TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Three Texas Men ... on Terrorist Charges

Re: Three Texas Men ... on Terrorist Charges

David (someone@some-where.com)
Mon, 21 Aug 2006 14:36:05 GMT

DLR <news23@raleighthings.com> wrote in message
news:telecom25.308.3@telecom-digest.org:

>> Where will it end?

>> The US seems well on the way to the old Czarist model, where
>> _everything_ was _forbidden_ unless explicitly allowed by the
>> authorities.

> Prior to 1960 or so, you could buy an amazing collection of things
> from the drug store. Somewhere I have a book from the 50s on the hobby
> of rocket design. It contains some interesting mixes for fueling
> rockets. And this was not Estes, this was the real McCoy. And if you
> paid attention in high school chemistry and did a little
> experimenting, you could make some really big bangs. Pipe bombs were
> easy. Then (and I don't know all the reasons for sure) with the
> radical bombings and such plus a general "is this really a smart
> things to be selling" they gradually withdrew such things. Plus some
> laws were passed.

> Now buying saltpeter, magnesium, mercury, etc ... it a wee bit harder.

> Where should we set the limits?

(snip)

I remember those days. You could even buy nitric and sulfuric acid at
the drugstore and nearly anything else you wanted from mail order
chemical companies. Those days are gone along with chemistry sets.

What really disturbs me is the removal of some very useful things from
the market because of the litigious society we live in. Today I can
not even buy a torsion spring for my garage door as the lawyers have
made the liability risk for the seller just too great.

David

Post Followup Article Use your browser's quoting feature to quote article into reply
Go to Next message: Matt Simpson: "Re: Three Texas Men With Cellphones Arrested on Terrorist Charges"
Go to Previous message: John Levine: "Re: Why I am Opposed to Net Neutrality"
TELECOM Digest: Home Page