What Caught My Eye Today - Food, Air Travel, Texas, Soccer, Potpourri

Food - A Silicon Valley engineer has developed a new powdered meal replacement drink called Soylent that could replace traditional food. Pray tell why? Described by the engineer as "Ensure on steroids," Soylent contains 35 essential ingredients - protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals - in one 1,500 calorie packet. Mix it with water and oil and you have a meal that you could live on forever. I presume boyfriend subscribes to the "eat to live" line of thinking as opposed to "live to eat" which camp which I proudly belong to. The beige goo, which tastes like unsweetened cake batter, costs about $4 per meal. Dude, its called goo and tastes like Silly Putty. Why on earth, would someone voluntarily ingest this stuff?

Air Travel - According to surveys, 33% of Americans fantasize of joining the "Mile High Club" while only 4% have succeeded in doing so. A bit of a tangent, but can anyone enlighten me as to how I can get on one of these surveys?  They sound far more entertaining that the political surveys I'm usually subjected to. While the process of entry is straightforward (find a willing partner, wait for the plan to rise to 5,280, then go for it), the logistics of waiting for the right time -- free from turbulence and vigilant flight attendants -- can be frustrating. Hey, if membership was easy, then everyone would be a member. Not exactly an exclusive club if that were to happen. Then there is the issue of moving within a coffin-size bathroom, to say nothing of the mandatory task of sanitizing the toilet seat. Yeah, right.  People wanted to do the nasty in an airplane lavatory really care about sanitation. A handful of private airlines -- Flamingo Air (Ohio), Erotic Airways (Australia), Mile High Flights (England), Love Cloud (Las Vegas) -- are now making it much easier to join this league of sexual adventurers without facing the typical obstacles. While amenities vary by carrier, most offer a short flight (usually 60 minutes), complete with champagne, chocolates and a "discreet" pilot. If I understand the rules correctly, there is nothing that says you can't take one of these "special" flights to "do your thang". Still, it does strike me as taking the easy way out, as it were.

Texas - Texas Republicans adopted a party platform for 2014 that includes support for so-called reparative therapy, which proponents claim can turn gay people straight. I've lost count of the reasons why I don't live in Texas. Suffice it to say, that now I have another reason not to. The American Psychological Association has condemned such "conversion" counseling, and the practice has been outlawed in the treatment of minors in both California and New Jersey. Under the new plank, adopted at the Texas GOP Convention, the state party will now recognize the "the legitimacy and efficacy of counseling" for patients who seek "healing and wholeness from their homosexual lifestyle." How positively humane of them.  Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to go hurl now. The party will also oppose any laws that seek to limit access to the treatment. In fairness, what with me being the lunatic progressive liberal that I am (a.k.a. I voluntarily choose to live in the San Francisco Bay Area), I'm pretty sure the Republican party in Texas wasn't planning on getting my vote any time in the foreseeable future.

Soccer - This just in from the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. Hell apparently has frozen over, at least in Rio de Janeiro. World #1 team and defending World Cup champion, Spain is the first team to be eliminated from the tournament after losing its first two group stage games. Spain lost its opening match to the Netherlands, 5-1, then lost in shocking fashion to Chile, 2-0. Meanwhile, the United States won its opening fixture 2-1 over nemesis, Ghana (which held the distinction of booting the U.S. out of the last two World Cups) in the dreaded Group of Death. A win over either Germany or Portugal (and possibly a draw) could see the U.S. advance into the group of 16.

Potpourri

• Twitter - The Central Intelligence Agency has joined Facebook and Twitter. The agency's first tweet was "We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet." It's official. Twitter and Facebook are no longer cool.
• Fat - According to a recent study, 30% of the world's population -- about 2.1 billion people -- is obese. The United States has 87 million obese people, more than any other nation. Pretty impressive if you think about it. I mean China and India have well over a billion people each, and yet we still manage to have more weight-challenged people than they do.
• News - The median age of the average Fox News viewer is 68.8. For MSNBC the median age is 62.5 and for CNN, 62.8. Show of hands...who is actually surprised by these age demographics?
• War - Only one American soldier was classified as missing in action during the 13-year Afghanistan War -- Sargeant Bow Bergdahl, who was recently release by the Taliban. 73,547 U.S. troops are still unaccounted for from World War II, 7,883 from the Korean War, and 1,642 from the Vietnam War. I'm not sure what is more shocking--that after 13 years of conflict, the U.S. managed to have just one (and now zero) MIAs or that 70 years after the fact, there are still more that 73,000 missing soldiers from World War II? 
• Wealth - According to Credit Suisse's latest Global Wealth report (2013), Americans' median net worth was $44,900 per adult, placing the United States in 19th place, behind Japan, Canada, Australia, and much of Western Europe. Australia tops the list at $219,500 per adult. Australia, huh?  I was totally thinking Monaco or Luxembourg.