Here's the Beef:The Minneapolis Star Tribune has a great editorial today about the American mad cow scare. On the whole, I was pleased with the measures that the Department of Agriculture took to make our beef supply safer. However, more needs to be done. I believe Canada and Europe have a tracking system that watches where the meat is going from cow to the meat case at the local grocery store. It's time that the America does the same. We were lucky we could trace this cow, but luck only goes so far. I also think we have to find better ways of deboning cattle to ensure that no brain or spinal matter gets into the food supply. I also hope the beef industry sits down and shuts up about these new rules. A rule to prevent using "downer" cattle was in this year's Farm bill but somehow it just vanished during House-Senate conference meetings. Now that people are concerned that the Big Mac they eat could fry their brain, they will have to accept some cost.

I'm not one to give many kudos to the Bush Administration, but they acted outstandingly and swiftly in this situation. For a President that some percieve as beholden to special interests, his adminstration stepped up to the plate.