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?