Riding herd on the USDA. Ever since a Washington state cow was diagnosed with mad-cow disease last December, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has tried to persuade the public that it has the problem under control. But now it finds itself in an argument with itself.

The inspector general of that agency on Tuesday issued a scathing report on the testing practices used to ensure a safe supply of beef. The review noted that testing isn’t random, which is necessary to produce a truer picture of the overall health of cattle, and that rendering plants and other facilities are not required to participate.

It also found that the testing regimen assumes only old, sick animals are susceptible to the disease. Healthy-appearing cattle have tested positive in Europe, and three witnesses of the diseased Washington state cow say it was able to walk; therefore it wasn’t a “downer” cow, as the USDA has claimed.

After it finishes arguing with itself, the USDA needs to show consumers in America and abroad that it is taking mad-cow disease seriously by devising more extensive testing.

Montana’s grim blogger? Dave Galt is nervous about the new service being offered by his Montana Transportation Department: a Web site to create memorials and testimonials for people who die in Big Sky Country traffic accidents – 105 to date this year and counting.

According to the Missoulian, the department director is afraid people will think he’s goofy. Or macabre.

He shouldn’t fret. His idea, borrowed from the South Carolina transportation department, is terrific. The Web site, which was launched July 1, will give friends and families a way to immortalize the lives and tragic deaths of loved ones. Like the poignant white crosses that dot Montana roadways, the site’ll make motorists more safety conscious, too.

Officials in Idaho and Washington should check into this innovation. Idaho can find plenty of human fodder for a Web site from victims of Highway 95 alone.

Unappreciated at any speed. Former presidential candidate Howard Dean emerged from oblivion recently to assail current presidential candidate Ralph Nader. Nader, the Green Party candidate in 2000, is blamed by many Dean-thinking Democrats for having undermined Al Gore’s candidacy and thus handed the election to George W. Bush. This year Nader is running as an independent and Dean has urged him to pull out because of the harm he’ll do to John Kerry.

It’s not the first time that a maverick candidate has given a mainstream nominee fits by cutting into his base of support. John Anderson, Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, George Wallace. Any of those names sound familiar?

What Howard Dean ought to recognize – having learned it the hard way – is that if you want to be invulnerable to “base erosion,” be compelling enough that your backers won’t go looking for an alternative.