Mountain Dew would be the best choice of the three - it's the citric acid in Monster that is doing the job here, and neither Coke or Dr Pepper would have that (while Dew has orange as an ingredient). I would think something like 7-Up or Sprite would also be fine, though I'm not sure how much citrus those actually contain. Lemonade?

IMO, Dr pepper only works when paired with smoked bbq. She should try again.
I'm disappointed they didn't try a sasparilla, real root beer. Also, I think they should have offered them a good root beer float, who doesn't like them?

Reminds me of my Thai wife trying Dr. Pepper for the first (and only) time...

This is hot Dr. Pepper. Tastes just like Dr. Pepper, but is hot.

If you lived through the sixties most of these seem normal even if they are horribly dated. The hot Dr. Pepper, however, is fucking weird regardless of what decade you're from.

Also the glass wax I've never seen but we did have spray artificial snow to decorate windows and we'd make our own stencils.

Okay, the hot Dr Pepper is especially wtf.

Do enlighten me: How do you think "dominant corporation(s) or collusion thereof [will] strongarm retailers?" That simply won't happen. Rather, there will be fewer barriers to entry for other widget manufacturers to enter the market, either independently or working for competing "dominant" corporations when they discover that it's more profitable to not be "paid off" but to compete in the market instead.

A dominant corporation cannot buy every possible competitor. That's absurd. And there will always multiple "dominant" corporations, and not just one, or one and a number of "start-ups." Where there is Coke, there will be Pepsi. Where there is Apple, there will be Samsung. In a free market, monopolies and cartels cannot exist except in the very short term and at an eventual loss (unless they have the primary monopoly of the government to back them up).

If there are patents, there's no free market. A free market, by definition, must exclude all patent, trademark, copyright, and other such IP law. So, you may have picked the worst example.

Free markets without patents is not a problem at all. Not for the market and not for consumers. Companies may just be more careful about spies. They certainly wouldn't be incentivized (like they are now) to spend $millions just to hold patents on products that are never produced, only to corner the market and "strongarm" competitors (like they do now).

Companies like Bed, Bath & Beyond have been trying to price upstarts out of the market for years, decades even! And they're still not able to get rid of competitors! Same can be said about Walmart. Many stores other than Walmart sell TVs, even at higher prices, and remain competitive. Other stores sell linens besides BB&B. So, you have a distorted view of how markets actually work. No one corporation can monopolize the sale of any goods or services. That's just incorrect (unless the government helps them to do so). It just doesn't happen.

There's no such thing as a "natural monopoly." Name one. In Texas, for example, there are competing utility providers, and people can choose which energy service to use. This is in contrast to CA, where most of us are forced to "choose" PG&E over zero other alternatives.

"Restriction of information/prevention of rational, informed consumers"

I'm sorry, but anyone who has been involved in business knows this is complete horseshit. If you have a better product/service (the only way to outdo the competition), you will let the customers/market know right away.

And there's no scale at which markets collapse. The same forces of the market apply to big, small, and medium businesses. There is no arbitrary size for which these forces do not apply. And keep in mind that without government granted privileges, corporations would be much smaller than they are now, because competition would make it easier for competitors to participate, thereby forcing a re-allocation of resources to accommodate the market's demands.

So, yes you most certainly "overstated" your case. All markets can be free, regardless of size. Whether it's a small farmer's market or Whole Foods. The same market forces apply. They all have to court voluntary customers through service, price, quality, etc. Again, anyone who has had to work with marketing will know this.

BTW, things like "price dumping" are circumvented all the time. Does Rolls Royce care that Hyundai sells cheaper cars? Does Mercedes care that a Prius is less expensive?

Target makes money because Walmart is cheaper, not in spite of it!
And everything Walmart sells, you'll find many other stores selling it, even though Walmart might sell it cheaper.
The local natural food store in my neighborhood sells, more or less, the same things as Whole Foods. None of your objections pose any real problems in the real world.

I don't see Walmart buying every other TV seller, or even trying to do this. Microsoft tried but, so what? They failed, because they could not buy every single competitor in the software world, could they?

Even in Somalia, to use @enoch's example, in the telecommunications industry (to pick one that saw growth), no one even remotely managed to do any of the things you say could happen. In 20 years, no corporation did any of these things. Why not?

Because they couldn't.

And did "dominant" corporations take over all small retailers and sellers? No way, not even close! They couldn't. Only regulations can really kill all small retailers (and they do it all the time). Your outrage is gravely misplaced. Do the countless bazaars and sellers of Turkey, India, or Thailand get taken over by "dominant" corporations?

Hint: No.

Only when government meddles, do the big corporations wipe out the little ones, and sometimes each other.

In any case, Coke will not eliminate Pepsi (or Sprite, or Dr. Pepper, or A&W), government or no government.

Best use for Dr Pepper. Certainly can't drink the stuff!

>> ^PlayhousePals:

But I'm a Pepper =o/


I was a Coca Cola, Mountain/Mt. Dew, Dr. Pepper, etc. No diet. Now my old body hates sodas and gets aches.

Well, let's talk about rationality for a minute, since you seem to be a logical person. I just don't think there is any basis in a secular worldview for rationality. For instance, if you believe in evolution then you believe that life came from non-life, which means that your rationality came from irrational forces. How can you trust it? If you have inherited your reasoning capability from rocks and primates, how is it trustworthy?

Another question is, how do you have any free will in a secular worldview? If the way things are at this moment is due to the arrangement of atoms at the beginning of the Universe, then there is no such thing as free will. Those atoms have you locked in from birth to death and no one has any meaningful awareness. There is no way to get outside this box that materialism puts you in. How do you respond to this quote:

If there is no God, then all that exists is time and chance acting on matter. If this is true then the difference between your thoughts and mine correspond to the difference between shaking up a bottle of Mountain Dew and a bottle of Dr. Pepper. You simply fizz atheistically and I fizz theistically. This means that you do not hold to atheism because it is true , but rather because of a series of chemical reactions… … Morality, tragedy, and sorrow are equally evanescent. They are all empty sensations created by the chemical reactions of the brain, in turn created by too much pizza the night before. If there is no God, then all abstractions are chemical epiphenomena, like swamp gas over fetid water. This means that we have no reason for assigning truth and falsity to the chemical fizz we call reasoning or right and wrong to the irrational reaction we call morality. If no God, mankind is a set of bi-pedal carbon units of mostly water. And nothing else.

Douglas Wilson

Since you mentioned that you work with math, where do you find the laws of logic in nature? How do you presuppose something which is unchanging and immaterial in a Universe which is material and always changing? I can account for these things in a theistic worldview, so how do you account for them?

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
>> ^shinyblurry:
I can relate to tyson, as I felt the same feelings when i was a kid..started reading cosmos at age 4, went to planetariums, got a telescope, devoured any and all information i could get my hands on about astronomy. I can relate to his sheer sense of wonderment about it. What I find interesting though is how he talks about having a personal relationship with the Universe, that it talks to him, that it was "calling" him, and how the Universe (as starstuff) is within him. That is unmistakably worship.

Indeed, this video talks much about the irrational kinds of religious orders secular people still hold to, like love or living forever. People, even those who claim to be rational, still deal with our monkey nature more oft then they would like to admit to themselves <IMG class=smiley src="http://cdn.videosift.com/cdm/emoticon/teeth.gif">

On the plus side, the loser probably got lots of Dr. Pepper TEN to drink...

Love the scoff the guy filming the clip puts out at Ivon's: "Dr. Pepper is the best thing to ever happen to me/"

please study science please study science please study science please study science...



If she does women's studies I swear to god I will never drink Dr. Pepper again

something about having one's *entire educational future hinge on the number of footballs you can throw through a hole seems sadistic and backwards.

(*exaggeration, i know there are other ways to get by than on Dr. Pepper Scholarships, but still...)

I'm pulling for Mr. Pibb to take the high rode and offer a full-ride to the winner of a high school science/engineering contest. Or at least a free, one year supply of Mr. Pibb - Support the intellectuals!

>> ^kymbos:

Sizzler hasn't gone out of business in Oz. There's one left in Toowong, Brisbane, and possibly one left in Belconnen, Canberra. They're like throwbacks to another era.
>> ^acidSpine:
Sizzler still exists in America? Went out of business in Australia ages ago but then again, so did Dr Pepper those bastards.



there are 2 I know of in NSW as well..