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http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x1467270710/Police-say-irate-car-dealership-customer-recorded-altercation

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x1467270710/Police-say-irate-car-dealership-customer-recorded-altercation

The people who keep saying stuff about the breaker box and the wiring don't have a clue what they're talking about. That wasn't why they were in the basement. From here:

Marlborough Fire Chief David Adams said firefighters were checking that all of the rooms had been ventilated when they discovered the basement cache.

Which leads me to my next question: Was the basement door standing open? How did smoke, which is hot and usually lighter than air, get from the second floor to the basement? Was it exceptionally thick, dense smoke or were the firefighters just nosing around with no good reason?

Also, I'm tired of hearing people talk like the chemicals and vials were laying all over the house, on the sofa, on the floor, etc. Nothing I've read said anything to that effect. They were in the basement: yes, unmarked and unlabeled, but for all the articles say it might have still been meticulously organized.

Somebody else quoted this article which said "firefighters were checking that all of the rooms had been ventilated when they discovered the basement cache." They weren't in the basement to flip the breaker. If he had the basement door shut, he should have told them to bugger off... there wouldn't be any smoke anyhow. Not to mention heat rises... unless this was extremely thick, dense smoke it wouldn't have gone into the basement anyway.

As others have mentioned they originally found the stuff because of a fire at the home. I did a search for the guy's name and found another article that confirms this. This article has the more sensational title, "Marlborough fire leads to discovery of basement full of chemicals (must resist urge to call title inflammatory...)

I generally am suspicious of the authorities in such situations but at least here it seems as if there might have been some reason. It sounds almost as if this is similar to some guy having stacks and stacks of newspapers in his house. As in most cases there is more to the story than a short newspaper article tells us.

Mod points be damned - I'll ditch them to get in on this thread. There's nothing about this story that is intrinsically left- or right-leaning, despite the temptation to apply that often imaginary dichotomy to everything under the sun. It's also not some indication that both liberals and conservatives are out to destroy chemistry as we know it, violating our rights as they go along. I ask the Libertarians to at least tentatively withdraw your attack dogs. Let's examine what we know.

The meat of the case against Mr. Deeb is in this statement, which was not fully quoted in the summary because it comes from the MAKE article, which truncates it:

Pamela A. Wilderman, Marlboro's code enforcement officer, said Mr. Deeb was doing scientific research and development in a residential area, which is a violation of zoning laws.

That's from the source article in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. It indicates that this wasn't just some dude with a home chemistry set and a nifty hobby; Deebs was doing "research and development." This doesn't make him dangerous, but it's entirely possible that he really was violating local zoning laws. Neither the MAKE article nor the Worcester Telegram & Gazette article specifies which zoning laws were violated, nor which chemicals were involved.

So this may be a case of law enforcement overstepping its authority (and either liberalism or conservatism run amok, depending on whose adherents you think are more likely to try to convince us that chemists in basements are scary), but it may also be a case of Marlboro's "code enforcement" officers following perfectly valid (albeit annoying) zoning laws. Whether or not the laws are overly strict, I don't see anything in this article to indicate that Deeb's fundamental rights were violated ... except the bit about a lack of warrant. The MAKE article has this to say about that alleged Fourth Amendment infraction:

In effect, the Massachusetts authorities have invaded Deeb's lab, apparently without a warrant, and stolen his property. Deeb, presumably under at least the implied threat of further action, has not objected to the warrantless search and the confiscation of his property.

However, the original Worcester Telegram & Gazette article doesn't say anything about the absence of a warrant, and the MAKE article does not cite any other source. If that allegation is true, the Marlboro authorities have some explaining to do. But these sources are too limited to know for sure. I did a search on Google News and found this article, which was the only one about these events that I cound find. While it also mentions that Deeb is cooperating with authorities, it doesn't mention warrants. Fourth Amendment violation? Who knows. Let's all get on with what we were doing before this "firestorm" erupted and reconvene when we have something solid and legitimate to complain about.

And, my letter (to the principal, forwarded to the district info e-mail, and the superintendent's e-mail)

Mr. Welch:

As I'm sure you're now acutely aware, your school's policy on arbitrary cell phone searches has made a considerable stir in the community. While the question of legality is certainly out of my field of expertise, it is obvious that that there are legal concerns regarding the search of information and data stored on a student's electronic device.

The Metro West Daily News article suggests that your policy regarding wireless phones is to improve security, and to crack down on the sale of stolen items and drug sales. Crime fighting tends to be exclusively the purvue of the police; extending warantless police powers to your administration tends to alienate students. Where does the invasion of privacy stop? If schools are allowed to search lockers (proper, since it is, in fact, school property), backpacks (questionable), and cell phones (?!), what prevents the schools from performing mandatory strip searches or body cavity searches?

Obviously, this reaches an extreme that no-one is seriously willing to discuss - but realistically, where is the line drawn? Courts and public opinion of late have been willing to sacrifice liberty and privacy for a false promise of security - parents are some of the worst offenders. Where is the line drawn? How far is too far, and how far does a school's warantless police power extend?

Sean Flynn
Destin, Florida

References:
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/localRegional/vi ew.bg?articleid=134816
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/06/07/08/0716201.shtml (with plenty of examples of the general disgust and antipathy with which your new policy is regarded by members of the public)

This isn't the exact photo, but this photo is pretty close. But in my newspaper next to the "Y" shaped smoke plume that is burned into my memories was another photo of Christie Mcauliffe's family in the VIP viewing stands crying and hugging. My uncle was a television news photographer from Boston and was sent to cover the home-town school teacher. He was at the VIP stands and knows that the famous photo was actually taken before the accident. Those were tears of joy. He remembers NASA representatives escorting the family out of the stands, away from the media before anyone else figured what happened. No one in the VIP stands knew what happened until several minutes later.

Maybe they could actually set up their access points properly. It's not hard. Even WEP is far from trivial for a wardriver to get past- they'd have to camp out and wait for "weak" packets...except for certain specific AP's that have faulty WEP key generation. The owner's manuals now cover turning on WEP/WPA quite nicely, have for years, and most of the glaring problems have been fixed long ago as well.

What's next, people complaining about all the crime in their neighborhood but not locking their goddamn front doors? Oh...check.

Every homeschooled person I've ever met have been crazy geniuses because they were taught how to think and reason. Of course, they are also socially inept as they didn't have to deal with masses of other children.

As someone who was homeschooled for 9 years I have to disagree with your statement. I'm sick of all the ignorance about homeschooling.
There are many oppourtunities for homeschoolers to "interact" with other children. We had monthly homeschool meetings where we all got together (50-60 families and in rural south ga. I know of some groups that have over 200 ) There are many clubs we canjoin boys and girls club boy/girl scouts, 4-H etc. and since we can do a days worth of work by lunch time we have more time to devote to extracurricular activities. I have had several friends who were homeschooled for years go back to public school and fit right in. Most of them like it better becasue the class work is easier than what they had to do at home. I make friends quite easily. I've been at college for 3 weeks and this weekend I spent the entire weekend away from my house hanging out with diff groups of friends. Last night while I was hanging out with a couple guys I had 2 other groups call me and see if I wanted to do something.
Course we're not all crazy geniuses either. some people want to homeschool cause they think it means they wont have to work hard. Or because they are "discipline problems" which is entirely the wrong reason to HS.

for the past two years I attended a 2 year college with the reputation of being the hardest in the state. The English Teachers are proud of the high Regents essay test scores and work hard to keep it that way. I dont know how many times I heard someone say "I wish my teacher hadnt been so easy on me."

Homeschoolers actually tend to do better in college as well. We're already used to working on our own and having to get projects done on time.
As to the topic you wouldnt believe how much pressure has been put on the homeschool movement in the past and continues today. Here is an excerpt from the current issue Home School Legal defence association's monthly court report
"Two veteran homeschool families, both Home School Legal Defense Association members, received notices from the Calhoun Intermediate School District that they were in "violation" of the compulsory attendance law. Though aware that these families were exercising their constitutional and statutory rights to homeschool, the district demanded that the families' children be placed in public school the day after receipt of the notices. The notices threatened that failure to place the children in school immediately would result in "court action." If convicted, the families would be slapped with a fine, "imprisonment for not less than two or more than ninety days," or both. HSLDA court report

To see some stats on homeschooling click here
One ladies decision to home school her son

I just don't understand. Its one of the the most public,

Sure.

most newsworthy

Not really. John Kerry mathematically wrapped up the Democratic nomination by winning enough delegates over 4 months ago. He's been campaigning as the nominee since then. Voting to officially nominate him at the convention is just a formality (and an excuse to party.) They'll also be approving the official Democratic party platform, which should be a matter of "All in favor? Good. Any opposed? Done and done." It's already been written, so I would imagine any lengthy discussion about it has already happened.

and best covered events happening, and everyone's in a twist about the governement having a few cameras there as well?

Actually, there's also been a lot of discussion about trash cans, mailboxes, random bag searches, and a fairly major road closure for people north of Boston during the DNC.

BTW, I should mention I live in Massachusetts, although luckily I won't have to go anywhere near Boston during the convention. I still may be affected by the bag searches, at least, since I take the Commuter Rail to work.