MEAT IS MURDER

At long last, after many twists and turns in a truly bizarre case, the "Sausage King," Stuart Alexander, has been found guilty of murder. This is the meat-plant operator who shot and killed three USDA inspectors (and attempted to kill a fourth) who he felt were being too strict with him in insisting he adhere to basic foodborne-illness rules. The killings were captured on videotape, yet he tried to mount a defense to the effect that it was the inspectors' unreasonable demands that had driven him out of his mind.

Actually, it may have been the meat: After his lawyers called an expert to testify that Alexander's brain was too small to stop him from shooting federal inspectors in cold blood, the expert said no, his brain was "about normal for his age and gender, though it did appear a bit banged up and atrophied." Hmmmm. Excessive meat consumption is a known cause of brain degeneration - coincidence? To sum up, we have a man steeped in an industry of death, whose consumption of dead food may have made him brain-dead to the point he thought people's deaths were warranted to protect his own death-based business. And now it's up to the jury to decide whether he should be put to death. It's almost redundant now, isn't it?