Research is one thing... but they're killing these whales in the hundreds for what exactly? Is their some kind of disease in the whale species they hope to cure or do they believe there's some hope to find the cure for cancer in these animals? There is no advantage for the animal population, and if you believe them that this isn't a commercial whaling business then there's no human advantages either. Then stop it already.