Maybe I'm wrong but I can't think of any other laws that permit something for some adults and not for others based on a fixed year of birth.

The helmet rule as far as I can remember differentiated between adults and underage people as far as I remember, which is far more common (and I support it being universally applied in any case). It also wasn't the law of the land!

This is just Hegseth embracing tradition: (armies dying of plague)

I'd still disagree with a total ban but at least it doesn't have the absurdity of some adults being treated legally different to others over the course of their lives.

But then why not a complete ban for all age groups? If the goal is denormalisation a system where the overwhelming majority of the population are still allowed to smoke for the next few decades doesn't seem like it will achieve that.

But why would that work where an existing ban on u16s wouldn't?

(Genuine question btw, I don't actually know how it's worked in NZ)

Does it actually work in NZ? Or is it just on the books in NZ? I cannot imagine a scenario where you can tell a 25 year old they can smoke and a 24-year-and-364-year-old they can't and not have that at best routinely ignored.

I absolutely agree this is what the Dems should be looking to do - I will say that Magyar is able to push this so aggressively in part because he has a legislative supermajority, which the Dems (probably) won't have.

Why do you think so? I've got a personal issue with banning substances regardless of my personal view of them (prohibition has never worked and imo people should be able to make these choices for themselves), but this creates the absurd situation where one adult can buy a cigarette and another can't

Ticket sales for Ireland's game against Scotland in the W6N break 20,000. Already double the previous record for an Ireland women home game. Still a few weeks to go.

Far too many people still smoke in Europe! But I actually think the current US and UK approach of targeted indoor bans and a general cultural change in attitude towards smoking are far more effective than widespread bans.

Open goal for Reform, which is part of my frustration with government for pushing this

Smoking ban for people born after 2008 in the UK agreed The

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Am not a smoker, don't like smoking, think it would be much better if everyone stopped smoking.

This is an absurd, unworkable, and essentially illiberal law that I can't believe has made it this far.

lol Mandy will absolutely have to resign in disgrace in the next 10 to 20 months

I have said this before but I am sympathetic to the constraints Labour have been operating under, and they've not been helped by constant geopolitical shocks. Which is why it has not helped that Starmer and co keep repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot and alienating their base.

Social media is a thing everywhere and that hasn't stopped other PMs in other countries lasting multiple terms. Maybe British PMs could stop being useless instead?

Starmer is where he is now because he doubled down on a deeply unpopular and obviously unsuccessful political strategy, with a couple of high-profile scandals thrown in. Like Julianna I do think the information environment provides a new challenge for PMs but it is not insurmountable.

Competing on multiple fronts as well with the Challenge Cup SF to come. I think they'll rotate heavily for Munster and hope to go big for the last few games.

3 of the current top 3 in their last 4 games, plus away to Munster. Rough. At least they're at home for Stormers and Glagow but I think they need to win at least one (and quite possibly two) of the remaining games to stay in the top 8. And injuries starting to pile up for them.

Give me chaos with Ed Milliband.

I know he lost a GE in 2015 he should have won, and was generally seen as unimpressive, but I kind of feel he could very plausibly argue that in retrospect the UK electorate got that one badly wrong.

I genuinely think Ed Milliband could win a general election and I'm not sure to what extent this is real and to what extent it's pure wishcasting.

I will die on the hill that The Artist was a genuinely good film and deserved the win, and that the film that was truly robbed the year before was 127 Hours.

the penne opticon

I think about this sometimes. About the families who endured the worst thing you could ever have to endure, and then had that compounded with torment and harassment for years, whipped up by Jones and his ilk making money by setting their lunatic followers on parents suffering unimaginable grief.

With the help of the Sandy Hook families, The Onion has reached a long-awaited deal to take over InfoWars.

We've enlisted the help of @timheidecker.bsky.social, who will be InfoWars' Creative Director.

Please stand by for more.

Instagram (and Facebook) have a real growing problem with it that's being worsened by Meta largely abandoning its former moderation policies

I don't think any social media is going to be free of it but personally I find Bluesky is much better for it even than pre-Elon twitter was. Course that could be because it's a smaller user base of people who are mainly broadly on the same side of the political spectrum.