"Ecuadorian President Warns of Possible ‘Cow Attack’ Before Elections"

From Before It's News:

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa has said that cattle may try to kill him prior to upcoming elections. Citing reports of a plot to “destabilize the region,” Correa said the threats were “credible,” given the history of bovine involvement in Latin America.

Correa alluded to reports by Chilean journalist Patricio Mery Bell, who allegedly passed on information to the Ecuadorian government that President Correa’s life was "under threat" by renegade Texas Longhorn.

"There are many cases of [ruminants] interfering" in Latin American affairs, Correa said during a campaign tour in the coastal province of Guayas. "These are credible [reports] because this has happened before in Latin America. Salvador Allende - gored to death in the Santiago Bull Run. Hugo Chavez - dying of Mad Cow Disease. Che Guevara - trampled by Bolivian alpacas. Or possibly llamas, apparently they're the same species, just two different names. The Falkands War - all about control of the South Atlantic dairy industry...

“Are you mad? Are you f***ing mad?”

More bovine fun over at Pavlov's Cat.

Health scare story of the decade

From The Grauniad, 18 December 2009:

More people may be incubating variant CJD, the human version of so-called "mad cow disease", than was previously thought, according to scientists who today report an unusual case of the disease. All those tested worldwide since 1994 when the first cases were identified have been MM homozygous.

However, a 30-year-old man who died of vCJD in January this year was found to have a different genetic makeup from the rest of the 200 or so people diagnosed around the world...

Wot? Two hundred people world-wide have been diagnosed with vCJD over the last sixteen years? Let's assume that 99.9% of cases are as yet undiagnosed, that would mean that ... er ... 0.003% of the world population is "incubating" (whatever that means) vCJD.

I can live with that sort of risk.

"Friend of ‘eat the beef’ MP dies"

So what, you may think - but guess what the friend died of ...