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Home Science Under Attack In Massachusetts
An anonymous reader tips a guest posting up on the MAKE Magazine blog by the author of the Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments. It seems that authorities in Massachusetts have raided a home chemistry lab, apparently without a warrant, and made off with all of its contents. Here's the local article from the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. "Victor Deeb, a retired chemist who lives in Marlboro, has finally been allowed to return to his Fremont Street home, after Massachusetts authorities spent three days ransacking his basement lab and making off with its contents. Deeb is not accused of making methamphetamine or other illegal drugs. He's not accused of aiding terrorists, synthesizing explosives, nor even of making illegal fireworks. Deeb fell afoul of the Massachusetts authorities for... doing experiments... Pamela Wilderman, the code enforcement officer for [the Massachusetts town of] Marlboro stated, 'I think Mr. Deeb has crossed a line somewhere. This is not what we would consider to be a customary home occupation.' Allow me to translate Ms. Wilderman's words into plain English: 'Mr. Deeb hasn't actually violated any law or regulation that I can find, but I don't like what he's doing because I'm ignorant and irrationally afraid of chemicals, so I'll abuse my power to steal his property and shut him down.'"
... that something is wrong with Kansas ?
These hyper-red and hyper-blue states both have issues with people. The former set of control freaks try to make you a religion borg while the latter set of control freaks try their hand making you a state-uber-alles borg.
Chemistry for chemistry's sake has been banned all along. Check out this article on how to get your banned pdf copy of one cool 1960s chemistry book with some not-so-cool experiments...
Sounds like the actions of typical small-minded, small-town bureaucrats who are skilled mainly in keeping and expanding their power.
This is what the environment of hysteria is doing to the US.
Who exactly is terrorizing us these days? Seems like our "elected officials" just want us to be scared all the time so we won't really think about what's going on.
People are never as simple as their stereotypes. This applies equally to Christians, Muslims, and Emacs-lovers.
SO call the FBI and complain that the local police entered and arrested you without a warrant. Call the local and national media. Make a big stink about it. Start a website. The Massachusetts police are morons and they need to be put in their place.
There are regulations about how much [of various chemicals] you're supposed to have, how it's detained, how it's disposed of.
Depending on the specifics of what this guy's dealing with, he may be subject to rules regarding the safe disposal of certain chemicals, etc.
Amnesty International
I wonder how long before people in possession of scary "hacking software and equipment" are subjected to similar intrusions? Welcome to the NewUSA, where all knowledge is classified.
Caveat Utilitor
If you have enough laws, then anyone is a criminal. They'll either claim its a violation of zoning ordinances, environmental hazard or an OSHA violation.
This is where we are going. The government is fostering the notion to the police that they have absolute discretion & power. Can you find the limited government here?.. Neither can I.
From TFA:
"Mr. Deeb's home lab likely violated the regulations of many state and local departments, although officials have not yet announced any penalties."
If they discovered that you were keeping 200 cats in your home under extremely unsanitary conditions, they would do the same thing: move all of the cats to a shelter somewhere, and charge you with violating local health regulations once they had assessed the entire situation. I think it's a little bit of a kneejerk reaction to say that they're "ignorantly and irrationally afraid of chemicals" and "abus[ing] power to steal his property".
Would you rather they just ask him "hey, is any of this dangerous?" and leave when he says "no"? There are reasons why we regulate stuff like chemicals (you have to have a permit just to own / use some professional beauty products), and if he wasn't following whatever the local regulations were, then it's his fault.
Now, if it turns out he was indeed following all local / state laws, then the authorities certainly owe him an apology at least.
Don't you?
This is just another representation of the government attempting to control the lives of citizens under the guise of protecting the masses.
Although he could be using his home chemistry lab to do illegal things, the government should not be allowed to enter and seize on the ability to do wrong, only on the reasonable suspicion.
If the ability to cause problems was a legitimate reason to stop someone from practicing their hobby, then what about gun enthusiasts? What about drunks? And what about people with cars?
I don't care if you have a home chemistry set, just don't blow up my house.
Once you infringe on my rights, you're in the wrong - and that applies equally to the government!
So his ''crime'' was to do something slightly different from the rest of the population.
Then I got to thinking: What is normal, what does Mr average do in his spare time ? Does this mean that anyone who does anything except: watch TV, visit shopping malls or go to the pub is weird and so under suspicion ?
I think that I'll put my walking boots on and think about it on a long stroll .... drat - that'll put me under the microscope :-)
There are always people with authority and the stupidity to use it. So he's been shut down, yes it's terrible - and illegal - and unconstitutional. Perhaps the best way to show your outrage: buy his book: at $29 bucks, why not? That way, just in case justice is not done, he will be able to be well financed to return to his work.
The EAA had the same fight about home builders. :)
For those that don't know the EAA represnts people that build their own airplanes or restore old ones. At least one town made it illegal. The EAA usually fights such things and often wins.
Too bad there isn't an EAA for Chemistry.
BTW I am a member of the EAA
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
RTFA.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
"The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity." -Harlan Ellison
Stupidity is more than happy to cross party lines.
Probably thought he was developing a new kind of hoax device.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
There have been similar problems for those who handload ammunition. "Oh my god, this man had 12 pounds of gunpowder in his garage! And look at all this ammunition! It's an arsenal of destruction!"
And no, that's not hyperbole. It's happened. Generally only in places like California or Massachusetts, with their high proportion of Gun Fearing Weenies(tm), but not exclusively.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
Since when has there existed a reference standard for how people should live in their own homes? Who's home is it, his or the State's?
How many posts would it take for someone to use the word 'totalitarian', I wonder, were this story to have originated from a Communist country?
When the officer says, "This is not what we would consider to be a customary home occupation," he's implying a zoning violation. It can be answered with, "This is not what we consider to be a customary neighborhood nuisance." Zoning laws should protect people from things like junk yards, car dealerships and noisy manufacturing. Going after this man is a stretch of those intentions.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Now, a bunch of silly fools that never took chemistry even in college are doing their best to outlaw what every intelligent child in the 60s and 70s did for fun.
As a result, the US has not been doing groundbreaking chemistry in over a decade.
Granted, computers are a big lure, but chemistry is the basis of our industry. We need to ENCOURAGE kids and adults to do chemistry, not prevent it with idiotic, foolish laws.
If it is not more dangerous than fertilizer and diesel fuel, or styrofoam and gasoline, than it should be legal for a 16 year old kid to buy in the mail, without a license.
Anythinge else is rank hipocracy and stupidity.
P.S. I am not recommending a 12 year old do explosive experiments unsupervised, but I hate to tell you, THEY DO IT ANYWAY. They just go and get an aerosole can and a lighter, instead of ordering a kit.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
The following link is to the "inspections" division of the city where the zealot works. Phone numbers and emails are listed. Just an FYI http://www.marlborough-ma.gov/Gen/MarlboroughMA_Inspection/index
At least he will be able to get a better home lab after he brings this to court.
"Allow me to translate Ms. Wilderman's words into plain English: 'Mr. Deeb hasn't actually violated any law or regulation that I can find, but I don't like what he's doing because I'm ignorant and irrationally afraid of chemicals, so I'll abuse my power to steal his property and shut him down."
appears nowhere in the linked article, yet kdawson has chosen to sensationalize by adding his own words and making it look as if they were part of the article.
In fact the article actually states:
"Mr. Deebâ(TM)s home lab likely violated the regulations of many state and local departments, although officials have not yet announced any penalties. "
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
From the article: "Mr. Deeb was doing scientific research and development in a residential area, which is a violation of zoning laws."
After reading the article, I'm pretty unimpressed with the selective quoting in the blurb. Not only were laws broken, but from the description of the house, it sounds like there was at least a little reason to want to investigate, if perhaps not launch a cleanup. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
According to TFA, "Mr. Deeb's home lab likely violated the regulations of many state and local departments, although officials have not yet announced any penalties."
Also according to TFA, Mr. Deeb invited the fire department into his home, to deal with an an unrelated fire.
So, it seems that a violation was committed (though the question of the reasonability of the regulations in question remains open), and that this wasn't some sort of "no knock" raid.
Also, the fact that the chemicals in question were no more dangerous than typical household chemicals is not relevant - a lot of household chemical are very dangerous and are only permitted because they are typically kept in small quantities. It's one thing to have a can of bug spray, another to store a ton of pesticides.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
That is soo 1970's... Its now better living through pharmacology.
Sad, we got a pill for that
tired, we got a pill for that
sick, we got a pill for that
taking too many pills, we got a pill for that.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
This is not what we would consider to be a customary home occupation.
I find it troubling that hobbyists are less trusted than corporations (assuming that these same experiments, performed by a corporation, would pose no problem - which I think the above quote pretty clearly implies). First, it is a really stupid idea from the American economy standpoint - we've made a lot of hay in this country's history on garage hackers (think: personal computer, for example). Second, what exactly makes corporations (which are made up of individuals) more trustworthy than non-corporate individuals? Timothy McVeigh? USAMRIID Anthrax. This is utterly stupid, and clearly the result of a panic'd mind more concerned with a pretense of safety than with the success of this great nation.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Just a WAG, but might the firefighters need to shut off the electrical power before squirting water all over the 2nd floor A/C? Especially if it was an electrical fire...
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Really, the above is a bit far from the inflamitory accusations of ironshod goosestepping that the blog author insinuates.
There is a difference between having a hobby bench and doing 'science' and running a chem lab. One is harmless, the other is only harmless when you take the proper safety percautions.
Not saying this is the case, but often fire fighters will want to shut off all breakers (remove fuses), and shut off gas lines in a residential fire. Often, the breaker box and gas shut off valve are in the basement. Of course, it can be done externally by the utilities as well, but it can be faster to do locally
all your base are belong to us, and your acids too.
the real question is whether the US's current direction will change after the election. I have a feeling that even if Obama wins, it won't be easy to turn around the train...
—Men in Black
As usual on Slashdot, what the submitter says happened and what the article says happened aren't the same.
According to the article:
A fire broke out on the 2nd floor of the subject's home. In the process of responding to this, firefighters found a LOT of chemicals, about 1500 different ones to be exact. The home was not zoned to be a chemical lab, so doing so much chemical work there violated zoning laws.
So while it's quite fun to blame "evil" governments, had a fire not broken out nothing would have happened. And nobody who's railing about the government seems to have any smart ideas on how a home user is going to properly dispose of chemical waste in a legal and environmentally sound way. For all we know he was just dumping stuff down the toilet, which probably isn't legal.
Actually it sounds far more like they got wind of the guys lab somehow decided that the only possible reason someone would have a checmistry lab is to make drugs or be a terrorist, raided his house and are now desperately trying to find something he has done wrong so they don't look like incompetent morons.
Of course by not owning up, apologising and making amends they are now coming across as vindictive, malicious incompetent morons. Somebody needs to remind them that when you find yourself in a hole it really is time to stop digging!
Yeah, that stuff is dangerous! We need to stop it RIGHT NOW!
Think of the children! They might get EXPOSED to these vile chemicals.
Call your congressman!
Recruiting for the navy, perhaps? Maybe advertising for the YMCA?
I find ignorance to be basically politically agnostic. It's just that different political groups choose to be vocally ignorant about different matters.
Pretty much what you'd expect. Looks to be your garden variety petty bureaucrat, overly impressed by her little bit of power.
"The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity."
I'm not so sure. If this was really the case then given our locally oxygen rich environment you'd expect one to cancel out the other. This suggests that the relative abundance of stupidity greatly exceeds that of hydrogen.
You had to make me look, as I was quite surprised about that law. But here it is: http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/criminal_law_enforcement/narcotics/narcprecursor.htm
What's the big deal?
This is yet another example of the end of freedom, that's what. This is one set of people deciding that you are making the wrong choices with your freedom and they need to make all your choices for you from now on.
They want to choose
- your hobby,
- what games you can play,
- whether you can smoke,
- what you can drink,
- what you can eat,
- what kinds of cars you're allowed to drive,
- how fast,
- where you can live,
- how you celebrate the 4th of July,
- how much money you can make,
- how much money you can pay your employees,
- how you raise your children,
- what jokes you can tell at work,
- the precise mix of fuel in your gas tank,
- what health care you are to be allowed,
- who you can rent housing to,
- what's on your cable TV,
- and what days you can water your lawn.
What's the big deal? Why don't we all just make exactly the choices you might make and then we'll never have a problem?
And the worst thing: the only "solution" people talk about is getting "person C" to be in charge of making everyone's choices for them instead of "person D".
I contacted Ms. Wilderman, who actually answered her phone. http://www.marlborough-ma.gov/Gen/MarlboroughMA_Inspection/index
Pamela A. Wilderman Code Enforcement Officer 508 460-3765
She stated that the fire department was called for an apparent fire on the 2nd floor of Mr. Deeb's home. This allowed the firemen entry into the house. Upon further investigation (of the basement for a 2nd floor fire) the firemen discovered the chemicals and brought in the authorities.
Ms. Wilderman said "We have zoning laws for this purpose, the firefighters were called into what they thought was a single family residence only to discover unmarked chemicals in the basement, he had a chemistry lab down there, in an area zoned residential". I informed her that I had an electronics lab, and beer brewing equipment in mine to which she made the comment "I bet your neighbors are thrilled about that". Of course I don't think my neighbors even know because they all mind their own business.
Anyway this brings up a series of questions. Were the chemicals truly unmarked? Mr. Deebs is a retired chemist, surely he would practice some type of protocol. Second, if his activity is not illegal where is the justification of not only seizing the items, but then stating they will be disposed of. Will Mr. Deebs be reimbursed. What if they went into the basement and discovered a person to hand loads his own ammunition? It is a perfectly legal hobby practiced by shooters all over the country. Would they have seized those items?
Finally, I would love to hear Mr. Deebs story on this. His reputation is being destroyed over a simple hobby.
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
One would guess she would have a real problem with someone like Thomas Edison and his chemistry lab on the rail car. There was a day when the basement inventor/chemist/scientist was looked on a hero, someone to look up to and certainly the cornerstone of wealth creation in the country.
Pamela Wilderman, the code enforcement officer for [the Massachusetts town of] Marlboro stated, 'I think Mr. Deeb has crossed a line somewhere. This is not what we would consider to be a customary home occupation.' Allow me to translate Ms. Wilderman's words into plain English: 'Mr. Deeb hasn't actually violated any law or regulation that I can find, but I don't like what he's doing because I'm ignorant and irrationally afraid of chemicals, so I'll abuse my power to steal his property and shut him down.'"
Actually, if you'll read the full quote, she finishes with: "⦠There are regulations about how much youâ(TM)re supposed to have, how itâ(TM)s detained, how itâ(TM)s disposed of." and the article continues with: "Mr. Deebâ(TM)s home lab likely violated the regulations of many state and local departments."
So, even though he wasn't actively being a terrorist or doing anything wrong with the chemicals, there are still rules about how you're supposed to handle it and where and he apparently didn't abide by them well enough.
Regarding the lack of a warrant, to the best of my knowledge, if you have something illegal sitting out in plain sight and a law enforcement agency is there on other business, they don't really need a warrant to get at it.
Even the newspaper article linked by the person making the sensational claim doesn't support the claim. The story appears in several places and the facts in each don't support the thesis that "Home Science is Under Attack".
The chemist in question had a fire in his house. While the fire department was responding to the fire, they happened upon the lab with an unusually large array of chemicals and equipment. They asked the man what he was doing with them and he noted that he was a retired chemist, doing his own development at home now, and was even patenting and marketing some of the things he developed.
The fire marshall was concerned that the lab might pose a fire hazard and contacted the DEP per the usual protocol, and they went through and checked it out. They notified the town of the situation, who noted that he was doing commercial chemical R&D (by his own admission, he was) in a residential area in violation of applicable zoning laws. The DEP was required to "close" the lab and clean up any chemicals for which there's a prescribed disposal procedure (e.g., you're not supposed to pour large quantities of it down the sink).
The guy broke zoning laws and he got caught because of an unrelated fire in his house. That's it.
According to the newspaper article "most likely" violated numerous state and local regulations. Nobody is tossing out specifics because the town isn't planning to issue a citation. At issue is "how much you're supposed to have, how it's detained, how it's disposed of" in a residential area. So the issue isn't "experimenting", it's storage, processing and disposal at a facility not zoned for those purposes.
Common sense will show you that the scale of experimentation makes a difference. Making a few quarts of biodiesel or a few bars of soap, that's home experimenting. Making a thousand gallons of biodiesel or a thousand pounds of soap is an industrial process. There isn't a precise line between chemistry set stuff and industrial production, but it's there. Making four gallons of beer a week is a lot for a home brewer, but making a hundred gallons a week probably means you've "crossed some line".
The story doesn't really give us enough details to know whether the raid was justified, or served any public purpose. That depends on what they expected to find, why the expected to find it, and what they actually found, none of which is at this time public knowledge. We don't even know what level of government initiated this, it appears it was the town.
One thing that's almost certain is that the search did not require a warrant. It is what is legally called an "administrative search". According to the dictionary an administrative search is "an inspection or search carried out under a regulatory or statutory scheme esp. in public or commercial premises and usu. to enforce compliance with regulations or laws pertaining to health, safety, or security. One of the fundamental principles of administrative searches is that the government may not use an administrative inspection scheme as a pretext to search for evidence of criminal violations."
So the health inspector doesn't need a warrant to check on the crazy lady who has 200 cats in her house, which is a code violation even if its perfectly permissible for her to have 2 cats, or even 20. Likewise I can have a dog or two, but I can't run a kennel in a densely populated suburban neighborhood unless I have a zoning variance (and possibly pay commercial tax rates).
You can argue that there shouldn't be such thing as zoning regulations. And its probably true that there are many places where there is little or no purpose to them. But zoning laws and administrative searches are NOT unconstitutional, at least by the interpretation of the Constitution that has held sway for a century or more.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Pamela A. Wilderman Code Enforcement Officer 508 460-3765
I'm getting sick of the police/narrow minded people having so much power. I was painting my car, with an HVLP gun and spraying less than 5 gallons of paint per year, well within the law in Texas. Well long story short my neighbors see me in a nylon suit with a gas mask and call me in as a meth lab.
Cops came by and the saw me painting. One of them pulled me out by my fresh air line and I started swearing at him because I didn't see he was a cop. Long story short I had a 280lb man throw me on the ground.
Then when they found out I wasn't violating any laws they told me if I was painting or welding again they'd pursue public nuisance.
So the cycle has completed, the narrow minded have take over in America and crushed what innovation there was. When is someone going to discover a new continent so we can start the cycle over again?
40 years ago, this man was considered the norm. We did chemical experiments in our house. NOBODY thought it was bizarre. This man writes a book on how to learn about chemistry at home and they raid his home without a warrent?????? Here in America, We have entered a VERY dark age.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Jackson County Michigan just got rid of such a petty bureaucrat. She was an animal control officer that put a pig farmer out of business because his pigs were in the mud. Well, the problem is that mud is necessary for pigs well being, it helps them keep from getting sunburned and it cools them. This same officer then (about a year or two later) raided a horse farm because she didn't like the way the horses looked (remember these horses are livestock not pets). A vet friend of mine looked at the horses and didn't see anything wrong - yet the county found some lackey vet to say that there was a sick horse in the herd (a very common occurence when you have more than 2 horeses). The upshot of this story is that the animal control officer no longer has her job and the county is getting sued for the value of the horses they confiscated and sold at auction. I would expect that this ordinance officer will meet the same fate when the agrieved party hires an attorney and sues both her personally (for civil rights violations) and the city/county for other things. These things have a way of working themselves out.
I know this won't be popular here...but storing hazardous/flammable/whatever chemicals ON THE FLOOR is not a lab. It's a hazard.
You want to run a chem lab in a neighborhood? You better notify your neighbors clearly - especially if there's a fire. You should probably also consider storing chemicals properly.
I halfway wish he had a bit of sodium in that basement Yeah, that could have been VERY interesting with all that water flowing down through the walls and ceilings.... At least they would have only been occupying his pile of rubble then.
But hey, his rights to house flammable (and possibly explosive) chemicals trumps everything else. DAMN POLICE STATE!!!
Him and his friends used to make Pipe Bombs!
Yup, real actual bombs. Till one of his friends was killed by one.
Any kid doing that today would be jailed and screwed for life. Feynman got to win a Nobel Prize, and, um, develop the Atom Bomb (but we'll ignore that one..).
I'm not saying he should have been doing such dangerous stuff as a kid, but the point is, smart kids will do complicated but dumb things just because its fun.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Pamela Wilderman, the code enforcement officer for [the Massachusetts town of] Marlboro stated, 'I think Mr. Deeb has crossed a line somewhere. This is not what we would consider to be a customary home occupation.'
The actual article says:
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. It is a residential home in a residential neighborhood," she said. "This is Mr. Deeb's hobby. He's still got bunches of ideas. I think Mr. Deeb has crossed a line somewhere. This is not what we would consider to be a customary home occupation. ... There are regulations about how much you're supposed to have, how it's detained, how it's disposed of."
Either the poster didn't properly read, or he/she just considers zoning bylaws useless. For those that do think zoning bylaws serve no point, let me reference the recent propane explosion that occured in the middle of a Toronto residential neighbourhood, leaving two people dead and hundreds of homes damaged, and is now the subject of a zoning review
--
Luck is just skill you didn't know you had.
I find it troubling that hobbyists are less trusted than corporations (assuming that these same experiments, performed by a corporation, would pose no problem - which I think the above quote pretty clearly implies).
Running a company is going to require a number of licenses and inspections, depending on the type of work you do. Health or safety inspectors may come to examine your shop. You may be required to file compliance reports. None of that's true for a hobbyist's basement.
Now, there's a good reason for that - "hobbyist" implies small-scale work that doesn't require inspections or regulation, because it's not the sort of thing that poses a safety hazard to anyone except perhaps the hobbyist. But when you're dealing with someone who has what sounds like a full scale lab and lots of stored chemicals, you've moved out of the category of "hobbyist."
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
As early as 1821, there were restrictions on how much gunpowder you could have around in a city house. 5 lbs was a common limit, and still is. In New York State, above 5 pounds of black powder, the licensing, reporting, and safety rules apply; for example, storage within 75 feet of an inhabited building is not permitted.
Modern smokeless powder isn't a major explosion hazard, but black powder is.
And on the fourth corner, there is a bar with a sign out front that says "No loitering by order of the Pope."
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
Cool book.
What other books are banned from public libraries? There must be a list somewhere.
I found this:
http://title.forbiddenlibrary.com/
and this:
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/banned-books.html
but, dammit, I've read most of them. Where are the really bad ones?
You can join me in Hell during:
Banned Books Week
Celebrating the Freedom to Read
September 27â"October 4, 2008
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bannedbooksweek.cfm
40 years ago they thought thalidomide (sp?) and DDT were beneficial chemicals, safe to expose all kinds of people to. Asbestos, too. Now they're a little more cautious about making sure people aren't getting poisoned or blown up.
You may benefit by reading the article, which explains that the fire department was called, and when they discovered the 1500 jars of chemicals they determined it appeared to pose at least some risk in a residential home. Learning chemistry at home was not the crime, here. In fact, other than the enforced cleanup, it looks as if Deeb isn't going to be cited with anything.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
A few posters have noted that there was a fire in the household etc. Regardless, as a kid, I grew up in the "new age" of computers. A Commodore 64 in-hand, I played video games on it and did a bit of programming. I had a huge interest in science. But, like many other kids, were were generally more fortunate than our parents and our toys were more expensive and significantly less educational and a huge was of time: video games and cable TV. No less than straight-A's from grade school to high school.
My father had chemistry sets and Meccano toys when he grew up. I had access to Meccano parts and motors but I grew bored and tired of it. Instead video games and TV.
My father and I are on equal footing in terms of IQ. He's a doctor. I studied in science at university-level but I grew frustrated with Chemistry and Biology simply because it didn't come "naturally". Perhaps that's an excuse. Whatever. Not important to my argument. I think not having chem set was one reason. I don't regret what might have been - I didn't want to be a doctor after all. But, this society is probably turning away a lot of brilliant minds. Banning learning tools - books, chem sets, etc. is a bad, bad move. Maybe I could be an astrophysicist if I'd not had video games and cable TV. If not me, then some other would-be Nobel Prize winner.
So, I think before any governments go banning or raiding people's homes for chemistry sets - whatever the reason - they should consider the effects of this on society and the education system. For parents that *know nothing* about Chemistry, they are not going to buy little Johnny a chemistry set because all the negative attention its getting in the media makes them think he's going to take the house down. See Dihydrogen Monoxide hoax: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_hoax.
Uggg... more knee jerk reaction to a pretty obvious case of prudent police work.
There's a fire in his house. The fire dept. and police come, and put out the fire. In the process of putting out the fire, they notice hundreds of vials of chemicals. Not in a rack, not on a shelf, not even on a table, but all over the place. On the floor, on furniture, everywhere. No reasonable chemist would be dumb enough to do that with any chemicals.
What would you want the police to do? Walk out without doing a little due diligence? There's a good chance he is storing these chemicals unsafely, and he is endangering his life and possibly others as a result. So they call in the experts to clean it up. And then they take a look at what he's done wrong, and probably will give him a fine and a slap on the wrist.
It's amazing how many Slashdotters don't even bother to do a bit of research before coming to their black-and-white conclusion about how The Man is bad and this poor fellow is being an upstanding citizen with his rights violated. How dare the police invade this man's home! It's an attack on science! They hate the science!
RTFA!
There are alot of Slashdotters that seem to take pride in their critical thinking, intelligence, and analysis skills. Honestly, alot of you really don't demonstrate it very often here. It's more like a lynch mob than a bunch of intelligent people discussing issues.
There are regulations about how much you're supposed to have, how it's detained, how it's disposed of." Mr. Deeb's home lab likely violated the regulations of many state and local departments, although officials have not yet announced any penalties.
It doesn't sound to me like the law acted because they didn't take chemistry 101. I suspect they acted because, far more than a child's chemistry set, there was a full-blown laboratory in this guy's house where "vessels of chemicals were all over the furniture and the floor." It doesn't sound like very safe or up-to-code setup.
It's Massachusetts. We don't like your science and technology very much over here.
You know, after ten years of living here, I still tell people I'm "originally from Maine" so as not to get lumped in...
09
Do you propose I play with it in a balloon indoors? If I get arrested for doing something stupid, I'd feel a little better knowing my family won't get soaked in the next rainstorm because I blew the roof off the house.
The above is pretty funny, for certain values of "it"... I mean, you soaked your family? Blew the roof off the house?? Dude...
Bow-ties are cool.
Any good fascist state function due to the hard work of strict compliance officers such as Pam Wilderman. Her work phone is (508) 408-4118. Give her a call and congratulate her on her good work.
http://yetanotherpoliticalrant.blogspot.com
Also, people here are mostly incapable of grasping that there's more to law than criminal law. When firemen come into your home laboratory (at which point they're already disinclined to give you the benefit of the doubt about what a knowledgeable chemist you are) criminal proceedings are the least of their concerns.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
None of the materials found at 81 Fremont St. posed a radiological or biological risk, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection. No mercury or poison was found. Some of the compounds are potentially explosive, but no more dangerous than typical household cleaning products.
Most people would be really pissed if the had to spend several days in a motel because the fireman found a can of Draino and a bottle of vinegar downstairs in the basement
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Probably the best teacher I ever had was a Chemistry professor at the University of Washington. "Wild" Bill Zollar. Fantastic storyteller. Anyway, he was telling us about his time as an undergrad at the University of Alaska. He was majoring in Chemistry to he could graduate in time to take a trip he'd won to Hawaii. Well, he ended up being responsible for reacting left over WWII sodium metal to get rid of it. As we all know sodium metal + water = exothermic and sometimes BOOM. (This is how we knew this would be a good story.) So he and his TA are up late doing this. And the TA says "Hey want to see something cool?" So they take a chunk of sodium metal and throw it in a fountain. BOOM! Splash. Yay! So the TA says, more or less, "Ok goodnight. Have fun doing this increadibly tedious job, unsupervised, by yourself, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. I'm sure nothing will go awry." So here he is with untold kgs of sodium metal, reacting little slices of it with water. There's no one to go ride bikes with, and he's a smart young man with apparently poor impulse control. So he soaks some rags in oil, and wraps up a few bricks of sodium metal. Binds them up. Puts them in his car and proceeds to drive out to the nearest dam. So he stops the car over the water, tosses the parcel off and proceeds to drive away. Nothings happening, "Mission Accomplished." Before he gets across the water a 400 foot column of flame which must have lit up his car is busy burning down some guys outhouse on the bank behind him. Of course he went on to do other things, like thermite a trolly to it's tracks outside Harvard while he was at MIT, and then all kinds of important and extremely valuable work.
He's lucky they didn't hang him as a witch.
None of the materials found at 81 Fremont St. posed a radiological or biological risk, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection. No mercury or poison was found. Some of the compounds are potentially explosive, but no more dangerous than typical household cleaning products. (From the newspaper article)
Despite this admission from the authorities, they STILL stole his property. And you pro-government people are saying they had the right?
Morons.
Gun control: The belief that a woman, raped and strangled with her panties, is morally superior to a dead rapist.
Thats pretty much what the article said, "I think Mr. Deeb has crossed a line somewhere. This is not what we would consider to be a customary home occupation". So anyone who doesn't have a "normal" hobby is going to be raided by the Man?
I live in Massachusetts, so is the police going to come to my house and raid it and steal all my stuff because ham radio isn't considered a "customary home occupation"? How about servers, are they going to take all my servers and say running servers isn't considered a "customary home occupation"?
Well when the INHERENT freedoms of the founding fathers were being tread upon by the "Lawful Authorities" they started shooting them. I'm not suggesting it as a recourse only stating that it is a traditional and patriotic American solution.
Without judging the man accused or the authorities (I don't have enough information), I would point out that many people could be inadvertently affected by this. I used to have a house with a pool, and the chemicals necessary to keep it sanitary can be quite dangerous if misused or improperly stored. Some of the pool chemicals include; Sodium Dichloro-isocyanurate, Sodium Bisulfate, Trichlro Isocyanruate, Muriatic Acid or Hydrochloric Acid, Lithium Hypochlorite, Aluminum Sulfate etc. Indeed, some of these chemicals can be used to make drugs, explosives, or other "bad" concoctions. So, does every pool owner need to watch for BATF agents performing a no-knock raid? The other thing is if you have a large pool, than you WILL have gallon jugs of these chemicals, so quantity alone cannot be a standard for liability.
There is no security when liberty is sacrificed.
Through family associations, I was able to go to a wonderland place as a kid, the chem lab at an oil refinery. I was given the most excellent glassware and stuff that they were replacing. Top line gum rubber hose, fittings - on and on. I had a a "lab" in my basement that was, as you might imagine, pretty amazing. I messed with lot's of things; gun powder and such, acids, bases, wow. You could buy sulphur, saltpetre, ribbons of copper, zinc, magnesium, brass tubing, glass tubing ... all the the Newberry's Dime Store! They had a huge selection of chemical wares in little glass bottles with blue and white labels.
This article really made me float back 45 years and once again I was standing, transfixed in front of the huge wall of little jars, imagining what I could make. I run networks now days but my experiences with chemicals and labs were some of the best times I had as a kid. I went electronics but ... what could I have made??
Anyone that would have shut me down is unthinkable and wrong. I endangered no one but myself, if at all. I was very careful. My parents applauded and supported my efforts - they supported everything creative that I did and they were the best.
So ask Ms. Wilderman what 6.02 x 10 to the 23rd is? If Pam can't answer, she shouldn't complain.
Here's the local article from Worcester...
See how bad things have gotten? In today's climate, they'd never have been ABLE to invent Worcester-shire Sauce.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
The problem with these bottle bombs is that it's difficult to predict when the pressure in the bottle will get high enouigh to burst it, and when it does burst, it sprays caustic chemicals everywhere. If you want to do something like this, stick to the Dry Ice and water variant. At least with those, the worst you're likely to get is a bad cut from flying plastic, rather than a full-body chemical burn.
Oh, and remember to wear eye protection. Always.
Man, would I be pissed if I ran into that.... :-D
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
How big were these 1500 vials, jars, cans, bottles and boxes.
It could be he had a number of chemicals in boxes he had yet to unpack.
It could be that 1000 of those vials contained less than an ounce of chemical. To me a vial is usually a minute quantity of something, bigger than an ampule and msaller than a jar or bottle.
The second question you need to ask is was this scattered all over the floor, or was it neatly arranged on the floor underneath shelfs (aka furniture). What kind of furniture are we talking about? Tables perhaps? Shelving? Sofa? Chair?
This is a retired chemist. I think it is safe to assume he knows how to handle chemicals. After all, this is a chemist who has managed to survive for decades without blowing himself or Massachussets up. Maybe we should give him a bit more credit than the article. Maybe we should take the articles interviewees with a grain of salt (or heck a whole vial of salt).
However you roll this, it does not bode well for chemistry sets. Fortunately for me, a local science store is well aware of this and builds custom chemistry sets for those in the know. Along with the totally lame commercail ones we see in today's market.
in Worchester? MOVE NOW.
That "not a customary home occupation" test can be applied to anything VCs are likely to fund. So get out now before the city shuts you down for not doing something that's within the rather limited comprehension range of their code enforcement officer. "You're programming computers? EVIL HACKER, I'm calling the police right now! You've crossed an invisible line!!!" Alternative energy? "Algae is dangerous! I have to clean it out of my pool every week. And you're growing the stuff? The Department of Homeland Security knows how to deal with your kind!" Otherwise, assuming you stay out of jail or Gitmo, you'll have to watch your competitors in saner jurisdictions pull ahead of you while you try to get your hardware and data files away from the city.
There are reasons why even left-wing Democrats joke about the "People's Republic of Massachusetts". If this kind of nanny-state crap becomes prevalent in MA, even MIT's chemistry classes are likely to turn into high-school style 'comment and take notes on the experiment you'll be watching on video' crap. Though more likely, they'll simply find a saner state to move to.
Tech Public Policy stuff
This drives me crazy. My hobby is microscopy, and it is nearly impossible to get the supplies I need - and I am a pharmacist. After pondering this dilemma, I started carrying a number of chemicals, and repackaging them in smaller portions for the group of people who share my interest, and I charge cost for them. Every time a health inspector or Board of Pharmacy inspector comes in I have to explain and justify why I carry these "exotic items". I used to get Nitric acid from the local pharmacy when I was a kid just by saying it was for my chemistry set. Things have sure changed.
My state? You mean Alaska, where I don't need a conceal/carry permit for my firearm, where law enforcement is supposed to get court approval to monitor my property from an adjacent lot, and where it is legal to carry a quarter pound of marijuana (can't grow, sell, or buy, but can magically have it appear in a pocket)? Yeah, major nanny state. You have me pegged ...
And regarding your two questions, I don't think that people are interpreting the laws in such a manner. Maybe if you can provide a citation of such an act, as was requested of me (which I then did), I would be more thoroughly impressed? Under the strictest interpretation of the zoning laws, there may be issues. However, as it is written in the laws, there should be a chance to petition for the ability to perform such acts if it is not a threat to the public. If you can please explain to me how flammable / dangerous chemicals (which were discovered due to a fire in his house) are in a similar risk category as programming a microcontroller, that would be great.
To look at this another way, there are codes and regulations for how natural gas lines are hooked up to a house, etc. These safety measures help make sure that the general public is safe. If my neighbor does not build his house to code, it catches fire and damages mine in the act, I think that I would be upset. Similarly, if his fire had spread and come into contact with accelerents and burned down his neighbor's house, I also think that the person would have been upset due to a lack of compliance with zoning laws.
Excuse me while I get back to work. Here in Alaska. Thanks.