A Case Against Meat

My attention was caught by an add on Facebook today; the head of an orangoutang in cling wrap ready to be sold in supermarkets. I clicked the link which took me to a page that warned meat sold in Albert Heijn was soy fed, soy which is grown in plantations in South America that are not only damaging the environment but are also the cause of human rights violations. 

I googled around a little and found this video which was part of an investigation by The Economist into Europe's cheap meat, click here to read the full article or watch the video below.

Friends of the Earth in The Netherlands has an ongoing campaigning about this apparently The Netherlands is the world's second largest importer of soy.  If you feel as sick as I do right now please read and sign their petition.  

We have already cut down drastically on meat mostly because we've found the quality of meat here pretty shocking, after reading this though, there is just no way we will be going anywhere near soy fed meat and instead aim at organic and free range. Can that even be found here in the Netherlands? Eating for me is getting harder and harder by the day. I am now a gluten free, sustainable fish only, extremely strictly non cephalopod, organic/free range meat eater. Bloody great...

My Truths About Amsterdam

Bill O'Reilly recently portrayed Amsterdam as a cesspool of corruption and liberal failure. In his attack he failed to refer to any sources where he found his information, because he didn't have any - not that this is surprising, when have we ever seen a right wing conservative use cold hard facts?

Here is the original video:


(I just love how she says "social tolerance" like it's a bad thing).

In response to this, two Amsterdam locals Robert and Elian, launched a video (and a website) showing the cold hard facts O'Reilly failed to mention.

Here is their video:



Their video gives the percentage of population in the Netherlands and in the US that has ever used cannabis (US: 40.3% Netherlands: 22.6%). More interesting though was a statistic I found on NationMaster - that Cannabis users in the US doubled those in the Netherlands;
US: 12.3% - Netherlands: 5.24%

What's more, it turns out that this crime infested cesspool of anarchy also has a fraction of assaults compared to those in the US;
US: 7.569 per 1000 - Netherlands: 2.689 per 1000

Their experimentation with "free love" that is also contributing to their liberal failure not only leaves them with a fraction of teenage pregnancies per capita compared to the US;
US: 1,671.63 births per 1 million people (highest in the world) - Netherlands: 172.061 births per 1 million people
but also with so few abortions that they don't even make the list;
US: 4.0945 per 1000 people - Netherlands: less than 0.113986 per 1000 people

(Statistics from from NationMaster).

Statistics aside, here are my truths about Amsterdam:

- I feel safe when going home alone in the middle of the night.
- I feel safe walking the streets of the red light district, which I can't say for any other place i've been were prostitution is located, and let's face it, it's located almost everywhere.
- I see happy people all the time. Happy adults and happy children (in fact according to UNICEF the happiest children in the world).
- Although I have easy access to it I still choose not to smoke weed.
- I feel safer here than I did in any of the suburbs I lived in in Australia.

What's your truth about Amsterdam?

Why I want to be Dutch

I already have 938578745645 reason why I am in LOVE with Amsterdam... I will eventually post these, but I am not sure I can say it better than this.

Crime in The Netherlands

Apparently the crime in the Netherlands is now so low that they either have to start shutting down prisons or bringing in criminals from neighbouring countries. Click here to read the full article.

Pogo the Cat AKA Mouse Hunter

Amsterdam is probably the most cat friendly place I have ever been. Cats are everywhere, in home and shop windows, sleeping under the tables in cafe's and restaurant's, jumping on your lap in bars and pubs. Up until 2 weeks ago I thought it was probably all part of the gezellig (cozy) Dutch charm.

Then it happened... Mats was woken up by something darting across the room on our second night in our new apartment, he bolted up and said "I think there's a rat in flat!" I got up in a panic and in the garbage we could hear what seemed to be a massive animal but only turned out to be a small mouse. For about an hour as we decided what to do, Mats heroically picked up the garbage and put it outside the apartment to deal with it in the morning.

The next morning after sleeping with my head under the blankets to make sure nothing crawled on me during the night. I decided we'd been duped into a mouse infested apartment. Mats mentioned this to his work colleagues who assured him mice are so common in Amsterdam that people basically live amongst them in fact they barely notice them (well some people). Of course why wouldn't they be common? Amsterdam has water, canals and old homes, it is the perfect place for them to take up residence. It was then that it struck me "THIS IS WHY THERE ARE CATS EVERYWHERE, mouse control!" (especially in shops that stock food) Mats agreed.

After a week with a high frequency sound blaster and keeping a meticulously clean apartment, our little friendly household mouse was still causing us sleepless nights. We decided that the Dutch had the most effective mouse control in action and this cat idea that had been in the air for the past few weeks was our best plan of action.

Everyone meet Pogo. She is our Mouse Hunter. We are in love with her already.

More pictures soon! (When she's more comfortable in her new surroundings, It has been almost impossible to get a decent shot of her, she is so quick and curious in her new home that she is a black blur in almost every shot).

Koninginnedag!

OK, so I ran out of credit and that whole idea didn't go according to plan...

I will be posting live pictures straight from my phone to this blog from National/Queens Day celebrations in Amsterdam today.

Stay tuned for the party!

Flowers, flowers, everywhere flowers

In our Netherlands Lonely Planet Guide it says not to leave home without an appreciation for flowers.

This is great, because I can't get enough of flowers. I love the textures, the patterns and the colors. Flowers inspire me to be artistic, to paint and create new things. It is so easy to see why so many great artists were inspired by the spring colors in Europe, they are truly magnificent here.

It is somewhat ironic that I say this because when I was a little girl I dreaded my mother dragging me into every florist/nursery when we went shopping. She spent what felt like hours looking at plants and flowers, she would put the leaves or flowers in her hands and smile and say "look at this beautiful thing, god has made such beautiful things" I would role my eyes, cross my arms and whine to get going.

Now, I just can't wait for her to be here next spring to see these!