Col. Shaffer is prohibited by his lawyer from talking. He's at great risk. They want to take away his pay and his health care benefits so they can hold it over his head and not allow him to talk while he's under suspension. This is not America.
It's also that comedians don't have the kind of narcissism that actors have. They're writers who perform their own material. It's more interesting. And they're sexy because they risk more. Stand-up comedians risk more than anyone.
Any Congressional agreement of an arbitrary time table to bring our troops home before we have accomplished our mission is unacceptable and could potentially increase the risk to our soldiers.
Look at Iraq; look at Afghanistan, where at great personal physical risk people have gone to the polls and have rejected the appeal from Bin Laden and his allies to stay at home.
Where do you find the strength to brave a barrage of enemy fire and to bring your wounded friends to safety at great risk to your own life? Conviction.
I have to say that in this particular cow that we're dealing with, those parts of the cow were removed, and so we don't think there's any risk or very negligible risk to human health with this particular incident.
But the fact of the matter is that all scientific evidence would show, based upon what we know about this disease, that muscle cuts - that is, the meat of the animal itself - should not cause any risk to human health.
We've had risk assessments performed by Harvard University, which said that even if we did have a small number of cases in this country that the likelihood of it spreading or getting into any kind of human health problem is very, very small.
