Nah, eating raw eggs is stupid if the eater has a relatively weak immune system. That's the young, the elderly, and the ill. I eat raw eggs all the time, and I'll take that 1:100,000 risk on my own shoulders with eyes wide open.

If you have recipes that require raw eggs, then you need to get Davidson's Safest Choice Pasteurized Shell Eggs. (http://www.safeeggs.com/) They work like ordinary eggs, but they've been pasteurized so they're safe to use raw or under-cooked.

The problem with eggs is that people tend to eat them under-cooked. Unless the egg is completely solid (no runny yokes), there is a chance of contamination from the egg. Further, unless you're really careful (washing your hands constantly) there is danger from cross-contamination from cutting surfaces or from your hands.

With Davidson's Pasteurized Eggs, I made traditional Key Lime Pie, which is done uncooked. Tasted great!

I will say, in terms of bureaucracies, I just finished Dr. Adrian Goldsworthy's book The Fall Of The West, documenting the fall of the Roman Empire. Excellent book. His thesis was that 2nd century civil war turned the Imperial bureaucracy into a shell of itself. Externally it showed the form of a bureaucracy concerned with the running and stability and defense of the Empire--but internally, due to civil war, it really turned into an organization concerned with the preservation of the Emperor from assassination or overthrow.

This favoring of form over function--where the individual bureaucrats were more concerned with their station and with covering their ass than they were with actually doing the right thing for the Empire--seems to apply here as well. Documenting every last chicken from birth to death--even if it could be computerized to the point where the cost to small farmers is essentially zero--doesn't do a God damned thing, except expand some bureaucrat's empire and allows him to say "hey, I've done something about it."

That is, it's all about form over function.

The real irony is that the current egg recall proves that the system actually does work: contaminated food has been detected in the system, and is being removed from the system. So why, during a drill demonstrating the effectiveness of the system, we should think about mucking around with that system--I don't understand.

Except in terms of the imperial prerogatives of bureaucrats.

By taking the lead out of solder the reliability of electronic eqpt. has been reduced. Tin whiskers.

It is so bad that military eqpt gets an automatic waiver. Medical eqpt too. Except that that waiver is in danger.

It all started with getting tetra ethyl lead out of gasoline. A good thing.

All the rest follows with bureaucratic logic.

"By taking the lead out of solder the reliability of electronic eqpt. has been reduced."

Weirdly, you can still buy solder with lead in it. The local Radio Shack here in Glendale, California carries it. (It's often sold as "high-tech rosin core solder", and carries the ideal 63/37 ratio of tin to lead.) You can still order 63/37 leaded solder from Amazon.com as well. (http://www.amazon.com/Kester-Rosin-Core-Solder-Spool/dp/B00068IJX6/)

If you're a hobbyist like I am, 63/37 solder makes a huge difference. The stuff tins the tip of a soldering iron perfectly, flows extremely easily, and doesn't take a lot of heat to get the perfect electronics soldering joint. The lead-free solder, on the other hand, has a substantially higher melting point--making is much harder to work with, and makes it far easier to destroy sensitive electronics by overheating it.

What's really troubling to me is that, by migrating to lead free soldering equipment (which is far more expensive), we are favoring large corporations (who can afford the equipment) in order to remove exceedingly minute amounts of lead from the environment.

Minnesota Constitution______

ARTICLE XIII
MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS
Sec. 7. NO LICENSE REQUIRED TO PEDDLE
Any person may sell or peddle the products of
the farm or garden occupied and cultivated by
him without obtaining a license therefor.

Nah, eating raw eggs is stupid if the eater has a relatively weak immune system.

And that is the whole problem in a nutshell. For years people have survived salmonella. Now it has become the duty of government to protect the sick at the expense of the healthy.

To save themselves from lawsuits and bankruptcy, the ag industry in California is in the process of setting up a traceability process to isolate possible contamination of raw produce. If implemented fully it will be hellishly expensive. What it amounts to is labeling every lug of lettuce, carrots, grapes -- you name the vegetable or fruit -- with a barcoded label that would provide information as to place of harvest, date of harvest, and all the stages of storage and movement to the consumer. To provide a Julian date on a head of lettuce requires that the label is imprinted in the field.

I work with a trade printer that supplies this type of label. He is in the process of setting up field printing stations. So when lettuce is harvested in the summer in the Salinas Valley, the mobile printing stations will be there, and when harvest moves to the Imperial Valley in the winter, they will move with the harvest.

It is insane. And expensive.

The ag industry is trying to stay one step ahead by formulating their own "traceability initiative" but if the government actually mandates by law, like they've done with health care, you can kiss cheap food good bye. Between water restrictions for delta smelt, pesticide and herbicide bans, and now this, I don't know how much longer we can expect growers to continue.

Uranium bullets are better anyway.

Unfortunately, uranium bullets are not just very expensive, they're probably illegal as "armor piercing".
Anything harder than lead with a thin skin of copper over it are generally illegal for private people.
Where's Rumpelstiltskin when you need him?