Please. It's like you can't understand the difference between a runners high and a heroine injection.

The chemicals that humans were exposed to in significant concentrations were basically unchanged for a hundred thousand years or more. Those chemicals which have increased in concentration in our immediate environment since the advent of agriculture (or the industrial revolution, if you prefer) are hereby deemed non-natural chemicals for the purpose of this discussion.

Good point. I still maintain that all the self congratulatory posts about dihydrogen monoxide were missing the point. To often we are pedantic instead of merely precise.

I suppose the sum of many individual communications could make such a system work. A pattern of communications could provide enough specificity to target a small enough number of individuals that would make more targeted snooping feasible.

or post it on the internet...

I suppose it would be useful for scanning social media, but I still have a hard time believing that scanning social media will ever be useful. Too many false positives.

I was MADE BY a trouser snake. Is that close enough?

But seriously, it isn't a perfect analogy. I suppose the real question is this: Which is worse, assuming things are harmful until proven otherwise, or assuming things are safe until proven otherwise? (or somewhere in the middle that I am too lazy to define exactly).

I imagine this would be extremely useful to recognize and block new ways of referencing forbidden topics in countries that censor the internet and text messaging.

Yes, they are using the word "chemicals" wrong. Get over it. Use your brain to substitute something that is correct and listen to what they are saying. Just because they paint all chemicals as evil, and they are wrong, does not mean that all chemicals are safe. With snakes, I assume they are poisonous unless I know otherwise. Why not do the same with things I put in my body?

Or an ingenious troll.

You must be new here...

Well done San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Department, you have pulled off the best troll ever.

I agree that there is a quality about seeing them through a telescope that is not present in pictures, but I think it has more to do with the idea that light has been traveling for millions of years and is ending up in my eye. I tend to forget about that when I look at pictures.

In any case, the first time I saw a nebula through a telescope, with a fair amount of light pollution, I was ready to see something like the "pillars of creation" picture of the eagle nebula. All I actually saw was a patch of the sky that was a bit brighter than the background. I was about 8, and thankfully someone moved on quickly and showed me Jupiter and its moons. :)

I absolutely have to second the Pleiades. They look absolutely spectacular at low magnification. Most any open star cluster will be pretty impressive. The same goes for planets and the moon.

Unfortunately, to kids desensitized by pictures from Hubble, galaxies and nebulae seen through a telescope are pretty disappointing. In my mind, the best part about finding some of the dimmer objects is actually finding them. Learning your way around the sky is truly a challenge. I think that kids that young would have a hard time appreciating the significance of viewing another galaxy, so you should stick to things that are visually stimulating.

Hypothetical question: I offer you a cookie, you accept: I take a cookie that I have, break off a crumb, give it to you, and proceed to eat the rest of the original cookie myself. Would you be satisfied?

NPR: equally hated by conservatives and liberals

I do not understand your analogy. Perhaps you could restate it in terms of automobiles?