Would you like a nice thick slice of Mad Cow?

The Bush Administration USDA announces that it intends to reduce testing for mad-cow disease by 90%. Meanwhile, it prohibits farmers and businesses from conducting any tests on their own. (See also here, here, here, here.) It's almost as if someone *wants* to start an epidemic. But no, that's just the predictable outcome when government dictates are determined by corporate agendas. The Bush Administration's corporate stringpullers want to use an absolute absence of tested US beef as an economic battering ram to force the Japanese and other beef importers to abandon any demands for testing of imported beef. And they can't afford to have any persnickety free market types offering to give the Japanese buyers what they want in the meanwhile.

Free Market Republicans, my ass.