Wry On The Rocks

You got to hand it to Millie Hinkle; the woman’s got spunk.  The 57-year-old natural medicine practioner has decided that camel milk can cure all of our ills.  She has devoted her life to bringing camel milk to the American public and has drained her savings, not to mention her common sense, to this cause.  According to Ms. Hinkle milk from the humped ones can cure disease, increase virility and contain unknown magical powers.  Her efforts have gained her preliminary approval from the FDA to market the milk.  At the same time it, should be noted, that they tentatively approved the sale of milk from reindeer, Llamas, moose and donkeys.  This, of course will make the marketing of camel milk that much more difficult.  Imagine the quandry of the average shopper in the market…hmmm, what do I feel like today…moose milk?…donkey milk?..what..no aardvark milk?

There is one other little problem with Ms. Hinkle’s goal; she only has one camel and camels are notoriously cantankerous and getting milked ranks very high on their list of things that make them that way.   Other than that, she may be on to something.  It can’t possibly taste worse than Gatorade …..talking about cantankerous animals!

A new government study confirms what most of us already knew; cellphone usage is out-pacing landlines in U.S. household.  20% of all U.S. households have no landline at all…only a cell phone…while only 17% of households have a landline and no cellphone.  This is most prevelant among persons age 25 to 29; the study found that 40% of this age group only use cellphones.

Here’s the part I don’t understand…the study was undertaken by the Center for Disease Control.  With the threat of a worldwide pandemic brought on by Swine Flu, the CDC is doing phone studies?  I don’t care how many phones the 25 to 29 year-olds have, I want important stuff, like how many pigs have used a phone in the last 30 days! Or how long should I wait to use a phone after eating pork! So, I say back to the clipboards CDC and give me something I can use.

Hot news from the National Bureau of Economic Research…countries with hotter climates tend to be poorer.  Researchers have even correlated it:  each 1 degree in Celsius inteprets into 8 percent difference in GDP or 1 per cent difference in annual economic growth.  Bottom line the warmer the climate the less per-capita income.  Bottom line: if I were selling high-end goods I’d be hot-footing it (no pun here) to points North.  Who knew Inuits were a prime market for Dolce and Gabbana?