Yes- and your wing could fall off on take off and no doubt you would be slated here. He took established procedure and went out and saw for himself and assessed what contamination was there, and took a legal decision that it was acceptable according to the criteria of the company. Even had there been an incident, it is not automatic that he would have been to blame and what it was about. Take-off incidents happen even in good weather- the real underlying cause is always established. You should not assume that because a dozen other planes stayed sitting with their crews drinking coffee in bad weather they were all automatically right and this Captain was wrong. Sounds to me like he knew and had experience of ops in this weather and carried out a safe, legal operation. Perhaps when you have more bad weather experience and faith in your aeroplane and manuals, you too will have the confidence to do what you are paid to do, even in bad weather- run a safe, legal and efficient operation and do so keeping public transport moving as you are paid to. It's not good enough to just say because there is a bit of snow on the runway 'I'm going to stop everything just in casethere should be a take-off incident and I might get blamed!" Mr. Boeing has done a lot of performance research and testing involving contaminated runway performance, and for a reason. There are so many severe safety factors applied it is as safe an operation as you could ask for. What you have to do is look at your books, and ....er.....possibly go out and assess for yourself! It's what being a professional pilot is about, and taking personal responsibility for your decisions. If it is a fair and reasonable decision, then I think you will find everyone will back you up.