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Friday, July 20, 2007

Reality Mirrors Satire - Again

There are some really good satirists, and by good, I mean that the stuff they write is just plausible enough to be believable. Every once in a while, they write something that closely mirrors something that happens in the future. In that case, the satirists become prophets. Scott Ott of ScappleFace is one such satirist.

ScrappleFace recently wrote:
The U.S. Senate voted yesterday to mandate a 40 percent increase in fuel economy for new cars and light trucks by the year 2020, as a way to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil.

In a little-noted “fairness” provision of the bill, the Senate also required other American manufacturers to increase the efficiency of their products as well. Among the new mandates with a 2020 deadline…
– U.S. meatpackers must increase the protein content of ground beef so that a single hamburger provides a week’s supply of energy. ...

And now we learn that making beef go much farther is actually very, very, very important:

Producing 2.2lb of beef generates as much greenhouse gas as driving a car non-stop for three hours, it was claimed yesterday. [...]

[T]hat 2.2lb of beef is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions which have the same effect as the carbon dioxide released by an ordinary car travelling at 50 miles per hour for 155 miles, a journey lasting three hours.
If the global warming jihadists had their way, they'd no doubt slaughter the herds and force us all to be vegans. Of course, with higher plant matter intake, we'd all experience more flatulence, so they'd have to slaughter us too in order to save the planet.

Fortunately, I've just invented an alternate solution and I'm gonna apply for a patent for it: The Solar and Battery Powered Flatulence Detector and Ignitor. Simply surgically embed it in the back end of your cow, sheep, dog, ol' uncle Albert, or any other entity with excessive flatulence, and it will automatically spark using advanced piezo-electric technology to ignite the methane and convert it into relatively harmless carbon dioxide and completely harmless water. Not only that, but it helps eliminate the smell as well. Order ten and receive a free fire extinguisher with your order.

The only problem with the product is that occasionally a cow swallows excessive air with its cud causing the burning gases to travel into the cow's digestive system, which causes the cow to explode, which, unfortunately, makes quite a mess. However, it's a small price to pay to reduce global warming. Hopefully, uncle Albert will fare a little better than that cow.

Just think, on a beautiful starry night on the range, not only will you see the flash of the firefly, but also brilliant jets of hot gas emanating from the cattle. Home on the range - what a wonderful world!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Gives new meaning to the word "range", doesn't it?

This is a perfect reason for using cell cloning technology to grow animal flesh in vitro for consumption. If we just grow the part of the cow we want, we can do without the flatulence, and the cruelty as well. Do you think vegans will be on board with that?

Bret said...

I was thinking about the in vitro thing. I think it's doable, perhaps even now (they maintain lot's of other cell lines, so why not beef muscle?). I doubt that it will ever complete on cost though. The steer provides the "laboratory" to produce the muscle pretty cheaply. It wanders around and eats dead grass on land that's useless for anything else. Hard to beat that, I think.

David said...

Bret: You come so close to the invention that would secure your place as the hero of the masses and the great benefactor of the future: the self-cooking cow.

joe shropshire said...

The flash of the firefly, the brilliant jets of hot gas, the smell of burnt cow bunghole -- camping out on the prairie will never be quite the same.