Goldfish and Badgers

The city of Rome has banned goldfish bowls.

I suppose it's still legal to use them for potted plants, but certainly not for keeping goldfish. The animal rights activists say goldfish bowls cause the goldfish to go blind, and the round shape doesn't provide enough oxygen for the fish.

What I want to know is how the animal rights activists know when the goldfish are blind. Do the fish start running into the bowl or the little castle in the middle? Do they stop being able to find their fish food when it's sprinkled on the water? I've had goldfish before--in a goldfish bowl--and never noticed any vision problems. Except when the fish died. I suppose death caused blindness, because the fish didn't see too well after that.

This story makes me think of Italy's intellectual and artistic history. The Italian Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci. Michaelangelo. What happened to that heritage?

It's been replaced by bureaucrats who listen to the brain trust at the animal rights organizations, groups that are bent on protecting goldfish.

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Meanwhile, another group needs protecting. This time from the animals. Ananova reported recently that badgers in Wiltshire, England, attacked prison guards, wounding one of the guards.

Badgers are protected in England, so when they tunneled under the prison walls, the guards were required by law to leave the animals alone.

The badgers were free to wander the grounds for months after breaking in earlier this year.

Apparently this appeasement only emboldened the animals. It was only after the attack that the Department of Food and Rural Affairs finally granted the prison permission to remove the badgers.