March 09, 2005

More Repugnicant Hypocrisy

And, yes, we're just about as numb as you are due to the constant dren being churned out of the WhiteWash House these days. But this one strikes us a little too close to home:

U.S. court blocks Canadian cattle. Apparently the United States which has had more cases of mad cow disease than Canada since all the fuss started (both on a numerical basis and on a per cow basis) is worried that imported Canadian beef will cause beef producers immediate and irreparable damage. The article then goes on to deride Canadian standards for examining beef, even though USDA beef standards are lower than Canadian ones (warning:pdf link), and an American company that wanted to inspect all of its' beef was not allowed to.

We have a personal stake in all of this, because our family has raised beef cattle for quite some time*. Under the current restrictions in place, we are not allowed to bring back beef which is almost certainly free of mad cow, and is quite frankly close to being the best beef we have ever had**. So we are a little pissed that the United States is engaging in protective legislation under the guise of protecting the American consumer. Especially when we know from first hand experience that Canadian beef is safer than American beef, and the meat we can get our hands on in the Great White North is of better quality.

We're not really sure if all of this fooforaw is helping the beef industry these days anyhow. It has most definitely caused the beef consumption in our household to drastically decline (to almost nothing). And we're reasonably certain that we're not the only ones to have declined this consumer choice of late.

* - for at least forty years that we can vouch for, and probably much longer than that. We remember cows as far back as we can remember*** and we're reasonably certain the beef was there before we were.

** - we had some Argentinean beef once upon a time, and that stuff is very good. We would have to say that it compares favorably to some of the better cuts we used to get from the family, and it would be really hard to pin us down on which is better. Especially if we want to get any more invites to family dinners...

*** - our earliest memory is of our third birthday - November 22, 1963. We remember that it seemed like there was a parade in our honor on TV (they were replaying a rather famous motorcade coming to a rather abrupt stop over and over again) and the adults seemed more excited than usual. Maybe it was that other rather newsworthy event happening that day that got them all worked up.

Posted by (: Tom :) at March 9, 2005 12:00 AM