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Remember that this study is european, so they're talking about real dairy farms (or something like that), not The Meatrix...

http://www.themeatrix.com/ If anything, I got a lot of entertainment value out of this.

http://www.themeatrix.com/

It's used in conjunction with a form of nuclear fusion. Just an intermediate step before plugging them into the Meatrix.

Cows are batteries, not this silly stuff: http://www.themeatrix.com/

who is going to grow your food?

I see where you're coming from; my mom is married to a farmer. But when I tried this argument before on Slashdot, other users told me that most food is grown on factory farms, whose economies of scale let them afford satellite or 3G Internet.

on if they torture it to death to make it taste better. Or cut its throat and let it bleed to death. Or maybe just forced to live in the livestock equivalent of cube farm 24/7.

(I'm making these remarks somewhat tongue-in-cheek... I'm not particularly zealous about animal rights. There's certain ones I like to eat, and I don't feel too horrible about animals food with humane handling while they're alive. But I do think that systemically perpetrated suffering while the animals are alive presents a moral problem, and realize we have a system that, well, presents it.)

on how long it will take PETA to get involved and start making features like The Meatrix?

Here is another article which, unlike yours, does not look like a press release from Monsanto, with a juicy tidbit of my picking:

Mmmm ... cookies.

It's not about creating prion-free cattle. It's about cheap meat. The meat industry is all about high density feedlots for cattle, pigs, and chickens. It's all about providing you with the cheapest meat, not necessarily the safest for you or the meat animals. The industry players want you to think that cattle spend all of their days frollicking on the range and munching on grass instead of being cooped up in their own shit and forced to eat antibiotics so they can eat corn which they did not evolve to eat. I'm a devout omnivore and won't stop eating meat, so those more rabidly zealous vegans can get stuffed. I can and will however eat safer and better raised meat.

Read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma . It has a fascinating account of Joel Salatin and his Polyface Farms. You can have a win-win situation between raising meat animals and the enviroment. Finally, everything you ever wanted to know about high density feedlots can be found in cartoon format at The Meatrix.

Soon we'll all be eating cloned beef from cattle raised in high density feedlots who stand around in their own feces and urine pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics. Then the meat will have to be irradiated to kill the resistant strains of E. coli created in the cattle's stomachs because were forced to eat corn that they didn't evolve to eat.

Since consumers will expect their irradatiated meat to glow in the dark, they'll create glowing cattle just like the glowing pigs.

Read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma if you want to or watch Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms talk about the real future of raising meat (long) and how to turn vegetarians back into meat eaters and why it's important to have promiscuous healthy earthworms.

As we age our brains may ossify and turn us all into natural luddites. But, it seems that a "hi-tech" solution to another "hi-tech" solution is a problem. We need to step back and look at how this bacterial problem occurred in the first place. Say hello to the high density feedlot where cows live in great metal buildings standing around in their own filth being fed unnatural foods and pumped full of hormones and antibiotics. Antibiotics? The overuse of antibiotics has created superstrains of bacteria. And it is those stronger strains that are showing up in our meat supply.

The practical solution is simple. Grass finished beef. Corn fed isn't natural or healthy. Let the steers eat grass for their last two weeks before slaughter. They can still do the dense feedlots, CAFO's but most of the problems caused by CAFO's are mitigated by grass finishing diet. But they determined it wouldn't be cost effective so they pass the real cost onto the consumer to make sure their meat is properly handled and cooked and the medical costs associated with tainted meat. Oh well.

The real solution is free range grass fed beef. Read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and check out Joel Salatin's Polyface Farms. After reading about CAFO's, I can see why some people become vegans and vegetarians, but I won't stop eating meat. I'll just eat meat that is safer and healthier for me.

Alcohol is one such example. Ever heard of alcohol POISONING?

Similarly, you can take "magic" mushrooms which are poisonous but get you high at the right dosage without dying.

The GP is obviouly very naive. There are TONS of toxins in foods/drinks people eat today. Alot of food is grown in chemical fertilizers unless it's organically grown. If you eat fish, you probably are eating a very tiny amount of mercury and various other toxins in the water. Also in the states, some farmers inject their cows with bovine growth hormones to improve milk yields. Okay, so maybe hormones aren't a toxin persay, but to me, they are evil/unwanted and at the same level as toxins as they can harm your body. Maybe you've heard about Mosanto and the Fox News cover-up where they prevented reporters from releasing a story about Mosanto's rBGH and how it causes cancer not to mention the needless pain and suffering of cows (due to swollen/infected udders, it's a condition called Mastitis).

Here in Canada, rBGH is banned, but it is still not banned in the United States. IMO, the U.S government rather maintain a dominant economy over risk loosing billions if word of U.S infected beef got out, so they will do whatever they can to prevent that from happening. But, they won't test EVERY cow for mad cow (because they claim that would be prohibitively expensive). Infact, I saw a story on CBC a few years ago about a small time beef farmer in the states that wanted to market his beef as having been 100% tested for mad cow disease. The government stepped in and prevented him from testing every cow and selling it because this would set a "precedent" where all the big time beef farmers would have to follow suit, costing them alot of money in the process. So this small time farmer was prevented from marketing his beef as 100% mad-cow tested, pretty sad really (I wish I could find the original story, it was quite amazing that the government would interfere with a small-time business like that to protect the beef industry as a whole, meanwhile putting beef consumers at a greater risk for the sake of profit).

US Continues to Violate WHO Mad Cow Guidelines
Old CBC News Story about a cover-up
More info about rBGH

According to this website, The U.S. is presently testing only 1 out of every 18,000 cows slaughtered (for Mad Cow Disease). Guess what the test rates are elsewhere?
Quoted from this website: ...In Europe, where they test 1 out of every 4 cows, and Japan, where they test 100% of all cattle bound for human consumption...

So U.S tests 0.0056% of their cows, where as Europe tests 25% and Japan tests 100%. Guess I'll stick to non-american beef from now on.

Alcohol is one such example. Ever heard of alcohol POISONING?

Similarly, you can take "magic" mushrooms which are poisonous but get you high at the right dosage without dying.

The GP is obviouly very naive. There are TONS of toxins in foods/drinks people eat today. Alot of food is grown in chemical fertilizers unless it's organically grown. If you eat fish, you probably are eating a very tiny amount of mercury and various other toxins in the water. Also in the states, some farmers inject their cows with bovine growth hormones to improve milk yields. Okay, so maybe hormones aren't a toxin persay, but to me, they are evil/unwanted and at the same level as toxins as they can harm your body. Maybe you've heard about Mosanto and the Fox News cover-up where they prevented reporters from releasing a story about Mosanto's rBGH and how it causes cancer not to mention the needless pain and suffering of cows (due to swollen/infected udders, it's a condition called Mastitis).

Here in Canada, rBGH is banned, but it is still not banned in the United States. IMO, the U.S government rather maintain a dominant economy over risk loosing billions if word of U.S infected beef got out, so they will do whatever they can to prevent that from happening. But, they won't test EVERY cow for mad cow (because they claim that would be prohibitively expensive). Infact, I saw a story on CBC a few years ago about a small time beef farmer in the states that wanted to market his beef as having been 100% tested for mad cow disease. The government stepped in and prevented him from testing every cow and selling it because this would set a "precedent" where all the big time beef farmers would have to follow suit, costing them alot of money in the process. So this small time farmer was prevented from marketing his beef as 100% mad-cow tested, pretty sad really (I wish I could find the original story, it was quite amazing that the government would interfere with a small-time business like that to protect the beef industry as a whole, meanwhile putting beef consumers at a greater risk for the sake of profit).

US Continues to Violate WHO Mad Cow Guidelines
Old CBC News Story about a cover-up
More info about rBGH

According to this website, The U.S. is presently testing only 1 out of every 18,000 cows slaughtered (for Mad Cow Disease). Guess what the test rates are elsewhere?
Quoted from this website: ...In Europe, where they test 1 out of every 4 cows, and Japan, where they test 100% of all cattle bound for human consumption...

So U.S tests 0.0056% of their cows, where as Europe tests 25% and Japan tests 100%. Guess I'll stick to non-american beef from now on.

Hello Grassfed Buffalo!

www.northstarbison.com

oh and by the way,

http://www.themeatrix.com/

As has been pointed out, cows would have been the better choice.

You mean like this?

This is the kind of stuff he was talking about.

I have a friend who went to a chicken farm to fix some electrical problems for them and says he can never stomach to eat chicken ever again after what he saw...seriously. He says that most of them had cancerous growths all over them and weird deformations...sorry KFC fans.

dont forget http://www.themeatrix.com/

the true matrix...

I don't think this carries over to farm animals simply because we kill and eat them! Maybe the animals on old-school family farms where the animals are treated humanely and then killed swiftly with respect live happy lives, but today's factory farms are sick and demented. The animals are tormented from birth to slaughter. If you haven't, check out The Meatrix.

What is the Meatrix

Perhaps you were thinking of The Meatrix? (The pig acts with too much emotion.)

It's a Flash animation thing. If you'd prefer a web page, look here: Action Page.

It's a Flash animation thing. If you'd prefer a web page, look here: Action Page.

I believe you actually mean The Meatrix. No one can be told what the Meatrix is. They must experience it for themselves. Be warned! The Meatrix may have you in its grasp at this very moment! Trust no one!

> nobody wants to get with the 21st century and give up family farms.

There are definitely major nasty drawbacks on several fronts to "giving up family farms".

Why not give up 19 century industrialism and bring family farms into the 21st century? Let's call it Sustainable Agriculture while we're at it, that way folks don't have to be related to each other to run one.

My vote is for large scale corporate farming.

What is the Meatrix?

give me an example of any nomadic group that conquered those that used large scale agriculture after the invention of guns.

The European colonisation of the Americas was characterised by aggressive, nomadic invaders, armed with guns, germs, and a foreign biota, replacing native populations, most of whom were agricultural. Some of the settled agricultural socieities in the Americas numbered several million - for example the Ohio native cities were larger than any in Europe at the time. Only after the European nomads had migrated to the western plains did they finally encounter other nomadic cultures operating a rudimentary level of civlisation.

This nomadic legacy runs deep in North American culture. Even today USians are the most nomadic of all "Western" peoples - they tend to move more frequently during their lifetime, and each move is on average a greater distance, than any other European or European-descended culture.

As they say, only in Wisconsin

This is why California will never overtake Wisconsin for cheese production. We take our cheese seriously! Sure, California may be producing more milk thanks to their farming factories, but their cheese is weak. Take their pepperjack for instance. In Wisconsin, that stuff has bite. In California, it tastes like those stupid shredded cheeses. Weak man, weak.

Oh, and don't believe all those commercials you see about how cows are happier in Sunny California and are so glad to get away from frigid Wisconsin. Those cows are roasting inside their factory farms where they have to stand on cement all day. At least in Wisconsin, we keep our cows in pastures.

WayBack appears to be down, else I'd find a mirror of them at their original location for you. Some of the parody sites around are quite good.

Well, at least we can still watch The Meatrix! I still don't know who plays Mooofius or Leo though :( I'm just barely silly enough to find this sort of thing amusing.

I think you should visit The MEATrix.com

You insensitive CLOD!

I am Moofious

Funny how Ballmer looks a lot like Neo of The Meatrix

For idiotic propaganda delivered as a Matrix parody, nothing beats The Meatrix. I'd like to see some of these guys start getting sued just so we don't have to put up with this tripe.

-Dave

The Meattrix

www.themeatrix.com

I'm very excited to go see this movie and plan on going this weekend. Also, related to The Matrix, a friend told me today about a website called The Meatrix. It's a Flash movie that aims to reveal the truth behind factory farming and where most of our meat and other animal products come from. Very interesting.