Anti-Terrorism and the Death of the Chemistry Set

An anonymous reader writes "A recent unfortunate casualty of anti-terrorism laws is the home chemistry set. Once deemed the gift that saved Christmas, most Slashdotters probably remember early childhood experimentation with one of the many pre-packaged chemistry sets that were on the market. Unfortunately the FBI has decided that home chemistry sets are a threat to national security and they are rapidly disappearing from the market entirely. Those that remain are shallow boring versions of the old kits."

just taking care to take care.

[yagu]

You do know the government is just trying to take care of us, right? Heck, I got the warm fuzzy long ago when Claritin-D, technically an OTC drug would only be sold from behind TC, and then only if you present picture identification, and even then you could only purchase enough to take one a day for ten days! Of course, if it isn't in stock when you want to purchase, you're out of luck... but you're being taken care of. (If you didn't know, the government was/is protecting us from the proliferation of meth labs with this inane process... not that I've noticed much evidence meth labs have disappeared. I have been a lot more congested though.)

Surprised chemistry sets didn't go this route long ago, what with their potential to put together explosives approaching that of a couple firecrackers combined! Warm fuzzies.

I hate to rant about good intentions, but these don't even smell like good intentions any more. Terrorists couldn't care less about chemistry sets.

Re:just taking care to take care.

[Original Replica]

The reason we see such an erosion of our freedoms is that Freedom and Trust go hand in hand. Some of that trust is to be responsible (gun safety), and some of that trust is to respect life and civil society (not a terrorist). That trust is gone, not only between the government and the people, but between neighbors. We wouldn't need all of this "think of the children" shit, if neighbors actually knew and trusted each other. We wouldn't have the highest prison population in the world if the government trusted the people.

Re:just taking care to take care.

[Usquebaugh]

You small minded, ignorant fool.

Freedom has nothing to do with trust. Freedom is that which you grant yourself. Nothing can take your freedom unless you capitulate. Of course you can debate that without life freedom is meaningless but life without freedom is not worth living. I mean true freedom not some legally imposed cage that you deem large enough.

The government should continually live in fear of the people. It only exists because the people allow it and fund it. The current state of affairs in the US is one of the saddest in recorded history. A country built on the ideals of freedom and liberty is being destroyed. Not as Orwell predicted by an over bearing state but rather as Huxley predicted because the citizens do not care about anything except being entertained. The collapse of Rome will be nothing compared to the implosion of the United States.

Understand this, the current situation is preciseley because the government does not fear the people. They have shown themselves to be cowards and sheep afraid even to ask questions let alone think of answers. Think back to how Bush et al obtained power. Think about 10% of the population owning 90% of the wealth. Think about what the constitution says of government and how government has undermined the constitution at evey oppurtunity. Trial without peers, lawyers, due process, habeous corpus. etc. etc.

And you, parrot some trite shite you probably heard on PBS. Freedom and trust go hand in hand, I'd call it moronic except morons know better.

Re:just taking care to take care.

[MrKaos]

Not as Orwell predicted by an over bearing state but rather as Huxley predicted because the citizens do not care about anything except being entertained. The collapse of Rome will be nothing compared to the implosion of the United States.

Especially with China patiently waiting for it to happen.

Yet Another Benjamin Franklin Quote (YABFQ)...

"In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, -- if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and I believe, farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other."

The corporatisation of America has played a big part, the question is, Is there a way back? What will make the average person decide to stand up for their freedom when all they have to do is vote, not die or fight, just understand the issues and vote. War used to be a thing the entire nation had to make a sacrifice for, now it's a distraction funded by other countries in the form of loans.

Clearly your comments illustrate that you are a rational person, with the ability to sense reality for what it is. That is why you will be one of the first sentenced to sedition and shot. Of course that reminds me of YABFQ...

We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.

Re:just taking care to take care.

[NeilTheStupidHead]

What will make the average person decide to stand up for their freedom

The cancellation of American Idol, Survivor and the rest of the 'reality' programming tripe I fear.

Re:just taking care to take care.

[Crayon Kid]

I mean true freedom not some legally imposed cage that you deem large enough.

There's no such thing as "true freedom" in practical terms. All freedom is limited to boundaries you agree to, if you want to live in a society. I mean, you probably agree not to exercise your freedom to go around killing people, in exchange for a reasonable assurance that others won't do it either, right?

Re:just taking care to take care.

[McFadden]

I think your comment indirectly says it all. America, land of liberty, where it's dangerous to buy a child's chemistry set, but an enshrined right to buy a gun.

Re:

[Akaihiryuu]

Somehow, I doubt "terrorists" are making explosives with chemistry sets anyway. But they must be making them with child chemistry sets, because it's not like you can make them from common household chemicals available in any grocery store...oh wait, you can. Sarcasm aside, this is just plain stupid.

Re:

[dogzilla]

"The reason we see such an erosion of our freedoms is that Freedom and Trust go hand in hand. "

No - the reason we see such an erosion of our freedoms is that the so-called American People are a bunch of overfed, sackless sheep who have never experienced hardship, don't know the meaning of the word sacrifice, and as a group are rapidly becoming the stupidest people on earth, yet cling to this myth of individualism and strength in the face of all evidence to the contrary. Twenty or Thirty years ago I would ha

Re:just taking care to take care.

[oatworm]

Y'know, I repeatedly read stuff like this, and it really makes me wonder about the logic behind it. Let's take 30 years ago - that'd be 1977. Over-processed food? Well, they didn't have Whole Foods back then, that's for sure. Organic food only existed in Height-Ashbury. Canned food was still cheaper than fresh. Doesn't get much more processed than that. Right to buy automatic weapons? Heh - Americans haven't had that... well, probably ever. Iraq? How about Vietnam? Casualties were a bit higher [rjsmith.com] in that one, to put it mildly. Patriot Act? How about Watergate? Heck, if you go back another 20 years, you can even throw McCarthyism into the mix, which makes the Patriot Act look like a summer picnic. As for the obesity epidemic, it only exists because we actually have an agriculture infrastructure that is so efficient that we have to pay people not to grow food. DMCA only exists because we actually have the technology now to render copyright moot and the copyright holders don't like that much. Religious intolerance... oh yeah, 'cause we all know that religious tolerance was absolutely top notch [wikipedia.org] in the past. Columbine... yeah, kind of hard to beat kids shooting each other, though I seem to remember guns being a perennial problem in school back in the '80s. Worst race relations in generations, though... oh my. Sorry, but you don't get to claim "worst in generations" unless people start writing songs about strange fruit [wikipedia.org] growing on their trees. I honestly don't remember the last time my neighbors have organized a "lynch the darkies fer sleepin' wit da white womens" session - that's probably because they never have.

But, hey, you and everyone else like you is absolutely right - things were totally better in the good ol' days...

Re:just taking care to take care.

[weighn]

if the government trusted the people.

why should the government treat it's people any different from the way from the people treating the government?
What goes around, comes around.

OK, I'm confused. Don't you guys, the shining light of Global Democracy, have a saying regarding governance "By the people, for the people"?

Re:just taking care to take care.

[Opportunist]

I'd say the catchphrase of the US feds today is rather "Do as I say, don't do as I do".

Re:just taking care to take care.

[bladesjester]

"By the people, for the people"?

I prefer the following quote by Thomas Jefferson - "When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny."

Also "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security are deserving of neither." which is attributed to either Jefferson or Franklin, depending on where you find it.

Both are very very applicable to the current state of affairs.

Re:

[dgatwood]

You're forgetting the best Jefferson quote of all:

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

This tends to be the eventual result when a government goes down the path of tyranny (or at least what a significant portion of the population believes is tyranny).

Re:just taking care to take care.

[hackstraw]

TJ: The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Slashdot guy: This tends to be the eventual result when a government goes down the path of tyranny (or at least what a significant portion of the population believes is tyranny).

I know this is controversial, but I believe that McVeigh to be a patriot/tyrant who actually was better for the people than its popularly believed. Kinda like how parasites/plagues are good for a population. Its complicated.

With the Oklahoma bombing thing, its interesting that there are absolutely zero changes in anything that specifically led to that bombing. Its just as easy today to get rental vans, diesel and fertilizer than it was before this incident.

However, today, its much more difficult to travel on a plane or to buy a chemistry kit.

Now, lets think about what is different here. The government can implant tyrany and fear into more people via travel restrictions and chemistry kits than they could ever do with rental vans, dieslel, and fertilizer.

So, in summary, the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks were a net gain for the government, and the Oklahoma terrorist attack was a net gain for the people.

Kinda screwed up, now isn't it?

Re:just taking care to take care.

[MrKaos]

The devil is in the detail, I agree with your sentiment though totally appropriate today.

* Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

o This statement was used as a motto on the title page of An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania. (1759) which was attributed to Franklin in the edition of 1812, but in a letter of September 27, 1760 to David Hume, he states that he published this book and denies that he wrote it, other than a few remarks that were credited to the Pennsylvania Assembly, in which he served. The phrase itself was first used in a letter from that Assembly dated November 11, 1755 to the Governor of Pennsylvania. An article on the origins of this statement here includes a scan that indicates the original typography of the 1759 document, which uses an archaic form of "s": "Thofe who would give up Essential Liberty to purchafe a little Temporary Safety, deferve neither Liberty nor Safety." Researchers now believe that a fellow diplomat by the name of Richard Jackson is the primary author of the book. With the information thus far available the issue of authorship of the statement is not yet definitely resolved, but the evidence indicates it was very likely Franklin, who in the Poor Richard's Almanack of 1738 is known to have written a similar proverb: "Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power."

But just as relevant and far more recent is something John.F.Kennedy said

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

He knew back then how afraid governments and the power elite are of a population properly educated and motivated, which is why both are being disassembled today.

Re:just taking care to take care.

[RexRhino]

"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security are deserving of neither."
I find that quote especially tiresome. Can't you intellectual giants think of any instances where this is just flat wrong? I can.

The idea is that a state is either moving towards authoritarianism, despotism, and totalitarianism, etc., or they are moving away from it.

I am sure you can think of lots of "important" situations, where our "benevolent" government needs to restrict our liberty "for the good of everyone". The trouble is, once you decide there are exception to liberty, everyone has their pet issue that they think liberty should be sacrificed for. In the same way you may be paranoid about say firearms, or recreational drugs, or free markets, or whatever, some people are paranoid about terrorism. It is unreasonable to think that the government will choose to address only your fears, and choose to ignore the fears of others. You aren't special, and in a Democracy, you are just one of tens or hundreds of millions who want the government to address whatever it is that you are terrified of.

You are either the type of person who supports an expansion of the police state, or you are the type of person who supports rolling back the police state. But if you think the police state is going to restrict liberty only in ways you approve of, you are delusional. The Patriot Act is the price you pay for gun control. The War on Terrorism is the price you pay for the War on Drugs. When you give the government the power to monitor your bank accounts so it can tax you to pay for the social services you approve of, you also give government the power to monitor your bank account to make sure you aren't a "supporting terrorists".

You are either more afraid of terrorists, criminals, buisnesses, etc. than the government... in which case you support the police state, and you accept the good with the bad. Or, you are more afraid of the government than terrorists, criminals, buisnesses, etc., and you are willing to accept that there might be slightly greater amount of risk that goes along with liberty. You make your choice, but don't decieve yourself that you can have your cake and eat it too.

I find great amusement in the fact that you're quoting a slavemaster in regards to the importance of liberty.

The people who are against free speech, or the right to own weapons, or the right to keep what you earn or to own property, always like to point out that the early American advocates of these rights owned slaves. What they don't like to point out, is that slaves where denied free speech, denied the right to own weapons, and denied the right to keep what they earned or to own property, because such rights are incompatible with slavery.

The slave owning founding fathers where racist in that they wanted to deny blacks the same rights that they wanted to give to whites... But they at least they understood that if you don't have free speech, the right to own property, the right to arm yourself, that you are a helpless slave. They understood that gun control, censorship, and taxation and confiscation where tools that you used in order to control and exploit the people you wanted to enslave.

The fact that the American founding fathers where hippocrites and racists does not change the fact that they had a clear understanding of how restricting liberty is a tool of exploitation. The fact that so many so-called "progressives" or "advocates of social justice" want the government to implement policies that were designed 500 years ago so that slave masters could better exploit their slaves, means that those people are either ignorant to the facts of history, or secretly want to enslave people.

Re:just taking care to take care.

[arodland]

OK, I'm confused. Don't you guys, the shining light of Global Democracy, have a saying regarding governance "By the people, for the people"?

Yes. It's a fantastic lie and pretty much always has been. Democracy, as practiced in the real world, isn't a way to give power to the people. It's a way to give token power to the people, in order that those in positions of real power can draw more and more of it to themselves without also drawing complaint.

I mean, really, just look at the awesome power of the voting public. In a country where two-thirds of the population feel that the "leader of the free world' is doing an unsatisfactory job, we have the power to

• Elect a bunch of incompetent nitwits (and some as-yet-undiscovered evil bastards) to the legislature to replace a crop of more competent types, on the grounds that an ineffective government will at least screw you more slowly;
  
• Suffer quietly for years, waiting for the opportunity to choose from among two carefully-groomed replacements, one of whom is hopefully more acceptable than the current leader -- at least, to 50.01% of the people (less if you factor in the "electoral college" system of electing a US president which says you really only need the support of twenty-some percent of voters to win),
  
• But given a field that narrow, we can't expect to find anyone we support on a broad range of issues. Instead, it's critical to rabidly focus on a single hot topic.
  
• Bah, who am I kidding? It's not about issues, it's about character.
  
• And by character, I mean the right clothes, a winning smile, and never giving a frank opinion within earshot of a tape recorder. Oh, and I hear lapel pins are a biggie.
  

A method that would allow us to choose between more than two players would, of course, be too complicated for us wielders of Ultimate Democratic Power to comprehend, as would the possibility of making choices directly related to the issues at hand, instead of merely choosing the least-undesirable candidate and hoping that he or she likes reading your letters. (Referenda don't solve the problem that many things shouldn't be legislated, but should instead be defined by custom and upheld by the community, but that gets even further afield...)

Re:just taking care to take care.

[Attila Dimedici]

You have the power to choose between more than two. It's called the primaries. Pick a party, get involved, pay attention to local politics, when in doubt, vote the In's out. That is the formula to make a difference. Oh yeah, even if your guy is the greatest, vote for his opponent after at the very least his second term. No matter how good they are, legislators should be replace at least every other term. Legislators are like fruit, keep them around too long and they start to rot.

Re:just taking care to take care.

[Mr. Slippery]

You have the power to choose between more than two. It's called the primaries.

No. Primaries are part of the problem.

Officially, the US is not a two-party system, we are a no-party system. Political parties have no official role under the Constitution. The Democrats and Republicans are private organizations. If they - or the Boy Scouts or the ACLU or whomever - want to get together and put forth candidates, fine; but they ought not be allowed to use public resources to do so, and ought to have to play by the same ballot access rules as everybody else.

Primaries and other special treatment for parties are gross violations of the equal protection clause.

No primaries, no party affliations on ballots, no Congressional (or state legislative) rules that recognize party lines. Let's elect men and women, not parties. Add instant-runoff voting, and we could actually start to get decent candidates.

Do I expect to see this? Not anytime soon. We're going to have to fall even farther before real change is possible.

Answer

[Morosoph]

why should the government treat it's people any different from the way from the people treating the government?

Because the Government exists for the people. It has no other purpose. Asymmetry follows from that.

Re:

[SamP2]

Can you elaborate how exactly "assymetry follows from that"?

The government is nothing but a representation, by and for the people. If the people are the bunch of fearmongering neighbor-haters, so will be the government. Of course, the government has more power, so the problems are much more noticeable, but in the end it just acts like an amplifier - garbage in, (much louder) garbage right back out.

Maybe the people should start looking for the source of the government problems in their own behavior, rather t

Re:Answer

[cHiphead]

The framers of the US constitution were keenly aware that in a democracy, sometimes the tyranny of the majority would threaten the few and added protections as such, but failed to build strong enough protections into it for when the tyranny from a few would threaten the majority, as we have now.

Tyranny of the minority

[SamP2]

The "tyranny of the minority" you refer to can mean two different things.

If you refer to the rich and powerful [wikipedia.org] controlling the country, then it is called an oligarchy [wikipedia.org] and is nothing new. The US constitution specifically tried to address one form [wikipedia.org] of oligarchy, although the success at preventing less overt [wikipedia.org] forms is debatable. In particular, you must be very careful about the means and ideology you choose at fighting oligarchy, or you might end up following this guy [wikipedia.org]. Also see this proof [wikipedia.org] that we'll be fucked no matter how we act.

On the other hand, you could be referring to the vocal minority [wikipedia.org] problem, which, true, was not addressed in the constitution because they were not a problem at the time, but thanks to which we now live in the wonderful world of (insert-continent-here)-Americans [wikipedia.org], whites-first-is-racism-but-blacks-first-isn't [wikipedia.org], and inability to ever get anything done [wikipedia.org] except through force [wikipedia.org].

Re:Answer

[glittalogik]

If you have a bulletproof vest, but the bullets start ignoring it for the sake of making holes in you, it ain't bulletproof.

Re:just taking care to take care.

[Garridan]

Read the Declaration of Independence.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The people have zero reason to trust the government. The government exists to secure our rights, and it is the duty of the citizens of any democracy to keep an ever-watchful eye on the government. Damn right we don't trust the government. Love your country, love your fellow man, but for shit's sake, watch your back.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[zmollusc]

Is that how it goes in the states?
UK Gov : We are nice and want to sort everything out for you.
People : Hey, the media say you are nice! You got my vote.
UK Gov : Hurrah!
People : Hey, everything is still crap.
UK gov : Look at picture of us being concerned whilst we line our own pockets.
People : Things aren't improving.
UK Gov : We will pay our friends a load of tax money to look concerned and talk on tv about the high level of concern.
People : Nobody is actually doing anything constructive.
UK gov : STFU! Look, a circus! And bread!
People : Ooooh! Cool!

Re:just taking care to take care.

[babblefrog]

WTF? It's the "War on drugs" that is filling our prisons, for the most part. It doesn't have anything to do with immigration.

Re:just taking care to take care.

[Secret Rabbit]

I disagree. I think that terrorists very much care about chemistry sets.

They care that they aren't offered and they care that people are pissed about it. They care about kids having less and less of a chance to educate themselves and they care that kids curiosity isn't being fulfilled nearly as much. They definitely care. They care that the US is becoming a more and more demoralized nation and the educated are having to fight less and less fights that matter and about more and more like this. They care that the people that think are being distracted and rendered useless. Because with them out of way, and with the idiots that are in power today, the current situation will favour them more and more and...

Take care of the thinkers of tomorrow, take care of the thinkers of today and take care that the terrorists are very very happy about this.

Re:just taking care to take care.

[GuyverDH]

Don't forget, that now even Jr. High School students in the US are being asked to declare their Majors so that they can be narrowly channeled into their chosen field of study.

Sorry, you wanted to be a mechanic, no home economics for you. Or, oh... too bad you selected accountant, now you can't get that particle physics minor you so badly wanted.

Today's government wants all knowledge compartmentalized so that no one, and I mean no one, outside of the government can get the clear picture of what's going on.

Want to get into a hobby? It had better be along the lines of what you went to college for, otherwise they'll start to watch you on suspicion of being a terrorist. Showing an interest in an activity outside of your major, oooh - watchout, you've made the FBI's watch list again.

Jack of all trades are a dying breed. Specialization guarantees that the government is the only entity that really knows what's going on, just the way they want it to be.

Just think, if the government had started down this path 20 years ago, most of us would be specialists who grunt when someone talks about something that we didn't go to school for. Or worse yet, we'd call the cops if someone tried to teach us something outside of our specialty.

This is how periods of history like the dark ages start. By restricting knowledge so that the masses are not allowed to be fully educated, you guarantee that knowledge will begin to stagnate (only when certain types of knowledge intermingle with others are truly radical discoveries usually possible), and eventually disappear, sometimes forever.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it really ironic that The Current Administration(sic) decided on muslims as their scapegoat..
Until the 13th or 14th century BC, Islam had the best and most prolific scientists in the world. For example, Ibn al-Haytham (965 - 1039), is responsible for the modern theories of optics as well as the modern Scientific Method, with an emphasis on quantification and reproducible, observable results.
The decline of science in medieval Islam was due to many factors, but probably the most significant was the po

Re:

[fredklein]

so that they can be narrowly channeled into their chosen field of study

I was just reading a short sci-fi story in which the government used this exact thing to keep scientists in the dark. They were allowed to do work in nothing but their own little area of expertise. The government had a time machine, but kept very tight control over it. A scientist in a vaguely related field (gravity optics?) has a chance encounter with another scientist, and they discuss their work. One of their uncles is a Technical Wr

Re:just taking care to take care.

[jabberw0k]

Sounds like "The Dead Past" by Isaac Asimov. Recommended.

Re:

[sheepweevil]

How about you stop spreading FUD and give some evidence to your claims. The vast majority of college students change their majors at least once. I wasn't asked by anyone what my major would be until junior year of high school, and I wasn't asked to make a concrete choice until I actually applied to colleges Senior year.

too bad you selected accountant, now you can't get that particle physics minor you so badly wanted.

One of the reasons most accountants don't get particle physics minors is that there is no overlap between the two subjects, so the minor would probably require another year of college; m

Re:

[kcbrown]

They care that the people that think are being distracted and rendered useless. Because with them out of way, and with the idiots that are in power today, the current situation will favour them more and more and...

If by "them" you mean the people who are in power, then this comment is spot on. If by "them" you mean those most people think of as "terrorists" then those "terrorists" are idiots of the worst kind.

Why?

Simple: because the government in charge of an oppressive police state is even mor

Re:just taking care to take care.

[spoco2]

Oh dear god... so, as long as all you nut-job Americans have guns, it's all ok.

What a complete load of shite. Try looking at a whole lot of other countries without firearms being as stupendously prolific as they are in your beloved US of A... they're not all totalitarian regimes you know.

you're not safe because you all have guns, and if you think you can sit back and let things happen just because you're packing heat, my god you're so very, very wrong.

Re:just taking care to take care.

[hachete]

really this is off-topic. The GP is referring to guns making you safe in a conceptual sense, as in Free. You have all the guns you want but that hasn't stopped any administration from suspending or, in Bush's case, destroying habeas corpus or tapping phones or whatever else illegal bullshit they're doing under the cover of executive privilege. In other words, unless you actually use the guns against the government you're pretty much a paper tiger, and, as another poster said, just another arsehole gun-owning nut-job.

Re:

[Dr_Barnowl]

In addition, knives penetrate ballistic armour more easily than bullets.

A bullet has a fixed kinetic energy, once it's dissipated, that's the end of it. A knife has an active arm behind it, applies pressure to a much smaller cross section which cuts armour fibres easily, and has a progressive effect - once it's cut a small way, it can cut some more.

They also don't run out of ammunition, aim more easily (as you point out), and because they are used at melee range, choosing your target for maximum damage is a

Re:just taking care to take care.

[DavidTC]

Have fun in your little made-up universe where the government comes to round you up and you manage to fight it off.

In the real world, fascism is when the corporations and governments work as a single entity, and you can wander around with your fucking gun all you want. In fact, you'll have to wander around, because the government/corporations took your house and your car, and no one will hire you.

At which point you'll be arrested, not as some big anti-government hero by jackboot thugs, but for stealing bread to live on, by a perfectly normal cop who's just doing his job, a job that absolutely no one except you disagrees with, so when you shoot and kill him you're getting the electric chair and no one thinks you're a hero at all.

There are different types of totalitarian governments, and assuming a fascist one operates like a communist one is faulty. Fascist governments don't put troops in the streets...they work with corporations to make sure 'the wrong sort of people' do not have any economic power, and do not have anywhere to peddle their ideas.

Modern fascist states don't even bother to kill those people, and pretending they're going to show up in some stormtrooper outfit and start a gun battle with you is insane. They'll show up with a court order to evict you from your home because you failed to pay your mortgage, because pressure came from the top at your company to let you go. Or they'll just sue you and ruin your finances.

America is not a bunch of tiny castles where, as long as you can hold off the invading armies, you will be fine. The idea that that is how the world works is astonishingly naive. Almost all the population of America lives in housing they do not fully own, they get food from places they do not control like the supermarket, they require operating in society for money to obtain said food and shelter, a society where economics are controlled by some very large players that can crush them like bugs.

And a fascist state isn't going to 'assume control', you asshat. There's not going to some insane coup, there's a going to be a slow change, which has, in fact, already happened, or have you not looked at the telecom immunity stuff? That's classic fascism. The government breaks the law, the government gets private companies to break the law, the government gives said companies huge amounts of cash, the government attempts to make such behavior legal retroactively. We've got government officials and AT&T officers leaping back and forth between each other in an incestuous loop. Your government spying on you, sponsored by AT&T. It's not 'totalitarian' yet, as evidenced by the fact Democrats managed to stop the immunity, but it is fascism, at least the start of it. (And the same thing's happened with Blackwater.)

Oh, and before you start ranting about gun control some more, be forewarned I'm against it. I'm just not stupid enough to think that the US government being slowly corrupted by business is something that can be fought off with gunpowder. Guns are useful to deter crime and to deter invasion. They aren't useful against a corrupt government in any meaningful way.

Re:

[dragonturtle69]

You make some very good points, especially with regard to fascism in our current society. Unfortunately, I do not see much that can be done to prevent it from growing. Infotainment keeps some political candidates out of the spotlight while promoting others on both sides of America's political aisle. This pre-selection leads to low poll ratings for some. At least Leno had Ron Paul on the Tonight Show, though for a much lesser amount of time than Tom Cruise.

With regards to guns, once the common populace h

Re:just taking care to take care.

[DynamicPhil]

This is the friggin' best post I've read in a long time.

The only thing I'd like to add is some general tips on What-to-do(TM)

Get involved. Write your congressman about invasion of privacy. Sponsor EFF. Develop that über-safe anonymizing program, make it widespread.

Get Informed. Read stuff (for example Naomi Klein "The Shock Doctrine"), get unbiased news (NOT FOX!), analyze what's being done rather than what's being said. Ask questions (who benifits from this?)


You need to overcome the denial of what the parent post said about fascism. Just saing "I't ain't so", instead of asking "how do we fix this" - that's a path down a very dark road. Do Something!

Re:just taking care to take care.

[labnet]

I agree DynamicPhil, best friggin post all year.
Hitler was a hero before people realised it was too late.
America has only just started on the road to true fascism. First there will be the economic crash, and the enusing chaos and poverty.
Thats been in the works since the 60's when the USA went off the Gold standard and became a fiat currency.
You embraced globalisation, and your manufacturing has disapeared.
Notice whats happening to your infrastructure, your dollar, your mortgages.
Terrorism is the biggest con yet. USA does not have a terrorism problem. 9-11 was not done by Arabs with stanley knives.
9-11 was the excuse to take away your freedom.

Dynamic Phil is right, go make some noise.... but you know what.... it won't happen. While the general populace has food in their bellies and their mind numbing TV, nothing will change.

Re:just taking care to take care.

[ajs318]

I hear this argument all the time: that guns in private hands are necessary in case a Bad and Evil Government ever take power. And all the people who lost their lives needlessly are just collateral damage and the death toll would be so much worse if a Bad Government got in.

I'm sitting here on the other side of the Atlantic and I can only wonder, just how bad does your government have to get before you actually use those guns for what you say you wanted them for?

Re:just taking care to take care.

[Technician]

They care about kids having less and less of a chance to educate themselves and they care that kids curiosity isn't being fulfilled nearly as much.

With the internet, the kids curiosity is being fulfilled more often than not. The problem with the internet isn't the lack of information. It is the dilution with distractions. Kids are more likely to spend time on myspace than on one of the science pages. There is more information online now than was ever accessible when I was a kid.

The internet is the great equalizer. I remember the old chemistry sets of the 1969's. They were pretty boring with a few things that changed color and kept matches from burning and such. Online the high power learning is great. I can now find the information to build rockets from Salt Peter and powdered sugar, how to mix explosive gasses (Spud guns propane air mix), create fun reactions (Mentos and coke) (sodium and water) and lots of other fun stuff I couldn't do with the chemistry set of the 60's. Some stuff that is too dangerous or illegal to do yourself, there are online videos for your enjoyment. There is more info in the following links than is in most chemistry sets.
http://www.burntlatke.com/ [burntlatke.com]
http://www.jamesyawn.com/candyrocket/ [jamesyawn.com]
http://eepybird.com/dcm1.html [eepybird.com]
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_kind_of_liquid_is_in_instant_cold_packs [answers.com]
http://www.humeseeds.com/stump.htm [humeseeds.com]
http://www.ufomind.com/area51/articles/1996/popsci_9604/ [ufomind.com]
http://theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/ [theodoregray.com]
http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Stories/011.2/ [theodoregray.com]
http://fullygeek.com/2007/01/20000-pounds-of-sodium-dumped-in-lake/ [fullygeek.com]

Without a chemistry set, but with internet, I can find out where to buy components to build fireworks mortar shells, buy local explosive components (Nitride and oil) and such. It was the internet that taught me where to locally buy small amounts of Ammonium Nitrate and Salt Peter with no questions asked.

A trip to the hardware store is now an adventure as I read the ingredients on the packages.

I have learned more online than I could have ever learned from a chemistry set from the 1960's Not all is illegal or dangerous. Some is a lot of fun.

Re:

[nephridium]

The "terrorists" (if you like to go ahead and put them all into the same category like the government does) care for what is happening on they own turf much more than what is happening in a far away country. It's just that you've been made to believe that their sole reason for blowing up stuff is because "they hate your freedom"(tm) and your way of life, while in the case of most Arab terrorists they are usually much more pissed off at the presence of American (and other foreign) bases, companies and soldie

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:just taking care to take care.

[captainwisdom]

Bull, the chemistry sets were dumbed down long before 9-11. Anti-terrorism has nothing to do with it. It's all about chem-set manufacturers getting sued (by armies of trial lawyers) and the liberal nanny state "protecting" our kids.

Re:just taking care to take care.

[Jarjarthejedi]

There are still 100-in-1's out there, they're no less common (where I am) than they were when I was kid and first got one of them. Boy was that a lot of fun.

Chemistry kits can be a lot more dangerous than a lot of other toys, give one of those old ones to a kid who doesn't know what they're doing and whose parents are too busy to spend any time with the kid and they're liable to injure themselves. That's the main reason they've been going out of style, it's pretty hard for little Johnny to hurt himself with a My First (Plastic with rubber spring tip) Hammer, or Pong, the Board Game (Seriously, can anyone here tell me they wouldn't buy that if it was a reasonable price?), but with a Chemistry kit there's probably a few ways they can injure themselves at min, and the law of probabilities shows how, no matter how low the probability of any kid hurting themselves is, some kid will, and some parent will sue.

I mean, just look at what the article itself says, the author admits to having to evacuate his house because he was making free chlorine gas. Now tell me, what are the odds that any modern parent would just let something like that slide vs. suing the company for damages?

Home Chemistry kits are going away, but not because of Anti-Terrorism laws. There are plenty of chemicals that you can get without a background check that will do some fun things, but they can also be quite harmful to you and since every toy has to be made so that little Johnny slow can use it without any chance of hurting themselves. I mean, you can make Thermite without using a single background-check needed ingredient (my friend did it once for fun, pretty cool), so why isn't that in the 'pathetic' chemistry kits? Oh right, because no parent would trust their kid with Thermite and would most certainly sue if their kid could make it and hurt themselves.

This needs a mod-up- mirrors doctorow.

[plasmacutter]

I understand this statement skirts the edge of the bottomless pit that is sexism, but it makes good points about the disappearance of the american middle class and needs a mod-up.

cory doctorow talks about how the dot-bomb era politicians sold us out .. and have irreversibly put us down the path toward the third world nations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgXwmXpaH2Q [youtube.com]

(watch it all)

Re:just taking care to take care.

[myth_of_sisyphus]

I was at the pharmacy when an old codger asked for some Claritin for allergies. He was obviously stuffed up.

The pharmacist asked for a CA driver's license. He said he doesn't drive anymore but has his VA card. She wouldn't sell it to him. Said she had to put the CA driver's license number in the database. No other's allowed.

A veteran of WWII or perhaps Korea couldn't buy a fucking harmless medication because he doesn't have the right ID? I couldn't fucking believe it... Was he going to go back to the old-folks home and set up a meth lab with a box of Claritin? Jebus fucking H goddamn shit.

(This country disgusts me more and more. We should storm something in Guy Faulke's masks. )

Re:just taking care to take care.

[starX]

(This country disgusts me more and more. We should storm something in Guy Faulke's masks. )

Alternatively, you could, I don't know:

1) Write your representative.

2) Write your senators.

3) Organize an issues based campaign

4) Vote for someone who shares your point of view on an issue

5) Run for office yourself.

Look, all of it perfectly legal, and just as important, actually has a chance of succeeding. If you storm a federal building in any mask, you're just going to wind up dead or in prison.

Or does that sound like too much work? Would you rather piss and moan about it on Slashdot? Might feel good for a moment, but it's all sound and fury signifying nothing.

Re:just taking care to take care.

[turing_m]

Or you could do what actually works and use your own media network to influence people, systematically evaluate which candidates will vote the way you want them to, and fund/advertise the more pliant ones.

You just need a few billion dollars to get the ball rolling. Good luck.

Re:

[mcrbids]

You just need a few billion dollars to get the ball rolling. Good luck.

That's just poppycock. Your ability to be effective starts at a much, much, MUCH lower resource level.

About 15 years ago, I produced a cable-access TV show, covering a local group of uber-conservative strict-construction constitutionalists. It was a dour but informative show about what your rights actually are when arrested, when fighting "city hall", as it were. We produced it weekly for about 2 years, and the effect it had on the local

I've NEVER been asked for ID when buying Claretin

[alizard]

Straight loratidine isn't a problem. It's the version with ephedrine (Claritin D) which is one of the precursors for meth that's behind the counter. Whether or not regular Claritin would have worked for the guy or not is something I have no idea about. The regular product works just fine for me, and there's a bottle of the generic in my bedroom right now.

Re:

[Jason Levine]

I agree that the drug protections have gotten out of hand. When my wife and I want to buy some Sudafed for our four-year-old, we are required to sign our names in a book to "prove" that we're not going to turn it into crystal meth. Now I'm no expert in Sudafed-Meth conversions, but I would guess you would need a *TON* of children's Sudafed to make any significant crystal meth. Buying one package wouldn't do it. And what protection does a signed name in a paper book prove? Do all of those names get type

Re:just taking care to take care.

[Marful]

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of Human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." - Colonial America sympathesizer William Pitt, British House of Commons, November 18, 1783

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams

"Doctors have been caught using poisons, and those who falsely assume the name of philosopher have occasionally been detected in the gravest crimes. Let us give up eating, it often makes us ill; let us never go inside houses, for sometimes they collapse on their occupants; let never a sword be forged for a soldier, since it might be used by a robber." - ancient Roman educator Marcus Fabius Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, II, xvi

Re:just taking care to take care.

[ArcherB]

Surprised chemistry sets didn't go this route long ago, what with their potential to put together explosives approaching that of a couple firecrackers combined! Warm fuzzies.

I hate to rant about good intentions, but these don't even smell like good intentions any more. Terrorists couldn't care less about chemistry sets.

Right! Terrorists couldn't care less about chemistry sets. The Feds know this. First, chemistry sets were not banned, they were neutered. They were neutered long before 9-11. It has nothing to do with terrorism. It has everything to do with liability.

I understand that it's cool to bash the president and blame Bush for everything. However, this is not one of those cases. This isn't Bush's fault. If anything, it's John Edwards, or at least lawyers. Chemistry sets are hard to find for the same reason that slingshots are hard to find, because they can be dangerous in the wrong hands, kid's hands.

The people that are banning "dangerous" chemicals in chemical sets are the same people that forced MacDonald's to stop asking you if you wanted it "super sized", and the same people that are trying to ban you from smoking in a bar, or your car, and in your home, and outside... and so on. It's the same people who make planters put a label on a bag of peanuts that says, "danger, contains peanuts". It's the people that mandate seat belts and motorcycle helmets. These people are not conservatives (although there are some conservative nannies that say I can't drink beer in a bar after 2:00am). Nope! These are the same people that say things like "We are going to take things away from you for the common good".

Googling "nanny state chemistry set" took me to this [nytimes.com] article from the NY times. It's in response to an op-ed piece about the removal of chemistry sets. The article date, May 13, 1999. About 2.25 years BEFORE 9-11 and BEFORE the War on Terror. So, please, stop blaming this on Bush or the War On Terror. This was happening long before any of that!

From TFA:

[Author's Note: This article is primarily a result of my frustration in trying to acquire a few hundred grams of potassium carbonate for an electrolyte solution.]

I understand the author's frustration, but he should really know who's at fault before he passes blame. If banning chemsitry sets were about keeping dangerous chemicals out of the hands of terrorists, then Clorox bleach, Windex, and pool chemicals would have been banned with it.

Sorry, but TFA is just plain wrong.

Re:

[Minupla]

My wife went home to the states a couple of weeks ago (she ran away to Canada) for a visit. While down there she got sick. Just a sniffle, so ran down to the local pharmacy for something to unstuff her system.

"Could I see some ID please?"

"Um, sure..." *hands over her Canadian photo ID*

"I'm sorry, it needs to be US ID."

Her brother had to buy her decongestant for her using his ID.

Moral of the story: Don't get sick while visiting the states. It's against policy.

Min

Re:just taking care to take care.

[tgd]

Hmmm, anyone know the steps to turn meth back into pseudoephedrine Hcl? Its pretty easy to find meth these without needing an ID, wonder if you'd go to jail for turning it back into an OTC drug?

Re:just taking care to take care.

[GooberToo]

and even then you could only purchase enough to take one a day for ten days!

It's far worse than that. If there was ever a law which proves how fucking stupid our government representatives are, it's this law. It seems they can't understand the most basic of math. You can purchase roughly 20 pills to cover 30-days. Most people who are on this type of medication REQUIRE at least one pill per day. I'm fairly sure most any grade schooler can figure out that people are shorted 10 pills per month. But our government is so fucking stupid that can't figure that out.

And yet it gets worse! If you have children, you now have to split those 20-pills between all the people in your house.

Let's take a typical family. Two adults and two children. Two adults can get 40 pills per month, maximum! If you have four people that need to take those pills, him, now each person only gets 10 pills per month. Hmmm....30 days...ten pills....our government is totally fucking dumb and that can't even do the most fundamental of subtraction.

And all the above ignores the fact that some doctors actually want some people to take TWO pills per day if an infection is starting. Now that means the one person is able to fight back their infection to only have it come back a vengeance five days later, for the following 25 days and likely wind up going to the doctor for a prescription, which could have all been avoided if it were not for the fucking morons making these laws.

In other words, this law is requiring people stop buying over the counter medication and forcing people in droves back to their doctors for medication which requires little to no participation from a doctor. Several doctors I've spoken to about this problem are most annoyed because they are often unable to treat patients because they are booked treating patients which should never have be in their offices in the first place. And all this ignores the financial burden it's forcing onto to people who have little to no insurance coverage for prescriptions.

Literally, our government is making people sick and making them pay more money and wasted time (which for many means loss of money) for the privilege of paying more money for both a doctor visit and prescriptions.

Re:

[ArcadeNut]

Good thing you didn't write it small like John Hancock did on the Constitution!

options

[stoolpigeon]

The death of a certain type of chemistry set. There are a pretty wide number of sets available [amazon.com] including the specific kit mentioned in TFA (Chem C3000 [amazon.com]) and the reviews there both mention the difficulty in gathering some of the materials necessary to doing the expirements. I don't think it is just terrorism though. Terrorism, a litigious society, the war on drugs - I think any one alone would have probably been enough, and we've got all three.

I wonder if this might signal an opportunity for some entrepeneur to develop a virtual chem lab. It's not exactly the same, but at least it would give kids an opportunity to learn and explore. It could also offer features you wont find in any real chemistry set. Nice graphics showing what is going on on a much lower level. A virtual professor to help out and explain. Tools and materials that are too expensive or that really would be too dangerous.

virtual chem lab

[nurb432]

Sorry, thats far too sterile to really learn anything.

Until you burn your fingers on a hot beaker, or smell the reults of your last failed ( or successful ) experiment that catches on fire or cracks the bottom out of your flask, you never really learn. Its all theory without that sort of 'real' experience..

Re:virtual chem lab

[Pingmaster]

I can't agree with that more. I love tinkering with electronic gadgets, as a kid I used to take apart RC cars and make stuff with the motors. One of the first lessons I learned was to check for short circuits when I burned my fingers connecting a wire to a shorted battery terminal. I learned to wear safety goggles, and to pour chemicals carefully when I splashed a chem set experiment in my eye (that stung!). I learned to cut away from myself when I sliced my finger open while building a model car. You can't learn that sort of stuff from a virtual chem/electronic/modelling program. Besides, at an age where you learn best by getting your hands dirty, clicking a mouse just doesn't cut it.

The excuse that 'Terrorists' use the chem sets for bombs and chemical warfare is ridiculous. If they are used for malicious purpose, it's more likely from your average neighbourhood punk kid making a smoke bomb or something similar. People wanting to cause REAL harm will be busy getting Ammonium Nitrate (fertilier) and Diesel (makeshift ANFO, a powerful explosive), or gunpowder, or Javex and Drano (cheap and easy way to get mustard gas) and causing all sorts of deadly havoc that way. one must wonder if DHS took the anarchist's cookbook a little too seriously..maybe next week, they'll be banning 3.25" floppies because you can embed match heads in them to cook floppy drives..

Re:

[anandamide]

Until you accidentally break a kilogram bottle of TiCl4 while unloading it from your friend's truck, creating a giant cloud of opaque white fumes, you'll never really learn... how to explain things diplomatically to your Dad.
Now *that* was a chemistry set! Sigh.

not much learning there

[r00t]

The kid isn't learning chemistry. The kid just mixes up random crap, hoping for something exciting to happen.

Even with an old-style set, interesting reactions are rare. If you are "lucky" enough to get one, you might get hurt... but you don't really learn the chemistry behind it. You aren't learning about orbitals, ions, electronegativity, and all those other things. At best you learn that mixing two items, of which you understand nothing, will do something beyond just sitting there.

Pretty soon, you run out of chemicals. The useful ones run out first.

That's not much education, and not even much entertainment. That's just lame.

Re:not much learning there

[Alchemist253]

You are missing the point. I AM a chemist. I probably understand orbitals and electronegativity better than most on Slashdot, but I do not fault chemistry sets for not being so directly educational.

At the age when kids would use chemistry sets (I started when I was about eight), so much underlying information is absent that it is unrealistic to teach real chemistry. You can't truly understand orbitals without quantum mechanics, which in turn requires linear algebra and multivariate calculus. So don't bother! When I played with a chemistry set I didn't understand pH or activity coefficients, but I still appreciated acid-base reactions. Nor had I ever heard of redox reactions or the Nernst equation, but electroplating was cool. Chemistry sets inspired me to study and learn at the meager level I could, and as I grew older and more knowledgeable they undoubtedly played a role in me going into science - and into organic chemistry in particular (with its heavy emphasis on experimental research).

Chemistry sets are motivators, not educators. They have historically done for chemistry what "Star Trek" has done for physics.

Re:options

[jlarocco]

No offense, but that's pretty lame. Chemistry sets are fun because they're hand on.

This is just getting ridiculous. I can go down the block and fill my car with 30 gallons of highly flamable/explosive gasoline, but chemistry sets are off limits because they contain a few ounces of potentially dangerous chemicals? Our government is officially retarded.

Re:

[Tablizer]

I wonder if this might signal an opportunity for some entrepeneur to develop a virtual chem lab.

"Java applet kills family dog; news at 11..."
       

Re:options

[ArcherB]

I had several chemistry sets as a kid and spent many, many hours conducting experiments, often to my own harm (poisonous gases, chloral hydrate, etc...:-) High school chemistry almost got me arrested, and led in part to my expulsion from public school.

And this is the problem. It's not terrorism that is causing these things to disappear. It's the fact that we've become a nanny state, and it's not conservatives that are the cause! You can't get toys for your kids that may have pointed edge. You can't get toys for your kids that may fit down a wind pipe or break off into sharp pieces. This isn't because of GW Bush, it's because of lawyers. Any time a kid gets hurt by a toy, the company gets sued into oblivion, whether it was the company's fault or not! It becomes cheaper to settle out of court for $100,000 than it does not fight it out.

Chemistry sets are hard to find for the same reason that sling shots are hard to find. It's not because they present a terrorism threat, it's because they are dangerous. The first time some kid mixes something that he wasn't supposed to makes an explosive, corrosive mixture that "puts an eye out", the company that made that kit gets sued. If it were about terror, this would be an article about how hard it is to find good pool chemicals!

It's the same nannies that want to tell you that you can't smoke in your house, or you can't have a big mac or supersize your fries. These people don't usually tend to be conservatives. It's happens to be the people that say things like, "we are going to take things away from you for the common good."

Re:options

[SageMusings]

My personal feeling is good chemistry sets are hard to find because....people aren't buying them. They cannot compete with an X-box or Playstation. Don't forget today's children have incredibly short attention spans and scholarly pursuit is the hallmark of a pariah in many circles.

In short, I think it is simple economics. If kids developed a craze for chemistry, manufacturers would most assuredly find a way to sell advanced sets, lawyers be damned. If we can give johnny a hunting rifle (we can), we can give him a Bunsen burner. All you need is demand. Also don't forget many parents today are the same mouth-breathers you sat next to in class years ago. Why would these people seek science toys for their kids when many barely got out of high school?

Re:

[causality]

The first time some kid mixes something that he wasn't supposed to makes an explosive, corrosive mixture that "puts an eye out", the company that made that kit gets sued.

Sure, lawyers profit from this and politicians talk a big game about how much they care about your safety. And do you know what is at the root of this, the one factor that allows all of the rest to happen? Parents -- specifically, parents who either don't want to do their job or don't know how. A kid who uses something like a chemistry

all the fun stuff

[User 956]

Those that remain are shallow boring versions of the old kits.

What, no more ammonium nitrate, sodium pellets, and hunks of magnesium? Ah well, there's always mail-order.

Re:all the fun stuff

[Z0mb1eman]

Ah well, there's always mail-order.

Well... no, there isn't really. A good friend of mine who IS a rocket scientist (aerospace engineer, anyway) is a long-time rocket hobbyist and is now tinkering with propulsion systems in his garage. Don't get him started on ordering hobby rocket engines above a certain size, any kind of fuel ingredients, and even certain parts from the States over the last couple of years (we're in Canada, and apparently you can't find a lot of this stuff locally to start with).

And by extension

[Wylfing]

All knowledge shall follow. Knowledge is terrorism. An informed public is a dangerous public.

Re:

[Gryle]

The more I read about the state of science education, the more grateful I am to the teachers I had over the years. My chemistry teacher poured his heart into teaching his students, not just about chemistry, but how to educate themselves. He would routinely have us design experiments to verify or explore something we had learned in class. For the final, we were given a week to identify twenty unknown chemicals using the lab techniques we had learned and a stack of reference books. Sadly, he was "retired" by

Then there's the Internet

[ayelvington]

Check out http://www.unitednuclear.com/ [unitednuclear.com] and build your own. Amazing stuff your mother wouldn't let you have. a

It totally makes sense now...

[machinelou]

Mr. Wizard wasn't interested in "educating" youth, he was trying to build an army for his own jihad!

Today, Chem sets and model rockets

[nurb432]

Tomorrow, knowledge. Dangerous times ahead.

Seems the terrorists have already won, with a minimal expenditure of energy/effort. I still wonder if this was the plan all along, to just nudge the civilized world into self destruction on its own, or just an unexpected side effect worth exploiting. Either way its the same result, but i am curious.

Chemistry

[bloosqr]

Its interesting, this was the subject of the first episode of "Wired Science" a new PBS episode. I can not agree more w/ the premise. The unfortunate part of what makes it even worse I think is due to terrorism/columbine etc even looking up this stuff will get scrutiny that wasn't really the case back when we were all kids. As an example of this I get the impression that from the press "peroxyacetone" is now unfortunately used by terrorists all the time (in fact that was the absurd uncomprehensible basis for the "no liquids" on planes).

What was interesting about the Wired Science show was that show bemoaned the fact that chemistry sets are watered down but the show had a chemist talk about how dangerous using nonlaboratory conditions to run one of the "old school" experiments were.

The irony of it was in this show that was going on about "dangerous" chemicals was that "dangerous" chemical was actually NI3 one of the standard things kids used to make all the time.

On a personal note, I was one of those kids who was a total pyromaniac in high school / middle school, we eventually grew out of it of course, but we pretty much made everything one could easily get a hold of and then some. All of this was done in using "household" chemicals (and some ordering from chemical supply companies). The practical upshot of being a complete pyromaniac in was I ended up getting my undergraduate degree in chemistry/CS and getting a Ph.D. in chemistry and now am a faculty member (in physics randomly enough). At the end of the day it was "blowing stuff up" that made science cool, perhaps a little dangerous, perhaps even foolhardy but the fact that you could do so much w/ everyday chemicals sparked that interest in science, atoms and plain old tinkering ..

Amateur Rocketry RIP

[SirDrinksAlot]

Amateur Rocketry is now dead too. I remember going out to pick up a couple engines and found out about the new (impending) restrictions. The government pretty much handed the terrorists their victory and hobby science is one of the victims.

Re:Amateur Rocketry RIP

[thegrassyknowl]

Amateur rocketry was dying anyway. I remember trying to buy rocket engines when I was a bit younger (~10 years) and you already needed to provide photo ID with your current address on it. I gave up on that day, as did a lot of people because you can't even find rocketry supplies in the local model store anymore.

Not a terribly new issue...

[Pedrito]

I was lamenting the passing of the hobbiest chemistry sets long before 9/11. You can still get them in various places and you can get a fairly wide selection of chemicals from a number of sources, including e-bay. Hell, I even bought some concentrated (70%) nitric acid off of e-bay not more than a year ago.

That said, the decline in hobby-level chemistry sets, as I mentioned before, began with the rise in the "new American Dream." You know, the one where you sue somebody for a million dollars. Liability for selling chemistry sets is, without a doubt, astronomical in these days of knee-jerk litigation... Nobody in their right mind would sell something to children that they could easily kill or wound themselves with, quite easily...

From my own personal history, when I had a chemistry set as a child, it came with glass tubing and an alcohol burner. You used it to heat the tubing and bend it into shapes to connect beakers and what have you together... Well, not being old enough to know better, and not patient enough to wait for the tubing to cool down on its own after bending it, I decided it might be best to cool it off in some water. I consider it fortunate I didn't lose an eye when the glass exploded. And that didn't involve any chemicals... Not that the stuff they provided was terribly dangerous, but it's dangerous enough that it's simply not a viable business anymore, is my point...

They were already idiot-proof!!!

[brxndxn]

WTF are the dumbed-down chemistry sets now?

The old ones were dumb enough. When I got a chemistry set when I was small (something like 60 chemicals), I got bored of all the pre-drawn experiments and decided to experiment myself. I mixed pretty much every goddamn chemical together.. BLUE liquid! yay.. Then, I put some in a test tube and heated it.. and OMG.. it boiled!!! and then.. it smelled like crap! Yay chemistry.. It was like they formulated the entire set to be as unexplosive as possible.

Fucking nanny state...

I would've attacked the issue of terrorism the exact opposite. I'd tell everyone to grow some balls, carry a fucking gun, ask suspicious people questions, and be vigilant. And.. everyone can carry whatever the hell they want on a plane. I'd like to see a terrorist just try to hijack a plane when who knows how many people are armed...

Don't ban chemistry sets.

Tinkertoys Next?

[Nom du Keyboard]

I can only believe that Tinkertoys will be next.

They burn if ignited.
They can cause physical injury if someone is stabbed with one, or has a hub thrown at them from close range.
They can be assembled into a gun that might look too realistic if viewed under poor conditions.

Got to get rid of this stuff now. Leave the kids ignorant of any toys that might actually teach them critical thinking by doing.

The culture of fear isn't only in chemistry

[Belacgod]

The thought behind this is the same as the one behind Germany's banning of certain computer security tools, and the assaults on cryptography. Dangerous tools exist in every important field, and those with no fear of falling behind will always want to ban more and more. We need another Sputnik moment to galvanize the angry reactionaries to demand more science instead of demanding more childproofing.

Why would terrorists need a chemistry set...

[drspliff]

When you can buy fertiliser, sugar and petrolium by the tonne.

Oh noes, their going to blow up an air plain with some iron filings, potassium permanganate and some magnesium! Or use the test tubes to start up a methamphetamine lab!

Do you know why I cringe when I hear these stories? Because their going after the wrong thing with the wrong tactics, chemistry sets have long been a way to inspire kids about the stuff, some just don't get it, but others get an opportunity they otherwise wouldn't have to kickstart the process and get the interested and passionate about physics/chemistry at an early age.

Personally I'd rather see biochemistry sets/guides for kids, grow your own bacteria and such (I found it much more interesting than chemistry), but with the "threat" of anthrax breaking out any minute now I don't think they'd be politically correct (just as it seems limiting chemistry sets is "politically correct" in the US).

The sorry thing is, it's going to take you a long time to get these implicit rights back after the initial knee-jerk reaction.

Seems similar to the RIAA

[webmaster404]

Seems similar to the RIAA and MPAA, something that Could be used to "pirate" music or make explosives we should ban!!! Be it BitTorrent, or chemistry sets, the only one that loses is the consumer, next I guess they will ban the internet or the selling of computers because as we know you can learn things that are illegal on the computer and you can rip CDs to put on your MP3 Player 111 *shift* !1!

man those were the days

[circletimessquare]

dissolving ants in hydrochoric acid, pouring bleach into ammonia and giving myself chemical pneumonia from chlorine gas, setting the house on fire with burning trails of isopropyl alcohol, fiddling with the mercury drops i squeezed out of that weird battery

heh

Re:man those were the days

[fyngyrz]

pouring bleach into ammonia and giving myself chemical pneumonia from chlorine gas

That's the stuff that burned out your ability to use capital letters, eh? I knew there had to be a reason...

Back in my day

[Caity]

I remember getting a chemistry set when I was a kid (mid-eighties I suppose) and I think the most exciting thing I managed to do with it was to make some clear liquid turn red, then clear again.

It was rather disappointing when compared to some of my experiments with Things Found In Every Kitchen...

My (all girls) high school chemistry teacher expressed a lot of dismay at the changing laws about what chemicals she was allowed to show us. The education department provided these videos of "safe" demonstrations of the various properties of dangerous things that they were supposed to show us in lieu of a live demo. She'd show us the video... then swear us all to secrecy and produce an ancient brown jar of [sodium|sulfur|some other now banned chemical] from the bowels of the school's ancient chemical safe and repeat a fair portion of the experiments for us.

Sometimes it's good to go to an old school ... we only had to evacuate the building once (lesson learned: sulfur + fire = bad).

I'll never forget a particular class during organic chemistry. We'd made some crappy alcohol and were distilling it and she told us about how at university she and her classmates in the chemistry department used to have massive cocktail parties using the pure ethanol stock.

Re:

[Dunbal]

I was lucky enough to study A-level chemistry in the UK. Despite the fact that I sold out and went into biology (medicine), I used to love chemistry. Our teacher (master) demonstrated the thermite process live. I've seen what happens when you put metallic lithium, sodium and potassium in regular water, etc. We got to play with a LOT of transition elements, making all the pretty colors with the various salts. And of course, organic chemistry was a riot.

Poor kids. Chemistry really is fun. I guess those who re

Not sure if this is accurate...

[PortHaven]

I've seen this trend for a while, and it predates 9-11.

I believe the issue is more of a "legal" than "security" issue. I think the high risk of lawsuits is what's killing these kits. In the old days, if you let your kids be unsupervized and they started eating the chemicals - you were considered a bad parent with a stupid kid. Now days, parents tell the kids to eat the chemicals in hopes of a winning lawsuit so they don't have to work anymore.

How many classic toys have gone the way of the dino because of our stupid frivolous legal system and lack of responsibility culture. I mean, Burger King/McDonald's (one of the two) had these flying princesses. They spin, their wings fly out and they whirl into the sky like helicopters. "Recalled and banned!" Why? Because they're uber dangerous. The fly toy might just land on the child's head. We can't have that. (Not like a baseball isn't a 100x more deadly - but we're not going to ban those.)

Bah...this plan deserves to be turned into an intergalactic entranceway.

Best currently available set

[michaelmalak]

Some brief web surfing turned up Chem C3000 [thamesandkosmos.com] as being the best available. The glassware to chemical ratio is much higher than the sets of yore with racks [timewarptoys.com] and racks [timewarptoys.com] of little bottles of chemicals. I remember chemistry sets used to be advertised by the number of chemicals -- now it seems to be the number of "experiments".

I call bullshit

[swordgeek]

Are chemistry sets getting crappier? Of COURSE they are! When I was growing up in the 1970s, the best I could get was a pale imitation of the ones my dad had in the garage. Now we're a generation along, and the ones I had look like danger waiting to be used. It has absolutely nothing to do with terrorism, and everything to do with the obsessive culture of safety.

TFA is a big, steaming pile of shit. Read it carefully, and you'll find there's not a single 'explanation' of why things are the way they are that holds water.

It's just a grumpy twit with a computer. Nothing to see here.

Re:When's it going to stop?

[RLiegh]

Why not just throw everyone in jail now, so we don't have to worry about terrorists running loose in the streets?

Patience, patience. We're getting there!

Re:I've still got mine-CHEMICLES DECAY

[Nom du Keyboard]

I'm afraid to open the small chemical bottles to see if they're still good.

Yes, chemicles decay. It's just like food. Leave them around too long and they go rotten. They probably decay to atoms, which if left untouched decay to protrons, neutrons, and electrons. Leave those alone and they'll decay to quarks. Yeah, you've got to stay away from those old chemicles.

Dynamite decays too. Becomes to unstable that you look at it wrong and it can go off with a big bang! Avoid chemistry sets with dynamite

Re:

[riprjak]

I dunno, building explosives and detonating trees in the sandhills and mailboxes in the neighbourhood kept me happily grounded for a lot of months when I was a kid. And since fireworks werent available readily in Australia when I grew up, we used chemistry sets to make it all...

And now kids are denied that joy! I wouldnt be the Engineer (and safety nazi) I am today without those experiences.

Once again the terrorists win a strategic victory against western society, yet another one given them with the expli

Drano, chlorine, fertiliser, thorium & antifre

[xixax]

Fertiliser already requires photo ID and valid reason. When our car's radioator was serviced the antifreeze was changed for a new blue liquid, while I haven't investigated, I'm betting it's a non ethylene glycol formula designed to be less useful as a precursor. I can't get thoriated gas lamp mantles and the "non radioactive" ones are feeble. Chlorine and sodium hydroxide aren't that far down the list anymore.

Re:Misleading title, again.

[SixFactor]

Oh, this is beyond the misleading title. This is more like stirring the pot, and rasslin' up some FUD. The funny thing is, the blog cited by the the anonymous reader does a decent job of attributing the difficulty of obtaining chemicals not just on the government, but on more economic factors, like liability concerns on the part of the chem set manufacturers and sellers. The money quote:

If a ladder manufacturer is under a constant barrage of liability suits, imagine the torrent of litigation directed to those giving a child a set of potentially dangerous chemicals. Its a CHILD, for God's sake. [Oh, I'm sorry, for a minute there I was waxing Democrat.]

Further, if you follow the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) link that's found on the blog, you'll find significant criticism of the ATF's enforcement of the Safe Explosives Act, which apparently has been less than effective. From the link:

The SEA was implemented to enhance public safety by expanding the ATF's licensing authority to include the intrastate manufacture, purchase, and use of explosives.2 The SEA also expanded the categories of "prohibited persons" to be denied access to explosives from four to seven. The new prohibited persons categories are aliens (with limited exceptions), persons who have been dishonorably discharged from the military, and individuals who have renounced their United States citizenship. These categories were added to the pre-existing categories of prohibited persons that included felons, fugitives, users of and persons addicted to controlled substances, and persons who have been adjudicated mentally defective or committed to mental institutions.

In addition, the SEA required that proprietors, owners, and corporate officers of companies that manufacture, sell, or import explosives submit fingerprint cards and photographs to the ATF with their license applications. It also mandated that the ATF inspect licensees' manufacturing and storage facilities at least once every three years. Finally, the SEA required the ATF to conduct background checks on all licensees, as well as all employees who have access to explosives as part of their work (Employee Possessors).3 In order to identify all prohibited persons, the ATF entered into an agreement with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to perform these background checks.4

The SEA did not change the explosives types subject to the ATF's licensing authority,as defined in 18 U.S.C. 841, and it did not increase the number of explosives under the ATF's control. Most notably, it did not extend the ATF's regulatory authority over ammonium nitrate or other common chemicals that, when combined, become explosives.

But hey, the usual emotional (help! help! I'm being oppressed!) response was obtained.