Smoking is already on a consistent, significant decline in the UK.

Risking a black market (let’s be clear actually - definitely causing one) hardly seems worth a possible increased rate of decline.

In countries that are not the US, they just don’t stand for that shit and make it illegal.

Go to jail, cunt.

The government was loathe to prosecute this, so I’m sure they have a heavy stack of evidence on it and confidence they’d win before they proceeded to file suit.

Sounds about right.

Except, that they did.

“In line with the ceasefire in Lebanon, the passage for all commercial vessels through Strait of Hormuz is declared completely open for the remaining period of ceasefire,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a post on X on Friday.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/17/iran-foreign-minister-says-strait-of-hormuz-completely-open

Am I a liar?

Are Al Jazeera’s reporters liars?

Is Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi lying by declaring it?

What is your angle here.

Edit: lol “downvote all you want” they write, after adding a bunch of qualifications to their extremely inaccurate and inflammatory post that was easily debunked.

In the meantime since the declaration yesterday, dozens of tankers went through the Strait, illustrating it was open. Then the USA intercepted several of them… And now Iran has declared it closed again, exactly as they said they would if the tankers were intercepted. So now, as of 20 minutes ago, Iran has declared it closed again.

slow clap again for the US, and the fine leadership they’ve voted in twice now

Approximately zero, because these are successful political leaders that have had to work with many people they don’t fully agree with during their careers.

Here’s a meta-analysis of 92 studies showing overall a benefit for using digital tooling in classes.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131520300968

The issue of attention spans in the new generation is far more to do with what kids do in their spare time than at school. What’s wrong is the home environment where ipad/phone/laptop are the babysitter, entertainer, and nanny for every moment of still. Eating, resting, playing.

OK let’s use anecdotal evidence if that’s where value apparently lies. I have kids and they have read about 50 books a year every year. They both have had limited time on devices since early age (1 hour a day max scaling up to now with a couple hours as they got older). They use TV freely as it had little impact to early generations attention spans. 0 attention span issues. They use digital tech in school. They are both in the maths/science extension classes and doing great academically, and they’ve had no tutoring etc - just school and their homework. I’m Australia if that makes a difference.

Yes, writing helps with retention - however, writing was never removed from teaching. This is a hard knee-jerk reaction to remove all digital tech possible from schooling.

Kids attention spans lowering has has little to do with teaching and everything to do with parents giving their kids devices as babysitters from an early age. Mealtimes: ipad, bored? Ipad. Bus? Iphone. Car? IPad.

Fix that? No, let’s instwad remove almost all the tech from schooling, which will affect ~1/9th of their waking hours.

Good luck, Sweden. Sincerely.

So, Sweden’s scores dip a little in literacy & math - while a hundred other variable changes occur in life - and the conservative government decides the cause is digital technology, and to go all in on abandoning digital to return to 50s teaching methodology. With no evidence to base this decision on beyond a hunch that the traditional way is best (in fact, some evidence to the contrary).

Yep, sounds about right.