questions i wish would never come to mind...

#2232: If you whistle "Sit on my Face" in the hall without actually singing the words, is it still potentially sexual harassment?

if you outlaw chemistry sets...

...only outlaws will study chemistry in their spare time.

Seriously, this is ridiculous.  Guy has a home chemistry set-up, 'cause he was a chemist before retirement and like all career hobbyists he still likes to play, and some jack-ass lady decided, "I think Mr. Deeb has crossed a line somewhere.", and had it all confiscated and him arrested on trumped up charges of violating a zoning regulation.  He's free, they keep the kit.  All the chemicals "disposed of" even though nothing has been found to be any more dangerous than cleaning chemicals.

No, Ms. Wilderman, he didn't cross a line.

YOU crossed that line.

That line is called the 4th Amendment.

Evolving Thoughts: Only government approved labs can do experiments, see?:

Kids today have emasculated chemistry sets that do precisely nothing interesting. And if Mythbusters has taught us anything, it's that kids love explosions. That is the route to an educated population of science loving psychopaths. But we didn't turn out to be psychopaths, we turned out to be lovers of science. We have lost something important. If a frigging chemist, who knows how to work safely, cannot do science at home, the west can pretty well forget about the next few generations of kids ever learning anything useful.

Yeah - I'm waiting for the days that because of "hackers" (and the misappropriation of that term), they'll start to ban home-hobby programming, even though that's responsible for 75% of the open-source code out there running the internet and most of its server software today.