Predatory behavior in US agribusiness now seems so commonplace one can but laugh when the latest notice of tainted egg recall comes through the pipe. And we can titter even more over body X-rays, pat downs and shoe inspections ad nauseam but failed states inhabited by known nuisances get free passes with air freight for years.

In the first case, the US government, for all the president's talk of regulatory reform, cannot and will not get the most Dickensian characters off the street. Or shutter their businesses.

Past coverage of the US mass food poisoning industry, also flippantly known as Eat ---- Farms Incorporated, Austin "Jack" DeCoster's salmonella-contaminated wholesale egg business is here and here.

Every good Dickensian character knows that when he's called before congress the worst that can happen is that he'll have to face the scripted displeasure of the equivalent of an animated plush toy.

In this case of thousands of cases of salmonellosis, the interlocutor was retiring fake Republican, Bart Stupak (D) of Michigan. Who sent out a staffer prior to hearings to cadge up the recent history of food poisonings as listed on this blog over the past two years, as part of his tough "investigation."

And after showing some unpleasant pictures and furrowing his brow, the congressman known most famously for trying to gum up healthcare reform so he could get his name in the news was done with things.

So everyone forgot the nausea-provoking pictures of excrement piled so high in the egg-laying operation it bulged out the side of the building. And it was apparently back to business as usual.

And now, sane people can only throw up their hands at the disgrace of what constitutes oversight and consumer protection. There is simply nothing that can or will be done.

The only thing left is to quote from the current news for the ugly details. And reflect on how easy it is to get Predator missions launched against human targets in Yemen or Pakistan. And toss billions of dollars into defense against theoretical bioterrorism threats.

But that it is beyond the realm of the possible to do anything about people who sell food poisoned with pathogens, on a regular basis, in this country.

Here we go, excerpted from a wire news story in the Chllicothe Gazette:

Evidence of salmonella has been found at an Ohio egg farm that's received financing from the owner of an Iowa egg farm that was behind a massive recall earlier this year.

Cal-Maine Foods Inc., the nation's biggest egg seller and distributor, said it is recalling 288,000 eggs the company had purchased from supplier Ohio Fresh Eggs after a test showed salmonella at the Ohio farm.

Austin "Jack" DeCoster owns Wright County Egg and has lent money to Ohio Fresh Eggs.

The newspaper piece adds DeCoster had used fronts to finance Ohio Fresh Eggs in 2004, pumping $126 million into four egg farms. At the time he "had been labeled a 'habitual violator' of environmental laws in Iowa."

Ohio officials, it was reported, "yanked" his permits. But another "environmental panel" eventually overruled them.

In the ongoing news of the failed toner cartridge bombs packed onto US air freight shippers, discerning readers may have noticed cognitive disconnect.

They may have wondered how it seemed so necessary and prudent to make everyone take off their shoes and be wanded, or even now to submit to whole body scanning, for the sake of preventing PETN-packed sneakers and highly combustible underwear onto airplanes. But that marginal air freight business from failed countries where any known random murderous numbnuts can walk in off the street and drop off an air parcel bomb went on for years before the spigot was turned off.

This video amusingly reviews the events:

This post appeared in an earlier form on Dick Destiny blog.