I wish you'd stop using the word "remedy". The phrase "homeopathic confidence scam" would be far more descriptive and factual.
I will grant you that for the vast majority of homeopathic scams there is no possible method of action. However, homeopathic dilutions of 1x and 2x still contain the so-called "active ingredient", and thus are not entirely scams. Sure cold remedies might be based on shaky science, but they are better than outright scams.
But then the number of homeopathic remedies based on at least shaky science diluted into the vast sea of homeopathic scams very nearly approaches the dilutions of the scams themselves...
I expect people to simplify it as much as possible. Ambiguities aren't solved through the use of repetition. And, if they are, then something is terribly wrong with how the contract/EULA/law was written to begin with.
I saw her with binoculars. I used a pair of binoculars to cut her in two.
vs.
I saw her with binoculars. Looking through a pair of binoculars, I obtained visual contact with her.
Note: "do not have to undergo the same safety and efficacy testing". Any substance containing a non-trival quantity of active ingredient would not be considered homeopathic and therefore must be reviewed by the normal process.
Not exactly... homeopathic remedies can contain as much substances they want of anything that is GRAS. If that substance is the one doing the benefit, then the homeopathic remedy can contain as much of it as any food, or herbal/mineral supplement can.
Simplified. I would expect people to understand the basics of the language I wrote the contract in (and apparently the judge doesn't).
Then, you're expecting the law to work completely different from how it actually does. Boilerplate contracts for one are interpreted against the drafting party for all ambiguities. Why? Because the drafting party drafted the contract, and so they could have written it to mean exactly what they wanted it to mean in the first place.
" A while ago I was looking into why all of the zinc remedies for colds were homeopathic..." --- that's your problem, right there. Homeopathy is bullshit.
Except that the homeopathic zinc remedies actually have some of the substance in them. Specifically, the cold-remedy on my desk is Zincum Gluconicum X1 (meaning it's 1:10 dilution... 10% of the tablets are zinc gluconate).
So, I was left wondering: why would they label them as homeopathic, when homeopathy is bullshit? The answer? Some of it actually isn't.
There is a very specific reason why supplements are not drugs...
In your example iron deficiency, you have low iron and take iron to improve the problem... at no time however does the iron cure your underlying disease. All it does is "supplement" your store of iron alleviating the condition caused by low iron.
And St. John's Wart has been scientifically shown to be a low-grade SSRI. Yet St. John's Wart can't make claims to help treat depression, while SSRIs can. Also, iron supplements do treat iron-deficiency.
Homeopathics were "grandfathered in" to the FDA system which gives them their (limited) claim rights.They don't have to prove anything. Since homeopathics pose no danger to the public (as well as arguably no benefit), the fact that the claims are basically false advertising isn't an important enough consequence to the state of public health that the FDA will get involved.
No. Homeopathic remedies weren't grandfathered in. That zinc compounds help reduce cold symptoms is a modern homeopathic claim. Homeopathic remedies CANNOT make claims to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent any disease unless they have scientific studies to support it. The idea that homeopathic false advertising isn't important enough for the FDA to get involved is outright wrong. The FDA is the major part of getting a guy listed on the FBI's 10 most wanted deported from Cuba, to face trial in the US, because he was selling bogus cancer cures.
The homeopaths get special recognition from the FDA so long as they play by the rules, and they would have to be idiots to willfully mess with that.
My understanding (which may be wring mind you) is that iron supplements indeed don't do anything to cure or prevent iron deficiency. To be effective, the iron has to be absorbed by the body. That is rather tricky with iron, and simply taking something with iron in it isn't enough.
There is also another point here, which is that using iron supplements to cure or prevent iron deficiency would be very easy to clinically test. The reason the FDA hasn't approved of it as a drug is almost certainly because the studies have been done, and the supplement was not shown to be effective.
No. Ferrous Sulfate (the "active" ingredient in my iron supplement) has been shown to be able to treat iron-deficiency. Your skepticism is reasonable and warranted with herbal supplements, but in this case does not apply.
Mostly just details on what I posted as far as I can tell. The requirements above being the requirements to list it in the US Pharmacopeia and all. The requirements however to list in the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia is a lot less, and if you have a reliable scientific study that shows an effectiveness, you can still list it as intended to treat a disease.
Herbal/mineral supplements however are a different legal category, and are not allowed to advertise that they diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Sure, they could go through the whole process of getting it into the US Pharmacopeia, but why? They can just list it as a supplement, and get around the rules, because as you mentioned, "everyone knows".
Interesting. I've often wondered what was supposed to be "homeopathic" about ColdEeze lozenges.
Apparently we needed a government agency to keep people from selling radium elixirs out of covered wagons at the county fair. Fine, whatever. But the present-day FDA, like other three-letter agencies such as the DEA, is just plain berserk with bureaucratic power. It's almost as if government agencies always attempt to expand their scope, or something.
While I won't particularly argue with you on merit, the FDA is just following logical conclusions. If we allowed herbal/mineral supplements to make medical claims then cranberry juice could be marketed as "helps prevents UTIs!", and all sorts of other nonsense, where while it is technically true, the stuff is not medical, and shouldn't be sold as if it were a medical drug/device. Limiting the requirement to be able to advertise to approved medical drugs and devices with scientific studies proving efficacy makes sense, and is perfectly reasonable and rational... even if it does occasionally lead to the occasional totally brain fart stupid statements being disallowed because "water prevents dehydration" is a medical claim.
It can in theory, but in reality it doesn't because they use so little (2 tbsp). The proposed standard is that half a cup (8 tbsp) of tomato paste constitutes a serving of vegetables. That would be a reasonable amount, but you can't make a tasty pizza with that much sauce, and God forbid we give the kids some carrots with their meals. So instead the Republicans scuttle the whole thing so that the frozen pizza industry can continue raking in profits at the expense of children's health.
Yes, totally agreed, and this is the argument that people should be making. Not, "Pizza is a vegetable, says Congress!"
The requirement is that all foods and drinks have a nutrition label. Why is this hard to understand? Is water not a food or drink? Is bottled water not intended for human consumption? Oh, it is? Well then, it NEEDS A NUTRITION LABEL.
Beer must not be intended for human consumption.
I believe that Beer is a drug. More accurately, ethyl alcohol is a drug. As such, beer conforms to different labeling standards. Though, if water were a drug, then they could claim that it prevents dehydration.
and I've refactored some code here and there to make it shorter and more simplified
Then it was done incorrectly, obviously. It's possible to both simplify it and have it work.
Except when the code around it depends upon side-effects and other behaviors that my code does not replicate. "Well, then THAT code was written poorly, and/or wrongly". No argument here, but that doesn't change the fact that it's there, and I have to deal with it.
Using redundancy makes sure that their point is clear and won't be mistaken as something else.
It's called "redundancy" for a reason. If someone mistakes it for something else, then they're not actually following the law/EULA (since you did call it a mistake).
Except when a Judge agrees that a potentially mistaken reading of the text agrees with the other party in an adversarial proceeding... or when there's simply the possibility of it agreeing with the other party, and it's a boilerplate contract, so if it can be mistaken for meaning something else in any way shape or form (within reason) then it is interpreted most harshly against the drafting party.
Think of it as a fight with a girlfriend/wife/SO, where everything you say is getting twisted to mean something bad, and you know you need to just shut up. Now, imagine that that same hostile interpretation method is applied to the contract that you drafted. How would you write it now?
So, the various implementations of the Universal Commercial Code covering all manner of commercial conduct shouldn't be more than 3,000 pages long? It's kind of high hopes there...
Most laws, then?
You would hope, but how does your new law interact with another law from over there, and this one from over there. Once you have a large enough codebase, even making a simple change such as changing a function name can span tons of and tons of code. Think of the size of the diff that would be required to change an extremely well used function in the Linux kernel? And all that is doing is changing a function name...
Except that if you read the text, they wanted to go from 2 tablespoons for a serving of vegetables, to some other amount of sauce before it could be considered a serving of vegetables. By that logic I could probably consider gravy a vegetable because I've got some onions in there.
So, your argument is that you could consider gravy to contain a serving of vegetable (they are NOT DECLARING pizza is a vegetable, but rather contains a serving or so of vegetables), because they're changing how much sauce is a serving of vegetables?
You realize that your argument is a complete non sequitur right? "They're adjusting how much pizza sauce is required to be a serving of vegetables, so that means I can say gravy has a serving of vegetables because it has onions!"
Well, in fact, actually, if you had enough onions in your gravy, it would contain at least a serving of vegetables. But none of this changes my point: THEY'RE NOT DECLARING PIZZA A VEGETABLE. They're saying that Pizza contains at least a serving of vegetables.
The requirement is that all foods and drinks have a nutrition label. Why is this hard to understand? Is water not a food or drink? Is bottled water not intended for human consumption? Oh, it is? Well then, it NEEDS A NUTRITION LABEL.
Gotta love Americans missing the point of regulation that protects the consumer. On the other hand in US frozen Pizza is a vegetable now, you know, to protect frozen pizza corporations from healthy food regulations. http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=pizza+vegetable
No, the pizza SAUCE contains some amount of a serving of fruit/vegetable. It may be surprising, but sometimes vegetable servings can come in unlikely packages, and forms. One of those is PIZZA SAUCE! So, if there is sufficient sauce on the pizza, surprise surprise, one can consume a serving of vegetables just from consuming the sauce.
Actually, no, you cannot make that claim in the US either. It is a claim of ability to treat, cure, or prevent a disease (starvation), and only drugs that have been shown effective can advertise medical claim. Carbs are not a drug, therefore they cannot be marketed as preventing starvation. (It's a nice thought though, that the USA would allow such "deceptive" advertising.)
Ok, ok I know that we're talking about Republicans here but still it shows stupidity is rampant on both sides of the Atlantic!
The sauce on a pizza can contribute a serving of fruit/vegetables. But it's way more fun to spin the facts into "pizza is a vegetable" rather than "pizza sauce can be a serving of fruits/vegetables". I mean, it's not like spaghetti sauce makers boast about how they have a serving or two of vegetables, and so mothers can stealthily give their children vegetables, and "SHHH!!! DON'T SAY THAT IT HAS A SERVING OF VEGETABLES TOO LOUD!" otherwise the kids might hear, and freak out "zOMGs! WE'RE EATING VEGGIES?!"
I don't know, I'm sure bottled water companies just wanted to use it as a misleading selling point and marketing. All other kinds of drinks prevent dehydration too, and tap water does too. Compared to countries where you can't actually drink tap water, the bottled waters are seriously overpriced here and they try to sell them by stating how they have minerals, are more healthier and so on.. All kinds of misleading marketing tactics. This decision only prevented the companies for using yet another misleading phrase.
It's a fair amount of this. A while ago I was looking into why all of the zinc remedies for colds were homeopathic, but at reasonable dilutions (1:10, and 1:100). I came up with information that in the US you cannot claim that something is intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease unless it is a "drug" as controlled by the FDA. What does the FDA say is a drug? Well, either something listed in the US Pharmacopeia, or in the Homeoapathic Pharmacopeia. As a result, since zinc acetate, and zinc gluconate are only "herbal/mineral supplements" they cannot be listed in the USP, and thus cannot be advertised as diagnosing, treating, curing, or preventing any disease (even zinc deficiency). However, since the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia has recently listed the zinc treatments for the treatment and prevention of colds, if a manufacturer actually makes the substance in accordance with Homeopathic law, they can actually call it a drug, and advertise it as treating and preventing colds. (Why don't wall Homeopathic "drugs" make these claims? The FDA still requires the homeopathic "drugs" to have scientific evidence to support a claim to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent a disease. Most don't, zinc compounds do.)
So, as a result of reading all this stuff, I picked up my Iron supplements, which I take for iron deficient anemia, and sure enough on the label it says: "These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease." Yes, my iron supplements can't even advertise that they treat, cure, or prevent iron deficiency. The very substance required to cure the deficiency cannot be sold with the claim that it can CURE that deficiency. Why? Same as above, it is an herbal/mineral supplement, and as such is not a "drug" and so it cannot be advertised to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
As water is a food, and not a drug, the US system would come up with the exact same ruling.
I don't know. Looking at some EULAs, I've seen many, many things that could be drastically shortened and simplified. But they weren't.
I've worked in programming for years, and I've refactored some code here and there to make it shorter and more simplified, and then it just didn't work right afterwards. I won't argue that all legalese is the best it can possibly be, but often times the lawyers are closing some obscure possible misinterpretation. You know, just to be sure that no one misunderstands them. Using redundancy makes sure that their point is clear and won't be mistaken as something else.
And I don't think any law should be 3,000 pages long.
So, the various implementations of the Universal Commercial Code covering all manner of commercial conduct shouldn't be more than 3,000 pages long? It's kind of high hopes there...
And where would the unobservable universe be? Unless you're thinking about antimatter being coiled up in extra spatial dimensions, everything points to there being a process by which the symmetry is broken.
The current comoving distance to the particles which emitted the CMBR, representing the radius of the visible universe, is calculated to be about 14.0 billion parsecs (about 45.7 billion light years), while the current comoving distance to the edge of the observable universe is calculated to be 14.3 billion parsecs (about 46.6 billion light years),[1] about 2% larger.
I'm kind of surprised that you don't understand that the universe is larger than our observable universe.
Slashdot Mirror
I wish you'd stop using the word "remedy". The phrase "homeopathic confidence scam" would be far more descriptive and factual.
I will grant you that for the vast majority of homeopathic scams there is no possible method of action. However, homeopathic dilutions of 1x and 2x still contain the so-called "active ingredient", and thus are not entirely scams. Sure cold remedies might be based on shaky science, but they are better than outright scams.
But then the number of homeopathic remedies based on at least shaky science diluted into the vast sea of homeopathic scams very nearly approaches the dilutions of the scams themselves...
I expect people to simplify it as much as possible. Ambiguities aren't solved through the use of repetition. And, if they are, then something is terribly wrong with how the contract/EULA/law was written to begin with.
I saw her with binoculars. I used a pair of binoculars to cut her in two.
vs.
I saw her with binoculars. Looking through a pair of binoculars, I obtained visual contact with her.
Note: "do not have to undergo the same safety and efficacy testing". Any substance containing a non-trival quantity of active ingredient would not be considered homeopathic and therefore must be reviewed by the normal process.
Not exactly... homeopathic remedies can contain as much substances they want of anything that is GRAS. If that substance is the one doing the benefit, then the homeopathic remedy can contain as much of it as any food, or herbal/mineral supplement can.
Simplified. I would expect people to understand the basics of the language I wrote the contract in (and apparently the judge doesn't).
Then, you're expecting the law to work completely different from how it actually does. Boilerplate contracts for one are interpreted against the drafting party for all ambiguities. Why? Because the drafting party drafted the contract, and so they could have written it to mean exactly what they wanted it to mean in the first place.
" A while ago I was looking into why all of the zinc remedies for colds were homeopathic..." --- that's your problem, right there. Homeopathy is bullshit.
Except that the homeopathic zinc remedies actually have some of the substance in them. Specifically, the cold-remedy on my desk is Zincum Gluconicum X1 (meaning it's 1:10 dilution... 10% of the tablets are zinc gluconate).
So, I was left wondering: why would they label them as homeopathic, when homeopathy is bullshit? The answer? Some of it actually isn't.
There is a very specific reason why supplements are not drugs...
In your example iron deficiency, you have low iron and take iron to improve the problem... at no time however does the iron cure your underlying disease. All it does is "supplement" your store of iron alleviating the condition caused by low iron.
And St. John's Wart has been scientifically shown to be a low-grade SSRI. Yet St. John's Wart can't make claims to help treat depression, while SSRIs can. Also, iron supplements do treat iron-deficiency.
Homeopathics were "grandfathered in" to the FDA system which gives them their (limited) claim rights.They don't have to prove anything. Since homeopathics pose no danger to the public (as well as arguably no benefit), the fact that the claims are basically false advertising isn't an important enough consequence to the state of public health that the FDA will get involved.
No. Homeopathic remedies weren't grandfathered in. That zinc compounds help reduce cold symptoms is a modern homeopathic claim. Homeopathic remedies CANNOT make claims to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent any disease unless they have scientific studies to support it. The idea that homeopathic false advertising isn't important enough for the FDA to get involved is outright wrong. The FDA is the major part of getting a guy listed on the FBI's 10 most wanted deported from Cuba, to face trial in the US, because he was selling bogus cancer cures.
The homeopaths get special recognition from the FDA so long as they play by the rules, and they would have to be idiots to willfully mess with that.
Vegetables are fucking non-seed bearing parts of a plant - VEGETATION.
PERIOD.
Culinary definitions are nonsense.
Are you aware that "vegetable" does not actually have a scientific definition?
That would only apply if dehydration were a disease, would it not?
Yes, and since it does, it does apply.
My understanding (which may be wring mind you) is that iron supplements indeed don't do anything to cure or prevent iron deficiency. To be effective, the iron has to be absorbed by the body. That is rather tricky with iron, and simply taking something with iron in it isn't enough.
There is also another point here, which is that using iron supplements to cure or prevent iron deficiency would be very easy to clinically test. The reason the FDA hasn't approved of it as a drug is almost certainly because the studies have been done, and the supplement was not shown to be effective.
No. Ferrous Sulfate (the "active" ingredient in my iron supplement) has been shown to be able to treat iron-deficiency. Your skepticism is reasonable and warranted with herbal supplements, but in this case does not apply.
Mostly just details on what I posted as far as I can tell. The requirements above being the requirements to list it in the US Pharmacopeia and all. The requirements however to list in the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia is a lot less, and if you have a reliable scientific study that shows an effectiveness, you can still list it as intended to treat a disease.
Herbal/mineral supplements however are a different legal category, and are not allowed to advertise that they diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Sure, they could go through the whole process of getting it into the US Pharmacopeia, but why? They can just list it as a supplement, and get around the rules, because as you mentioned, "everyone knows".
Interesting. I've often wondered what was supposed to be "homeopathic" about ColdEeze lozenges.
Apparently we needed a government agency to keep people from selling radium elixirs out of covered wagons at the county fair. Fine, whatever. But the present-day FDA, like other three-letter agencies such as the DEA, is just plain berserk with bureaucratic power. It's almost as if government agencies always attempt to expand their scope, or something.
While I won't particularly argue with you on merit, the FDA is just following logical conclusions. If we allowed herbal/mineral supplements to make medical claims then cranberry juice could be marketed as "helps prevents UTIs!", and all sorts of other nonsense, where while it is technically true, the stuff is not medical, and shouldn't be sold as if it were a medical drug/device. Limiting the requirement to be able to advertise to approved medical drugs and devices with scientific studies proving efficacy makes sense, and is perfectly reasonable and rational... even if it does occasionally lead to the occasional totally brain fart stupid statements being disallowed because "water prevents dehydration" is a medical claim.
I said, if it made any sense.
Oh, my bad.
If that made any sense, caffeinated beverages would be classified as drugs too.
Except caffeine is not actually classified as a drug. This is why law is so complicated, now keep up!
It can in theory, but in reality it doesn't because they use so little (2 tbsp). The proposed standard is that half a cup (8 tbsp) of tomato paste constitutes a serving of vegetables. That would be a reasonable amount, but you can't make a tasty pizza with that much sauce, and God forbid we give the kids some carrots with their meals. So instead the Republicans scuttle the whole thing so that the frozen pizza industry can continue raking in profits at the expense of children's health.
Yes, totally agreed, and this is the argument that people should be making. Not, "Pizza is a vegetable, says Congress!"
The requirement is that all foods and drinks have a nutrition label. Why is this hard to understand? Is water not a food or drink? Is bottled water not intended for human consumption? Oh, it is? Well then, it NEEDS A NUTRITION LABEL.
Beer must not be intended for human consumption.
I believe that Beer is a drug. More accurately, ethyl alcohol is a drug. As such, beer conforms to different labeling standards. Though, if water were a drug, then they could claim that it prevents dehydration.
and I've refactored some code here and there to make it shorter and more simplified
Then it was done incorrectly, obviously. It's possible to both simplify it and have it work.
Except when the code around it depends upon side-effects and other behaviors that my code does not replicate. "Well, then THAT code was written poorly, and/or wrongly". No argument here, but that doesn't change the fact that it's there, and I have to deal with it.
Using redundancy makes sure that their point is clear and won't be mistaken as something else.
It's called "redundancy" for a reason. If someone mistakes it for something else, then they're not actually following the law/EULA (since you did call it a mistake).
Except when a Judge agrees that a potentially mistaken reading of the text agrees with the other party in an adversarial proceeding... or when there's simply the possibility of it agreeing with the other party, and it's a boilerplate contract, so if it can be mistaken for meaning something else in any way shape or form (within reason) then it is interpreted most harshly against the drafting party.
Think of it as a fight with a girlfriend/wife/SO, where everything you say is getting twisted to mean something bad, and you know you need to just shut up. Now, imagine that that same hostile interpretation method is applied to the contract that you drafted. How would you write it now?
So, the various implementations of the Universal Commercial Code covering all manner of commercial conduct shouldn't be more than 3,000 pages long? It's kind of high hopes there...
Most laws, then?
You would hope, but how does your new law interact with another law from over there, and this one from over there. Once you have a large enough codebase, even making a simple change such as changing a function name can span tons of and tons of code. Think of the size of the diff that would be required to change an extremely well used function in the Linux kernel? And all that is doing is changing a function name...
Except that if you read the text, they wanted to go from 2 tablespoons for a serving of vegetables, to some other amount of sauce before it could be considered a serving of vegetables. By that logic I could probably consider gravy a vegetable because I've got some onions in there.
So, your argument is that you could consider gravy to contain a serving of vegetable (they are NOT DECLARING pizza is a vegetable, but rather contains a serving or so of vegetables), because they're changing how much sauce is a serving of vegetables?
You realize that your argument is a complete non sequitur right? "They're adjusting how much pizza sauce is required to be a serving of vegetables, so that means I can say gravy has a serving of vegetables because it has onions!"
Well, in fact, actually, if you had enough onions in your gravy, it would contain at least a serving of vegetables. But none of this changes my point: THEY'RE NOT DECLARING PIZZA A VEGETABLE. They're saying that Pizza contains at least a serving of vegetables.
Just as stupid as rules requiring nutritional labeling on bottled water (at least here in the US). I kid you not:
Calories: 0, Fat: 0 mg, Protein: 0 mg, Carbohydrates: 0 mg, Vitamin A: 0, ... Calcium: *, ...
(* Not a significant source of these nutrients.)
The requirement is that all foods and drinks have a nutrition label. Why is this hard to understand? Is water not a food or drink? Is bottled water not intended for human consumption? Oh, it is? Well then, it NEEDS A NUTRITION LABEL.
Gotta love Americans missing the point of regulation that protects the consumer.
On the other hand in US frozen Pizza is a vegetable now, you know, to protect frozen pizza corporations from healthy food regulations.
http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=pizza+vegetable
No, the pizza SAUCE contains some amount of a serving of fruit/vegetable. It may be surprising, but sometimes vegetable servings can come in unlikely packages, and forms. One of those is PIZZA SAUCE! So, if there is sufficient sauce on the pizza, surprise surprise, one can consume a serving of vegetables just from consuming the sauce.
Carbohydrates may help prevent starvation.
Actually, no, you cannot make that claim in the US either. It is a claim of ability to treat, cure, or prevent a disease (starvation), and only drugs that have been shown effective can advertise medical claim. Carbs are not a drug, therefore they cannot be marketed as preventing starvation. (It's a nice thought though, that the USA would allow such "deceptive" advertising.)
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011/11/18/us/life-us-usa-lunch.html?scp=1&sq=House%20protects%20pizza&st=cse
Ok, ok I know that we're talking about Republicans here but still it shows stupidity is rampant on both sides of the Atlantic!
The sauce on a pizza can contribute a serving of fruit/vegetables. But it's way more fun to spin the facts into "pizza is a vegetable" rather than "pizza sauce can be a serving of fruits/vegetables". I mean, it's not like spaghetti sauce makers boast about how they have a serving or two of vegetables, and so mothers can stealthily give their children vegetables, and "SHHH!!! DON'T SAY THAT IT HAS A SERVING OF VEGETABLES TOO LOUD!" otherwise the kids might hear, and freak out "zOMGs! WE'RE EATING VEGGIES?!"
I don't know, I'm sure bottled water companies just wanted to use it as a misleading selling point and marketing. All other kinds of drinks prevent dehydration too, and tap water does too. Compared to countries where you can't actually drink tap water, the bottled waters are seriously overpriced here and they try to sell them by stating how they have minerals, are more healthier and so on.. All kinds of misleading marketing tactics. This decision only prevented the companies for using yet another misleading phrase.
It's a fair amount of this. A while ago I was looking into why all of the zinc remedies for colds were homeopathic, but at reasonable dilutions (1:10, and 1:100). I came up with information that in the US you cannot claim that something is intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease unless it is a "drug" as controlled by the FDA. What does the FDA say is a drug? Well, either something listed in the US Pharmacopeia, or in the Homeoapathic Pharmacopeia. As a result, since zinc acetate, and zinc gluconate are only "herbal/mineral supplements" they cannot be listed in the USP, and thus cannot be advertised as diagnosing, treating, curing, or preventing any disease (even zinc deficiency). However, since the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia has recently listed the zinc treatments for the treatment and prevention of colds, if a manufacturer actually makes the substance in accordance with Homeopathic law, they can actually call it a drug, and advertise it as treating and preventing colds. (Why don't wall Homeopathic "drugs" make these claims? The FDA still requires the homeopathic "drugs" to have scientific evidence to support a claim to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent a disease. Most don't, zinc compounds do.)
So, as a result of reading all this stuff, I picked up my Iron supplements, which I take for iron deficient anemia, and sure enough on the label it says: "These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease." Yes, my iron supplements can't even advertise that they treat, cure, or prevent iron deficiency. The very substance required to cure the deficiency cannot be sold with the claim that it can CURE that deficiency. Why? Same as above, it is an herbal/mineral supplement, and as such is not a "drug" and so it cannot be advertised to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
As water is a food, and not a drug, the US system would come up with the exact same ruling.
I don't know. Looking at some EULAs, I've seen many, many things that could be drastically shortened and simplified. But they weren't.
I've worked in programming for years, and I've refactored some code here and there to make it shorter and more simplified, and then it just didn't work right afterwards. I won't argue that all legalese is the best it can possibly be, but often times the lawyers are closing some obscure possible misinterpretation. You know, just to be sure that no one misunderstands them. Using redundancy makes sure that their point is clear and won't be mistaken as something else.
And I don't think any law should be 3,000 pages long.
So, the various implementations of the Universal Commercial Code covering all manner of commercial conduct shouldn't be more than 3,000 pages long? It's kind of high hopes there...
And where would the unobservable universe be? Unless you're thinking about antimatter being coiled up in extra spatial dimensions, everything points to there being a process by which the symmetry is broken.
To quote Wikipedia
The current comoving distance to the particles which emitted the CMBR, representing the radius of the visible universe, is calculated to be about 14.0 billion parsecs (about 45.7 billion light years), while the current comoving distance to the edge of the observable universe is calculated to be 14.3 billion parsecs (about 46.6 billion light years),[1] about 2% larger.
I'm kind of surprised that you don't understand that the universe is larger than our observable universe.