Tetherd Cow Ahead

Excellent! A new magical potion has appeared on the supermarket shelves. Harry Potter eat yer heart out! This particular version is called ‘Nutrient Water’ and their marketing department has been pulling out all the stops with this one. Here’s what you get if you choose the ‘D-Stress’ flavour:

Remember what it was like to be a kid? One hour for finger painting, two hours for hide-n-seek, naps in the morning, naps in the afternoon, naps in general. Life as a grown up of course is a little more complex. Play-time is now work time, home-time is over-time and free-time is pushed-for-time. That’s why we’ve packed D-Stress with Vitmain D and L-Tyrosine to help bring you back, get a grip and put it all in perspective. Think of it as a step back in time. Just without the hand-me-downs and times tables.

What kind of whacked, off-his/her-face imbecile wrote that heap of crap? So you drink this stuff and it will help you get a grip and put everything into perspective? Then I don’t think the copywriter even opened the bottle. He needs about another fifty gallons by my reckoning. But as laughable as all that is, you have to go for the ingredient list for the full guffaw:

Ingredients (nature approved) – deionised water, crystalline fructose, food acid, natural blackberry goji flavour, etc etc

That little snippet has got to be the biggest gob of codswallop that I’ve heard in years. Nature approved? What the fuck? How did ‘nature’ approve it? Just by it existing? My brain is making pinging noises. And then we have ‘deionised’ water. Let me ask you, dear Cowpokes: do you have any reason at all to suppose water is any better without ions? (What they mean is simply that the water has been filtered, but oh no, they can’t just call it ‘filtered water’ – who’d buy something like that?). And of course ‘crystalline fructose’ is just a form of corn syrup. They could have said ‘ultra sweet sugar’ but that sounds a little too much like a step back in time… And I really don’t even want to go into the whole stupid goji thing. ((Goji berries are the new wheatgrass. They’re supposed to cure everything from depression to cancer. A clinical study done in May 2008 and published by the peer-reviewed Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine indicated that parametric data, including body weight, did not show significant differences between subjects receiving Lycium barbarum berry (goji) juice and subjects receiving the placebo; the study concluded that ‘subjective (my italics) measures of health were improved’ and suggested further research in humans was necessary. That was all I could find of any value. That’s the BEST they’ve got. Paraphrasing – if you imagine hard enough, maybe you’ll feel better.))

I was interested in why they might stick L-tyrosine in this product though, so I did a little bit of research. ((This is so easy to do now, that my mind just explodes with frustration – why don’t people check this stuff out?)) L-tyrosine is an amino acid, and one of the building blocks of neurotransmitters. Most people get all they need from their diet, and you have to be pretty unhealthy to have a deficit of the stuff. ((It’s in so many foods that it would be hard to avoid, in fact. You can even get it from an average McDonald’s meal.)) Not only that, you shouldn’t have too much of it, and several websites about nutritional supplements that I found have this kind of thing to say:

If you do not have any need to, you should not take L-tyrosine as supplements without consulting your doctor.

I figure that if they printed something like that on the label it would cause you to get a much better grip than all that other crud.

Still, at least this water has some active ingredients, even if they do have the potential to screw up your brain chemistry. Unlike some other waters we have visited.

Well Dear Acowlytes, the clocking over of the New Year is virtually guaranteed to bring out the loonies. Above is the cover from the new issue of some rag called Psychic Reader which I swiped off a stand at the local railway station this morning. In it, a ‘spirit medium’ alleges to have been channeling our old friend Rasputin. According to her, the Mad Monk is not just mad – he’s completely furious!

I’ll spare you the interminable claptrap that makes up the majority of the article and just give you the bare bones. Madame Zora, a clairvoyant of dubious credentials (she claims to be the reincarnation of Gilbert Einstein, Albert’s lesser-known brother) believes that she has become the chosen vehicle for Rasputin’s beyond-the-grave communications:

Rasputin came to me in a dream and told me that I was to bring his message to The Earthly Plane. He said that his penis is to be returned to him or he will visit his wrath on all those who have participated in its defilement!

Yeah, right. And I suppose Madam Zora speaks fluent Russian. Oh, wait – she doesn’t need to:

He sort of talks inside my head. It’s not in language – I hear his thoughts.

How entirely convenient.

Rasputin’s penis was removed from his corpse shortly after he was murdered on December 16, 1916, and has gone on to enjoy notoriety in its own right. According to Madame Zora, Rasputin’s spirit has been tagging along with it on its corporeal adventures and is far from impressed:

He is offended that it was put in a museum for all to see, and that it has now been cloned by Chinese scientists and is sold all over the world.

Madame Zora claims that in her dream Rasputin appeared wielding a huge knife and vowed to cut off the member of any man who has offended his name. She doesn’t specify what will happen to women who have crossed the Mad Monk.

Rasputin says, according to Madame Zora, that with her help he will find his penis wherever it may go. I guess it’s a good partnership – you obviously can’t hide the salami from a clairvoyant.

Seriously – how do people believe this stuff? It’s so implausible I couldn’t make it up if I tried.

With 2009 being as chock full of cretins and swindlers as it was, I’m really nervous as we head into 2010. Could this be the year that Scientology claims a US President and Shoo!TAG™ makes a cool billion on the NYSE? Could this be the year where homeopathy gets accorded WHO approval and Jasmuheen is granted credibility as a bona fide religious leader? Could this be the year when the followers of Catholicism exceed 1 billion in number? (Oh wait, that already happened…) As the world becomes more and more stupid, the possibilities are grim. But remember – when things look the very blackest, when the churning storms of the preposterous threaten to overturn your little boat of commonsense, Tetherd Cow Ahead will always be a lighthouse of rationality, reason and logic. And the lighthouse keeper will always have whisky. I hope 2010 brings each of you fulfillment, wisdom and contentment – all with a minimum of cash imparted to crackpots and mountebanks.

Oh, and in case it needs to be said… let the games commence!