You don’t want to export horsemeat to France? Here’s what will happen

Decay-poisoned horsemeat lying around the, High Country News says.

Here’s the problem, in a nutshell:

What do slaughter opponents advocate? Their Political Action Committee, aptly called HOOFPAC, says it all in a slogan: “Keep America’s horses in the stable and off the table.” This is a catchy phrase, but it doesn’t address whose stable, and at whose expense. Adoptive homes are not available for all unwanted horses today, and the current horse population is an estimated 9.2 million — more horses living now than in 1900, before the automobile began replacing the animals as transportation.

In the flesh-and-blood world of horse ownership, horses, whether beast of burden or beloved pet, must sometimes be put to death. The animal may be old and infirm, injured or dangerous to people. Slaughter opponents call for “humane euthanasia” by a veterinarian, at a cost of $100 to $300, which is a lot to pay for a horse that might bring as little as $300 to $500 at auction. And supporting an unwanted horse for a year can cost as much as $3,000.

Once a horse is euthanized, what then? The owner is left to dispose of a 1,200-pound carcass that has been saturated with a toxic substance. Most states require burial of euthanized animals at least two feet deep, away from water. Slaughter opponents advocate rendering — that is, boiling the animal and extracting what’s useful — but rendering is unavailable in most parts of the country and unsuitable for poisonous remains. A common solution is to pay the veterinarian to haul the carcass to the public landfill.

First, though having grown up in the West, I had no idea wild horse numbers were THAT high. The French and Belgians were just easing a bit of pressure on the pressure valve.

And, to be blunt, a horse is NOT a pet. Folks, get over “Black Beauty.” As for the money to dispose ever-more horse carcasses, our country has plenty of higher priorities.

WHEN will baseball — and other sports — get serious about DWIs?

St. Louis Cardinals’ pitcher Josh Hancock, killed less than a week ago in a crash into a parked trailer, was legally drunk. He had a 0.157 blood-alcohol level, plus more than 8 grams of pot and a pipe to boot. I’m sure that was only the No. 3 cause, though, the marijuana. Being drunk was No. 1. Talking on a cell phone while drunk was No. 2.

As for the question, the likely answer is: “Not much.” Given that manager Tony La Russa got a DWI arrest in spring training, with nary a disciplinary action by club management, and is going to fight the case in court, it would be stupid to expect more.

Army lists media as same threat level as drug cartels

Seriously. No bullshit. The media is now an official threat to the United States Army. Read on:

It looks like it’s official: the United States Army thinks that American reporters are a threat to national security. Thanks to some great sleuthing by Wired’s “Danger Room” blogger Noah Shachtman, the Army's new operational security guidelines (OPSEC) hit the Web in a big way yesterday, and the implications they have for reporters — who are grouped in with drug cartels and Al Qaeda as security threats to be beaten back — are staggering.

Make no mistake, this is a very big deal, and every American citizen, not just reporters and soldiers, needs to understand the implications of the Army’s strict new policy, because it directly affects how citizens receive information about their armed forces: information that it has every right to get.

Shachtman reproduces a slide from the new “OPSEC in the Blogosphere,” document, which lists and ranks “Categories of Threat.” Under “traditional domestic threats” we find hackers and militia groups, while “non-traditional” threats include drug cartels, and — yes — the media. Just to put that into some perspective, the foreign "non-traditional threats" are listed as warlords, and Al Qaeda. In other words, the Army has figuratively and literally put the media in the same box as Al Qaeda, warlords, and drug cartels.

While snake oil salesmen like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh would surely rank the American press up there with Bin Laden and his homicidal ilk, for the Army to do so is shocking, displaying a deep ignorance on the part of at least some segments of the uniformed military over just what the media’s role in a democracy is, while sending the unambiguous message to soldiers and DoD employees that reporters are to be treated as enemies.

Under the new rules, all Army personnel and DoD contractors are told to keep an eye on reporters and anyone seen speaking to the press, and that they should “consider handling attempts by unauthorized personnel to solicit critical information or sensitive information as a Subversion and Espionage Directed Against the U.S. Army (SAEDA) incident.”

Great. Even less reason to trust the military’s comments about Iraq than we have now. Even more reason to be suspicious of kowtowing embedded reporters.

Why I am who I am

It’s the sun, not the stars, that can help shape our fate, Brutus!

Shakespeare reference aside, it’s true about the sun’s influence.

Professor Jayanti Chotai, a consultant psychiatrist and senior lecturer at Umea University in Sweden … found that men born from October to January have low dopamine levels and are most likely to be gentle and reflective types.

My birthday? Dec. 26, right in the middle of this cycle.

Hate-crime bills cause cancer?

It wouldn’t surprise me if folks like the Traditional Values Coaltion make that claim about HR 1592, a federal hate crimes bill, as has falsely been claimed about abortion.

Given that they are claiming pastors can be arrested if they preach against homosexuality and a church member of theirs commits a homosexual-based hate crime, who knows what will come next?

Facts:
• Speech can’t be prosecuted like that, whether for hate crimes or other causes, unless it contains an actual incitement to act.
• The only way it could so be criminalized would be if the TVC’s quasi-divinized President Bush got his way with enough “anti-terror” legislation that its provisions got extended to hate crimes prosecutions. (Of course, the “hoist by one’s own petard” scenario would almost make that worth it.)

Why does R-CALF opposed tighter U.S. BSE testing?

R-CALF USA ,, the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America, has some great ideas, like mandatory country of origin labeling of beef products.

And, I know the great majority of bovine spongiform encephaly cows in North America have been of Canadian origin.

Nonetheless, why do you protest the idea of U.S. testing and certification, and instead, in essence, try to blame everything on Canada?

Don’t give me this “government snooping” line, either.

From a consumer point of view, it looks like you’re afraid and have something to hide.

Let’s have better country of origin labeling AND much more stringent testing of U.S. beef. After all, many of you are the folks who fed beef offal, or offal of other ruminants, to cattle for decades in the first place.

And, let me rephrase your claim, referred to in the second paragraph, to say:

The great majority of known bovine spongiform encephaly cows in North America have been of Canadian origin.

Maybe it’s lax U.S. testing that’s part of why we have so many Canadian mad cows and so few U.S.-born ones.