Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Hell and damnation!

Oh, damnit! I was afraid of something like this: Mad cow disease resurfaces despite feed restrictions
On CBC tonight, it was reported that cattle breeders may not have been discarding their old feed when the feed rules were changed in 1997.
And for this, I blame the anti-government politicians, usually right-wingers like Social Credit and Conservatives (disclosure - I worked for the SoCreds in BC, so I know them!) who have made partisan hay over the years by ranting about how useless government is and how bloated and stupid the government bureaucracy is.
Not that governments themselves don't reinforce this type of thinking when they embroil us all in bloated and stupid programs like the gun registry.
But as a result, there are bunches of people today who don't take any government rules seriously and who think government regulations are all just meaningless BS. And farmers are among the worst offenders (more disclosure - my dad was a farmer who didn't think this way, but most of his neighbours did).
So when the government tells folks like these that their cattle feed is dangerous and should be thrown away, they tend to think --oh what do they know anyway, its just more of those useless civil servants talking, my cattle are all fine and besides I can't afford to just throw all that feed, expecially when I got the last batch from the feed company at such a good price!
I just hope the US politicians won't seize on this to make their own political hay, to keep the border closed. But what are the chances?
UPDATE: Well, the rancher says it was fresh feed for this lot of cattle - so the story gets mysteriouser. Maybe the feed company? Or maybe some environmental cause?

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