Meteorological Science Links Price of Bacon to Wind Power
Does weather influence food inflation?
(Palm Springs, FL) In a recent rendezvous with reporters, the 45th President of the United States and current Republican candidate for re-election to that same office offered a cogent theory about the skyrocketing cost of a bacon slab.
Globally recognized for his customary clear-headedness, the candidate mused, “Groceries, food has gone up at levels that nobody’s ever seen before. We’ve never seen anything like it — 50, 60, 70 percent.”
“You take a look at bacon and some of these products — and some people don’t eat bacon anymore. We are going to get the energy prices down. When we get energy down, you know, this was caused by their horrible energy — wind. They want wind all over the place. But when it doesn’t blow, we have a little problem.”
In keeping with its reputation for journalistic integrity Newsnotes from Absurdistan conducted its own independent fact-checking research. Newsnotes science editor Millicent (surname withheld due to fear of retaliation) ventured out to a local supermarket on three separate occasions: a calm day with no discernible wind, a brisk day with breezes consistently blowing in the 10-20 mph range, and a Category 5 hurricane.
Without a shadow of doubt, bacon prices soared during the hurricane, mitigated only by the fact that alertly mobile shoppers could pluck bacon slabs out of thin air after the roof blew off the supermarket. On the calm day when no wind speed whatsoever was recorded, bacon was entirely free of charge. At a recorded wind speed of 15 mph, prices were … meh. Newsnotes hastily concluded at the time that bacon prices are intimately intertwined with wind speed.
Hardly satisfied with a single data set to justify serious policy formulation, however, Newsnotes reached out to a locally respected meteorologist at TV station KTVN Las Vegas Nevada for validation of the former president’s wind power theory. Pressed tenaciously, meteorologist Sally (surname also withheld owing to fear of retribution) reluctantly suggested that the bacon price spike had nothing to do either with wind speed or wind power.
Rather, prices are stemming from the simple Economics 101 principle of supply and demand. “Any claim to the contrary,” she insisted, “is little more than so much hot air.”
In a brilliant move to bring the national deficit under control, the former president pledged that, if re-elected, he would reduce the number of bacon strips layered onto his double-bacon cheeseburgers.
Universally celebrated for his personal sacrifice to the national good, Candidate Former Guy articulated a new policy initiative. He will henceforth assuage his ravenous junk food appetite with single-bacon cheeseburgers.