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Feds announce much tougher e-cigarette, cigar rule
Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, says the rule announced Thursday falls short in protecting children because it doesn’t restrict the use of sweet e-cigarette flavors such as gummy bear and cotton candy even though the FDA’s own data shows flavors play a big role in youth use.
Industry experts say treating e-cigarettes, which don’t contain tobacco, the same as cigarettes could lead to such onerous and costly approval that all but the largest tobacco companies would be forced out of the market — and possibly those companies too. Zeller says he expects consolidation in the number and type of products and vape shops.
The Tobacco Control Act requires the FDA to use science to weigh the potential benefits of e-cigarettes against any potential health risk, for both the individual users and the whole population, which Stier says would be all but impossible.
That could force e-cigarette smokers back to regular cigarettes, he says.
E-cigarettes help people trying to quit smoking, says Patricia Kovacevic, general counsel and chief compliance officer at e-cigarette manufacturer Nicopure. She and other e-cigarette advocates cited a Royal College of Physicians’ report last week that showed e-cigarettes’ benefits.
Wells Fargo: FDA E-Cigarette Regs Are Good For Big Tobacco
Since almost all vapor products on the market were released after February, 2007, hardly any will avoid a PMTA and almost no businesses, with the exception of big tobacco companies, will be able to bear the regulatory burden.According to the FDA’s own analysis, the costs of a PMTA are so high approximately 99 percent of products on the market won’t even be put through the process.“Our main concern is that these final deeming regs could realistically stifle innovation, which could dramatically slow industry growth by dis-incentivizing consumer conversion from combustible cigs,” says Herzog.
Source:
Step 1: Create onerous regulations that stifle innovation, remove effective products from the shelves, and consolidate industry leaving only Big Tobacco Standing. Ban any language suggesting any health benefits or that it may be an effect aid to smoking cessation.
Step 2: Use the fact that the only remaining ecigarette companies are tobacco companies as further proof that the products are part of a nefarious Big Tobacco plot.
Step 3: Regulate further. Use the fact that all ecigarette marketing is geared towards things other than health as evidence that it’s all about hooking non-smokers.
Step 4: Let Big Tobacco continue selling their crappy products, inducing few people to quit smoking.
Step 5: Point out that non-smokers are barely switching to ecigarettes anymore, and it’s all about young people. Double down by banning all flavoring except tobacco flavoring.
Step 6: Use the fact that ecigarettes are all manufactured to taste like real cigarettes as proof that it’s all a big gateway effort by Big Tobacco, which as we know are behind all of the (remaining) ecigarette companies.
Step 7: Declare victory, and allow those smokers that could not quit in a way sufficiently inspiring to die.
Lyman Stone wants you to know that Oklahoma City is America and San Jose is not. It’s all America, of course, but some places are more representative than others. (Wasilla, of course, is not especially representative.)
Utah’s tech community is making some waves, and some people don’t like it.
I tend to be sympathetic to second-tier schools that want to hold on to their athletics programs, but Eastern Michigan is one of the few I simply can’t find much justification for. Their senate faculty agrees.
Johannes Haushofer got some publicity for his CV of failures, the degree programs and academic positions he was rejected for. It’s meant to inspire a keep-at-it attitude. Anna Peak has a more dour one.
I once had a(n IT!) job that was so miserably boring that we would draw straws to see who got to sweep the floors, so while I don’t approve of this lawsuit I can sort of understand the trauma.
As the “Public Health” community comes to a consensus that ecigarettes are a menace to be contained, some are still fighting the good fight. Kevin Fenton of Public Health England gives them a relatively clean bill of health.
Ross Douthat’s piece on conservatism’s defeat is worth reading.
First there was polygyny, then came STDs, then came monogamy.
Laurie DeRose writes of the increasing costs of cohabitation.
IJR looks at where, when, and how women experience street harassment.
Sweden is experiencing white flight.
Online dating fifty years ago?
What the Jurassic World may have really looked like.
Lifehacker debunks some traffic ticket myths. Some of them aren’t myths so much as “A lawyer might be able to do it, but you are less likely to.” Like Marco Rubio, I hired a traffic lawyer who got me out of a ticket where I was pretty clearly guilty.
America Is Finally Putting Home Foreclosure Crisis Behind It
It’s taken nine years, but the number of U.S. homes in foreclosure has fallen to a level not seen since before the 2008 housing crisis.
More troubled borrowers are making their way through the foreclosure process, which can take more than five years on average in some states. The number of properties in active foreclosure declined by 24,000 to 631,000 in March, according to Black Knight Financial Services. That’s the lowest since October 2007. Neighborhoods across the country were in the coming years flooded with more than 2 million notices from banks.
The wave of foreclosures crested in 2010 when banks seized a record 1.2 million properties and served even more with notices of default, auction or repossession. People suffering from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression just “mailed their keys to the banks and just said ‘take it’,” said Ben Graboske, a chief technology officer at Black Knight.
The huge inventory of foreclosures has taken years for lenders and borrowers to work through. “We are finally getting back to a very clean slate,” Graboske said.
What could possibly go wrong? pic.twitter.com/0LO3CStW8F
— Will Truman (@trumwill) May 1, 2016
Profs: violates ADA for banks to consider poor credit history if poor financial choices result of mental illness. https://t.co/eYPSjcNCbV
— tedfrank (@tedfrank) May 1, 2016
What if he’s stuck with Ted Cruz?
It’s unlikely that Trump would choose Ted Cruz. There seems to be some genuine animus there. And beyond that, Ted Cruz would be a poor running mate on any ticket. Most politicians will do what they believe is best for them, but Cruz seems particularly inclined that what’s best for him is not to play along. For Trump in particular, Cruz doesn’t add much to the ticket that would really help Trump all of that much. Trump in particular wants people beside him that he would consider loyal, and that’s not Cruz. He would likely rather have a more submissive Chris Christie (words I never thought I would put together) than Ted Cruz.
The thing is, it may not entirely be up to Donald Trump.
Ahhh, but as you are reading in the papers, the Establishment is lining up behind Trump as we speak! That’s an overstatement, but it’s likely that after Indiana (if it goes Trump’s way) and before the nomination, most will. Not liking Cruz to begin with, they’d be hard-pressed to sign on to this idea.
The thing is, it may not entirely be up to them, either.
If and when Trump wins the nomination, it’s likely to be because he wins on the first round, with the votes of delegates who don’t support him but have to vote for him due to convention rules (and, in some cases, state laws). They are not bound to him for Vice President. Technically, the vice presidential selection doesn’t belong to the presidential nominee. This is a distinction without a difference because the party will almost always pick who the nominee wants. Trump, though, is an unusual nominee. Further, it’s entirely possible that Cruz will have more delegates loyal to him than Trump does to him. They get some pressure from the party, but they are not obligated to listen to it. And since the party itself doesn’t care that much for Trump, and are conflicted, it’s not clear that they’re going to go nuclear on Trump’s behalf in any event. And if Cruz has the delegates, there’s a pretty clear path here.
Now, theoretically, with that kind of delegate count, Cruz might be able to get them to change the rules and prevent Trump from getting the nomination altogether. This is theoretically possible, but I suspect they are not that loyal to Cruz, and unlike with the VP selection there may even be some legal recourse there. The Vice Presidental nomination, though, is pretty clear cut.
The main reason this wouldn’t happen is because Cruz probably doesn’t want to spend his political capital for so meager a prize. Not just a meager prize, but one that could actually hurt him more than help him apart from any political capital spent. If Trump were to choose him, he’d probably be more wise to decline than accept. Indications are that other higher-profile candidates (Rubio, Kasich, Haley) are poised to themselves decline.
Cruz’s calculations could be different, however, and mine could be wrong. It’s more likely than not that Cruz is going to run again in 2020. It’s often the case that the second strongest candidate in the previous round becomes the frontrunner in the next, but Cruz has a rougher road than most given the sheer animosity that the party has for him. Sneaking into the VP slot seems like it wouldn’t help, but it would keep his name out there and make it so that his failure to take Trump down isn’t the last thing people remember about him. He would become even more the “default” choice in an environment where party leadership can’t seem to decide much of anything. There’s something to be said for that.
Beyond that, he would be the first free agent Vice Presidential nominee ever. He wouldn’t owe Trump anything, and could expressly act in his own interest. He could use his platform to criticize his nominee in a way that Paul Ryan couldn’t and wouldn’t. Ordinarily that’s not such a big deal, but with Trump it could well be. If things go really south with Trump, as is not unlikely, Cruz could effectively distance himself him and become the standard-bearer for “real Republicans” by setting up a contrast. I’d have to evaluate the state laws, but Cruz could end up with more electoral college votes than Trump if he can pull faithless electors the same way he has convention delegates.
And though extremely, extremely unlikely, he could actually end up the presidential nominee! Though it would be unheard of, this is the year of unheard of things. There is a non-zero chance that in the middle of October, Trump pulls a Ross Perot and leaves the race. He may rather quit than lose, and if he quits he can claim that Crooked Hillary was going to steal the election and live out his life as a martyr. Alternately, Hillary Clinton may be able to tap into the something that he simply can’t get out of.
It’s difficult to say what, precisely, would happen if a nominee did pull out of an election at a late date. The court rulings are mixed, except insofar as they almost always seem to align with what the Democrats want. My guess is that most states would allow Trump’s name to be replaced. By whom? The vice presidential nominee would have the strongest claim. Even in states that wouldn’t allow the GOP to pull Trump’s name, at least Cruz’s name would be on the ballot.
Personally, I think that anyone who wants a future ought to distance themselves as far away from Trump as possible, and that includes being even a renegade VP pick. The party, however, appears poised to go in a different direction. Maybe Cruz, too. Though I doubt it will happen, I suspect Cruz has actually considered the matter. Right now, though, he may be more concerned with holding on to the delegates he has.
Kevin Drum explains why he never warmed up to Bernie Sanders, while Greg Sargent says lay off. Drum responds.
Henry Scanlon’s reasoning on why conservative women are so pretty seems rather specious. But the stereotype does comport with my experience, provided that we are gauging by conventional attractiveness. I have some theories, but none that I can really articulate.
Emmett Rensin’s followup to his original Vox piece on smug liberalism is worth a read. It’s still remarkable to me how many people read his original piece with the objection “Why do we have to be nice to bigots!” when that was very far from what he was saying.
Sheila Tone has written extensively on why she believes Lara Logan is a fraud, but she’s front-and-center on this story about bad folks raping and beating of female journalists abroad.
In the fight on copyright, Noah Berlatsky says that Google is just the champion that we need.
Hey men, marry a smart woman! Your lucidity will thank you for it.
Shaun Brown’s explanation for why men are attracted to crazy has a ring of truth to it.
James Ovenden on the hopes, fears, and weirdness of AI-driven sex.
One of the impressive things from my time as a phone jockey was how call centers really do take all comers.
Let’s see, no backbone and a sense of impending doom. I think the successor to the GOP has found its new mascot!
Weasel 1, Hadron Collider 0.
This reminded me of how surprised I was that they didn’t change the name of House Slithryn to House Snape or House Dumbledore or something.
Texas loves breakfast tacos. How much? More than 400x as much as the rest of the country.
In the online dating world, having an enhanced photo makes you more trustworthy to women, but less trustworthy to men.
Charles Krauthammer explains why doctors are quitting.
AMC theaters were toying with the notion of allowing texting in theaters. The response was overwhelmingly negative, and so they ditched the idea pretty quickly.
Which I actually think might be a shame.
To be clear, I completely understand why people don’t want other people texting or fiddling with their phones during movies. I can definitely understand the visceral reaction that a lot of people had. Further, I myself have no particular desire to text in theaters. I wouldn’t mind, however, being able to get on IMDB and finding out who that actress is who looks so familiar. Three minutes on the smartphone can get me undistracted from the rest of the movie!
It’s not that, when I first heard the idea, that I had my heart set on it. I can also pretty easily imagine a constant beeping and buzzing being a distraction from the film. So i’m not entirely sure whether it’s an option that I would take advantage of or not. It is something I might want to try.
The original plan was not to roll it out in every theater, so consumers would have the option of going to a texting showing or a non-texting showing. Enforcement may be a problem, but the theater was willing to take that on. So why not give it a try and see what develops?
A lot of bad publicity is why not, apparently.
Venezuelans may be surprised about their rolling blackouts, but maybe they should celebrate their new two day workweek and remember that, according to Linda Poon it was the result of their economic success.
It looks like the media has decided that hidden cameras are okay again.
A relatively straightforward (and helpful!) explanation of why the SpaceX barge landing was so significant.
Reading books about architecture isn’t something I would just go out and do, but woah brutalism!
I want to swim in this pool more than I have ever wanted to swim in any pool in my entire life. And I have a mild fear of heights!
The sex life of the college crowd is not as dramatic as we are lead to believe.
The University of Chicago has reformed their speech codes, much to the satisfaction of FIRE.
So, if it pans out, what do we do with the knowledge that a college education is a worthwhile investment for the kids of the wealthy but not the kids of the poor?
It’s a good thing that Ordinary Times is not housed in Estonia, on the whole I think there’s more to like about President Toomas Henrik than to dislike.
Europeans ponder the question of why Europe have a comparable tech industry. I’m just old enough to remember when phones were used by a certain kind of lefty as indicative of how Americans are not as great and innovative as we think we are.
My wife has some very, very strong opinions on Meaningful Use. I… can’t remember the last time she went on about something uninterrupted for half-an-hour.
TA Frank explains how the Democrats are becoming the party of the 1%.
Since he won a plurality, we pretty much have to name this elementary school after Donald Trump, right?
Rachel Cunliffe says that we shouldn’t celebrate Brazil President Dilma Rousseff’s fall from power because it is, in the end, a case of selective prosecution.
Whether a wealthy city or a poor one, California is an awful place to save money. Texahoma, on the other hand…
Matt Shapiro’s piece on twitter journalism is worth a read. In the age of social media, you can find someone that will confirm just about any cardboard cut-out.
While Dan Scotto and I (and CK Macleod) resist it, Nate Silver reports that Trump’s arguments on the (un)fairness of the GOP primary is winning.
I’m increasingly thinking that a lot of the Title IX rape-handling policies instituted by universities aren’t going to survive court challenges.
Some people were up-in-arms about the guy who got into a lot of trouble for having the Trump flag/sign. But while I typically don’t like such ordinances, isn’t this a pretty clear-cut violation of a fair (if wrong-headed) ordinance?
Not that I am presently in the market, but this is kind of encouraging.
Emmett Rensin’s article on the smug style of liberalism was received by all quarters about as you would expect it to be. BSDI, but not in equal measure.
In one sense, it’s not clear that this is any different than “roughing it” by going camping. Wait… I’m not big on camping either. So really, it’s just kind of weird.
Harriet Tubman, American badass.
Oh, thank goodness. For a second there, I’d thought that the Republican primary had spiraled out of control.
RIP, Friends of Abe.
Let us join in the unity of our disdain for Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
The average Millennial is not exactly what you would expect from reading the New York Times (or, for that matter, The Atlantic).
On the one hand, having tiers of citizenship may well make allowing more immigrants in easier. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem like an enduring solution and is rife with problems. For whatever reason, I respond to this the same way some people respond to “regional visas” even though the arguments are kind of similar.
There is more encapsulated in this article about megacities than I think even the author may realize. It is, in essence, a latent confirmation of a vague paranoia about globalism, transnationalism, and those left behind.
As we all know, this is pretty much true. On the other hand, if we’re being honest, never is a Republican suburb more emphatic in its support of the environment as when it has an environmental impact report on the precarious state of Argentinian Garden Snake where that Section 8 housing is slated to go.
Artwork by Zontal
Over There, have a post about complaints about The Whiteness of Westeros. If Hollywood diversity, or Game of Thrones, is your thing, feel free to check it out. You can comment about it here if you prefer. Over here I wanted to talk about something I glide over in that post.
Ross Douthat has a mini-tweetstorm about some of the less “realistic” aspects of Game of Thrones. The whole thing is below, but this is the one that sets the stage for most of what is to follow:
3. The author makes a very fair point: Martin's Westeros is clearly based on the British Isles, but at 100 times their scale.
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) April 25, 2016
Ultimately, you just have to ignore the scale. Everything he says about the amazing homogeneity for a place of that scale is true. But that’s only the beginning of the problems that it presents.
Though he goes on to talk about the remarkable political stability of the dynasties on Westeros, that’s only a part of the dynastic problem. The bigger problem is that there is simply no way for one royal family to maintain control over a land more than twice as large as the US (including Alaska) without an army of dragons. As soon as the dragons died off, everything would have crumbled. Since the Targaryens didn’t intermarry much, they wouldn’t have even been able to count on that sort of loyalty. The Barratheons might have had a little more success, but most likely as soon as the Targaryens were gone they’d be looking at a formal confederacy (where the king is trying to stay in the good graces of the regions rather than the other way around) or perpetual war as they tried to hold on to multiple would-be kingdoms breaking off at once.
Many other aspects of the story also wouldn’t have worked, with trips taking days or weeks in Westeros that would have taken years across South America. There are so many things about the story that work with something roughly the size of Great Britain that don’t work with something the size of South America that by far the path of least resistence is to assume that the there was an error in translation.
The size serves next to no purpose story-wise other than feeding into Martin’s sense of gradiosity. The figure itself was derived by calculating the size of The Wall. It’s easier to simply imagine that the size of the wall was a miscalculation.
And here’s Ross’s tweetstorm:
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