In the United States of America, around 30 kilograms (66lb) of beef is eaten per capita every year.1 That’s over 9 million metric tons of cow meat.2
That’s a lot of cows. And a lot of cows take up a lot of space and use up a lot of feed. The Guardian reports this morning that Professor Richard Gradwohl of Washington state has come up with a solution to this problem by spearheading a drive for miniature cattle. Gradwohl’s farm boasts 18 breeds of miniature cows, including ‘microminiature’ varieties that stand just over a meter (one yard) tall. He claims that 10 miniature cows can be raised on the same amount of land as two full size cows, using just one third the feed and producing half the amount of methane. Sheer genius. Not only that, the tinier the cow, the better it tastes, according to the Guardian article.
Of course, here at the Tetherd Cow Ahead laboratories, the boffins were quick to see the potential of this scheme. “Why stop at merely ‘miniature’ cows?” asked the Head Boffin, “Surely if you make the cows even smaller you can make even greater savings and get even tastier beef!”
That’s why he earns the big bucks! To this end, I have set the laboratories to work creating the first nano cows. By my calculations, using the savings in feedstock and land that Gradwhol’s reductions in size have achieved, the shrinking of cows to nanoscale should mean that a million cows could fit on one square centimeter of farmland and would only need a blade of grass per year. On the five acre pasture that Gradwohl uses to raise ten mini cows, TCA Labs can raise trillions of cows, producing a billionth of the methane of conventional cows and yielding enough beef for one thousand billion billion McDonalds’ all-beef patties every month.3
I also have the labs investigating what happens when the miniaturization process ‘goes homeopathic’ (as we say in the science business). What this means is that once the cattle are shrunk past a certain size, Gilbert Einstein’s famous equation E=M¾ kicks in and the cows become ethereal. The beef yield simultaneously becomes infinite. Needless to say, the taste of flame-grilled steaks also improves immeasurably via this process.
Here in the Land of Shoo!TAG, I don’t see how I can possibly fail to get some investment interest.
According to the Guardian article linked here. A search around the web mostly gives numbers higher than that. [↩]
Do you like these bottles of coloured water? Me too. I’ve always liked coloured bottles, and coloured glass and even stained-glass church windows. But little did I realize that it was not the visual pleasure that was at work on me, but the homeopathic effect of said items!
Here at Tetherd Cow Ahead, as we continue our support for World Homeopathy Awareness Week,1 the boffins in the TCA labs have whipped up some potions that, believe it or not, have absolutely nothing absorbed in them except light! The homeopathic effect of merely the colour in these elixirs will cure you of everything from mild ennui to autism. I know, I know – hard to believe I could make up something quite so implausible and expect anyone to swallow it. (Hahahaha. Little joke there.)
Well, it probably won’t surprise you to find out that it wasn’t actually my idea at all. Over at The Institute of Life Energy Medicine you can buy ‘homeopathic colour remedies’ just like these (only not anywhere near as pretty) that promise all kinds of marvels.
How are the color remedies made?
Homeopathic color remedies are made by taking pure water in glass tumblers and placing them in the sun. Auspicious days are chosen such as the winter solstice and summer solstice, days of maximum and minimum light on which to make these remedies. The tumblers are placed in a quiet place without much commotion and colored theatrical gels or colored silks are placed on top of and around the glasses. The glasses are placed on small mirrors to maximize the color vibrating in the glass.
Trawling around the site will take you on a veritable guided tour of this kind of fruitloopery and you can finish up with a sobering reflection on just how much money is to be made from selling water that has been sitting in your backyard under a piece of coloured cellophane.
The colours all have particular ‘powers’ of course – red is the colour of ‘passion, violence and danger’ (oh surprise) and green is the colour of ‘the healing power of nature’ (yawn).2 The efficacies of these solutions, no matter what their ‘colour’ are all amorphous and diffuse; they help with ‘recovery from shock or illness’ or ‘detoxification’ or they ‘calm frayed nerves’. They are, unsurprisingly, most effective on the stock standard hard-to-pin-down vagaries of human existence – the vast grey area that provides so much nutrition for wacky beliefs to flourish. There isn’t one concrete or unequivocal promise on the entire site.
The contra-indications for use are particularly amusing:
Yellow:
This remedy should not be used by people who are overly confident or have an excessively developed ego. It should not be used at night.
Why? What could possibly happen – they might get even more confident and their ego might EXPLODE? It’s a bottle of water for Pete’s sake.
I’m not going to dwell on this too long. The Institute of Life Medicine site is really just another flavour of Special One Drop Liquid, only not quite as entertaining.
I just want to finish with one question directed to Ms Wauters: What happens if I drink a glass of water that’s been sitting on the table outside my studio in the sun? Since sunlight is a combination of all colours, does that mean I’ll I be cured of all my ailments?
In the bizarre reality of the world of homeopathic colour remedies, it seems pretty logical to me.
Ms Wauters also spruiks homeopathic ‘sound’ remedies, but I tire – maybe another day we can find out why Middle C ‘promotes grounding, connection and engagement’.
I say ‘support’ in reference to the ‘awareness’ part of the process – I’m definitely up for bringing awareness of the stupidity of homeopathy to the attention of the world [↩]
Why are these people always so damn leaden and pedestrian. It’s magic for chrissakes! Show some imagination! [↩]
In this modern age, pretty much everyone is aware of Global Warming and the threat to rising sea levels which it poses. But I stand before you today Brothers and Sisters of the Church of the Tetherd Cow, to remind you of another evil which slowly seeps upon us. Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about the menace of Global WooWoo and its rapidly rising Oceans of Stupidity – great raging seas of Brobdingnagian nonsense that threaten to wash away every last grain of precious logical sand from the few remaining Islands of Rationality.
Take the fad for ‘magical bracelets’, which has been with us for some time, but now seems to be gaining a new lease of life if the prices being charged for these meretricious trinkets is anything to go by.
Q-link® works by balancing out the body’s energetic fields. Many liken Q link® to a microchip. Q-link® is programmed to each wearers unique human resonating or energy emitting frequency. Like an acupuncture treatment works to restore the body’s energy flow, so too does Q link® work to help restore energy imbalances in the body.
QLink first surfaced some years back as a magical pendant, but has now increased in range to magical necklaces, magical watches, magical rings, magical ‘cell phone protection’ chips, magical bracelets (above) and magical USB devices. I kid you not. Go take a look. And the Shoo!Tag™ people better watch out because you can even get a QLink for your pet. Of course, the magical benefits of QLink don’t come cheap – the bracelet pictured above will set you back $199.00. Many liken that to a tidy sum for a bit of cheap metal.
Some famous people who endorse QLink are: Oprah Winfrey, Tony Robbins and Madonna. The Cred-O-Meter is pinning at zero as a result. I bet Tom Cruise has a couple too.
As usual with these kinds of devices, the makers of QLink claim that their product delivers a grab-bag of diffuse and unverifiable subjective benefits for a pantheon of complaints. Woo at its finest. No science, no accountability, no conscience.
According to the website, QLink utilizes ‘Sympathetic Resonance Technology’ (SRT™) that exploits ‘a new class of energies’ including ‘subtle’ energy:
‘Subtle energy refers to a physical energy, such as electromagnetic or acoustic, that is of such low intensity that we have no means of measuring it presently. It is a physical field of very low magnitude.’
So it uses a form of energy that can’t be measured? Interesting. I’ll leave it to you to ponder, then, how anyone can know it actually exists, let alone corral it to do anything.
EFX is an embedded wearable holographic technology designed to maximize performance and overall well-being by increasing balance, strength, and flexibility. EFX’s technology consists of frequencies that are highly compatible with both humans and animals on a cellular level
Hmmm. Sounds strangely familiar. The Psychic McGuffin in this case, though, is not a magnetic strip but a ‘hologram’ attached to the devices, which is supposed to deliver all kinds of wondrous benefits. The swindlers peddling EFX have also resurrected the hoary old carnival pony of applied kinesiology as a demonstration of the ‘effectiveness’ of their cheap trash. I defy anyone to make sense of the idiotic demonstration video on the EFX website in which an oleaginous fellow pushes down on a girl’s arm while she balances on one leg to prove… what, exactly?
The EFX FAQ is a treasure trove of doublespeak and waffle words. You don’t even need to go past Question #1 to get the idea:
Q. What is the major benefit of EFX?
A. EFX helps restore natural in harmony to the body.
The effect is believed to stabilize and harmonize the body’s bioelectric current. When the body is in harmony, the muscles relax, cells un-clump, and blood circulation increases, allowing for greater stability, easier movement and pain relief.
Natural in harmony? Stabilize and harmonize the body’s bioelectric current? Cells un-clump? WTF? What does any of that stuff actually mean??? They just make it all up!
And further down the list:
Q. Is EFX Safe?
A.”Yes”
EFX does not emit any potentially harmful electromagnetic radiation
EFX is non trans dermal
EFX does not contain any restricted substance
EFX has not been evaluated by the FDA
EFX Safety results are available upon request.
Did you notice how not being evaluated by the FDA becomes an endorsement of safety? Genius!
As with QLink, EFX trinkets come in a variety of forms – wristbands, pendants, necklaces, energetic ‘dots’ (!) and best of all, socks. Yes that’s right – magical holographic pain-relieving socks.
Faithful Acowlytes, I know it defies common sense, and I sense you sitting there shaking your heads and wondering how anyone with the remotest wisps of intelligence can swallow this claptrap. But have no fear! As always, the boffins in the TCA Labs are one step ahead of us all, and in recent years have been beta-testing a device that will allow you to understand the thought processes of the intellect-challenged folks who fork out money for gew-gaws like QLink and EFX.
This morning it is my great pleasure to bring you the exciting news that CowLink™ is out of beta and shipping!
Yes, my friends, with CowLink™ you will never again find yourself frustrated and flabbergasted at the sheer idiocy and slack-jawed gullibility of suckers who fall for implausible pseudoscientific hogwash, because, with CowLink™ you will think just like them! That’s right! CowLink™ is guaranteed to strip up to 100 points off your IQ and empty thousands of dollars from your bank account or your money back![tippy title=”*”]Conditions apply. See reverse.[/tippy]
But don’t just accept our word for it! Here’s what some of our customers had to say:
“CowLink™ worked for me! I bought one for everyone in my company!” ~ Sean McCarthy, Steorn
“I’ve been using the techniques behind CowLink™ for years! My personal astrologer has never been wealthier!” ~ Shirley MacLaine
“Without CowLink™ I would never have found the Fountain of Youth!” ~ David Copperfield
“CowLink™ convinced me to give up all my wacky beliefs and turn to science!” ~ Madonna
“Not only did CowLink™ reduce my capacity for logic to near zero, it eradicated the cockroaches in my kitchen! Send me another one!” ~ Melissa Rogers, inventor of Shoo!TAG™
OK, now someone tell me they’re not persuasive endorsements! The CowLink™ bracelet is hoof-crafted from meteoric brass, set with red eye crystals from one of the Seven Holy Mountains and blessed by George King. At only $249.00 (discounts for bulk), it’s a steal!
Seeing red? Feeling blue? Got aches and pains that just won’t go away? Tried whisky and aspirin and bonox and nothing seems to work anymore? Why not shed some light on the problem: the iPhone Pocket Pain Doctor is here!
Yes, dear Acowlytes, no matter what your problem, it can be solved by an iPhone app. And if your problem is a kinda sorta non-specific-type general one, then the right kind of app will obviously feature as its main operating principle – all together now – woowoo!!!
(The YouTube video has been removed for some reason. You have to imagine a long spiel from an unappealingly pushy man who shows you how you can make the iPhone shine coloured light on your skin. It’s far from persuasive).
That’s right Cowmrades – just by shining red or blue light on yourself using your phone, Pocket Pain Doctor will relieve all kinds of pain, make you more alert and cure your acne! Or, on the other hand, it might not. The bottom of the Pocket Pain Doctor site features this disclaimer:
BluWave and RedWave are not intended to treat or cure any disease. None of the statements on this website have been evaluated by the FDA.
(The Pocket Pain Doctor site has now been pulled, sadly. But unsurprisingly).
See, that’s the REALLY GREAT THING about woowoo! You can have your cake and eat it too! Your product may or may not work but people still pay you money for it. Marvellous!
Oh. But what’s this? There’s some references to ‘Clinical Studies‘ on the site! Hooray! This is bound to be enlightening… let’s see what we have. First a link to PubMed. OK, that’s impressive. It’s a draft of a paper (supposedly) called Seasonal Disorder & Body Effects Of Blue Light.1 Hey waiddaminute! That’s got nothing to do with ‘Seasonal Disorder’ or blue light! It’s about the effect of light on melatonin suppression. OK – here’s another one from Modern Medicine: Blue Light Kills Acne Bacteria. Wow… so it appears. That is, if it’s catalyzing a chemical called 5-aminolevulinic acid! I wonder if the iPhone squirts some of that out too?
How about red light then? Here’s a link to a NASA article: Red Light Therapy Relieves Pain Naturally. Oh looky! It’s actually about how infrared light helps cell regrowth in a certain type of cancer, minimising the pain as a result. What about Red Light Relieves Arthritis Pain & Muscle Injuries? Well, that’s a link2 to a pdf that appears to be a list of double blind clinical trials – but not including the findings of those trials! And anyway, they are trials of an entirely unrelated kind – various methods of infrared laser treatment. Just in case anyone isn’t clear on this – your iPhone does not emit infrared laser light. I’m astonished that anyone can get away with this kind of complete fakery.
In a comment on the home page of the Pocket Pain Doctor site, the person who created the app complains that over on Engadget they gave his toy a bit of an unfair bashing. From his tone, one might even come to the conclusion that this guy believes in what he’s pushing. But that’s a little hard to accept when you see the duplicity involved in those links to ‘scientific evidence’ that he has provided. At best he misunderstands what he’s reading and actually thinks his sources offer some kind of substantiation of his idea. At worst, his ‘corroboration’ is deceitful.
In any case, it’s all about to become academic. Down in the Tetherd Cow Ahead labs, the boffins have been hard at work on this very concept, and I’m sure it will not surprise you at all to hear that they have perfected a new technology which we call ChromaCow™. Incorporating the technology behind the TCA Virtual Glass of Water™, ChromaCow™ offers you everything that you get with Pocket Pain Doctor, only IT’S ABSOLUTELY FREE! Best of all, TCA Labs is introducing a third, even better alternative to RedWave™ and BluWave™ – YelloWave™! With TCA YelloWave™ active on your computer, we UNRESERVEDLY GUARANTEE3 that the true nature of your innermost self will be revealed to you!!! Simply click on the icons below for the complete ChromaCow™ experience! (Make sure you do them all in order or your spectral chakras may become misaligned, resulting in mood swings, sour milk or even anal haunting).
So off you go Faithful Cowpokes – tell all your friends that they need no longer waste their money on woowoo in the iPhone app shop when they can get it here at Tetherd Cow Ahead FOR NOTHING!
(Thanks once more to Atlas for putting me on the trail. I suppose that now I really am going to have to give him a prize for the Pickled Herring Poetry Contest.)
It’s actually called “Action spectrum for melatonin regulation in humans: evidence for a novel circadian photoreceptor.” Do these people think that potential Pocket Pain Doctor customers are stupid? Oh. [↩]
Does your pet have fleas? Do you laboriously de-flea Fido or Felix every few months, dreading the inevitable infestation when summer arrives? Is your flea comb blunt-to-the-blade from the amount of use it gets? Well my friend THOSE DAYS ARE GONE! The wondrous ShooTag™ has arrived! No more chemicals! No more squishing the little blood-suckers between your nails! No more WORK! Just clip on the ShooTag™ & kick back with another mojito as the miracle of ‘science’ brings its quantum electro-dynamic guns to bear on the field of pest control!
It is to employ teh Sarcasm.
Yes folks, it’s another nutty scam from the same mindset that brought you unlimited free energy, clairvoyant pens and magic water. Swinging in with that Ol’ Reliable of pseudoscience, ‘magnetism’, ShooTag™ uses a ‘three dimensional electromagnetic static field embedded in a magnetic strip’ to rid your pet from pests for up to 4 months! I know – it sounds incredible! Because it is! Entirely incredible, as in, ‘not credible’.
Let’s examine some of the claims that the purveyors of ShooTag™ offer up on their site. This is a terrific opportunity to observe the workings of a classic con in action:
First, pick an outcome that is difficult to determine in a real world situation: Of course, you know when your pet has fleas – it’s fairly obvious. You might possibly even know when your pet doesn’t have any fleas at all – but that’s a lot harder to tell. The gamut of possibilities between those two extremes, though, is highly difficult to gauge outside a controlled laboratory setting. It’s the rich, vast exploitable landscape of anecdotal evidence. Perfect! Line the suckers up!
Next, make some extravagant but hard-to-disprove claims: ‘ShooTag™ combines cutting-edge science and technology to produce a “green†product that emits electromagnetic frequencies to keeps pests at away!’; It ‘uses electromagnetic frequencies to create a protective barrier from pests that lasts up to 4 months!.
Let’s examine some of those words: What evidence exists to say that electromagnetic frequencies keep pests away? There’s none that I could find (except on the websites of people selling products similar to ShooTag™). Why are electromagnetic frequencies ‘green’ here, but ‘toxic’ when you use your mobile phone? How come the barrier ‘lasts up to 4 months’? If it’s a magnet, shouldn’t it last forever? Or, if it is an electromagnet and has batteries, then couldn’t you replace them? Are we supposed to believe that the elecromagnetic properties of ShooTag™ sort of fade away over time? Could it be that, after four months you have to (gasp) buy another ShooTag™? And those two words ‘up to’… ‘Up to’ could be anywhere from a couple of days onward… It’s advertising-speak piled on hogwash piled on flim-flam.
The next step: blind them with science: There’s a tab at the top of the ShooTag™ home page that takes us to ‘The Science Behind ShooTag™’. Let’s see now… hmmm. ‘Atoms are mostly space…’ yes, well, OK…‘magnetic static…’ (Magnetic static? What the…?), ‘quantum and gravitational fields…’ (is this a flea-control system or a warp drive?) and best of all ‘produces an expanding barrier effect, keeping away the targeted pests’. ‘Targeted pests’? The electromagnetism has the ability to discriminate?
In case it needs to be said, the ‘science’ offered up on this page is what I shall henceforth call ‘sausage science’, ie, baloney. The fancy-sounding phrases and the faux lesson in quantum electrodynamics are as nonsensical as a jabberwocky. The word ‘quantum’ itself has become the modern equivalent of ‘magnetism’; a mysterious force that [cue theremin] ‘No-one understands!’ Heck, why shouldn’t it repel fleas!
But wait! There’s more! What’s this over in the corner here – a scientific document! It’s a pdf of a report to something called the Quantum Agriculture Journal by a Prof William Nelson.1 Let’s do a Search™ on the ol’ Quantum Agriculture Journal… that sounds like something I might want to subscribe to! Well, well – sadly (if a little predictably), only two lonely links2, both of them pointing back to the ShooTag site. And as for ‘Prof’ Nelson… let’s just say that in the Quantum Hoodjy Goodjy Stakes he’s ‘got form’.3; The ‘scientific’ document itself (if you can be bothered) is a hare-brained ramble through a whole mess of abracadabra, beginning with some descriptions of chaotic attractors, jumping through magnetic resonance imaging and the electrical sensitivity of sharks, and ending up with the conductivity of chemicals in cells. It’s the most meaningless agglomeration of waffle that I’ve attempted to read in a very long while. If you’ve ever even seen a scientific paper, you know this ain’t one of those.
You might think, from reading through the ShooTag™ site that this is all a bit of harmless misguided opportunism, but Faithful Acowlytes, these disingenuous swindlers must know that what they sell is crap. The language they use, the fake ‘journal’ they invoke, their diffuse claims, the meaningless testimonials4 – all these things are the conjurings of cynical rip-off merchants. If they have science, they’d show it. If this thing worked, malaria doctors from Bolivia to Eritrea would be all over it (otherwise, you’ve got to be thinking they either don’t know about it… um… or they are willfully letting their patients die. Why? Oh, that’s right: it’s all an Evil Plot by Big Pharma!)
Anyways, Cowpokes, fear not. Here at TCA Labs the boffins have been hard at work to remedy this appalling situation. Stay tuned for our Part 2 of this post when we will be bringing you the TCA ShooWooWoo™…
ADDENDUM: More about ShooTag™, including a ‘defense’ of the product from ShooTag™’s CEO here.
You might, for amusement, like to look up his Xrroid Quantum Medical Consciousness Interface System. If anyone suffers from xrroids, it’s this guy, given the amount of utter crap that he generates. [↩]
These ‘real-life’ people (all from Texas it would seem) are credible exactly why? [↩]
You might remember that I mentioned that NASA scientists had concluded that a white ‘speck’ on one of the first Phoenix lander photographs was ‘probably not a Polar Bear’. Well, the boffins at TCA Labs have had their digital photo enhancers on the case from the get-go (you know how these geeky types are!) and they tell me today that they beg to differ with the NASA boffins.
So here for your scrutiny is the latest hi-def enhancement from the NASA original, using the proprietary Tetherd Cow Ahead Laboratories ‘Deckard II’ Photographic Augmentation Scanner.*
C’mon NASA! Maybe the Cydonia ‘Face on Mars’ is just a rock formation (yeah, right!) but let’s see you deny this one!
