Being a fan of "unintended consequences".....

Christopher Hitchens, a very quotable man, said, "Unintended consequences aren't always disastrous."   Surely, one thinks, this must be true.  Then, lo and behold, I stumbled over this blog post proving the point:

"The baguette as we know it dates to the 1920s and was a byproduct of a protective labor law that prevented French bakers from working between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. That made it impossible to prepare traditional round loaves by breakfast time. Bakers had to turn to a new kind of bread, whose thin shape made it faster to prepare and bake. The baguette—French for "little stick"—quickly became a breakfast essential throughout France."