Law professor and CPR member scholar Amy Sinden has a provocative new article takes down the arguments for market-based and privatization solutions to the tragedy of the commons: [A]s academics and policymakers clamor to distance themselves from the now dowdy and stilted fashions of 1970s-style “command-and-control regulation” and to embrace the virtues of the free market, privatization has replaced government intervention as the preferred solution to the tragedy of the commons. Right wing ideologues pump out books, articles, and monographs touting the virtues of “free-market

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is announcing that testing is underway to confirm a suspected case of mad cow. If Canada does have another mad cow case, that country's food safety agency will probably be able to trace back from that cow to locate other cows that may have consumed the same feed, which could be at the root of the infection. The U.S. has resisted the animal ID system that would make that same level of traceback possible here; instead, a recent USDA announcement calls for a system that would be administered by a private organization controlled by the cattlemen's industry.