“Is” “water” “healthy”?

Humor
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Some more classificationism run amok in the UK:

The EU was ridiculed last night after it took three years to issue a new rule that water cannot be sold as healthy.

In a scarcely believable ­ruling, a panel of experts threw out a claim that regular water consumption is the best way to rehydrate the body.

The bizarre diktat from Brussels has far-reaching implications for member states, including Britain, as no water sold in the EU can now claim to protect against dehydration.

It reminds me of one of my favorite episodes of Yes, Minister, where British sausage-makers’ rights to produce “British sausage” are under attack.

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“But without intellectual property . . .”

(Austrian) Economics, Business, IP Law, Technology
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The next time someone claims that not having intellectual property laws will squash the little guy and let established companies rule the day, I’m going to remember to bring up Netflix. Mike Masnick at Techdirt reports on Blockbuster’s recent decision to file for bankruptcy — after the heroic Netflix has stolen most of their customers:

Late last week, there were a ton of press reports about how Blockbuster was preparing to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September. It’s not shutting down, but just trying to restructure its debt, get out from under a bunch of store leases and try, try again. That said, this is yet another example of the fallacy of the claim of many that if you have a good idea some big company will just come along, copy it, and be successful. It also demonstrates the huge difference between idea and execution.

Netflix had a good idea and executed well on it. But for years everyone thought it was only a matter of time until the company got destroyed, because all these bigger (at the time) companies were just going to copy Netflix and win. First it was Wal-Mart. The retail giant started a service that seemed almost identical to Netflix way back in 2002. Everyone thought there was no way an upstart like Netflix could compete with the likes of Wal-Mart. Fast forward two and a half years and Netflix took over Wal-Mart’s online DVD rental business, because Wal-Mart’s offering couldn’t compete. …

And, of course, there was Blockbuster. It came out with a Netflix-like offer around the same time that Wal-Mart did, and while it held on for much longer, it was just never able to build up the same sort of userbase that Netflix did, and now the company is going to declare bankruptcy and try to restructure once again.

More at the link. It just goes to show that when you give people a little liberty, you never know what someone will come up with. A giant like Blockbuster or even WalMart can spend as much money as they’d like trying to copy an innovative, well-executed idea, but at the end of the day, the one who best pleases consumers will rule.

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Easy to Miss

Business, Technology
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It’s easy to miss, but if you happen to catch this video floating around, unassumingly, on YouTube, you will witness a marvel of the modern age.

This development alone is more heroic than anything Obama has done in two years with the most powerful position in the world.

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Milquetoast: How Bland Titles Let Authors Act Like Kids and Undermine Democracy

Humor, Vulgar Politics
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You’ve seen this story about a thousand times by now. Hard-hitting author pulls no punches in his/her newest book which exposes the elite for the scum they are.

That’s right: ‘ECONned’ blames economists for financial disaster! How bold, how daring!

My favorite part of this piece of ideological tripe is its title, which you have also seen about a thousand times before: ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Damaged Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism. Is anyone in America not sick of this formulation by now? “Catchphrase: How This Thing I Hate is Stupid and Did Some Things I Disapprove Of.” Granted, these authors have absolutely nothing new to say, so it behooves them to give their best effort on the cover of the book.

But seriously, authors, how about we lighten up on how seriously we take our books. Not only will no one care about them in three years, but it’s not like they are even standing out in the market anymore. In less than twenty minutes of searching on Amazon I came up with these titles:

  • God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It
  • Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
  • The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream
  • Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of “Energy Independence”
  • Seeds of Terror: How Heroin Is Bankrolling the Taliban and al Qaeda
  • One Nation, Underprivileged: Why American Poverty Affects Us All
  • Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches
  • Big Lies : The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth
  • The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy
  • The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right
  • Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich–and Cheat Everybody Else
  • What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
  • Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America
  • Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America
  • Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future
  • Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free
  • The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals
  • The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church
  • The New Color Line: How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy
  • Tragedy & Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy
  • Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance
  • Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America
  • The Raw Deal: How the Bush Republicans Plan to Destroy Social Security and the Legacy of the New Deal
  • Monsters to Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin
  • Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation
  • Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America
  • Over the Cliff: How Obama’s Election Drove the American Right Insane
  • Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses

. . . and I was nowhere near exhausting the supply of titles bearing this meme. I really despise this fad in publishing and writing, as should all true Americans. In fact, you can pretty much live by this rule of thumb: any book containing this kind of trope for its title is not worth reading, period.

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