AP:

A man with a form of tuberculosis so dangerous he is under the first U.S. government-ordered quarantine since 1963 had health officials around the world scrambling Wednesday to find about 80 passengers who sat within five rows of him on two trans-Atlantic flights.

The man told a newspaper he took the first flight from Atlanta to Europe for his wedding, then the second flight home because he feared he might die without treatment in the U.S.

***

He flew to Paris on May 12 aboard Air France Flight 385, also listed as Delta Air Lines codeshare Flight 8517. While he was in Europe, health authorities reached him with the news that further tests had revealed his TB was a rare, "extensively drug-resistant" form, far more dangerous than he knew. They ordered him into isolation, saying he should turn himself over to Italian officials.

On reading this, I immediately had to see when Heather flew to Paris on her honeymoon.

Sunday, May 13.  Out of Greensboro.  Okay, I figured.  But I just wanted to be extra sure.

By the way, how adorable is this?

Speaking of diseases, doesn’t this lede sentence in another AP news story strike you as a tad alarming:

The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.

That’s right.  The Bush administration is vowing to keep meatbackers from testing for mad cow disease.

And why?  Because one responsible meatpacking company wants to do it:

A beef producer in the western state of Kansas, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wants to test all of its cows.

And if one company chooses to be socially responsible, what does that mean?

Larger meat companies feared that move because, if Creekstone should test its meat and advertised it as safe, they might have to perform the expensive tests on their larger herds as well.

So now, the government is trying to restrict Creekstone from performing mad cow testing.

This is bizarro.  The conservative mantra is that business should be self-regulating, without government interference.  Well, along comes a company that is trying to do the right thing and protect social wefare, and the Bush Administration wants it to not do it.

Go figure.

Imagine, if you will, that the Bush Administration is successful in blocking the testing for mad cow.  And then imagine, if you will, an outbreak of mad cow here in the United States.  Kind of reminds you of the August 2001 "Bin Laden Determined to Attack U.S." memo that the Bush team ignored, yes?

Rick Perlstein comments:

There’s your conservatism, America: not extremism in defense of liberty. State socialism in defense of Mad Cow.