What's going on?

I usually don't like to post about issues that concern me, but right now there's something that really upsets me. Eventhough I rarely talk about it, I'm a huge animal lover. When I was younger I even felt bad about walking outside, affraid I would crush some innocent ant. So when I received an email from the WSPA this afternoon, informing me about the critical situation of animals in Burma I was rather heartbroken. As you might probably know, Burma has been hit by a tropical storm almost two weeks ago and death tolls (amongst both humans and animals) are still rising. While everybody is worrying about getting the emergency supplies to the people of Burma, the animals are in just as much need of help, yet not receiving any either.
But luckily we can help them. One way of doing so is by donating to the WSPA. They're currently not able to enter the country but they have a vetinary team waiting in Thailand that will cross the border as soon as it gets permission. If they are not able to get into Burma at all, the money will be used to help other animals, so it's really a win win situation. You can read more about this matter at:
wspa international or wspa.nl

ps. by bringing this up I'm not trying to make you feel bad if you don't want to donate money, it's completely up to you. I just figured that it might help make people more aware of the situation if I talked about it.

Safety Measures

This morning I went to get myself a new identity card. The one I have right now is about the expire and as you might know, if you're caught without one you are bound to pay 33 euros. Which I think is ridiculous. I'm really fed up with all these new privacy-invading rules and regulations. I think that western governments are taking things to far. It seems like the war on terrorism is THE perfect excuse to slowly change society. Ever since 9-11 they have been forcing a gigantic amount of new measures down our throats. Sure what happened that day was a horrible tragedy and ofcourse people have been affraid of violent extremists ever since. But when our liberties are slowly taken away, with privacy being one of the greatest liberties we have, the western world's population will transform into a fear striken deathly scared mass of following sheep who are too afraid to speak up or think for themselves. All in the name of safety and security. Because we do want to be safe right? And we don't want terrorists in our midst now do we? And if you're doing nothing wrong, you certainly won't have anything to hide, so who cares if the government knows everything there is to know about you. Or at least that's how they want you to think. Because seriously, how is me walking around with an identity card preventing an extremist in Pakistan from boarding a plane with a bombstrap? How is prohibiting mother's to take their babies food on a plane preventing a new catastrophe? It simply isn't. Terrorists will still make plans. And execute them. Extremists will still be able to recrute idiots who are willing to die for a noble cause.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's this huge conspiracy going on, and I believe a 1984-esque society is still years away, pun intended, but that doesn't mean that we should ignore the first warning signs. Or that we should just accept and approve of everything they ask us to do in the name of safety. I could never articulate my point as well as Bruce Schneier did in his essay 'the eternal value of privacy', so I'm sharing it with you: http://www.schneier.com/essay-114.html
I realise this post is a bit of a mess but what I'm trying to say is that it could never hurt to be critical even if you don't know how to change anything.
I'm leaving you now with this quote from Benjamin Franklin that sums it all up perfectly:
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."