The New York Times has a brief article on how King George’s administration is fighting to keep American meatpackers from testing all of their animals for mad cow disease (BSE – bovine spongiform encephalopathy). Meatpackers presently test less than one per cent of beef carcasses for the disease. The problem is, as the USDA sees it, that wider testing could lead to false positives that might harm the industry.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m in favor of anything that will cull diseased products from the food chain. One would expect, in light of the failure of the inspection system to discover contaminated toothpaste, dog food and other materials – including contaminated cattle feed – in a timely manner, that the government would view favorably and not challenge a business that wants to put the safety of it’s consumer base first.

Alas, that isn’t the case.

The U.S. federal court system has ruled that the government doesn’t have the right to restrict mad cow testing; however, the USDA has appealed the decision which will delay implementing the testing by a small meatpacking company in Kansas – Creekstone Farms Premium Beef.

Cost is the argument being used by the larger beef producers against wider testing. I wonder what the human cost will be in the future for testing less than one per cent of the beef carcasses in the present?

Moral highground finally regained

The war in Iraq continues to go well, with advances in health care being among the most notable, as evidenced by this May 17 news report from Gorilla’s Guides :

“Doctors, nurses, administrators, and all other staff in Fallujah hospital have gone on indefinite strike after the second episode in as many months in which the American controlled, directed, trained, and financed, green zone forces and police in Fallujah supported by American troops violently stormed the hospital, severely beat staff, and destroyed equipment and supplies.

The strike was called as the result of an attack on members of the rescue crews by green zone forces and green zone police. The police and militia beat the doctors and staff, smashed doors and windows and destroyed quantities of hospital supplies.

According to the young doctor in the hospital who alerted the news agency to this latest attack the attackers: “justified their attacks on the pretext that hospital staff treated the gunmen inside it”.

They obviously didn’t get it right the first couple of times, as seen below, so they moved on to Fallujah, as noted above:

“On May 1st there was a similar attack on Naaman hospital in Adhamiya Baghdad – the same Adhamiya that the Americans have walled off. During that episode all patients, except for three in the intensive care unit who were too desperately ill to be unhooked from their respirators, were ejected from the hospital onto the street, sometimes violently, and snipers were posted on the roof.”

I perused an article on Alternet that discusses the news propaganda machine that is now in vogue across America. [ Link here. ] It’s another example of the dumbing down of network news and current affairs programming that has become commonplace. The author, Don Hagen, calls it a “Sliming Bowl”, and I’m inclined to agree with him.

I find the video in the article particularly interesting. It shows a compendium of clips disparaging Barack Obama, presently a contender for presidential nomination in the 2008 election campaign.

One of the ideas put forth to counter the Slime Bowl effect is for the candidates to ignore any kind of faux news and not participate in their shenanigans. I don’t think that would hold up under scrutiny, given the audience numbers for the network, but if it’s possible, it sure sounds like a good start.

The article goes on to describe the disinformation machine that is the current occupier of the White House together with the “news” organization that is faux. It’s an interesting read, and to me paints quite a picture of how the disinformation campaign will unfold during the two year campaign. Which reminds me – when did election campaigns start running two years in advance?

It should be quite a show to watch.