The bests and worsts . . . in fits and spurts (Orlando Sentinel) Here we go again, columnists of every stripe digging into our recent pasts to come up with best and worst lists. It's who we are. [News Source]

The Year in Review: British politics (Independent) G ordon Brown was in the doldrums in January. He is again now. As a wildly oscillating political year opened with Tony Blair still Prime Minister, opinion polls suggested that Labour would be even more unpopular if Brown took over. In the summer, during Brown's extraordinary honeymoon, those polls appeared to be comically off-beam. By the end of the year, they seemed to be prophetic. [News Source]

Auction yards fight Canadian border cattle rule (Rapid City Journal) Five South Dakota auction yards recently hosted fundraisers that generated more than $50,000 to support a legal battle to stop older Canadian cattle from coming into the United States. [News Source]

Where to find Snohomish County grass-fed beef. When it comes to the buy-local, eat-local movement, beef can be a tough sell. [News Source]

Europe a weak link in the native food chain. Sales of Australian native foods are being hindered by stringent international laws that treat them as "novel foods" alongside GM crops and food engineered by state-of-the-art nanotechnology. [News Source]

Del. sees 2 cases of rare brain disorder. Though in their 70s, Roland Lacey and Ray Norris were physically active, and appeared to have several years ahead of them. But it took only a few months for a rare brain disorder to kill them this year. [News Source]

Is public getting too apathetic over avian flu? Worrying about avian flu isn't just for the birds, medical experts warn. But now that last fall's fears of a pandemic spreading through the U.S. human population haven't panned out, some health officials are fretting about a possible letdown in public preparedness. [News Source]

BSE disease appears in Canadian cow. Another Canadian cow has been discovered with mad cow disease by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, according to a news release from the Canadian agency. [News Source]

Japan confirms 34th case of mad cow disease (People’s Daily) The Japanese Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry said on Friday that a cow in northern Japan's Hokkaido had been tested positive for mad cow disease. It was the 34th case of mad cow disease confirmed so far in the country. ... [News Source]

BSE disease appears in Canadian cow. Another Canadian cow has been discovered with mad cow disease by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, according to a news release from the Canadian agency. [News Source]