What planet am I living on?

A few paragraphs from this story about Mad Cow and meat inspections, on the front page of my local paper, should speak volumes:

The officials declined to say exactly what they would recommend, but acknowledged that European and Japanese regulators screened millions of animals using tests that take only three hours, fast enough to stop diseased carcasses from being cut up for food.

United States inspectors have tested fewer than 30,000 of the roughly 300 million animals slaughtered in the last nine years, and they get results days or weeks later.

Wow. They mine as well just come out and say that they don't give two shits and a fuck about testing. Read those two paragraphs and think about what was just said. Think about it. Our government just admitted to testing far, far less than a mere one percent of the cows slaughtered in this country. We eat these fuckers, and our government just told us that they don't give a shit if they are riddled with disease or not! That's astounding on multiple levels. Even if you are one of the people that isn't surprised by this news because it's not exactly new news, it's still astounding. And it's also astounding because those two paragraphs, the second and third of the article, most likely appear on the front pages of thousands of newspapers in this country. That fact alone that these paragraphs can be published across the nation with such mass circulation and promenent placement and not cause a veritable shitstorm of anger, boycotts, and riots.. That's just amazing.

But, surprise surprise, even this amount of regulation is just too much for the beef industry:

Dr. Lester Friedlander, an Agriculture Department veterinarian from 1985 to 1995, said he worked in a huge Pennsylvania plant that specialized in turning old dairy cows into hamburger. It slaughtered 2,000 a day, including 30 to 35 downers, and could have as many as 1,200 cows waiting for him to see when it opened at 5:30 a.m.

Ideally, Dr. Friedlander could pick animals at random and watch them walk, looking for stumbling, facial paralysis, drooping ears and other signs of nerve damage, which can also be caused by rabies or cancer. Instead, he said, department rules let them be walked by in groups of six.

"I'm lucky if I see the second or third," he said. "The sixth? Forget about it."

He said that he rejected 25 to 30 cows a day worth about $500 each, and that when he stopped the production line, managers complained that he was costing them $5,000 a minute. Ultimately, he said, they complained to Washington, and he was transferred. He quit and has since sued the department over his transfer; it is fighting his suit.

$5000 a minute.. Ooh. These managers need a reality check. If meat isn't checked properly, they could lose their lives. And, oh yeah, their jobs when people stop buying red meat because it's unsafe.