Here are my problems with the story. Instead of using one match, are the soldiers supposed to use two? Wouldn't the double light-up be more obvious to a sniper? How are four or more soldiers supposed to light up, without one losing his head? Also, does this practice extend to lighters or is it only matches? If this were an effective practice against night-time snipers, shouldn't the guideline be more like "no flames for more than 5 seconds out of each minute", or however long it takes for a sniper to lose aim?

I feel more like it's a retro-fitting of a plausible mechanism onto a superstition, rather than an explanation of how it came to be. Nearly all of the WWI accounts I found about this practice considered it a common superstition, not an anti-sniper rule-of-thumb.

I just did a text search for "three cigarettes" and "match" at archive.org. I can confirm that the references to this practice didn't start until WWI and with soldiers. However, almost all of the WWI accounts refer to it as a wide-spread superstition and not an anti-sniper practice. For some examples: "Ladies from Hell" (1918) p73 referring to the Battle for Lille in 1914 has "The older men recounted many of the ancient trench superstitions — how it is bad luck to light three cigarettes with the same match."; "Runaway Russia" (1918) p77 describes British soldiers at the Hotel Astoria trying to defuse a situation with the Russian revolutionaries in 1917, "Lieutenant Urmston lighted a match, held it to the general's cigarette, then to the soldier's, and then blew it out, explaining to the soldier that it was bad luck to light three cigarettes with one match. That appealed to the soldier, who, like all Russians, was very superstitious.".

The most interesting is "Money Box" (1927, 2nd ed.) concerning the history of this very practice! Page 92: "Then there is a wide-spread disagreement about the validity even of some of the most popular superstitions. Most of us, for instance, regard it as unlucky to light three cigarettes from one match. There is a vigorous minority, however, which protests that this is not a genuine superstition, but that
it was put about during recent years by a leading firm of manufacturers of matches. Others declare that it originated during the Boer War, when it was noticed that, if a match was kept alive long enough to light three cigarettes, a Boer sniper frequently fired at the light and shot one of the three smokers. These rationalists admit that the superstition is valid enough in time of war, but deny that it has any force in time of peace. This is an example of the sort of difficulty that an Academy of Superstitions ought to be able to clear up once and for all."

Get rid of tipping. Raise minimum wage, or strengthen unionization and allow effective collective bargaining. Tipping is such a minefield. I hate lists like these because I feel like either I'm going to get it wrong and either be yelled at and secretly mistreated in the future, or overtip and thus contribute to the evil that is "optional required tipping". I nearly always pick up food because I get nervous about tipping. Just charge me a clear delivery fee up front. Hotels are worse - the more expensive the hotel, the more confused I get about what I am "supposed" to do. I never knew that people tipped the room cleaner until I was in my 20s. I don't even want to think about taking most cruise holidays with all of its mysterious "recommended" and "customary" tipping practices. I moved to Sweden, where there are no tipped employees and tipping is rare. (Effective unionization means about $14/hour minimum wage + state health care and retirement even without a minimum wage law.) Service is as good as in the US, my confusion level has dropped, and I don't have this odd social imbalance where I'm paying "the help" who are beneath me - do you tip your doctor?

The largest political party in Scotland is the social-democratic SNP, who align with the Green party in the European parliament. Quoting Wikipedia: "Among its policies are commitments to same-sex marriage, reducing the voting age to 16, unilateral nuclear disarmament, progressive personal taxation, the eradication of poverty, the building of affordable social housing, government subsidised higher education, opposition to the building of new nuclear power plants, investment in renewable energy,...". There is no way they would want to join the US, where the majority political party is in almost complete and fervent opposition to these goals. They should be a Nordic country instead. :)

I do not think they know what "per capita" means. The text says "Vermont is home to second most pot users per capita—10.69%" while the chart lists Vermont's "per capita" as 90. I thought they might have scaled it so CO is 100, but the numbers still don't work out (10.69 / 11.45 = 94%, not 90/100). Also, I know many New Mexicans, and can say for certain that less than 100% of them have expressed interest on marijuana via Facebook interest.