It is not surprising that the U.S. has mad cow disease given our flaunting of World Health Organization recommendations. What is surprising, however, is that we actually found a case given the inadequacy of our surveillance program, a level of testing that Nobel laureate Stanley Prusiner, probably the world's leading expert on these diseases, calls simply "appalling." Europe and Japan follow World Health Organization guidelines and test every downer cow for mad cow disease; the U.S. has tested less than 2% of downers over the last decade. Most of the U.S. downer cows, too sick or injured to even walk, end up on our dinner plates....

I'll admit that I'm just as much at fault as everyone else--given that my post below sounds as if there's no question that Howard Dean will be the Democratic nominee next summer. But this Election-By-Media bullshit has to stop. It's bad enough that the media has declared Dean the winner before a single Primary vote has been cast, but now they've decided that--with Saddam in custody--Bush has already won the general election too.

The people of this country let the media tell us what to eat, wear and watch on TV. Now we're letting them elect our leaders.

Just a little exercise for the political appendages of your brain:

What if, after he had the nomination locked up, Howard Dean announced his running mate to be...John McCain?

That's a ticket that I think would be impossible to beat, but wouldn't it essentially be seen as a surrender of the Democratic party?

What if McCain jumped ship and became a Democrat, before or after the election? Could that undo any damage done by choosing a Republican running mate?

Discuss.

In many occupied nations during World War II, the Nazis ordered Jews to wear a yellow star, as prelude to their destruction. But not in Denmark. According to legend, the Danish king, Christian X, threatened that, if Danish Jews were to wear the star, he would, too. The story is almost certainly a myth, but its meaning is not: Despite the Nazi occupation, Denmark rescued the overwhelming majority of its Jews. "If some Danes are under siege," the story means to say, "then all Danes are under siege. So, for now, we are all Jews."

Now we all have AIDS....