Those ass-tards at PETA have apparently announced a sort of X-prize for the first team of pocket-protectored lab geeks to invent a commercially viable lab-grown chicken meat substitute by the year 2012. Writes the NYT:

A founder of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk, said she had been hoping to get the organization involved in advancing in vitro meat technology for at least a decade.

But, Ms. Newkirk said, the decision to sponsor a prize caused “a near civil war in our office,” since so many PETA members are repulsed by the thought of eating animal tissue, even if no animals are killed.

Okay — my B.S. detector is going off wildly. Not that I expect those batshit crazies at PETA to be in sync with reality most of the time, but if a PETA program exists that’s more hypocritical than its puppy-killing enterprise, this one just might be it.

As anyone who survived college-level biology will tell you, you can’t just grow cells in a vacuum. You need something to grow ‘em in. We used to use bovine serum albumin (yes — from cows), and I’m pretty sure it’s still the gold standard. In other words, every package of lab-grown “chicken” nuggets is going to be percolated up in fluid from a regular animal anyway. Yes, even if the fake “meat” itself is soy protein or something else.

Second, unless PETA abolishes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by 2012 (hah!), the resulting faux poultry pieces would have to be …wait for it … extensively tested on animals, before they were approved for human consumption.

And once this cluck-cluck soylent green concoction reaches our Wal-Mart shelves, what then? How will PETA go about persuading lions, tigers, and bears to swear off their horrible speciesism and stop making their fellow creatures suffer in the name of nourishment? Will Knut, the celebrated German polar bear, be satisfied eating petri-dish-grown vittles? I nominate PETA spokesman Steve-O to carry out the first few weeks of feedings.