A judge in Los Angeles ruled Wednesday that Starbuck's, Peet's, and many other retailers face potentially massive liability under California law for not warning consumers that naturally occurring substances in roasted coffee beans can cause cancer, at least in lab animals. Absurd? Outrageous? Yes. But the scorn and outrage should be directed not at the judge but at the law whose terms he was required to enforce – Proposition 65, adopted by state voters through the initiative process in 1986 – as well as the lawyer-swayed California political system that still, more than 30 years later, is unwilling to address the measure's gross flaws.