Eric Cantorbacter. a major cause of foodborne illness in developed countries.
Another day of shutdown, another day of
important things not happening:
The Agriculture Department stopped cranking out tallies of livestock auctions and crop yields, which are vital numbers to farmers and buyers. The Centers for Disease Control isn't tracking the nation's flu cases, just as the season is getting started.
"Screw farmers" is getting to be a bit of an old refrain, but it's got nothing on "screw sick people."
The staff of 80 that normally analyze foodborne pathogens sent by states has been furloughed down to two. They are concentrating on looking for the biggies, such as possible salmonella, E. coli or listeria outbreaks. Other germs, including shigella and campylobacter, go ignored for now.
"The blind spots are getting bigger every day as this goes on," said CDC spokeswoman Barbara Reynolds in Atlanta.
Luckily, campylobacter has generously agreed to stop getting into things until the shutdown is over, and you know camplobacter is the Eric Cantor of bacters. You can trust it.
Timber will wait to be felled if the shutdown lasts much longer, since the Forest Service is starting the shutdown of logging operations this week.
Continue below the fold to read more about things not happening due to the shutdown.
Ted Cruz is a treehugger.
In California, the wreckage of a private jet that crashed into a hangar at Santa Monica Airport, killing four people, is being preserved off-site for National Transportation Safety Board investigators who packed up and left when the shutdown began Oct. 1.
If it was a mechanical fault that should be addressed in other planes, we will find that out someday. No hurry. Oh, and then there is the "eagle in the freezer" story (see link), but I'll just let that one slide. It ain't going nowhere. Literally.
On another note, if you're a fan of that show Deadliest Catch, or of eating things, you might also be interested to know unless the shutdown ends quickly there may be no king crab season this year.
The Alaska king crab season is set to start soon, but all the fishing boats will have to stay docked because the government must sign off on permits and quotas. Fisherman stand to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars unless lawmakers make a compromise.
It's the billions-of-dollars shutdown that everyone but Congress is paying for. Brilliant plan, fellows, I really just cannot praise you enough on this ingenious plan of crippling wide swaths of the economy because
reasons. By all means, take another bow.