Tetherd Cow Ahead

Recently I had cause to send some money to a friend of mine in the UK. It was not a lot – $150 reimbursement for a few pairs of trousers he’d had made for me in Vietnam. I wanted to make it easy for him, since he’d done me a big favour, so I thought I’d transfer it directly into his bank account and make sure I covered all his costs.

Off I went to my bank – one of Australia’s biggest and oldest establishments – gave them the details and asked them to do the deed.

Teller: It will cost you $28

Me: Oh well, I guess I expected it to be overly expensive, go ahead then.

Teller: What do you mean?

Me: Well, $28 for you to punch in a few numbers and do a transfer directly from my account into another account seems pretty excessive, but I expect that’s how you make your money. Go ahead.

Teller: That’s what it costs – the bank doesn’t make anything out of it.

Me: Oh, right. You’re telling me that this $28 doesn’t go to the bank, but is the cost of digital bits flitting across the internet to the UK?

Teller: Do you want to see the manager?

Me [sigh]: No, I’ll pay it, just go ahead.

She punches away at the terminal keyboard.

Teller: There’s a $250 minimum.

Me [incredulous]: What?

Teller: I can’t send $150. It’s $250 minimum.

Me: What? You’re telling me that right now, at the end of the first decade of the 21st Century, you, a major bank, can’t send $150 from my account to my friend’s bank account in the UK?

Teller: I can, but there’s a $250 minimum.

Me: And it will cost me $28 on top of that?

Teller: Yes

Me: So, let me get this straight: to send my friend $150 using my own banking service – the bank where I have had an account for over 30 years – I actually have to fork out $278 or you can’t do it?

Teller: Do you want to see the manager?

Me: Yes, I want to see the manager.

The teller goes and talks to a bald headed guy in another office (I can see them through a big glass window). He looks at me and goes back to some paperwork. He sees me see him look at me. The teller returns.

Teller: He’ll be with you in five minutes.

Me: What? I’m supposed to wait five minutes so I can make a complaint? In five minutes, I’m pretty sure I’ll have worked out another way to do this and you’ll have lost a customer. Does that concern you at all?

Teller: [Shrugs]

I leave. I drive home. I find that my friend has a PayPal account. I facepalm myself for not having thought of that in the first place. I transfer the money. It costs me nothing.

Later that day, when I’m doing some net banking, I log out of my account and am farewelled with this message:

Astonished? I think I can say that they completely fulfilled their service promise!

Glitch notices that I have two ‘cat’ ShooTags on my desk. Not only am I afraid, but so should you be.

In the last post we had a surprise visit from a proponent of ShooTag who, for some reason, opined in a lengthy diatribe that I would not ‘dare to bring yourself to publish (it) on your relentless “Ode to Yourself”‘. Au contraire my clueless friend. I’m not in the least afraid of your witless opinion. Indeed, I’ve decided to bring you to the front page of Tetherd Cow Ahead, where all might witness your risible babbling.

For those who missed it, this is the comment that ‘Kookaburra’ left:

Good Day, Mate! Greetings from your neighbor out in the bush. I have read the endless put-downs and verbal diarrhea you have so relentlessly put into this crusade against the shoo!tag product. It must be very, very threatening to you, for you to spend countless time and energy into trying to disclaim them. It makes people more and more interested in the product, since you seem to be so obsessed with it. I can only assume you are either:
1. A competitor in the industry of pest repellant’s.
2. Actually paid by shoo!tag to keep the controversy and interest in the product at a fever pitch.
Your undying attention and allegiance to this cause is kind of creepy, otherwise.
Anyway, because of all the attention, controversy and spotlight you have put on this product, I have just ordered the tags for myself, my horses and my dogs and will try them myself in the outback. The tags are being sold all over Australia, I have discovered…and in 5 other countries. I did my own investigating of the company, read a report where a major Venture Capitalist group has just invested several $100,000.00 in the company. Being a businessman, in the field of marketing, that does not speak to me as failure, or hoax, or voodoo. In closing, speaking to you from the heart – as a fellow Aussie, please do not makes all us blokes out to be so cruel, ignorant and close-minded. And since you obviously know so much about how this product does not work, please tell me exactly which tag you tested for yourself?
Apparently you have never had reason to use the tags, since you obviously never leave your spot in front of your computer monitor. Our country is vast and beautiful. Take a hike and clear your head and discover the beauty of actually LIVING your life, instead of trying to demean other’s.
Let’s see if you can dare to bring yourself to publish this on your relentless “Ode to Yourself”.

Well, as King Willy so quickly pointed out, it takes about an attosecond for a real Australian to see that the person writing this is not one.

For a start, we just don’t start conversations with ‘Good Day Mate’, especially in correspondence. You might proffer a cheerful g’day to someone on the street, and you might even call them ‘mate’, but as a written appellation… sorry chum, you screwed it on the first three words. You also conflate the two ideas of ‘the bush’ and ‘the outback’ speaking as if they are one thing. Any real Australian knows the difference between those two concepts, especially someone who lives in one of those places. Kookaburra‘s idea of how Australians behave comes from the same lame ‘How To’ guide that brought you Outback Steakhouse. Kookaburra also manages to spell ‘neighbour’ and ‘diarrhoea’ in the American fashion, something that he can’t blame on an American spellcheck because his incorrect spelling of ‘repellents’ ((Let’s not even mention the egregious apostrophe)) plainly demonstrates that he isn’t using any kind of spellcheck at all. I think this duplicitous behaviour is a pretty good indication of the kind of people we’re dealing with here

However, Kookaburra, since you evidently think you have some kind of point let me dispel some of the illusions under which you appear to be labouring: ((See how I spelled that with a ‘u’? That’s how we do it here, for future reference))

•I am obsessed with ShooTag.

The ShooTaggers shouldn’t flatter themselves that they are anything special. They are not my sole concern when it comes to pseudoscientific rubbish. If you’d bothered to read my blog at all, you would know that ShooTag is just one of the many daft ideas that comes under my scrutiny. I object to all people who use worthless, unscientific quackery to fleece other people. You might like to read my thoughts on free energy, ‘power’ bracelets, homeopathy and magic water to see what kind of company I consider ShooTag to be in.

•I somehow find the product/concept/discussion (fuck, I don’t know) threatening.

Er. What? It’s a dumb little piece of plastic that does nothing. How is that threatening to anything (except people’s wallets of course)? Or do you mean it’s threatening to my worldview or something? Ha. There are thousands of scams like ShooTag – I’m not so much threatened as just plain disappointed with the greed and stupidity of certain members of the human race.

•It makes people more and more interested in the product.

I sincerely doubt that. If they bother to read what I say, I think they get a very good idea of what kind of product ShooTag is. Indeed, aside from comments from people affiliated with ShooTag, I receive mostly positive affirmations of my exposure of this silly item.

•I spend ‘countless time and energy’ (oh, the trashing of the language – it hurts, it hurts…) trying to ‘disclaim’ ShooTag (I think the word you’re looking for is ‘declaim’).

And yet I manage to have a productive career, tend to a lovely family and get to the movies occasionally. How do I do it?! Maybe it’s because it only takes a second to refute such ridiculous claims? Yeah, that’s gotta be it.

•I am a ShooTag competitor.

No I’m not.

•I am a ShooTag promoter.

Now see, you’re really not paying attention.

•Interest in ShooTag is at fever pitch.

Bwahahahahaha! Whatever you say.

•I’m kind of creepy.

Is that meant to be an insult?

•The tags are being sold all over Australia and in other countries.

So are homeopathic remedies and bottles of ‘vibrational’ water. It doesn’t make them functional or useful.

•A major venture capitalist group has just invested ‘several $100,000’ in the company and that doesn’t speak of failure, or hoax, or voodoo.

Really? And you say you’re a businessman? As far as I can see it this means only one of two things: either the investors are completely stupid, or they’ve scoped the huge untapped market of gullible pet owners and are happy to rip them off. It’s hardly impressive. Having money has never meant a person either has scruples or is smart.

•I am portraying ‘us blokes’ ((This oleaginous chumminess is about as puke-making as I can imagine. I am not your mate, mate – you are ignorant, foolish and deceitful. I choose my company a lot more carefully)) as cruel, ignorant and close-minded.

I say this every time I tangle with you people (oh, let’s just give up the pretense – this Kookaburra person is quite obviously someone from the ShooTag cartel) ((The ShooTaggers are quite prepared to pretend to be other people in a number of other forums)): you can convince me instantly that your product is effective by just showing me your science. If your tag works, you can prove it beyond all reasonable doubt by having a third disinterested party do some controlled double-blind experiments. It’s a basic requirement of all new scientific principles to satisfy this one criterion. It’s not even a hard thing to do. And yet you are unable to offer up any such data. Why is that? Because there is none!

My mind will be changed instantly when I see such conclusive proof. I am, in fact, totally open-minded in that respect. Where I am close-minded is when you try and tell me guff about ‘trivector energy fields’ and ‘quantum fractal geometry’ and ‘Schumann Waves’ – all of which constitute high level nonsense. To anyone with even a little scientific knowledge you are quite plainly pulling all this stuff out of your ass. You don’t have the foggiest clue what you’re speaking about.

As for ‘cruel’ – show me on my blog where I’ve been ‘cruel’. Sure, I’ve had fun demonstrating your absolute lack of science acumen, but hey, if you’re making these outrageous claims you’d better be able to deal with criticism or you’re toast.

As for ‘ignorant’, well, let me refer readers back to this post so they can make up their own mind which of us is the one who has never read a science text book in their life.

•I should ‘take a hike in ‘our’ vast and beautiful country and clear my head and discover the beauty of actually LIVING my life’.

Cobber, I’ve plainly seen a lot more of this country than you have with your fake online Australian accent and your shabby virtual Driza-bone. I don’t know who you are ((Although I have a pretty good suspicion)), but your presumption in telling ME to take a hike is as pathetic as it is transparent. I have to ask what it is that you feel threatened by, to undertake these sad little masquerades to defend your product.

If it worked, the simple fact is that you wouldn’t care what a lone Australian blogger thought.

•I haven’t tested the tags myself.

Oh, stay tuned my friend. I’ve got some really interesting things to reveal about ShooTag.

Tetherd Cow Ahead celebrates World Homeopathy Awareness Week!

Well Acowlytes, I bet you didn’t think I could do it. I bet you didn’t think I could tie our old friends from ShooTag into homeopathy awareness week! But we have a saying around these parts: ‘Any man is liable to err but only a fool persists in error’. ((Cicero)) And with that thought in mind, a search on ‘Energetic Solutions’ (the company behind ShooTag) and ‘homeopathy’ throws up this link. ((Which shows us also that pet owners aren’t the only stupid people that these swindlers have gulled))

Yes folks, the people who brought you ShooTag, started out by attempting to foist on the world ‘homeopathic creams for stress reduction’. Strangely, this comes as no surprise to me.

Nothing seems to have come of this previous enterprise though – I can’t find a single other thing about it. One has to assume that they weren’t quite in the league of all the other con-artists out there. It does add one further arrow to my quiver though – the ShooTaggers are even more obviously in it for the money. They’ve found the rich seam that is gullible New Age woowoo and they’re mining it for all they’re worth.

On a slightly more disturbing note, I draw your attention to a comment on this post on a blog called The Dish. Melissa Rogers, CEO of ShooTag claims to be sending the tags to Africa, a country that has a crippling malaria problem:

We have sent our People -Mosquito tags to Africa and Haiti. We have Africa interested in purchasing our tags.

I’m pretty sure that this is nothing more than grandiose bragging on Ms Rogers’ part ((it’s proving to be a habit of hers)) (‘sending the tags to Africa’ and ‘having Africa interested in purchasing our tags’ means fuck all in any real sense), but if the ShooTag crowd are venturing into a territory that sees them offering protection against malaria, Dengue fever, Ross river virus, Yellow fever, West Nile virus and the host of other mosquito-borne diseases that kill over a million people every year, then they better have something more convincing than the claptrap they’ve trotted out so far. While they’re currently hoodwinking gullible pet owners they’re relatively inconsequential – if they cross the line into allowing people to die through their misleading claims, they will have more than my annoyance to deal with.

Tetherd Cow Ahead celebrates World Homeopathy Awareness Week!

You don’t have to be a complete idiot to get the best out of it, but it really helps.

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, ((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)) 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). ((Why are these people always so damn leaden and pedestrian. It’s magic for chrissakes! Show some imagination!)) 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.

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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’.

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