There are some activists out there in Los Angeles who are blaming McDonald's for the obesity epidemic in South Central LA's black community. Now I don't think that there is any real doubt that someone who makes McDonald's the center of their nutritional life is going to end up suffering some adverse health consequences ... becoming a complete lard ass being among them. America has an obesity epidemic. I believe one of the chief factors is our fast food culture. But extensive research on my part has failed to uncover even one instance where the Burger King or Ronald McDonald actually held someone down and forced them to eat their food.

The character complaining about McDonalds on yesterday's Cavuto said that there was not one McDonald's in Beverly Hills. Could that possibly be due to the fact that there isn't a demand for that type of food in Beverly Hills? Why are there so many Mickey Ds in South Central? Because that's where the demand is!

The trend in our society is to always find someone else to blame for our personal problems. Nobody force-feeds anyone. If we're fat, it's our fault, nobody else's. If we're poor -- our fault. If we can't get a decent job because of our extensive criminal record -- our fault. The trouble is that no do-gooder activist ever generated a following by telling people to accept responsibility for their own shortcomings and problems. You gain no following by telling people that their problems are of their own making.

In today's society we have a whole class of "leaders" and "activists" who have created wonderful positions of power and prestige for themselves simply by convincing large numbers of people that there problems are not of their own doing. After all, it is so much easier to blame someone else than it is to look in the mirror.

I found this Interesting, because until 3 weeks ago, I weighed 184 Lbs @ 5'7.
I've lost 14 lbs in the past 3 week by dieting and exercising. The only person I had to blame for being fat is myself.
People need to take responsibility for their actions (or inactions).

You can find items to eat at Club Mac that will keep you from becoming 100+# over weight. If I hit the drive through...( I am a 6 meal day weight lifter so I eat around the clock lol) its 3 burgers and a water. Take the burgers and make one big one out of it..toss the buns and you have a perfect protien/carb/ to fat ratio. Hell I could live on it.

Everyone needs a lil Azn in them. I get stoned and eat everything in sight and I don't gain a pound. KINDA LIKE THE GUY WHO EATS THE HOT DOGS!

Kinda like the dumb ass who spilled coffee on themselves and sued McDonalds AND WON. Wow... Lets reward people for being dumb asses. 'Here's your sign'. Next thing you know people will sue McDonalds because they crashed their car into a McDonald's building. Probaly win that one too...

Well, the building was obviously in the wrong.....

Yeah I saw it move also.

Kinda like the dumb ass who spilled coffee on themselves and sued McDonalds AND WON. Wow... Lets reward people for being dumb asses. 'Here's your sign'. Next thing you know people will sue McDonalds because they crashed their car into a McDonald's building. Probaly win that one too...

I may be mistaken, but I thought that jury award was overturned, and no damages awarded.

Yeah, recently the Army told me I was too fat :( So, everybody and their pet monkey starts giving me all these fast weight loss programs etc etc.

What did I do?

Ate less crap (McDonalds, soda etc)

And exercised...

And OH MY GOD!

I lost weight and now the army says I'm not (too) fat any more.

I should write a book and make millions!

There are some people who medically gain weight despite what they eat. My mom would be a pretty good example. She weighs like 180 lbs and is 5'6". She works out at the gym 1 hour a day 5 days a week and eats extremely healthy - bouncing from one diet to the other. There's a horrible history of diabeties and overweightness in her side of the family, and despite all of the above she's gained a few lbs over the past few weeks.

That being said, if her diet included a trip to a fast food resturant a few times a week ... she'd not have much of an excuse now would she? I'm like Wein though, I seldom have more than a few minutes for lunch because of my job and fast food is my closest friend. I haven't gained any weight since I stopped working out in highschool.

I may be mistaken, but I thought that jury award was overturned, and no damages awarded.It was actually spun something nicely by the media. While stupid on her part, the coffee was way above temperature, so there was some degree (no pun) of liability on McD's part. They did a great job discrediting her however.

To the topic of the thread, unless McD's buys out every supermarket in the region so all you can buy is their food, this is pretty ludicrous. People really ought to take more responsibility for their own actions. A McD's on every corner still doesn't mean you have to eat there.

If we're poor -- our fault

That's just downright fucking retarded.

Saw a documentary on the coffee burn case and there where a lot of facts not reported at the time.

Mc donalds had a habit of keeping thier coffee about 20 to 25 degree's hotter than what was recomended by health and safety experts. so hot in fact that instead of a mild scalding that would usually follow a spill like that it caused the poor lady to suffer severe 3rd degree burns.(they showed pictures)
The original suit filed by her only asked for reimbursement of medical costs and lawyer fee's. during the course of the trial it became known that similar accidents with severe burns had happened all over the US. some dating back quite a few years. in ever case before McD had been warned and advised to lower the temperature at wich it kept it's coffee and it would significantly reduce the chances of others from suffering severe injury.

The jury in the case determined that McD was negligent in not adhereing to the warning giving them about the coffee's temperature.
Since McD had been showing an attitude that it really didnt give flying fuck that it was hurting people the jury awarded her a far higher judgement than the 30-35 thousand she originaly asked for hoping that such a large hit in
the pocket book would prompt them to make changes because caring and love for our fellow humans was'nt doing squat.

in South Central LA's black community.

Of course if you are not black or live outside South Central LA, it isn't an issue :p

This kinda crap annoys me along the lines of "Stop black on black crime!". Does that mean white on black, or black on hispanic, etc... crime is ok?

That's just downright fucking retarded.

How so?

Incidentally, I drink coffee in a spill proof cup in my car.
But isn't it against the law to eat or drink while driving?

And race on race crime is ok, as long as it isn't White on Black crime...

:eek:

Do you really want to get into a debate of whether or not people choose to be poor? Really? Do you have the cojones to actually claim that people downright choose their places in life, through and through, and you're prepared to back it?

He doesn't have the stones physically or mentally to dance with you Kiv.

Hell the kid was out manuevered by a Speak and Spell his first day here.

Fandros

The coffee thing is fucked up. Every time I've seen someone buy a coffee from McDonald's it says quite clearly "CONTENTS ARE VERY FUCKING HOT, DO NOT SPILL ALL OVER YOURSELF". If the "poor lady" (dumbass) did not follow these directions it's really her own fault. How much can we be expected to hold these peoples' hands in life before they stop doing stupid shit?

The coffee thing is fucked up. Every time I've seen someone buy a coffee from McDonald's it says quite clearly "CONTENTS ARE VERY FUCKING HOT, DO NOT SPILL ALL OVER YOURSELF".

As to the whole "coffee lawsuit", I don't really have a dog in that hunt, but you do realize that those signs went up as a *result* of the lawsuit that has been mentioned, right?

Fil

Hi Fil! :D

Oh, and...McDonalds sucks! Except for the McFish.

Oh, something in the post made it seem recent, and I've seen those warnings for years.

That's almost equally depressing though. It's coffee, no shit it's hot. It shouldn't even need to be written.

I think everyone knows that coffee is usually served hot, but I doubt anyone would expect it to be so hot that they'd need to spend a week in a hospital receiving skin grafts as a result of a spill.

Except for the McFish

Once upon a time, when I was much younger, I spent 28 straight hours on a dock in Alaska making the stuff that goes into processed fish foods like McFish. It isn't the top of the list of things I would suggest eating. :p

Fil

Maybe if she hadn't tried to rip the top off while keeping it in an insexure position between her legs she wouldn't have been in the situation. Then she probably shouldn't have sat in the puddle of scalding liquid for 90 seconds.

The coffee as it was served to her was at a temperature where 3rd degree burns happen in 7 seconds, not 90. Contrary to popular belief, she wasn't in a moving car, and in fact wasn't a driver. The car was parked beside the side of the street while she opened it. It was 20 degrees hotter than coffee was supposed to be served at and had previously led to 3rd degree burns in 7 customers in the prior couple of years.

The woman went to McDonalds and asked for help paying for the medical bills, they'd paid for all 7 of the prior people. They declined so her only option was to take them to court. Was she somewhat liable? Yes. Was McDonalds liable too because they served a product that was even more dangerous than one would expect with full knowledge of what they were doing was dangerous. McDonald's sole reason for the heat of the coffee was that they wouldn't have to make as many pots of coffee during a day if it was kept hotter.

Eventually she won a sizable court settlement which was substantially reduced upon appeal. The money she was intially offered was actually a sum that the jury came up with. After the appeal and the settlement was reduced, after lawyer fees, she came out of it with about 180,000 usd and her medical bills were 60-70k.

(the story is from 50 miles east of where I live, I read up on it)

I read up on it after my first post. According to wikipedia, a lot of home coffee brewing machines prepare coffee to be the same temperature or higher. While the burns could have occurred in 7 seconds, the fact is she sat in the puddle for 90, probably increasing the damage. While the car wasn't moving, she was still in a bad position to be prying the top off a cup of coffee. She seems more at fault to me than McDonald's, but if others disagree it would appear to come down to opinion.

edit: In addition, the wikipedia says that there was already a warning on the cup, so whoever the retard was that left the rep, eat me :)

I'm not saying she wasn't at all to blame or not more so than McDonalds. All i'm saying is that McDonalds was partially to blame and had precidence for paying for these mishaps previously. If they'd settled with her for the medical bills, I would be willing to bet none of us would have ever heard about it.

I'll agree with that, but I think the absolute most she deserved was the medical bills paid.


edit: wow that sentence was butchered

I'll agree with that, but I think the absolute most she deserved was the medical bills paid.
That's all she wanted.

The jury gave her the larger judgment, completely without anyone's recommendation.

Right, and I think she should only have gotten part of that since it was largely her own fault. She got the whole thing and an extra hundred grand. That's whats annoying.

edit: In addition, the wikipedia says that there was already a warning on the cup
That's not the case.

If that's there, it's a little: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/16

Oh, ok. Usually wikipedia's pretty reliable, but I always say "The wikipedia says" instead of presenting it as solid fact :)

In this case, it says there was a warning, but it was ruled that it wasn't large enough or something to that extent.

Reminds me of an old Bloom County cartoon featuring ever-smarmy lawyer Steve Dallas, which went like so...

STEVE'S LAW TIPS
NUMBER 29
"WHO SHOULD I SUE?"

Good morning. Today's tip is on effective suing. Let's look at my own recent example...

On April 17th, the plaintiff, me, was brutally attacked by actor Sean Penn after I accidentally snapped a picture of him. The question: Who should I sue?...

...Sean? No. Juries love famous people. Plus, he'd probably return to beat up the plaintiff again. Never sue psychopathic celebrities.

...Sean's wife? No. True, living with Madonna might make most anyone irritable, but proving liability would be difficult. Plus, she too might return to beat up the plaintiff.

...Opus? No. Although he got the plaintiff into this mess, he's also dead broke. Never, never, never sue poor people.

...the Nikolta Camera Co.? Yes! A major corporation with gobs of liquid cash, it was criminally negligent in not putting stickers on their cameras which read, "Warning: Physical injury may result from photographing psychopathic Hollywood hotheads."

I plan to ask for $10 million. [waves flag madly] AMERICA! LAND OF THE LAWSUIT!! God bless her!!

-- from Billy and the Boingers Bootleg (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0316107298?v=glance), Berke Breathed, 1987

Time once again to review the winners of the Annual "Stella Awards." The Stella Awards are named after 81 year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's (in NM). That case inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous, ridiculous, successful lawsuits in the United States


Here are this year's winners:

5th Place (tie):
Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, was awarded $80,000. by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving little toddler was Ms. Robertson's son.

5th Place (tie):
19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.

5th Place (tie):
Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was leaving a house he had just finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was
malfunctioning. He couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation, and Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found, and a large bag of dry dog food. He sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The jury agreed, to the tune of $500,000.

4th Place:
Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas, was awarded $14,500. and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbor's beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might have been just a little provoked at the time by Mr. Williams who had climbed over the fence into the yard and was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.

3rd Place:
A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, $113,500. after she slipped on a soft drink and broke her coccyx (tailbone). The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.

2ndPlace:
Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, successfully sued the owner of a night club in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This occurred while Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the ladies room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge . She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses

1st Place:
This year's runaway winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mrs. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, (from an OU football game), having driven onto the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go into the back & make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the RV left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mrs.Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising her in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually do this. The jury awarded her $1,750,000. plus a new motor home. The company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit, just in case there were any other complete morons around.

The horrible thing about that post is that there were 12 fuckers out there that thought it was right to award these idiots money for their own stupidity. What they should have awarded them was a free trip to the Dr office to get castrated or tubes tied so they couldn't reproduce. Where's Darwin when we need him??

Snopes is your friend.

http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp

Frivolous lawsuits are a real problem. Making shit up doesn't help the cause.

LOL, Doh, that's what I get for trusting another message board :P

OH FRIGGIN HELL. I usually check that stuff when I get emails forwarded to me. I didn't think to do it this time. I got suckered.... :(

LOL, me too LOL, now watch L2 will come in here and ask about Thalidomide usage, rather than contribute something to the post.

Here sixee some more stuff you can post.


Also heres a link to a site (http://www.snopes.com)...be sure and only post the ones with the red ball next to them.


A large number of UPS uniforms have gone missing.
Please inform all properties to check ID's and be alert to "replacement" delivery personnel.
Please forward accordingly

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SECURITY ALERT: $32,000 worth of UPS uniforms have been purchased over the last 30 days by person(s) unknown. Law enforcement is working on the case however no suspect(s) have been indentified. Subjects may try to gain access by wearing one of these uniforms. If anyone has suspicions about a UPS delivery (i.e., no truck but driver, no UPS identification, etc., contact UPS to verify employment).
If you see or have seen a UPS delivery from an unknown driver please ask for proper ID and be alert to any suspicious packages or deliveries. Please notify building security or appropriate law enforcement.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There has been a huge purchase, $32,000.00 worth, of United Parcel Service (UPS) uniforms on eBay over the last (30) thirty days. This could represent a serious threat as bogus drivers can drop off anything to anyone with deadly consequences.
If you have any questions when a UPS driver appears at your door, they should be able to furnish valid I.D. Additionally, if someone in a UPS uniform comes to make a drop off or pick up, make absolutely sure they are driving a UPS truck. UPS does not make deliveries or pick ups in anything except company vehicles. If you have a problem, immediately call local law enforcement.
On 3/31/03 an alert was issued to UPS drivers. Drivers were asked to keep track of their uniforms and to dispose of same according to UPS guidelines.
Some of you may have already heard the above information, but I will keep sending out new alerts as I get them.

Well, if Rover posts it, it's gotta be good....