Mad Cow Disease Found!

Next we'll be calling it the anger-managed-with-Zoloft cow disease.

Oh? My only concern with PDiddie's quote was "I think I shot five." Poor memory, can't count, or just evasion?

Shot five what?

just watched an interview with the canadian farm couple that raised the "mad" cow on CBC-TV (1 pm eastern time). even though they retired from farming about two years ago, they had kept the farm records on hand. they claimed that they were able to identify the cow easily once they were able to get the base information. they said that it was quite clear from their records that the age of the cow was over six years and they could not understand, why it was said that it was only four years old. six years ago there was no assurance that cattle feed might not have been contaminated somewhere in the processing, but no one was concerned about any health dangers from contaminated feed at that time. as far i can understand (from what the farmer stated), the cost of testing a head of cattle is about $30. the farmer said he could not not understand why this testing was not being done right now. he said : "surely it is better to have the testing done at $30 a head rather than destroying the cattle " (can cattle be tested to eliminate BSE infected animals ?). he also stated that until a few years ago a farmer could call the ministry of health to have any head of cattle tested for disease free of charge. apparently the testing has now been "privatized" and farmers have to pay for any testing done. the farmer said : "what now happens is that a lot of sick animals are winding up 'on the back forty' " - they are disposed of at the back of the farm. he felt that "privatizing" had set agriculture back some 50 years. hbg

here is the link for the interview with the farmer. www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1073559976502&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154 ... sorry for the long link, i've still got problems with url. hbg

I find it amazing that they could track the meat from the accused cow to a package at a local supermarket then to the guy who bought it. It's either impressive or really scary. Or both...

I'm eating some mad Mongolian beef right now.

Communist!

In the EU, calves get just after birth two earmarks.
And these stay with them their life long, even longer: I find them on the packed parcel in the supermarket as well as on the noteboard in my local butcher shop. (Okay, the latter usually just notices that the meat is from Farmer A in the next village B, but the 'numbers' must be to seen somewhere :wink: ).

hamburger:

I wholly agree! Deregulation and privatization are leading to increased costs for everyone. It begs the question -- who is cashing in when the same service after privatization costs more and is provided by worker bees who are paid less than their pre-privatization counterparts? That is a rhetorical question in many respects since it's obvious who is benefitting. We are turning into a nation of haves and have nots. I recall an interesting interview with two economists on The Journal with Barbara Frum about 15 years ago. They predicted the erosion of the middle class. They felt that in the future there would be only the poor and the rich. I fear their predictions are coming true!

Because I agree with much of Acquiunk's comments in re: mad cow/prions/spontaneous occurence thought I'd drop in to post this:

http://abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1047517.htm

moooooooooo fu-king moooooooooooooo

Thanks for the link wenchilina