Border Boarder

Gary Weber (as quoted by Forbes) on BSE testing:

"It's not cost-effective; it's not necessary. The consumers we've done focus groups with are comfortable that this is a very rare disease and we've got safeguards in place."

You Asshole!

That doesn't indicate that the food supply is SAFE, it indicates how well your propaganda campaign is working! This is about FOOD SAFETY! HELLO!!!!

Still think the cattle lobby doesn't have a strangle-hold on the Department of Agriculture?

Maybe they think the average American consumer can't do basic math, so let's extrapolate some basic numbers here:

Roughly 1000 head of cattle are tested for BSE daily.
That's 360,000 per year. They've been testing at this rate for two years. That makes roughly 720,000 animals tested in the last two years, and they've found 2 cases. Now 1 in 360,000 may sound like good odds, but take this two steps further:

35,000,000 (that's million) cattle are slaughtered in the USA annually. 1 BSE case in 360,000 expands statistically to 97 AFFLICTED CATTLE PER YEAR. Where are the other 96? In your hamburgers. How many burgers does one cow make?

A quick Internet search turns up ball-park figures of 450-700lbs of net meat per animal. Other figures put the amount of burger meat on a single cow at around 150lbs. That's 150x1/3lb burgers (conservative large burgers) = 450 burgers. But wait - since the slaughterhouses don't neatly package a single cow into a single package, in reality your burger likely contains meat from 40 cows. So multiply those 450 burgers by a distribution factor of 40: 18000. Wow. 1 infected cow can show up in 18,000 hamburgers. And we're not even counting the steaks, corned beef, pastrami, etc. So 18,000 burgers multiplied by 95 cows reveals a staggering possible 1,710,000 tainted burgers in the good ol' USA EVERY YEAR. Wow. There are fewer than 300,000,000 Americans. That's 1 buggered burger for every 175 Americans.

Still hungry?

Now please, before anyone gets too upset, recognize that these are shady, back-of-the-envelope calculations. But if you're going to tell me that the beef supply is safe, REDUCING TESTING IS NOT THE WAY TO DO IT!

The USDA's claims that "we only found 2, so everything's cool" statement is akin to saying "we looked with our eyes closed and didn't find anything, so don't worry." If there is proper science and good statistics to back this claim up, then they'd better goddamn produce them. If not, your safest bet is to assume that it's a bald-faced lie to protect the cattle industry. And if there's one thing we know about this administration, they take care of their own.

I have a recommendation. It's very "conservative" (i.e. free market):

1. test every head of cattle headed to slaughter BEFORE it makes it into the abattoir, or separated tested cattle from untested.
2. label tested beef accordingly
3. raise tested beef prices as necessary to account for the added expense
4. let the market determine the demand for safe food
5. watch all beef producers move to 100% testing as they lose market share.
6. watch Americans consume fewer hormones and less beef as the price goes up
7. watch beef exports go back up as the rest of the world regains confidence in our food supply

Just a thought.

     -E

Bush Warned of Katrina Devestation in Advance, Does Nothing Anyway

Sounds like an Onion headline.
The wires all have the video.

I use a lot of software.

I write a lot of software.

I hate a lot of software.

Luckily now you can hear all about it.

I figure the title of this post will generate some interesting traffic...

My good friend and premier shooting student (Let's call her 'M') went to the range by herself (again) this week, expecting to shooting some qualifying targets for a local women's team. She was very excited (and so was I, as her coach). Unfortunately I had to be at the office.

'M' has been shooting for about a year, and has a veritable fount of natural talent. A day before she was due to go to the range she said to me "I hope [A] isn't one of THOSE women." Well... she was. And she had a deputy.

What do I mean by that? Is this where E gets chauvanistic? No. The archetype is the attractive, well-positioned woman who makes a place for herself in a traditional "man's sport" (job, whatever) usually in part through talent, and part via her attractive power over the men around her. She then proceeds to subversively defend her position from any other women whom she might consider a threat in any way. A combination of pretty and talented would rank up there very high on the threat scale. Snide remarks, exaggerated impatience, and zero support to threatening newcomers are typical tactics. She was one of THOSE. And she had a male deputy who stood behind my premier student the entire time she was shooting critizing unhelpfully at every shot.

M was not told what they were shooting for, what the spec was, how it worked, the context, or anything. It was just "Well? We're waiting for you." It was clearly a mixed blessing that the folks who run the range, excited to have a talented new female shooter in the house, talked M up to this awful woman in advance. M didn't have a chance.

It turned out that all they were doing was shooting qualifying targets for the NRA Marksmanship Qualification Light Rifle program, for which you can get patches after completing various courses of fire with particular scores. This is nothing that I (as an NRA coach) couldn't already do for her, nor is it an exclusive club in any way. But they didn't tell her this at all. She came home extremely upset (of course she shot below her usual ability) and completely demoralized about shooting. I had spent the better part of the last two years warming her up to the sport (she was previously very afraid of guns, yet intrigued), and she was now reading competition literature, Anschutz catalogs, etc. She told me she didn't think she wanted to shoot anymore after her experience at the previously welcoming range. She stuck it out the whole time instead of giving up in disgust (which would have been fine by me!), but it had a strong effect on her.

Why do people have to be assholes? It's hard enough to get the unaquainted interested in the shooting sports, and this is in New York City! That sort of selfish behavior is so bad for the sport - for any sport. Now I know that my designated markswomen will be back in her shooting boots in a few days, but the whole experience was completely unnecessary. So from now on we'll plan our practice days to avoid that woman's monthly visiting schedule. Too bad she's weaseled her way into being up for an NRA board position this year...

About 18 months ago I started shooting again after a 10-year hiatus. This was due to convenience, social acceptance, and locale.
I'm so happy.

My collection has gone from my grandpa's old .22 and a couple airguns to a nice little quintet of rimfire rifles and my first handgun. I prefer the smaller calibers in general due to price, elegance, and the fact that I'm essentially a target shooter. My days of weekly competition are behind me - for now...

This is my category for cataloging my sharable shooting experiences.