Worldlog Week 14 – 2008

Karen Soeters, Director of our Scientific Bureau, has returned from the Genesis Awards in Beverly Hills with great quotes from lots of animal-friendly celebrities for our film Meat the Truth, such as Andrea Bowen, Ben Stein, Bill Maher, Kate Flannery, Hayden Panettiere, Kisten Vangsness and many more. We will soon be recording an interview with Pamela Anderson.

Last week we completed filming the interviews with the English-speaking children and the theatre performance. In the next few weeks we will be filming interviews with a biological farmer in Wales, Great Britain and with Dr David Davies who is an expert on reducing green-house gases produced by cows by giving them natural feed. By the way, I found a nice little film on YouTube on the link between meat consumption and green-house gases.

In addition to the film, the past week has kept us busy with the follow-up to the slaughterhouse and cattle transport scandal that we brought to the Dutch public’s attention. A whistleblower, who insisted on speaking only with the minister as he feared for his safety, has since met with and had a long discussion with Minister Verburg. The Party for the Animals arranged the meeting. I find it extremely commendable that the minister took the time to receive the whistleblower at such short notice and I look forward to seeing how she pursues the matter in parliament!

Otherwise, our parliamentary work was dominated this week by the debate on the anti-Muslim film Fitna by the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders. In my contribution to the debate, I argued for a clearer separation of church and state. The state should not concern itself with the religious views of citizens and religion should not concern itself with the affairs of state.

We have put questions to the Dutch government on the Canadian seal hunt that began last week and passed motions to demand attention for the obscure supervision of the Dutch meat sector that oddly enough is in the hands of …. the same people who represent that very same meat sector!

Good news from Great Britain: the Duke and Duchess of Hamilton are campaigning from their 14th-century castle against the sale of foie gras at the Selfridges store chain. The Duke and Duchess of Hamilton are both vegetarians. Great news, aristocrats campaigning for the welfare of animals!

Last week the Party for the Animals demonstrated in the senate how big the influence of a small party like ours can be. A bill from the Dutch cabinet to allow Internet gambling on a trial basis was torpedoed with 37 against 35 votes. Our vote in the senate was the ‘balancing vote!’

The Worldlogs are leading to ever more requests for interviews from abroad. Wonderful to see that our message is spreading fast via this new medium. You can help by posting information from the Worldlogs on Internet forums in your own language or by linking to us.

Together we can do a lot!

Until next week!