LOUTHAN: 'SMOKING GUN' PROVES COW WAS NO DOWNER

Dave Louthan's story, that the Mad Cow was not a 'downer' until he shot it, has been picked up by the New York Times, which provides this interesting additional tidbit: "The 'smoking gun,' he said, is that it is the only one on the page marked 'unable to get temp' while other cows' temperatures were recorded. It is easy, he said, to get a rectal temperature from a downed cow but hard from a jumpy one." The USDA's story is that "the animal was lying so close to the trailer wall that a thermometer could not be used," so they're not gonna be able to finesse this one. Somebody's outright lying - let's see if the press corps cares enough to find out.
UPDATE 2/4: Louthan isn't going away - the story of his Washington state testimony is now in most papers. No new bombshells, but I loved this detail: "[USDA spokesman Steven] Cohen was unsure whether Louthan indeed killed the cow in question. No one answered the telephone at Vern's Moses Lake Meat Co. on Tuesday and Louthan's claims could not be confirmed." Gee, fellas, maybe if you'd been reading Meat Facts, you'd know that Louthan's story has already been confirmed by the plant manager and the USDA itself.
PLUS: In this version, Louthan provides "a glimpse of the gory details that he said otherwise are being missed, [such as] cows being dragged and dumped by tractors, suffering numerous abrasions and at times having their limbs torn off before they are killed. 'If you did that to a horse or a dog, they would throw you in jail,' said Louthan." Hey, good point.