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Either that or they've had about 20 people vote yes, and only yes, in the past half hour.

And there's an easy way to cheat. Use Internet Explorer to vote, then use Firefox (repeat for every browser you have), then clear your cookies and do it again.

Either that or their mail campaign is working. Democracy never works <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->

I wouldn't get too worked up over an on-line poll, they're not worth a curse. You'd get more reliable voting in Florida.

&amp;quot;Poc&amp;quot;:rhvwsvg0 wrote: I would get too worked up over an on-line poll, they're not worth a curse.[/quote:rhvwsvg0]But when a press release says "Most publicans support mandatory minimum prices for alcohol" there's a danger some people might believe it. "If a lie is repeated often enough..." and all that.

I was reminded of this thread after reading this[/url:14spawbs] in the Times today.

If the article is a fair representation of the facts it looks like we may have been reasonably accurate with our "it'll change nowt" prediction.

Not nearly as accurate as this prediction however:

&amp;quot;TheBeerNut&amp;quot;:14spawbs wrote: They'll be coming after the sausages next, mark my words.[/quote:14spawbs]

&amp;quot;Poc&amp;quot;:2o0dyt6h wrote: Not nearly as accurate as this prediction however[/quote:2o0dyt6h]I know. I'm scared too.

Nice to see Dave from the Porterhouse getting his spake in in that article, though he does beg the question [i:2o0dyt6h]why[/i:2o0dyt6h] he's charging twenty notes into Lillies, instead of making it the PH Central late bar.

This is yet another case of complex problems having solutions that are simple, straightforward ... and wrong. As the Irish Times article documented, the new law seems to have done little to abate the problems it claimed to address and created a new raft of problems in its wake.

There's a part of me that gets a little socially Darwinian about this sort of thing. A certain proportion of people have always had issues with self-control, aggressiveness, and delusions of invulnerability as they pass through their late teens and twenties, and alcohol consumption seems to heighten these effects. No laws or rules have ever been able to, nor, I believe, will any bright new ideas be able to put a truly significant dent into this problem. The best we can do is try to limit the collateral damage to themselves and others.

There are points of diminishing returns where overly restrictive laws and taxes no longer address the problem and simply provide the black market with the opportunity to charge outrageous prices to provide cheap services simply because fairly innocuous behaviours are prohibited or taxed to annihilation. The lessons learned by the US in the wake of the prohibition era are being perpetually forgotten and re-learned here as well as in other jurisdictions.