Gotta love a target-rich environment, and that’s what this NBC News story provides: Fat-shaming may curb obesity, bioethicist says.

It's hard to know which is more breathtaking about the "Center for Consumer Freedom," its intellectual dishonesty or its harebrained reasoning. Either way, the come across so often as devoted idiots.

Yes, that makes me the chronicler of idiots, which I hope won't be my epitaph. But someone has to call out their crap, lest it be allowed to stand as fair, rational, logical discourse.

The "tobacco playbook" is legend among capitalists, especially those who want to keep selling a product that clearly has adverse health effects for those who buy it. And it should be, considering that for decades after it was clear that ingesting tobacco or its smoke was noxious, the playbook made it possible for companies to continuing with relatively few curbs, and tobacco continues to be sold even today.

Playbook practices include lying, delaying, misdirecting, and obstructing at every turn. Such tactics have nothing to do with claiming right or virtue, two concepts you want to have on your side but are all but meaningless when you're in the trenches. I've always thought this lesson has been much better taken in by conservatives vs. liberals, and capitalists vs. crusaders.

I've discussed the topic before, so why bring up this topic again? Because the forces of sugary soda are deploying them again, according to Reuters. Read on.

A reaction to the USDA's "MyPlate" concept, which replaces the failed "food pyramid" for communicating what we should eat in a simple way, that I've seen several times is that the next chore of food and nutrition advocates is to get federal agriculture subsidies to mirror federal advice for what we should eat.

In this dispatch from foodnavigator-usa.com, the soda industry is reported to complain that New York City's effort to bar food stamps' use for sugary beverages is discriminatory.

To which I say, "Of course it is! But what's your point?"

"I am dealing with an office full of people that bring in desserts to share. I'm not having luck convincing them that this is as bad as smoking in the office. One woman brings in brownies every week, has been asked by the manangers not to, and she still continues. Any suggestions?"

I wrote about this reader query in my previous post, but I wanted to come back to it.

FoodNavigator-USA.com reports on a Brazilian writer's commentary that assigns three levels to food processing and blames the "ultra" level for much of diet-related obesity. It's a foreign idea to most people, I think, but shouldn't be.

Can I just say it's exciting to disagree with someone of a different stripe for a change? The someone in question is George Miranda, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Joint Council 16, which represents 120,000 workers in greater New York. I assume, totally without facts, that he and I might be on the same side of many issues. But not today.

I will eventually get tired of skewering the skippies over at the "Center for Consumer Freedom," but not just yet. They are the "independent" nonprofit whose funding comes from restaurants and food-products companies.

Their website says they are also funded by thousands of individual consumers, but I don't believe it. I shouldn't say that, not only because it's impolitic, and not only because I have no proof, but because they'll seize on a comment like that, rather than straightforwardly address the very substantive ways in which I contend that they twist facts and truth. My disbelief lies in common sense: Thousands of Americans are donating their money to the people-should-be-able-to-eat-whatever-they-want movement? It that principle in jeopardy? Meanwhile, let's consider the restaurants and food-products people. Does anyone doubt that they would spend their money to advocate for food freedom? They don't need principle to motivate them; their entire future is based on ensuring that nothing ever impedes their sales.

I could go on with all the background bullshit, but let's take a look at their piece of yesterday, March 31, headlined "Waving the white flag on personal responsibility?" which is full of their usual half-baked inanities.

But I want to start with a shout out to my poor addled brothers: I, too, believe in personal responsibility. Even when I was 365 pounds, mired in food addiction, I was completely responsible for what I put in my mouth. Completely.

Unless this is your first visit here, you know that I am convinced that food addiction exists, and that I reserve high dudgeon for the medical establishment for not understanding what I know to be true. (Feel free to make your own judgments about the know-it-all texture of that; I’m not unaware of them.)

They’ve recognized substance use disorders involving tobacco, alcohol, amphetamines, and myriad other chemical dependencies. But not food, not yet.