The employee argument is retarded. I've been friends with alot of bartenders and waitresses and every single one of them was a smoker.

These militant non-smokers are just like the religious right. They don't think you should do something so they're perfectly willing to take away your freedom of choice to do it, using whatever excuse they can. They don't really care about your health or your soul (respectively), they just don't like the fact that people are doing things they don't approve of.

"I still don't get how BB readers are such strong civil liberties supporters, but they don't support people being allowed to smoke, or property owners allowing people to smoke on their personal property. ...."

It's interesting, isn't it? I don't think they even realize the doublethink going on there.

oops... please substitute "you're" for the first "your" in the above post.

"Oh, I totally agree - the sheer gall of the man, thinking he could wear any kind of hairstyle he wanted, he totally should have had his hair cut short and straightened, and perhaps a good skin lightening treatment, right?"

Actually a skin darkening treatment would more likely be in order to fit in in the UAE, especially if your referring to the swiss guy.

The "shady and suspicious" guy has a point, do you think that they care about your inalienable rights in the UAE? Do you think they respect your freedom of expression? You go running around spouting crap like that to them and they'll happily toss you in jail. If I had to go there I'd stay as far under the radar as I possibly could.

Surprised nobody posted a link to this yet--

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html

Best episode of Nova Ive seen

Im not too worried about it not being testable yet. It took 20 years for technology to advance enough to detect background radiation and prove that the big bang theory was right. This might take a little while too.