I was having dinner with a group of mensans once and the subject of emergency room visits in NYC came up. I read once that at that time the main reason for them was people cutting their hands while slicing their bagels. Most of the group agreed that there should be a warning on the bagels.

I was incredulous. But now I'm thinking something like this: Please soak your knife in cyanide before attempting to cut this bagel and be sure to cut towards your gut, or failing that, towards your carotid artery. After that, be sure to play chicken with the knife.

There is, I think, a serious problem with all this nonsense that goes beyond lawsuits. We are constantly bombarded with data and we can only process the very smallest fraction of it. Our minds get quickly trained to ignore stuff, because most of it is useless - and so people ignore things that they really shouldn't because amidst all the obvious blatherings is once small, important factoid.