Do Chimps use swimming pools?

Yes!, The New York Times — albeit in the food section — has joined the chorus criticising the salmon fish farming industry. One more time, despite the broken links to Vancouver Sun stories, see also my April 14 blog, “What would Flipper do? Fish Stories” for links to Farmed and Dangerous, a great site for information about fish farms. Now the NYTimes joins in: …farmed salmon are not naturally salmon pink or red, and… if they were not fed artificial colors they would range from gray or khaki to pale yellow or pale pink. Wild salmon turn pink from the krill and shrimp they eat. (Farmed salmon eat a fishmeal diet.) I’d just like to add that this “fishmeal” diet may contain ground up cattle and other animal product. BSE, anyone? On the topic of swimming and water, BBC carried a useful article about a possible connection between chlorinated swimming pools and asthma. The research findings are under attack by other scientists, but it makes perfect sense to me. Chlorine kills, and obviously seems to be the Zyklon-B of the fitness world; why would anyone doubt that, absorbed in the water by the skin and inhaled at poolside by the lungs, it does significant damage? On the topic of US-Canada relations: the other day Jean Chretien mocked George W. Bush for running up a $500billion deficit. (But Canadian lawmakers have kow-towed to U.S. pressure and introduced a more watered-down version of the marijuana liberalization law.) Ari Fleischer, meanwhile, whines and snarks away that the U.S. has these deficits because of September 11 (such a convenient scapegoat) and has had to spend billions in the war against terror, but Amnesty International points out that since the U.S.’s initiative, the world has become a much more dangerous place — as dangerous as at the height of the Cold War. And while animal rights activists will perhaps want to shut this site down because it’s so unfair to chimpanzees, take a peek nonetheless at Bush or Chimp? (Via Davin‘s site!)