Mad about Cows

[Damien Evans]

Change your freakin' avatar! I almost barfed!

Hey, it wasn't my choice, Empress gave it to me.

Anyway, she's given me a new one now.

 

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

I found two neat articles I wanted to share. Both are anecdotes, but interesting nonetheless.

The first is an editorial from the Korea Herald.
'Conversation with taxi driver'

Intrigued by the remarks of the taxi driver, I asked, "But isn't it something we should do? Shouldn't we protest against American beef imports?"

"No, I don't think we should," he said stoutly. "We have the National Assembly to deal with those issues. That's what we elect the National Assemblymen for, isn't it?"

Impressed by this extraordinary taxi driver, I continued to ask, "Do you think American beef is safe?"

"Yes, I do," he answered promptly.

The second is an article from the Dong-A Ilbo, one of the major newspapers in Korea.
'Online Accusation Targets Middle School Teacher '

A Web posting on an Internet community yesterday targeted a middle school history teacher who allegedly praised the resumption of U.S. beef imports.

The person who posted the allegation also gave out the teacher’s name, school and cell phone number, urging others to gag the teacher by making protest calls to the teacher and the school.

The protests have probably peaked at this point, but they'll still continue in some form for a while -- and probably get more violent as the very radical minority of "seasoned" protesters starts taking over. If that happens, the public will swing against them and they'll just be seen as more violent protests from Korea's wacky extreme left. Plus, as the taxi driver above notes, the protests get to be a huge nuisance after a while: the major ones are held smack in the middle of Seoul on the major street that runs through the city. They cause hell with traffic (and traffic in Seoul on a normal day is bad enough), and businesses in the area start to get ticked off since the protests scare away customers. But when it gets to that point, that means it's pretty much business as usual. I'd say it's six weeks or so from that point, but we'll see. We'll also see what happens when the inevitable occurs and Korea actually starts importing U.S. beef again. I wouldn't be shocked at another flare up, depending on how that is handled.

 

[Puppycow]

Interesting articles. Amazing that what should be a completely legitimate and rational position is subject to mass cyber-lynching. Even the teacher's defenders didn't defend the position, but instead said it was all a mistake and the teacher never said those things.

I guess that religion is similar, in that certain irrational beliefs are nonetheless so sacrosanct that it's sometimes dangerous to express doubt about them.

 

[Skeptic Guy]

Not my area of expertise, but I know of no reason to doubt it. Actually according to Wikipedia, it's vCJD that is linked, a variant of CJD, which is not necessarily caused by BSE.

Ok, I thought I heard that they weren't definitely linked. Looks like I was wrong.