Tetherd Cow Ahead

The Weasel has this week opined that the world is not facing a problem of climate change so much as climate shift.

And in a stunning revelation he asserts that the reason that we have any problem at all here in Australia is because of ecologically minded people:

… if some years ago we had not bowed so much to the greens and had built more dams, maybe things would have been different, and that applies all around the country.

So, to recap – don’t be concerned, the climate is not changing, just shifting, and that’s not something you should worry your pretty little head about. If people tell you different they’re probably evil Greenies who, as everybody clearly knows, want to cause the world to shrivel to a dessicated husk due to a lack of dams.

So I’m watching this science show on the tv and the presenter starts talking about another thing that science has found that we shouldn’t be eating because it will, like, kill you! The chemical in question, so the pretty tv-journo-scientist tells me, is called acrylamide, and is bad, bad, bad!

“So what?” I hear you say, “I don’t hold with those kinds of food additives anyways! I’ll just avoid anything that they add it to!”

Brace yourselves Acowlytes. The news is not good. One of the most common places that these nosy scientists have found acrylamide is in fried or roasted potatoes. You know that crunchy, golden crusty coating on the potato? The best bit? That’s where you get yer mother-lode of acrylamide.

Oh noes! ROAST POTATOES! Someone has found that ROAST POTATOES are bad for you! That surely must be a Sign of the End Times!

This is what it says about acrylamide at Wikipedia:

There is evidence that exposure to large doses can cause damage to the male reproductive glands. Direct exposure to pure acrylamide by inhalation, skin absorption, or eye contact irritates the exposed mucous membranes, e.g. the nose, and can also cause sweating, urinary incontinence, nausea, myalgia, speech disorders, numbness, paresthesia, and weakened legs and hands. In addition, the acrylamide monomer is a potent neurotoxin. Ingested acrylamide is metabolised to a chemically reactive epoxide, glycidamide

Let me translate: Don’t eat roast potatoes. Don’t touch roast potatoes. And never, never, never inhale roast potatoes or cram them in your eyes or up your nose.

Look at those symptoms: Urinary incontinence! Paresthesia! Myalgia. Damage to the male reproductive glands! And it’s a neurotoxin for chrissakes! It will further come as no surprise that acrylamide is linked to cancer as well. If you are a consumer of certain brands of potato chips* that use olestra, you can for good measure add anal leakage to this catalogue of woes.

The bit about speech disorders is true for sure – even reading about all this has rendered me speechless!

Fortunately, there is a crispy golden salty light at the end of the horrible scientific chemical tunnel; other scientists (the kind who I’d much rather hang out with) at J.R. Simplot Co. of Idaho, have developed a genetically modified potato with an altered gene structure that will ‘rebuff’ acrylamide and make a safe-to-eat roast potato or French fry.

Tetherd Cow Ahead’s financial tip for this week is to put your money into J. R. Simplot Co. If there’s ever anything that’s going to turn around the negative public view of genetic modification it’s the salvation of the fried potato. It may be the only hope we have.

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*Olean is a company that manufactures Olestra. If you followed the link, you will have seen the somewhat disconcerting counter on their site that ticks out ‘The Number of Servings of Olean™ Consumed’ (it’s currently at about 5 billion). Now reflect on that counter as a measure of the flow of anal leakage…

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You know those letters you get from Nigeria promising to send you untold wealth from someone’s forgotten fortune? Well today I got a real genuine one. No, seriously, I did. Really. I swear. Look – I’ll show you:

OFFICE OF THE SENATE HOUSE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN PAYMENT(RESOLUTION PANEL ON CONTRACT PAYMENT)

IKOYI-LAGOS NIGERIA

Our Ref: FGN /SNT/STB Your Ref

ATTN: Beneficiary ,

We, the entire members of the Federal House of Senate, on behalf of the Federal Republic of Nigerian Government,

The entire members! See! This is not just some johnny-come-lately spammer! This is a letter from the entire members of the Nigerian Government!

On going through files yesterday, we discovered that your file was dumped untreated,

Dumped untreated! Chucked in the charity bin like an old coat! Thrown casually aside like a shunned lover! Binned like a used polystyrene cup!

How could they, the bastards!!?

so at this juncture, we apologize

Oh. Shucks. That’s OK then.

for the delay of your payment and please stop communicating with any office now and attention to the appointed office below for you to receive your payment.

Now you lost me there.

Your new Payment Reference No.-35460021, Allocation No: 674632 Password No :
339331 , Pin Code No: 55674 and your Certificate of Merit Payment No :
103 , Released Code No: 0763; Immediate Telex confirmation No: -1114433
; Secret Code No: XXTN013 ,Having received these vital payment number ,
therefore You are qualified now to received and confirm Your payment
with the Federal Government of Nigeria immediately within 24hrs .

Ooooooh! All those numbers. No-one could just make those things up! You’d have to be, like, a super-uber-mastermind to getaway with those kinds of hijinks!

A Payment Reference, an Allocation Number, a Pin Code, a Certificate of Merit Payment Number (wha?), a Released Code (huh?), an Immediate Telex Confirmation Number (smokin’ – I’ve always wanted one of those) and a Secret Code Number!!!! How spiffingly Famous Five! Let’s have lashings of ginger beer!

NOTE : We have mounted our security network to monitor every in-coming call , if we still find out that you are still dealing with all those fraudsters that have been frustrating , I shall stop and cancel your payment immediately.

But. But. But. I haven’t been dealing with those fraudsters! I haven’t. I swear! Don’t cancel my payment!

Er… just out of curiosity, how much am I going to get? I know that those other fraudsters (I’ve heard. I haven’t been dealing with them) offer LOTS of money. Like millions of dollars. So I note that even though you’re happy to bandy lots of numbers about when it comes to Secret Codes and Certificate of Merit Payment identifications, you seem to have neglected to mention any actual figures when it comes to dollars owed, Mr Representative of Nigerian Government Members.

See? This is why I think this is a genuine offer. Only a government bureaucracy could be dumb enough to omit the most significant part of a transaction.

The Chinese Government has just passed into law a 14 part regulation banning Tibet’s ‘Living Buddhas’ from reincarnating.

Aside from the obvious idiocy of the notion of an atheist government attempting to impose laws on a system of belief that they deny has any basis in reality, the natural question must arise: if someone should disobey the law and reincarnate, what is the government going to decide is a suitable deterrent?

The Death Penalty?

Shiver me timbers lads! International Talk Like a Pirate Day has already drawn up against our gunwhales and fired across our bow!

For yer piratical pleasure, me mateys, I’ve spent a doubloon or two over at Rent-A-Wench to secure the services of this year’s Play First Mate – Misty Cannonbait. Arrrr! Isn’t she a piece o’ crumpet?!

(Arrrrr… an’ no, ladies there’s no piratical beefcake – ye have yer Cap’n Jack Depp so quit yer whinin’)

So, avast and belay, ye barnacle infested bilge rats! Get yer landlocked booty out there and let me see some pillagin’!

Ye may find these some useful additions to yer plunderin’ expeditions:

Pirate gadget-du-jour #1.
Pirate gadget-du-jour #2.

Arrrrrrr!!!

Portrait of the Artist as a Casualty of a Quantum Anomaly.

Many years ago, my good friend Bronni & I used to amuse ourselves by taking well known proverbs with animals in them and substituting a cow for said animal.

This was a source of constant mirth. So for today’s diversion, I give you:

•Like a cow up a drainpipe.

•Flat out like a cow drinking.*

•That’s put a bit of a cow in the ointment!†

•Wow, she really has a cow in her bonnet!

•That’s put the cow among the pigeons!

•More tricky than herding cows.

•Better a cow in the hand than two in the bush!

•He’s a real cow in the grass.

•As cunning as a cow.

•The early bird catches the cow.

•Like a cow on a hot tin roof.

•I’d like to be a cow on the wall for that conversation…

OK Acowlytes – over to you. The one that makes me laugh most gets a Cow Medallion!

UPDATE: It occurs to me that some of you may have missed the point of this particular activity. It’s all about the image that you form in your head when you do the transposition of animals. For instance: ‘a cow on a hot tin roof’ conjures an amusing vision of a cow clattering along on your corrugated iron verandah awning… Get it?

So:

‘Cow in a gilded cage’ = Funny
‘Let sleeping cows lie’ = Not Funny

See – it’s not just as easy as chucking the word ‘cow’ in any old proverb.

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*Hmm. Some of these might be a little obscure to non-Australians…

†Isn’t ‘ointment’ a great word? Why don’t we have ointments any more?

Thanks to Radioactive Jam for sparking old memories.

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The Continuing Misfortunes Adventures of Simple Graphics Man ~

#24: Home On The Range.

It was inevitable. When I wasn’t looking, SGM snuck in and untied The Cow. My intuition (and familiarity with SGM’s previous capers) tells me that this is likely to turn out badly.

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Thanks jedimacfan for pointing me to the great font from which this image comes – Interstate Pi Four

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I suppose that you’ve all been on the edge of your seats waiting to find out if Prophet Peter Popoff would manage to find time in his busy schedule to reply to my reply to his missives to me. Well Cow fans, fret not! Last week I had a personal reply from Prophet Pete acknowledging my correspondence!

Well, in a manner of speaking.

Prophet Pete professes to be pleased to hear from me and yet his verbose (now that’s a surprise) response neglects to address any of the topics I raised when I wrote to him. Golly gosh, it’s almost like he didn’t even read my letter!

Prophet Popoff seems to believe that he and I have now developed some kind of special spiritual bonding (even though he doesn’t have a lot of interest in anything I say) and spares no effort to give me the benefit of his irksome and clichéd ‘wisdom’. Somewhere ’round about paragraph 4, though, the tone of his writing changes and he begins to get disturbingly familiar:

In this personal letter I must share certain things with you The Holy Spirit has “revealed” to me.

Uh oh.

This morning, during my prayer time (5.30 am) a powerful anointing came over me as I called your name. As I prayed, God showed me something unusual 3 different times… I FELT A POWERFUL ANOINTING “RELEASED” AND FLOWING BETWEEN US. I don’t have the interpretation yet, but I will.

Well I have an interpretation, but I’m really not going to elaborate because, well, it makes me feel kind of queasy. If it’s all the same to you Prophet Pete, I’d just as soon you didn’t call out my name at 5.30 am in the middle of a powerful flowing, or at the very least, just keep that information to yourself.

Prophet P goes on to tell me of the three visions he’s had for me – three things that God has revealed to him. #1 involves the packing of boxes…

Are you planning some kind of move?

… he asks. My God! The man is psychic! How could he possibly know? Now I’m really paying attention for Vision #2 but it’s just plain boring (and completely wrong). Let’s skip to Vision #3 where we hit paydirt:

Have you been praying for a certain amount of money for something special? Yes ___ No ___ How much? ___

Yes! I have been praying for some money Prophet Pete! How much? Three BILLION DOLLARS! I know, I know, that sounds a little bit greedy, but heck, this is praying, right – may as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb! Even more spooky though, I’ve been praying for a pet eagle!

The letter rambles on in the manner I’ve come to expect (excluding, strangely, the underlinings and coloured annotations of previous letters), and after asking for some money Prophet Pete signs off with the usual guff and urges me to write down any unusual dreams. Since he has comprehensively failed to acknowledge my request for details on any dreams he may have had involving a ‘tetherd cow’, I am forced to conclude that he has no real interest at all in my own visions and therefore worth no further attention.

So adios Prophet Peter Popoff. If you want to get any further coverage on Tetherd Cow Ahead you’re going to have to do significant work on your schtick. Of course, if my pet eagle arrives tomorrow with a cheque for, oh, say, a cool billion, I’ll be quite prepared to eat crow.

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*We spell it cheque. You’d best be checking your spelling when in our country, n00b.

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