Lawsuit for false advertising?

Overall, this seems rather analogous to bottled water. Penn and Teller did a brilliant "Bullshit" episode about bottled water back in the day. It got sifted, but is now dead. The entire episode (first half is about feng shui, second half about water) is available on vimeo, though:
https://vimeo.com/193125042

Long story short, most bottled water presents itself as coming from a mountain spring, or glacier, or whatever. But in reality, the vast majority is simply municipal water from whatever city the packaging plant is in, usually not going through any additional filtration or purification at all.

At least with water, it is possible to test for contaminants. Diamonds can be graded / assayed to certify some basic characteristics, but of course there is no straightforward way to track their history and know where they came from, etc. At least, not short of having a paper trail tracing it back to the place and time that it was mined, which could easily be faked.

Bottled water gets away with promoting an "image" of being sourced from mountain springs or whatever by never actually claiming that it is in a legal sense. Usually there is fine print available noting the location that the water came from / was packaged. This diamond company seems to go beyond that and to make claims about their diamonds that are impossible to actually prove. Hopefully they get nailed/shut down.

Did you get that job as a fortune teller?

Whilst we're making blanket assumptions about people we don't know, when did you realise you were racist? Was it the smug satisfaction you felt when you saw a black man mercilessly beaten or shot by the police on the internet, or before then?

And is it easier to hide your racism behind a veneer of support for the police, or better to hide your face under a white sheet so no one knows it was you? Which works better? Thanks for your reply in advance.

Thanks bunches Tony. Is the Penn and Teller vid here on the Sift? I was going to link it as related but can't find it.

*quality reminds me of the Penn and Teller Bullshit episode on MLM's.

He was on Penn and Teller: Fool Us too recently: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-SwEt7cUDk ...

Ha. He came back on Penn and Teller: Fool Us again with it...

He's just lucky his big mouth found a big brain (Teller) to hitch itself to, 'cause the brain it came with would not have seen him to the level of success he's had.

I like Penn, but I also think he's an idiot.

That wasn't really the trick. The trick was, how did he know it would be lentils?

The answer, obviously, it was a force. I don't know how he forced it, but I assume Penn and Teller do.

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Saw him live in Seattle several years ago with FF and man, I've got to say, of the over 100+ concerts I've been to in my lifetime, this dude is the best story-teller on stage I've ever experienced.

I would love to see him again next time he's in town.

Very appropriate title.

Eric did mean everyone on camera is a dummy, right? I like Penn, I like his schtick, but the man's an idiot. Teller's the brains. Penn's a Libertarian! QED.

@transmorpher

It's a little difficult to 'debate' your comment, because the points that you address to me are numbered but don't reference to specific parts of my post. That's probably my fault as i was releasing frustration haphazardly and sarcastically, and that sarcasm wasn't aimed at you. All i can do is try and sum up whether i think we agree or disagree overall.

Essentially everything is a question of 'taste', even for you. There's no escaping our nature, most of us don't drink our own piss, many of us won't swallow our own blood, almost all of us have a flavour that we can't abide because we were fed it as a child. So yes, our decisions are defined by taste. But taste is decided by the food that is available to people, within reasonable distance of their house, at a price they find affordable according to the society around them, from a range of food that is decided by society around them. Your average person does not have the luxury to walk around a high street supermarket selecting the most humane and delicious foods. People get what they can afford, what they understand, what they can prepare and what is available. Our ancestors ate chicken because of necessity of their own kind, their children are exposed to chicken through no fault of their own, fast forward a few generations, and thus chicken becomes an affordable, accessible staple. Can we reach a compromise here? It may not be necessary for chickens to die to feed the human race, but it may be necessary for some people to eat chicken today because of their particular life.

I don't like the use of the phrase 'if i can do it, i know anyone can'. I think it's a mistake to deal in certainties, especially pertaining to lifestyles that you can't possibly know about without having lived them. Are you one of the many homeless people accepting chicken soup from a stranger because it's nourishing, cheap and easy for a stranger to buy, and keeps you warm on the streets? Are you a single mother with coeliac disease, a grumpy teenager and picky toddler who has 20 minutes to get to the supermarket and get something cooking? Or one of the millions using foodbanks in the UK (to our shame) now? I don't think you're willfully turning a blind eye to those people, i'm not tugging heart strings to do you a disservice. Maybe you're just fortunate you not only have the choice, but you have such choice that you can't imagine a life without it. I won't budge an inch on this one, you can't know what people have to do, and we have to accept life is not ideal.

And within that idealism and choice problem we can include illnesses that once again in IDEAL situations could survive without dead animals, nevertheless find it necessary to eat what they can identify and feel safe with.

Yes, those damn gluten hipsters drive me round the bend but only because they make people think that a LITTLE gluten is ok, it makes people take the problem less seriously (see Tumblr feminism... JOKE).

I agree that we must look at what action we can take now - and that is why i keep reminding you that we are not in an ideal world. If the veganism argument is to succeed then you must suggest a reasonable pathway to go from how we are now to whatever situation you would prefer. My "ideal farm" description was just me demonstrating the problem - that you need to show us your blueprint for how we start again without killing animals and feeding everyone we have.

And on that subject, your suggestions need to be backed by real research, otherwise you don't have any real plan. "It's fair to say there is very little risk" is a nice bit of illustrative language but it is not backed by any fact or figure and so i'm compelled to do my Penn and Teller impression and call bullshit. As of right now, the life expectancy of humans is better than it has ever been. It is up to you to prove that changing the diet of 7 billion people will result in neutrality or improvement of health and longevity. That proof must come in the form of large statistical analyses and thorough science. I don't want to sound like i'm being a dick, but any time you state something like that as a fact or with certainty, it needs to be backed up by something. I'm not nit picking and asking for common knowledge to have a citation, but things like this do:

-- 70% of farmland claim
-- 'fair to say very little risk' claim
-- meat gives you cancer claim - i accept it may have a carcinogenic effect but i'll remind you so does breathing, joss-sticks, broccoli, apples and water
-- 'the impact to the planet would be immense' claim - in what way, and what would be the downsides in terms of economy, productivity, health, animal welfare (where are all the animals going to be sent to retire as of day 1?)
-- etc. etc.

Oh, and a cow might get its protein from plants, but it walks around a field all day eating grass, chewing the cud and having sloppy shits with 4 stomachs and enzymes that i don't have................. I'm a bit puzzled by this one... I probably can't survive on what an alligator or a goldfish eats, but i can survive on parts of an alligator or fish. I can't eat enough krill in a day to keep me going, but i can let a whale do it for me...?

I tried Teller, but he's not talking.

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