Idiocy to look for in 2006

This is not a prediction. It is an unfortunate fact. The trial lawyers will file suit next year against Coca-Cola and Pepsi. It (tort bar) wants to ban them from selling soft drinks to children--especially in schools. They are looking at profits from these suits to a degree similar to those they reaped from tobacco. In fact they claim it is just as egregious to put soft drink machines in schools as placing cigarette machines in schools. The ultimate goal is to portray Americans love for sugary drinks and fattening food as an illness brought about by greedy and evil corporations seeking to deceive us into getting fat without knowing it is caused by what we eat.
McDonald's has already started putting nutritional information on their products. They aren't doing this because they want some 9 year old to know that a double cheese burger has calories, but they want to be able to point to this in court some day as proof that they labelled french fries. This didn't help cigarette makers much in court, but it did some good in public relations. The action of the lawyers is bad enough, but the reaction of juries is maybe even worse. Too many of our citizens would rather displace blame to an evil company rather than acknowledge that we should be smart enough to know when our pants get tight is maybe related to eating too much. Sad.