You didn’t think there could be more on the scintillating topic of camel cheese, didja? But there iiiiiiis! This makes the grade because it is both cameltacular and cheesy in the extreme.

BTW, doing well on Google for camel toe as well.

Those familiar with the JonBenet Ramsay case, the movie Little Miss Sunshine, or Sexually Repressed Eisenhower Maudlinism will recall that an industry exists devoted to the production and promotion of competitions of feminine beauty. Now, whether or not you believe that the best families show their daughters or their spaniels, you must admit that a beauty pageant is, if nothing else, a visually impressive and highly competitive event.

Even in Saudi Arabia.

Now, given your no-doubt intimate familiarity with the Wahabi code, you’re probably raising one, if not two or three eyebrows right now. Indeed, when I heard about the Qahtani tribe’s Mazayen al-Ibl competition, I expected it to look not unlike this:

And award the winning beauty a stoning outside the city gates. But nooooooooooooo!

Instead, it looks like this:

Yes, just as in Wiarton, Ontario the beauty queen is not Miss Wiarton but The Groundhog Queen (no, really, she is) in Guwei’iyya the most beautiful contestant is crowned Miss Camel. The only difference is, theirs more literally embodies the title noun. The Groundhog Queens of my youth (and there, surely, is a phrase you just don’t hear often enough, eh?) were really for the most part not hogs at all, nor, in the manner of small-town beauty queens, were they very grounded.

From Reuters, via the Camel’s Nose:

The legs are long, the eyes are big, the bodies curvaceous.

Contestants in this Saudi-style beauty pageant have all the features you might expect anywhere else in the world, but with one crucial difference — the competitors are camels.

This week, the Qahtani tribe of western Saudi Arabia has been welcoming entrants to its Mazayen al-Ibl competition, a parade of the “most beautiful camels” in the desolate desert region of Guwei’iyya, 120 km (75 miles) west of Riyadh.

“In Lebanon they have Miss Lebanon,” jokes Walid, moderator of the competition’s Web site. “Here we have Miss Camel…”

“Beautiful, beautiful!” the judge mutters quietly to himself, inspecting the group. Finalists have been decorated with silver bands and body covers.

“The nose should be long and droop down, that’s more beautiful,” explains Sultan al-Qahtani, one of the organizers. “The ears should stand back, and the neck should be long. The hump should be high, but slightly to the back.”

Yes, as in all beauty contests, the size and shape of the humps is critical.