WAR IS BLECCCHHH

One week after more than 100 soldiers in Afghanistan came down with food poisoning from bad turkey stuffing on Thanksgiving (didn't they hear all the warnings?), close to 300 are now ill from food-poisoning in Kuwait with the source of the current outbreak unknown. Sounds like it's time to have the whole military go vegan, lest we lose World War III due to our stubborn addiction to meat.

SAME OLD SONG

Once again, it emerges that inspectors' warnings of contamination problems at a meat processing plant were ignored by both the plant and its PR agent, the USDA, until people started getting sick, and in fact, for some time thereafter. Meanwhile, a citizens' group is advocating a proposal that is entertaining if only for the degree to which it must scare the bejeezus out of meat suppliers: Consumers should get double their money back as an incentive to return recalled food according to Safe Tables Our Priority. Nope, it won't happen, but it's fun to picture the meat industry even worrying about whether it could.

NO LAUGHING MATTER

As I pointed out back when the first "fast-food lawsuit" was filed, it was considered a frivolous joke, but would soon evolve into a serious issue. Esteemed columnist Ellen Goodman has just made the same point, asking us to mark her words: "This is just the beginning of a big, fat food fight." And chiming in on the concept that despite all knee-jerk dismissals, this is something we're gonna hafta take seriously is the NY Post's Gersh Kuntzman. Still laughing?