I've been waiting to write up anything on the salmonella outbreak until a little more information was available. Of course, my presumption and best guesses were that, as a result of factory farming practices, we've had this massive salmonella outbreak. 

Well it turns out that as EPA has gone in to inspect the culprit farms, it turns out - the result of factory farming has been this salmonella outbreak. 

Giant four-to-six feet piles of manure, improper handling of animals, and failure to follow the safety procedures, it turns out, are bad things when it comes to not inflicting our country with disease. 

And while I'm tempted to write about my frustration that the EPA is now doing a full review of the 600 major egg plants over the next fifteen months - a paltry forty plants a month - I'm going to point out the greater sin here. 

Namely, that we are truly beginning to see the impacts of eight years of massive rollbacks of our environmental laws, and the massive deregulation of our systems by the Bush administration. 

We've seen the massive oil spill result from the horrific mis-management of the oil industry, and now we are seeing the horrific results of the mis-management of our food systems. 

So what's next? What's going to be the legacy of mountaintop removal mining? The loosening of standards around the nuclear industry? The list is long, and dangerous.