Mad Cattlemen

From the NY Times:

The USDA will announce Friday that it is dropping a ... program in which each animal on a farm would be tracked with a unique identification number and stored in a federal database. The Bush administration created the program in 2004 after a report of Mad Cow Disease in 2003.

Government officials said the program would have made it easier to track disease outbreaks ... but critics said the program imposed costly and onerous requirements on small farmers and feared that the government would eventually make it mandatory and use it to pry into farmers' lives.

1) What happens between a farmer and his cattle is nobody's business but his own.

2) I've been right to avoid beef all these years. The government could have been tracking me, and my aluminum foil hat wouldn't have helped! (Remind me to make some shirts and underwear.)

3) What if terrorists spread Mad Cow disease? Why do farmers hate freedom?

Socked and Sacked

Liverpool Paramedics Upset Over Novelty Sock Ban

The Liverpool Echo -- Uniformed staff have been barred from wearing socks with images of cartoon characters, jokes and garish patterns after bosses branded them "unprofessional."

The strict uniform policy... also bans wrist watches, visible body piercing, excessive make-up and certain tattoos. And staff have been warned they could be disciplined and ultimately even sacked if they flout the dress code ...

Spokesman for the Association of Professional Ambulance Personnel, Jonathan Fox, said: "[They] should be addressing more important issues like why paramedic training has been stalled for months."

Whiners. Management has to have its priorities.