> The most notorious of these are ads for prescription medicines. Now, a lot of the ads out for prescription medication actually do try to sell the product. But how many times do you see an ad saying "Ask your doctor about ", and they don't even tell you what the pill is FOR? Idiocy.

Actually, there is a reason they do this (though I still find it completely inane): If they actually mention what the pill is *for* in addition to its name, by law, they have to run through that long, Happy-Fun-Ball-esque list of side effects. Supposedly, though, from what I recall, if they mention the purpose of the pill but *not* its name, they can get away with skipping the side effects. Of course, that means that the doctor may pick the pill that's not being advertised...but it *still* makes more sense to me than mentioning the name and not the purpose...

-- codeman"chock full of useless knowledge"38