If you don’t take a temperature, you can’t find a fever

You know what? So many smart people have already weighed in on this. The USDA has decided, in the wake of several unrelated food contamination incidents, not to test all slaughtered cows for BSE, the “Mad Cow Disease.” More importantly, it has decided to take court action to prevent meat packers from independantly having their slaughtered cows tested at their own expense.

Here is the source article. I was first alerted to this travesty by Seeing the Forest. Here’s what Shakesville has to say. And here’s Daily Kos. But the granddaddy of commentary on this steaming cow-patty is this item, which includes the money quote:

First, observe the contempt for liberty. When E. coli conservatives say self-regulation is preferable to government, they’re even lying about that. Second, observe the contempt for small business. When a small company want to – voluntarily! – hold its product to a higher standard, the government blocks it, in part because bigger companies have to be protected from the competition, in part because a theoretical threat to the bottom line (false positives) trumps protection against a deadly disease.

There’s your conservatism, America: not extremism in defense of liberty. State socialism in defense of Mad Cow.

All I can imagine is that the meat packing industry is deathly afraid of what might be found if there were widespread testing. Put that in your free market and smoke it.

In closing: the United States is so desperate for combat soldiers we are sending amputees back to combat; the ACLU has figured out what I said over a week ago, that the new immigration reform bill would create a “no work list” that we can only hope is as accurate as the “no fly list”; investors hope a new forum for doctors will churn out profitable ideas rather than grounds for litigation; how curious that the college enrollment rate and the employment rate for recent high school grads are both down; and finally water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink… unless you pay for the privilege.