Andy9o8

I think it's a safe bet that you're well outside the demographic cohort that is the target audience of that haircut. That would be the same target audience that has given him a net worth of $160 million, btw. It's NBC news, not a small local paper. Beiber is big news, so they're going to put some resources into it. And they're probably not all seasoned staff-level writers; maybe some of them are rookies or interns or journalism students. Also, each of them probably made phone calls to different sources, and the story is an aggregate of what was learned or confirmed from each person's source(s), so all of them got by-line credit.

Yeah, ok, we're done here.

Based on the four threads (so far) you've created today, I have to ask you (although I doubt you'll answer truthfully): How old are you?

I don't believe all that. If the pilots had to don oxygen masks to keep from getting stoned, they would most assuredly have filed charges on the little ol' BOY. I think the whole story is a crock. If everything that was reported actually happened, they most assuredly filed charges on the lot of them. BUT, they declined to press any charges. Yet if this actually took place, the homeland security agents would have arrested all involved, they wouldn't have asked the cute little stewardess and pilots if they wanted to press charges. I'm calling foul on the whole ignorant story. BUT then again, I wasn't there, was anyone else here there? Remember here say is non admissible in a court of law! Best- Richard The pilots didn't wear masks to keep from getting stoned, they wore them out of fear of ingesting even a minute amount into their bloodstreams that might later show up on the drug screenings they must undergo for their employment. I was at a small party recently. One of the guests was a guy who works as a heavy-machinery safety supervisor at a factory. He has to undergo regular drug screenings for his job. When one of the other guests pulled out a joint and lit up, he quickly scurried out onto the patio, to avoid breathing in even a tiny amount of fumes. The risk was very real to him, and he was pretty pissed that the other person didn't ask first ("If I can smell it, that means I've ingested it."). Re: evidence, the article is unclear as to whether every bag and piece of luggage, as well as the toilet-wast hopper, was or was not thoroughly searched. But if the agents found no physical evidence of marijuana other than the obvious smell, they could easily have made the on-scene judgment that that was insufficient evidence to arrest only some people on that (private) plane, as opposed to arresting all of them, including the crew. So yes, on its face, it does seem more or less credible to me.

The ad in post #10 happened to me once yesterday and again today.

I dunno why, but I find it disquieting that the website misspells "cadaver".

I guess in the end they sell nothing but aspirin. Sort of a pharmaceutical singularity.

no downside if you're not a smoker. The peasants have no cigarettes? Let them smoke cigars.

Third time I'll say this: one step at a time. Ciggies is a first step, it's a good thing, and it really has little or no down side.

Was there such a pressure campaign re: CVS & tobacco? I wasn't aware one way or the other, and my Googlish seems inconclusive. Nonetheless, I will say that when a merchant aggressively markets itself as one thing - in CVS's case, as a "health and wellness destination" - I, personally, resent it when they display such blatant hypocrisy as to sell tobacco in their stores. And I will express that resentment by voting accordingly with my feet and my wallet. I suppose that is a kind of pressure: the pressure of the marketplace. So as far as I'm concerned, pharmacies that sell ciggies are making their own beds.

There was a time when people could distinguish between the taste of Columbian, Mexican, Jamaican, Blonde, Panama Red, etc. So I'm told.

Interesting poll there, "Boogers".

I say again, you gotta start somewhere, and a good thing is still a good thing, no matter how you spin it. They're removing the one particular hypocrisy of selling tobacco poison in a store ostensibly dedicated to health and wellness. There's no down side to that. The fact that they may have farther to go doesn't negate that. Oh, and btw, there are lots of US states in which alcohol sales in places like CVS is not permitted by that state's liquor laws.

That's silly. I linked the entire chart. Using simply the aggregated EU is artificial. Each country has its own health plan, and its economy is not 100% synonymous with the aggregate EU economy. Compare as many industrialized countries to the US as you wish. I stand by my point.

Plate of goods coming up.... Per Capita GDP USA-$51,704 Per Capita GDP EU $31,571 Figures are from the IMF for 2012 http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?order=wbapi_data_value_2012+wbapi_data_value+wbapi_data_value-last&sort=asc 2009 2010 2011 2012 ------------------------------------------------------ United States 46,999 48,358 49,854 51,749 Canada 39,659 46,212 51,554 52,219 Sweden 43,640 49,360 56,755 55,041 Denmark 56,227 56,486 59,889 56,326 Australia 42,551 51,746 62,126 67,556 Switzerland 65,790 70,370 83,087 78,925 Norway 78,457 86,156 99,143 99,558 Luxembourg 99,282 102,009 111,813 103,828

Gotta start somewhere...uh..."Boogers".

That's so racist.

Pffft. Sloganeering. Show me the goods.

Pffft. A good thing is a good thing.

Looks like we should give credit where credit is due when a large, publicly-traded for-profit corporation puts ethical social responsibility on the front burner. It's always bugged me that pharmacy chains that hold themselves out as "wellness centers" - replete with mini-clinics, etc. - stock dozens of brands of tobacco poison behind the cashier's counter. This is overdue, but I'll take it. Are their competitors listening? http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-cvs-caremark-cigarettes-tobacco-20140205,0,6663810.story#axzz2sTSsLwEP

Yep, and I also understand the technique of cherry-picking. That's why I made a point of phrasing my post broadly enough that cherry-picking would be non-responsive.

The Chicken Littles are - so predicatbly! - saying this will bring to the surface a whole new cohort of people who will be lazy-ish because they no longer have to rely on F/T employment for health coverage. Of course, the logical extension of that reasoning would have to presuppose that, compared to the US, that pervasive laziness is already the rule and not the exception in every OTHER modern, affluent industrialized nation on Earth, since the US is the only nation in that category that does not already have a universal national health care program. Show me the evidence that that's really the case, and I'll listen. Until then, I'm not impressed with the argument.

But those lines shift depending on age, development of judgment, experience, maturity. Here - hold my beer and watch This.

Absolutely. I never discuss politics at the DZ. I'm there to jump & socialize, period. Keeps it simple.

It's like salted peanuts, isn't it? Or maybe heroin.