The most frightening, dystopian image of the future in that movie wasn't the eating of humans or the lame inducements, it was that neckerchief Heston sported all through that thing. And Heston was a cop - the very image of masculinity.

Even as a kid, I knew I would want no part of any future world like that. That stupid piece of fabric ruined the whole movie for me. (His hat wasn't helpin either)

P.S. Nice to see a night post. Makes us West Coasties happy.

Ace, two things.

First, I've always wondered if, once we can grow meat in a lab, will the PETA-type vegetarians eat it? It's not like it's cruel to animals any longer.

Of course, they'll probably just come up with a new excuse, like "It tastes like vagina," or "I bet this is another one of HitlerChimp's sterilization plots."

Second, WRT Soylent Green-- I believe it used to be AMC theaters that played a short little clip just a few years ago telling people not to smoke in the theater, look where the emergency exits were, etc. It was just basic animated text zooming in size, but the music they played sounded just like something they'd play in the Soylent Green death-eteria.

For years, every time the clip came on before a movie, I'd cry out "Thorn. . . it's byooo-tee-full!!!"

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

P.S. Just so you know Ace, I'll always think you're a beautiful piece of furniture.

Of course, they'll probably just come up with a new excuse, like "It tastes like vagina,"

Exactly how would the guys in PETA know that?

If you catch my drift.

He's probably talking about the 2% of the PETA females that do have sex, just not with men.

I'm a vegetarian. I wouldn't eat it, because it sounds disgusting. But I'd encourage you all to do so.

I'm not so down with real flavors being replaced by generic processed crap, though.

Two words: Soylent Green

Realy thin sheets of beef cells sold as food?

I think they already have that across the street at the convenience store. 79 cents a package.

Bet it takes like ass. Strike that, ass-meat is damn tasty. Bet it just tastes bland and horrible.

Real carnivores know the flavor and experience of meat changes based on the animal's diet. Corn-fed vs. petri dish.

This Jason Matheny gets to do his doctoral thesis by describing meat production processes that McDonald's perfected, oh about, 1979?!? I guess they really do hand out Ph.D.s like cracker jack prizes.

Soylent Green.... IT'S cows, not People?

Next step; genetically crossing animals with plants, so I can realize my dream of having a Porterhouse Steak tree in my backyard.

Next to the Chicken Wing bush, of course.

slublog-

Exactly how would the guys in PETA know that?

Don't worry, I imagine most of the women in Peta are familiar with the taste...

If you catch my drift.

This poses some interesting questions as far as Kashrut goes. (And seems much closer than my perpetual question, is Replicated pork kosher?)

Straight out of "The Space Merchants" by Pohl & Kornbluth (1953). From a review by Matthew McGowan at scifi.com:

"One of the great, classic images of this book is Chicken Little—a neatly packaged, popular meat product that's actually a gigantic, living mass of vat-grown tissue fed and processed at the Chlorella plantation. It's underneath this grotesque monstrosity that the Consie cell holds its clandestine meetings, which they get to by a special way of making Chicken Little's flesh part, not unlike the Red Sea. That's just so wrong and so right. "— Matt

someJoe, I'll bet some enterprising doctoral student colleague of Jason is working on that too.. it's really just a matter of what type of nutrition you provide the meat-blob-thing to get the result you want... higher doses of carbohydrates instead of rangy grasses if you get my drift.

My dog's gonna be disappointed though - he loves those tasty steak bones.

I like the 'furniture' in Soylent Green.

This sounds like a WONDERFUL idea. Instead of letting us rubes out here in flyover country raise cattle and sell them for somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 or $1.20 a pound, let's start growing cowflesh in labs. I'm sure the costs won't exceed $20 a pound once the process moves up to mass production.

Typical government project. Fucking asshats.

Sorry, Russ, but It's an OSHA thing.
Nobody ever got trampled by stampeding petri dishes.

What about the massive steel shelves all those petri dishes are sitting on? They ever fall over and flatten the night security guard?

The ironic part of this story is the "Cowmageddon" that the perfection of this technology would cause. Do these people think that all those cows out there right now would just be set free to "walk the earth, like Caine from Kung Fu?" Nope, they'll all get wacked like a celebrity cameo cast member of "The Sopranos". With meat provided by the laboratory meat farms, cows will become extinct outside of your local zoo, kind of like pandas. Well, except for the fact that cows are generally better tasting than pandas (unless you marinate the panda steaks in Southern Comfort & use peach preserves to glaze them before slapping them on the BBQ). Mmmmmmmmm.......Panda.

Rob, you get that meat orchard blooming, give me a call. I'll bring the beerfish.

Ace, very funny stuff. You still got it. Good comments too.

That's great... Meat Orchard & beerfish.

what else do we want?

Pizza vines? (need to weed out the anchovies)
shrimp cocktail flowers?

I want to be the Willy Wonka of entree plants!

Russ:

You're right that if people stopped eating beef (real beef, that is), cows would pretty much go extinct. But that's OK by me. I can live in a world without cows, just as I can live in a world without wooly mammoths.

SKJKevin, but wooly mammoths are so damn tasty !

And their tusks make great dinner conversation pieces.

Those PETA weenies don't know what they're missing.

If you had a lot of property, a wooly mammoth might make a nice pet. Despite their size, they were probably pretty docile creatures.

We have wooly mammoth DNA, so we ought to be able to clone one, like in Jurassic Park.

Kevin, if you can guarantee that the cloned mammoth will eat lawyers like the T-Rex did in "Jurassic Park", I'll foot the fucking bill myself by selling plasma. 30 million pints should about do the trick, right? The only thing I want out of the deal is to point "Mr. Snuffalufagus" towards his first three or four meals.

...and if the mammoth gets the lawyer stuck in his throat and chokes to death, we get a dead lawyer & mammoth chops. Bonus!