Coming soon for sale: Brawndo, the Thirst Mutilator! It sounds gross beyond measure, but I may have to pick up one or two to keep with the can of Buzz Cola I bought around the time of the Simpsons Movie. One must maintain one’s collection of fictional beverages. h/t: Steve Sailer
By the way, if you’ve never seen Idiocracy, you’re cheating yourself, and should be ashamed. I know I’m ashamed of you for you.
Please be aware that both the Brawndo ad and Idiocracy contain some strong language and are at least potentially not safe for work. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Dwyeropolis 
I prefer Slusho. You can’t drink just six!
Hours after you post, the Onion’s AV Club give us their own Brawndo article (but they have drank of the nectar!): http://www.avclub.com/content/blog/taste_test_brawndo_the_thirst
I gotta say, there’s something I can’t put my fiengr on about this post that comes off incredibly dismissive. I won’t argue with you that there are segments of the population who are fans of oversimplification and have no interest in the underpinnings of things we find wonderful like science and technology. But you seem to assume that the children of those people are necessarily doomed be stupid and prone to manipulation by corporations too. How many people do you know have escaped their parents in order to leave entirely different lives — whether that is a shift in locale, vocation, or political party? As long as alternatives to corporate activity exist (the burgeoning DIY movement and hackspaces say to me yes, pockets of resistance thrive) and are legally accessible, I don’t think you can write off the space between people’s ears. But I’ll also admit to not having seen the movie, and to get back to you when I do.Thinking people are stupid is one of the easiest ways to shoot yourself in the foot if you want to have a meaningful conversation with them. That’s what I learned at the SFU Dialogue program, and it’s one tool in my back pocket to hack corporate influence. I’m probably highly biased in my take on this, because I have to believe what I do — which boils down to celebrating and nurturing community — isn’t hopeless.
Studd Beefpile’s distinction beeetwn the power of the executive branch and the personal power of the chief executive is a crucial one.The ‘alphabet agencies’ (SEC, FDA, FTC, IRS, CPSC, ATFE, etc.) are nominally divisions of the executive branch, but in practice are beyond the chief executive’s control. He may, with consent of the Senate, appoint a new member to a commission when there is a vacant seat. In most cases he is constrained by the provisions establishing the commission to preserve ‘partisan balance’ through the requirement that there be equal or nearly equal numbers of nominal Republicans and Democrats as commissioners.We would do well to view these bodies as constituting a fourth branch of government that combines the functions of executive, legislative, and judicial branches. They arose because of the laziness of Congress in doing its task. Congress delegated to them the duty of writing regulations that deal in detail with those matters Congress wishes to legislate only in general fashion. In effect any of these agencies can legislate merely by publishing a proposed regulation in the Federal Register. After a specified comment period – in which affected parties are supposed to be able to have the ability to object or suggest changes – the final regulation is promulgated. Once this essentially legislative task is accomplished, the agency has authority to enforce it – i.e., executive power. Finally, it may bring challenges to the enforcement action before its own administrative tribunals (often before several levels of them) before appeal to the Federal court system is permitted (the Internal Revenue Service is an example). In some cases the agencies can levy fines and penalties, which they may be able to keep rather than returning to the Treasury. These funds are available for use at the agency’s discretion, above and beyond funds appropriated to it by Congress. Such a provision creates an incentive on the part of the agency to use its power to levy penalties as a method of obtaining funding, in effect giving them taxing authority in all but name.It might be useful to discuss the ways in which abdication of responsibility (rather than actual abdication of one’s post) can bring about – has brought about – significant alterations in a system of government. We may, for example, trace the origin of the present British system of government, in which the prime minister is the head of government and the head of the party that has a majority in the House of Commons, to the time of Walpole. There were prime ministers, of course, before this; but they were typically favorites of the ruling monarch, as (for example) the duke of Buckingham was in the reign of James I. Personal rule on the part of the monarch was in conflict throughout the seventeenth century with the privileges of parliament and the independence of the judiciary. It was still very much alive in the day of Queen Anne, who was the last British monarch to employ the royal veto. Why did this cease? Why did no later monarch veto a bill, and how did the Walpole system (which is effectively still that under which Britain is governed) come into effect?The reason for all of this was the succession to the throne of the elector of Hanover, as George I. George spoke no English and was primarily concerned with his continental affairs, centering around Hanover (in which he was an absolute monarch). He was happy to leave the task of running Britain to someone like Walpole, in the same way the owner of a great landed estate might leave the running of his household up to the butler, and that of managing his tenants to an energetic steward or factor – concerning himself only with those matters that impinged directly on his own comfort or convenience. This policy continued under his successor, George II, whose command of English was very limited and who was similarly inclined to abdicate his responsibility as a ruler to his servants. By the time of the succession of George III, the first of the Guelphic tribe to be born in England, the monarch’s ability to engage in personal rule had atrophied to a point where sustaining a royal veto (for example) would have brought about constitutional crisis. George’s own propensity to mental derangement, and the proflicacy and sloth of his son the prince regent (later George IV) served further to aggravate this decline in royal power. British monarch hence reigned, but did not rule.It is not difficult to see that our elected politicians – whether in Congress or the White House – have increasingly become like the house of Hanover, or like the Merovingian rois faine9ants, who similarly abandoned power to their mayors of the palace. The modern day equivalents of Pippin the Short or Sir Robert Walpole are the bureaucrats who run the Federal government from day to day, and the Federal judiciary – equally un-answerable to the Will of the People that is supposed to prevail in our supposed democracy. This suits the elected politicoes just fine, morevover. The last thing any elected official wants to do is to take an unpopular decision. Such people would much rather campaign, a job they know better how to do in any event. This is why we hear so many campaign promises that have no prayer of ever being realized. Politicians know they will never (for example) substitute a national sales tax for income taxation, will never arrest and expel all the illegal aliens, will never have the ideal cradle-to-grave system of ‘free’ medical care they propose, will never be able to withdraw all U.S. troops from Irag by a date certain, etc., etc. These things will be prevented either by judicial or bureaucratic imperative, or a combination of the two. And when their proposals amount to nothing for such reasons, they will shrug their shoulders and say they tried, and people will continue to vote them into positions in which they can enjoy large incomes and public honors – which is what they really want from public office, after all, and not the messy and difficult tasks of actual government.