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Obama Invites Texas Teen To White House After "Bomb" Clock Incident At School
The Grim Reefer writes: In a followup to this morning's story about the arrest of 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed for bringing a homemade clock to school that was mistaken for a bomb, President Obama has invited the teen to the White House via Twitter. The President tweeted: "Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great." The Irving Independent School District in Irving, Texas sent an email to parents about the incident asking students to: "immediately report any suspicious items and / or suspicious behavior."
will the tsa / SS let him take the device in?
Now, if there is any good chance to smuggle a bomb into the white house, this is it.
...the kid will still have to endure the humiliation of the nude body scanners or enhanced grope-down. Kinda takes some of the "nice" out of the gesture, IMO.
Anyone who believes the government does not have a database of the useful biometric identification data (pics) harvested by these nude body scanners, in a post-Snowden world, is being deliberately naive.
I wonder if they're going to use this as "proof" that Obama "supports Muslim terrorists"
while
Where's the gofundme? After being punished so badly for doing everything right, I think the wealthier geeks in the world could have 4 years of college paid for in a few days.
That is awsome
Trump will, he's happy to make shit up.
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that don't.
From the original story, the kid vowed... note, *VOWED*... to never bring another invention to school again.
Admittedly the vow was probably made prematurely, but people who are of the sort to make vows in the first place are not the sort to break them simply because their circumstances might change.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
This is "tell a grownup" territory vs the schools helping teach teenagers (which need guidance, just like some of us adults need from time to time) on what is appropriate or not. This will obviously be a trigger story for people in the tech community that feel sensitive to this issue or raw because of bullying they received and why some of us have trouble trusting school judgement as grown men and women.
I just wish they handled this privately with the parents without dragging the liason officer into the mix, the local police, etc.. Judgement call made wrong way clearly.
And really. If the threat was actually real, or realistically perceived that way, we should have heard of the evacuation on the news yesterday.
Text of the Letter:
"If you see this so-called suspicious clock making Man, report him. Civic deeds do not go unrewarded. And contrariwise, complicity with his cause will not go unpunished. Be wise. Be safe. Be aware. "
I'm scared! I saw someone carrying something I don't like. Stop them from liking what I don't like!
I'm going to report so much as an unfriendly shadow.
Someone knocked on my door! time to stand my ground!
The flight attendant didn't give me some free drinks, he's brown, so he must be doing something!
So let me get this straight, this kid is being arrested and Trump is leading the polls?
This would include the MacArthur style behaviour of the school teacher and principle.
They don't need to smear his name with silly stuff like that, IMO. The man is a liar, he has broken his promises to us, and his primary accomplishments have been an expansion of the power of the government.
This nice gesture does not make up for his abuse of power against his people.
I wonder if they're going to use this as "proof" that Obama "supports Muslim terrorists"
Proof? Maybe not. But GOP and certain Fox News show hosts will probably spin it in some bad way. And certain people will drink the kool-aid in big gulps.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/99/04/25/1438249/voices-from-the-hellmouth
/thread
nerd rage is the funniest rage.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
What no push for teacher education? If there is nothing that looks like explosives there is no reason to think its a bomb. Of course this might make teachers look stupid and Obama doesn't want to offend the teachers union.
I don't want to do a sig now
Not because I don't want them to learn about evolution
Not because I think Jeebuz thinks the road to hell is paved with Global warming or that that allow gay kids in school.
It would be because School administrators are stupid reactionary fuckwads who can't tell the difference between a circuit board and an IED, because little children get arrested for sexual assault for kissing another child, because now that police are patrolling the schools, causing little kids getting arrested for resisting arrest and assault felonies and a million other stupid things.
You cannot build intelligent adults from the hopelessly stupid school teachers and administrators who apparently orgasm when they destroy a child's future.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
He doesn't quite look a Native American.
For years, thuggish police activity like property seizure without due process, wrong-house raids, use of SWAT teams for routine civic disputes and killing nonviolent dogs during raids as a matter of policy had been carped at in obscure online discussion forums by "constitutionalists" and other people who the major media could easily ignore as nutjobs. With Ferguson and the Garner case, the stories went racial, and so it was at this point that liberals decided to become involved. Now police malpractice is a mainstream cause, and everybody is taking pictures of cops to uncover the latest case of bad behavior. Last week when New York was full of tennis stars for the US Open, the James Blake case brought it all to our attention again.
Meanwhile, brain-dead political correctness and high-handedness by pubic schools in suspending students for such crimes as wearing a political T-shirt or chewing a Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun have been complained about in the same obscure and non-PC corners of the online world for years. Just last week, a young boy was arrested for stealing a kiss.
Is the Mohamed case the Ferguson of public school systems, the case that finally blows the problem out into the open? Now that race is involved, the same liberals who kiss the feet of school boards after their every authoritarian ukase have suddenly Become Concerned. Perhaps now the battle will be joined.
The primary function of law enforcement is to protect the rich from the poor. Law enforcement wins hearts and minds by having an ostensible function of protecting everyone, including the poor, and maintaining order. The fact, however, is that the sorts of dangers that threaten the haves (break-ins, muggings, thefts, etc.) are perpetuated against them by the have-nots. So the net effect is the same: protect the rich from the poor.
As the middle class continues to slide into the lower class, the perception of police will continue to shift from "protector" to "oppressor," and so the "war on law enforcement" will only escalate.
As the last linked article points out, rather than being contrite about the unwarranted treatment of Akmed Mohamed, the Irving Independent School District is doubling down. In addition to reporting "suspicious" activity (mentioned in TFS) the letter from Principal Daniel Cummings to parents included this gem:
I recommend using this opportunity to talk with your child about the Student Code of Conduct and specifically not bringing items to school that are prohibited.
Nice posturing. So, was the item he brought to school actually prohibited? Or is this just innuendo?
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
What do you think will happen when he tries to take this past the TSA at the airport?
George W. Bush has been out of office for nearly seven years. Time to let go of the hate and move on.
It's a clock, not a bomb. I thought we already established that.
while
The inner city thugs ARE the police.
"You didn't signal a right turn 100yd before the turn! You're under arrest! PUT THAT CIGARETTE OUT!!!!"
The difference is inner city thugs are
a) less likely to shoot you dead
b) not defended for doing so (hence the reason for (a)).
So let me get this straight, this kid is being arrested and Trump is leading the polls?
The endless abuse, stupidity, waste, and misery is why Trump is leading the polls.
We've got the Republican debates tonight. See if any of the politicians will take a clear stance on fixing anything.
Oh, and check the voting records - it's the only way to make sure.
USA Freedom Act (Senate) (source)
YEAs: 67 (D = 43, R = 23, I = 1)
NAYs: 32 (D = 1, R = 30, I = 1)
Not voting: 1 (R)
There's no war on law enforcement, there is a war on criminals masquerading is cops.
I bet every kid who ever took an electronics class in high-school made a digital clock. Why is it that nobody including teachers immediately thought OMG Terrorists!! back then? Because we became a nation of pussies. Scared of everything except the thing we should fear the most..
This is a lie. You are a liar.
This is a lie. You are a liar.
Just last week, a young boy was arrested for stealing a kiss.
To be fair, that's actually sexual assault.
It is the view of the Ministry that a theoretical knowledge will be sufficient to get you through your examinations, which after all, is what school is all about.
Yes. Have we already forgotten the Boston lightbright scare?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare
No, literally, good move Obama. Doesn't make up for all the other embarrassments & injustices, and there are many. But at least there's a line... at least being arrested for dumb shit, just this once, gets you a presidential apology. "I made a clock." "We think it's a bomb. Is it a bomb?" "No." "We think you wanted us to think it was a bomb." "But it's patently not a bomb." "Don't bother telling us it's not a bomb... that's exactly what you want us to think!" "I do want you to think that!" "Well then why did you build this bomb-looking bomb then?"
It's a "not a" bomb!
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The Irving Independent School District in Irving, Texas sent an email to parents about the incident asking students to: "immediately report any suspicious items and / or suspicious behavior."
"Hello, Office? I'd like to report that the principle is acting more moronic than normal....I think he's a replicant."
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Sounds like an elaborate plot by ISIS to get to POTUS.
Seriously, would you want to learn electronics, chemistry, physics, or comp sci in a country which might just decide to lock you up for doing your homework?!?!?!
In other news President Obama and the First Lady will pledge their eldest daughter in marriage to Akmed.
What is it with populous gulf-coast states? If there's a shake-your-head in "I'm embarrassed to be an American" silence story in the news, more often than not it's from one of those two states. I think Fark.com even had a "Florida" tag for one of its story categories... Maybe there should be a tag here for them both? Those two states have something in the water/mosquitoes/seafood they consume from the gulf? Someone should get some grant money from the feds to research it since we research all kinds of other crazy hypotheses with huge grants...
Only because chemistry class was that afternoon.
There has been, eh?
Then why has this last year had FEWER police deaths by shooting than any others for years?
Why, in fact, has Obama's presidency had fewer police deaths than his predecessors since the 1970s?
What kind of war is it, that is being done so ineffectually?
what a load of nonsense
The thick-skinned, trollfag part of me instantly suggests detecting a subtle jab at the other involved party.
... asking to: "immediately report any suspicious items and / or suspicious behavior."
My actual conscious thought says it's really just damage control about the overall "message" in the air. And while it may be a bit ham-fisted, I can't deny the positive direction it attempts.
> The Irving Independent School District sent an email
Yeah, here's the thing, you've just proven the Powers That Be have shitty judgement and we need to resort to our own. Now people will hesitate to report. I admit that the hesitation is A Bad Thing, but you've encouraged it. And I use that phrasing because I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt. I'm generously assuming you're not a lot of kneejerky fuckwits that leap all over the brown kid with an eastern name.
Perhaps there is a nice grant that they have that they shouldn't?
Remember that incident in Boston where the professor (and buddy of Obama) went ballistic on police responding to a suspicious person call? Obama called the police "stupid" after that one.
Same thing here. After several shootings of police officers recently, he finally decides to speak out on this non-event and reiterate that he has no respect for police or the job they're doing. Hope and change.
The real, legitimate president who actually won the election invented the internet.
Also, he invented the strategy of applying different rules in each voting precinct in order to exclude voters in precincts that favored your opponent.
There's stupidity, there's arrogance, and there's stuff you should really be escorted out of public service for...
I hope somebody gets fired out of this... No apologies...
Or on the other hand I look forward to 2-3 days of lame attempts to somehow justify this...
Shall see...
"Don't fear death... fear not living..." -me
The media should list the names of the teachers , cops who by their lack of the stuff up there did this ? Are we sending our kids to get educated by these teachers and leaving our community to the mercy of such exemplary public servants. I forgot it happened in texas. : )
The terrorists win when we let fear control our decision making like in this case. It is an unfortunate legacy of 9/11.
The US has a police problem.
When there is little in the way of actual crime, they need to do *something* to look busy.
Oh yeah, respect mah authoritay
I see you saying what he should do.
What should the adults in a position of authority do differently? Did you pay no attention to their actual statements and comments? If this was "stupid stuff" should we, the rest of society, blow it off, and do nothing, or should we actively consider what happened and why it was such a problem?
Oh wait, no, we won't pay no attention to the actual parties with responsibilities here, the ones who have a duty. Just the kid. Because kids bringing stuff to school is so wrong we should just strip them all naked before allowing them on the bus, of course, then we'll have to charge them with child porn for being naked.
You don't handcuff and perp walk kids for a 'misunderstanding'. Everything up to that point was fine (except for the little bit of forgetting to move people out of harm's way should this have been an actual weapon).
The subsequent arrest and persecution of the kid is flat out paranoid insanity.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
He needs to take his toy home and grow up a bit...
Maybe so, but nowhere near as much as the faculty and cops need to grow up. They didn't even let him contact his family before questioning, and you're making excuses for them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The war is being waged with cell phone cameras and is going very well.
The police have resorted to putting cameras on themselves to defend. Not realizing that was the desired outcome. Morons that they are.
They are not primarily being killed, they are being denied their right to kill with impunity.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I remember being in fifth grade in Arlington, Texas, after being born in San Antonio.
Luckily, given that I loved to make science things and collect meteorites and stuff, I wasn't Being A Kid While Black.
Seattle stands with Ahmed.
And this Texan is sad to see the reactions of so-called adults there.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
of course they are:
"the terrorist in chief is already bringing him to the white house. after that he'll introduce him to his terrorist buddies"
http://www.freerepublic.com/fo...
"It's a PR conspiracy between the White House and the CAIR"
also note that while the article admits its a stupid incident on the public officials' parts, but the readers/commenters have already jumped to "CAIR/Obama put the kid up to it, and the town fell for the trap"
http://www.redstate.com/2015/0...
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
they have since fixed that oversight
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I have a former roommate who still responds to emails that I wrote 15 years as if I sent them yesterday, still hateful from what happened back then and unwilling to let go because that's all he has now. He's trapped in a prison of his own making, unwilling to ask for help because he doesn't want to be free.
there is no war on police.
merely a growing movement that wants them held accountable for when they fuck up (particularly if someone gets hurt/killed as a result), and a growing suspicion that they have been covering up past fuckups by writing false reports, as several have been caught doing in recent news.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Absolutely not.
He wasn't doing anything dangerous looking. People overreacted. Fine, I can forgive that. Go ahead and determine that the kid didn't have a bomb, apologize for the misunderstanding, and make an end of it. That didn't happen. The kid was interrogated, arrested, fingerprinted, suspended for 3 days, and might be charged with an actual crime, and he did nothing wrong.
It's time to grow up and accept that punishing people who didn't do anything wrong is never acceptable.
In fact, it wasn't a dangerous-looking thing. If it was, the teacher would not have confiscated it, put it in a desk drawer, and continued teaching the class. If it had actually scared the blank out of the teacher, the teacher would have left it where it was, gotten the school evacuated, and had the bomb squad handle it.
People like the teachers and police officers need to learn what appropriate behavior is. The behavior was inappropriate no matter what they thought.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
He needs to take his toy home and grow up a bit...
That would be a nice option if he wasn't detained. And what part of growing up a bit involves threats of arrests after it has become clear to be a misunderstanding.
Honestly, what a shitty clock. Zero tolerance policy is what happened not islamophobia.
Plus who builds a two foot by two foot portable clock that looks like a bomb?
You don't handcuff and perp walk kids for a 'misunderstanding'.
You do in 21st-Century USA.
People like you need to get your asses beat down.
That's insane. The thugs steal from the poor more often than they steal from the rich, mainly because they are close by and usually unarmed. There are thugs out there who will kill you for a few dollars. They don't care who you are or how much money you have.
And far, far more blacks are killed by other blacks than by law enforcement, despite what the mainstream media would have you believe.
I know a lot of cops. There are rich ones, poor ones, black ones, white ones, and everything in between. Most are salt of the Earth and a few shouldn't be trusted with any authority at all. They're just like everybody else trying to do a job and make it to retirement.
He needs to take his toy home and grow up a bit...
That would be a nice option if he wasn't detained. And what part of growing up a bit involves threats of arrests after it has become clear to be a misunderstanding.
The part that involves a a lifetime of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Welcome to our Brave New World and sit down next to the kid who sent an inappropriate selfie to his girlfriend.
So, we can take this to mean, "Hi! I'm such an asshole that I do things that people hate me for, even decades later!"
But, this is his fault. He wrote the executive orders in a way that they couldn't be redone. Be redone. He ordered this. Maybe not directly, but indirectly he ordered all Muslim children to be arrested and beaten. Arrested and beaten. Don't think for a minute if this kid wasn't brown that he wouldn't have been beaten near death and put in the hospital.
Cell phones can be used as bomb triggers.
Cell phones look like cell phones which can be used as bomb triggers.
Cell phones sometimes go off in class and make weird sounds, ie. ring tones.
Do you know what I expect to happen? The teacher asking the owner of the phone to turn it off.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Suspicious behavior - Teachers are idiots!
I don't remember teachers being so dumb when I was in school. Obviously, they weren't all brilliant, but a few were who could keep the idiots in check.
For example, the science teacher knew what this was. He would be "the local expert" and should have been consulted.
This sort of behavior has caused many issues ad we are'nt just talking about schools. TSA, Police, FBI - being stupid has a price. I'd like for the perps to pay it for once.
Ah - at least the student has a few days of free time to go to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave (that's the address of the white house for those teachers who don't know it).
Absolutely. George W. and I have moved on. Other people, not so much.
I guess being "held accountable" means shooting some innocent cop at a gas station?
If they really believed that the device might be a bomb they would have evacuated the school.
Shut the fuck up, bubble boy. Get back to your safe little bubble and put your fucking helmet on.
It may not be war on the scale of Bosnia but a number of assassinations doesn't support your view. Assassination is a fuck of a lot more than "accountable".
Florida as the most entertaining state.
He needs to take his toy home and grow up a bit...
Maybe so, but nowhere near as much as the faculty and cops need to grow up. They didn't even let him contact his family before questioning, and you're making excuses for them.
Nope... I'm only explaining why the authorities did what they did.
This thing he built looks for all the world like a device that could trigger a bomb, and given the kids description of what he was trying to build seems likely it would have WORKED as a bomb trigger. So like it or not, intended or not, this kid's device is indeed dangerous on it's face and kids building bomb triggers need to be detained. This explains why he was arrested, why they took his electronic devices and why they searched these devices. It is called probable cause, and by all appearances they had enough probable cause to consider what they did prudent. Once they determined that they couldn't prove the kid intended to harm anybody and they didn't suspect he was building bombs in his bedroom or something they released him.
Now it's for the courts to decide if they really had probable cause, and I'm not so ready to think they just where on some power trip because of the kids name or something, and if it had been my kid, I'm not sure I would be screaming bloody murder about how unfair it all was.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Absolutely not.
He wasn't doing anything dangerous looking.
Oh yes it was, I've seen the pictures. The kid actually built something that COULD have triggered an explosive device out of an alarm clock. He may not have been building it to trigger a bomb, but that's EXACTLY what it could have done had it functioned as the kid said he intended. Now it wasn't connected to a bomb, but it WAS intended to function as a trigger.
I'm telling you, the authorities didn't run off half cocked here, there was probable cause as soon as somebody got the idea that this thing might be usable as a bomb trigger. How that happened is the real question.. Looking at the pictures of the device it is easy to see how it could be interpreted as a home made trigger worthy of a low budget Hollywood movie, so I'm not surprised the police reacted like they did...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
And if police were ever to detain you for hours because you had a Raspberry Pi in your backpack, you'd shit on the floor in fury and start looking for a lawyer.
The whole thing might not be so bad if it wasn't for the official statements from the Irving, Texas mayor, the principal of the school and the police chief. They're still pretending that there was some danger to the students. There was not.
And they STILL suspended the kid from school for three days. Fucking Texas is a shithole. When they're not executing innocent people, they're running around thinking that the U.S. Military is invading them and when they're not Jade Helming themselves into a frenzy, they're banning science and history in the classroom if it doesn't conform to Christian teaching. Now, when a kid builds a clock and takes it to school, they arrest him because they "wanted a broader explanation of its purpose". Basically, the kid said, "This is a clock" and they said, "Yeah, but what's it FOR? And what kinda name is "Ahmed" anyway?"
I'm just surprised they didn't fire a warning shot into the kid's head.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The handful of police officers that have been shot and killed in the last year just for being police officers is a tiny drop in the ocean of unjustified police killings that this country has seen.
And in case you're missing another obvious difference - in the vast majority of murders of officers, the perp is caught and sent to prison for life, at a minimum, as he should be. Most of the cops that kill unarmed people are still on the job, which is outrageous. So fuck you and your blind "defend the cops at all costs" mentality.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
Cell phones used as bomb triggers are partially disassembled and have wires attached to them....
This kid had a disassembled alarm clock with wires soldered to it..
Need we say more?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
If parents and students believe (with cause) that the school will totally over-react to a report, and that they won't be able to use common sense and differentiate harmless devices and harmful ones, they will be disinclined to file reports. Filing a report is trusting that it will be handled sensibly; this was a complete fail by the school and police department. (If you are in doubt, have a look at photos of the clock; there is nowhere for the most important element in an explosive device to be. Then, the kid made no attempt to hide it or scare anyone.)
No one forced them to be police.
They are public servants, and the public should have the option to terminate them.
wait.. so the president is asking him to bring his "bomb-like" device to him? that means he's going to bring his "bomb-like" device on a plane... i can't wait to hear about how he got arrested at the TSA checkpoint for trying to bring a bomb on a plane!
The Irving Independent School District in Irving, Texas sent an email to parents about the incident asking students to: "immediately report any suspicious items and / or suspicious behavior."
I hope a lot of students take the opportunity to show just how stupid school administrators are. "That teacher has a wristwatch, it's an obvious timing device for a bomb, quick call the police!"
Whats the count of killed officers so far this year?
21?
Something like that?
Meanwhile the number of citizens killed by police so far this year is more than 500.
Again: there is no war on police.
And if there is, it is a pittance compared to the War being waged by police upon the citizenry.
(and no i dont actually believe that 'that' war exists either)
read, and become educated. you could surely use it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
^bingo
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
and so I'm going to try to find some excuse to blame him no matter how insulting it is to everyone around me.
Instead, police groups and their advocates are claiming that the mere act of criticizing a government entity is akin to declaring war on it, and that therefore, police critics are culpable every time a police officer is murdered. (And given the way they ignore and abuse statistics, those critics are also apparently culpable for a lot of murders that never happened.) They’re essentially saying that exercising constitutional rights and participating in democracy are in and of themselves acts of violence. And in many cases, this is coming from the very people that the government empowers to use actual violence.
That is something worth worrying about.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
unless it is an unarmed black, then it's just an accident.
I need to build one for work. I can use a vacation!
it's been more than seven yet idiots still like to use that as an excuse to screw over people like this kid.
he was a dangerous looking kid. that's OK, someone that thinks a electronics project automatically looks suspicious can't be expected to get too many things correct.
since you are obviously too clueless to know what one looks like in the first place.
It's washington's terrorism paranoia (or convenient excuse to clobber liberty) that created this situation in the first place, and now the president is trying to make up for it with some publicity stunt? A solution fixes the problem. It does not brush it under the rug and hopes it goes away.
With your logic, every science fair in every school in the whole U.S. should end in arrests and threats to prosecute for "making a hoax bomb", right?
right on cue, the disconnected from reality wingnut makes his appearance.
and not three days ago he was decrying the abuse of government power infringing on american's rights under the constitution.
Is there a picture anywhere.
How can anyone know, who is at fault here?
What did the school and police actualy see.
who refered the charges, and for what?
Is this just another the world is picking on me I teling the internet?
Or is the school really dumb?
I agree with you. not only that but he gave the teacher a smart-ass answer "well it doesn't look like a bomb to me" is not a responsible answer. Our president is a total jackass for even talking to him he knew damn well it looked like a bomb. The teacher he originally showed it to even told him not to show it to anyone else. That kids was a jerk. If he had said he already showed it to whatever the teachers names was, it would never gotten out of hand like it did. And this is the age where kids mass murder other kids because they pissed them off. So i dont blame the reaction of the teachers i seen the picture it looked just like a suitcase bomb it didn't look like an alarm clock at all.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Christ you're a boot licking apologist.
They didn't think it was a bomb and never did. If they actually did think it was a bomb, they'd have called in bomb disposal experts. What they did do was insist it was a hoax bomb. See the word hoax?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Are you seriously advocating that anything that COULD theoretically work as a weapon - IF YOU ADD MORE PARTS TO IT - should be grounds for being slapped in handcuffs, paraded past your friends and interrogated without the presence of a lawyer or, in the case of a minor, your parents?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
That's an interesting example of a straw man. You carefully pick the certain specific elements of the story which ABSOLUTELY NOBODY is upset about, and point out how silly it would be to get upset about them.
The whole thing was a misunderstanding, and it is what happened after it was established that it was a misunderstanding that is being scrutinised.
And no, all the boy said was that he build a clock. A clock. You know? That thing that tells you the time.
Honi soit qui mal y pense. If you have any problem with people building clocks, then you have a deeply troubled mind.
What should the adults in a position of authority do differently?
Be brave and don't panic
I don't want my kids to ever be at a school you are a teacher or a principal. I don't want to live ever in a district you have any saying in police proceedings. You have a deeply twisted mind just looking for trouble.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb...
How many kids have been murdered in school in the last 10 years again?
Jack of all trades,master of none
And if police were ever to detain you for hours because you had a Raspberry Pi in your backpack, you'd shit on the floor in fury and start looking for a lawyer.
Nope. If they truly believe that my little raspberry pi was a danger and choose to detain me until they figure out it isn't, so be it. Last time I went though a TSA checkpoint with one, they didn't even bat an eye, though I expected all the wires and the bread board attached would draw some attention.
But before you go off half cocked on this, remember that this device really DID look dangerous and like what you'd imagine a bomb trigger would be, that raspberry pi obviously is a commercial device. This kid produced a jumble of clock parts and soldered on wires that he plugged into the wall and it made noises. It looked (and likely was) dangerous.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Perhaps you remember news stories of a town in Texas (Irving, in fact) that had to pass local legislation to prohibit sharia courts that were settling various business and personal disputes of Muslims.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
If you take things in context here, there is a political, religious and PR battle waging in this city between the government and Muslims. The Muslims lost round 1, rightly so, by not be allowed to set up their own government systems in parallel to those of the United States or State of Texas. They won round 2 today, with Obama officially taking the side of the youth.
I was modded down in a comment to a previous story, but I will say at least this much again. No one has seen the device. I tried finding pictures, but to my knowledge none have been posted. It was in a small metal briefcase like box (for holding pencils) with a steel cable around it. Since no one here actually knows the physical appearance or context of how it was presented and perceived, none of us can make any kind of informed opinion on whether or not teachers were justified in having any concerns of what he brought to school.
His father has had run ins of various sorts with the local governments regarding Islam. It did not say what those were (if they were related to the Sharia law deal or what).
Better known as 318230.
If he is, then I look forward to the news article proclaiming: "Kid arrested in school for having a possible bomb detonator in class. His cell phone was confiscated and the child has been sent to juvenile detention."
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
So a 20-year low on cop killings is now a war?
Been watching a few too many movies... Next you'll say that bombs are identifiable by the blinking red light.
That's lovely how it fits the approved narrative.
I'm sure the occasional beefy guy named Guido in Chicago actually played violin too. That means the Mob was just a myth.
It *is* acceptable in the United State. We need to change *that*, not settle for punishing the individual idiots in high-profile cases
There are actual pictures of the clock floating around the interwebs. You might consider acquiring access to the information superhighway so that you can view these pictures.
There was no "disassembled alarm clock with wires soldered to it." There was a home-made circuit board, connected by ribbon cables to a small battery and digital display. There was no taken-apart alarm clock with drama-department wires attached to road flares, or any such nonsense. There was no Wile. E. Coyote alarm clock contraption. There was no part of the device that looked like explosives.
The teacher who claims to have "thought" it looked like a bomb picked it up and walked off with it, and sent the student to the office... without evacuating anybody. If the teacher has an IQ above 65, then I'm gonna call bull-pucky on having thought it actually looked like a bomb. If the teacher is a former special-ed student living the dream, OK, I can believe the story, and maybe it is just a "training issue."
This is true, but a few lunatic individuals does not make an army which one can wage a war with.
For the most part, it's people like me who are sick and tired of the police constantly trying to intimidate (the local state troopers had a banner up for a while declaring themselves as "your worst nightmare", I don't want a police force that's my worst nightmare, I want one that's working for the good of the community). We want them to be held responsible when they do wrong (a local police officer went buck hunting in the middle of a neighborhood while on duty, he was found guilty of hunting without a license, but not even charged with illegal discharge of a firearm within city limits or reckless endangerment). We want them to top lying, we want to feel that either they are there to help us, or they are replaced with people who are. All we want in short, is to not feel afraid any time a police officer approaches us if we've not been doing anything wrong.
I don't know if you noticed, but there's been a war on law enforcement recently.
Seems I missed it, since the number of police officers being killed is 13% lower than last year. And if you figure that there are around 765,000 sworn police officers at the state and local level and, so far this year, there are about 26 police officers killed (or about 0.003%), it's not much of a war.
Well, if you show up with a science fair project, I have a feeling you will also have a pile of supporting evidence that shows you are entering the science fair... As I recall there where graphs, charts, and display boards with my science fair project.. Oh and there was the pesky teacher's approval of my project BEFORE I was allowed to bring it into school....
Oh, and mine didn't have old alarm clock parts taken out of the case with wires soldered onto it..... Which for all the world looks like a bomb trigger from a Hollywood B movie...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
That's total bullshit, a lot of things CAN trigger a bomb. The trigger isn't the dangerous part, the exploding part is the dangerous part. If it can't explode then it's not dangerous.
Thank you...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
#nuketheusa
I never said they thought it was a bomb.. They though it was a BOMB TRIGGER you ninny... Both building a bomb and building a bomb trigger are illegal you know....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I strongly advise looking for the lawyer before resorting to defecating on the floor.
While there are numerous troubling details in this story, Texas is a shithole. It was a digital clock. I have no trouble believing that Officer Billy-Bob and Mayor Christian Crusader have trouble understanding the "broader... purpose" of a digital clock. If it was a world clock with 3 time zones and 24 hour time, he'd still be in the interrogation room.
"Does this mean you can blow up a bomb in three different places at once? In different parts of the world? Holy Smokes Y'all!"
Maybe if you phrased the situation more like, "you ever wonder how you can know if the Dunkin Donuts is open, without even driving down there to check?"
Maybe somebody could bribe the County Medical Examiner to explain clocks to them.
He'll be back in jail next week when they find his metric laser caliper.
No. but if a student shows up with something that looks like it could set off a bomb that he built himself out of old alarm clock parts with wires soldered onto it and somebody gets the idea that it might be intended to be used that way, you have to take the treat seriously until you are sure the device and the kid are not a threat. Sorry, but that's the world we live in.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The President tweeted: "Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great."
The President then added, "Just don't go looking for your father or I'll blast your ass with a Hellfire from a drone."
Wir sind geboren, um frei zu sein - Rio Reiser
No, I didn't say that.
But if a student brings something to school that raises suspicions that it COULD be intended for harm, you have to take the necessary steps to secure the student and the school from the possible threat. The stupid part here is that this device looks like something straight out of a Hollywood B movie used to trigger a bomb. What do you expect the school and police to do? Pat him on the back and say "Good job there Jonny, way to think outside the box"!
Then AFTER the suspicious device is examined it turns out that it is fully capable of triggering a bomb by all appearances, isn't it prudent to make sure that wasn't the intent? And don't tell me you'd just take the kid's explanation at face value and let him go.... You and I know that's not the world we live in and haven't since Columbine way back in the 70's.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
So the largest body count wins? Does that mean that WWII was the only real war or something and everything else was a pretender?
Have you heard of Columbine?
I don't know what world you live in, but in schools today you have to take ANY hint of troubled youth seriously. Here you have an eccentric kid, with a possible bomb trigger device he build himself, that looks all the world like what you'd expect from a Hollywood B movie bomb trigger, who shows up in class, plugs the thing in and then lies about stuff when specifically asked and you don't think the administration at the school isn't going to react? They better react to this kind of thing...
Sorry but it's the world we live in and Irving Texas is in this world.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
A 150 in 1 electronic kit, while it COULD trigger a bomb with that relay, doesn't look like a bomb trigger. What this kid made LOOKED like what you'd see in a Hollywood B movie as a bomb trigger... Authorities reacted to what they saw, and I'm not so sure I would want them doing anything differently.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Yea, and never cut the red wire to disarm it...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
My problem with the situation, is that the teachers didn't respond appropriately for EITHER. If it's a ...
bomb - evacuate school, call PD and FD don't touch or in any way fuck with the bomb.
clock - send kid on his merry way.
something I don't understand - confiscate the item, harass the child and send him to the police department in handcuffs(if they make them that small)
No, it isn't. He didn't kiss her on the vagina, he kissed her on the cheek/lips. There is absolutely nothing sexual about it.
Never claimed this device looked like a bomb, but it does look like a bomb trigger. It is obviously home made and resembles something you'd see in a Hollywood movie representing a bomb trigger. Further, given the kid's description of the device it easily could be used as a bomb trigger..
So somebody thought it might BE a bomb trigger and reacted as if it was.... How's that a problem? In today's day and age, it sure seems reasonable to me to assume it's a bomb trigger until you can establish otherwise, which involves investigating the device's builder. Sorry but it's the age we live in..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Everybody needs to remember that What the kid built COULD have been (and actually if it worked as I assume he intended would have worked as) a triggering device for a bomb and the authorities where totally justified in treating it as such until they proved the kid's intent was innocent.
You're a FUD-spewing moron. I imagine they still use pens and/or pencils in that school? Someone COULD jam one through your eye-socket, for example. Discussions on whether society would be better off aside, by your logic, everything that can be misused to injure someone should be banned.
What a miserable world you're asking for.
There were lots of terrorists involved in this incident. The terrified child vowed never to bring another invention to school.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Going the White House would be cool and all, but what would really help the situation is if the President could force the police and administrators to publicly and in person apologize to the boy. That would hopefully reduce over reactions in the future.
It looked (and likely was) dangerous.
It "likely was" dangerous. Total bullshit.
What planet are you from where you look at that and think "bomb"? What a terrifying reality.
As others have pointed out repeatedly, we know nobody seriously thought it looked like a bomb because they didn't evacuate the school or anything.
If he had said he already showed it to whatever the teachers names was, it would never gotten out of hand like it did.
What the fuck. You just made that up.
i seen the picture it looked just like a suitcase bomb
Dear god, and kids come with sealed backpacks.
What do you expect the school and police to do? Pat him on the back and say "Good job there Jonny, way to think outside the box"!
If they thought it was a bomb trigger, I expect them to evacuate and to call in the bomb squad.
They did not, ipso facto they didn't think it looked like a bomb trigger.
Please provide stills from some Hollywood B movies that have bomb triggers that closely resemble this: http://www.wired.com/2015/09/heres-bomb-clock-got-ahmed-mohamed-arrested/.
> He wasn't doing anything dangerous looking.
To the relevently educated eye, perhaps. But I seem to recall some criminal case about a decade ago where literally the suspects choice of (nonstandard -- oooh customized --- modded) foreground and background text font colors. And this actually contributed to their prosecution, with a judge signing off on it. I've had trouble netsearching for the specific case, but I swear I remember it. This is basically perhaps a half-step past that level of insanity.
Being an American, I am really embarrassed by this incident. The whole story shows how weak and vulnerable we are.
> a growing suspicion that they have been covering up past fuckups by writing false reports, as several have been caught doing in recent news
It goes much deeper than that. It's in our culture. A brief perusal of our most popular movies and tv shows demonstrates a pervasive understanding of a 'code of silence' culture. We socially enshrine it with secret rituals at college fraternities and sororities. The only thing that is new is that the tools of modern communication and recording are being used against the 'code of silence'. And progress in fighting it for real seems by all accounts to be happening. Though who knows where the War On The Code will end up.
"In a followup to this morning's story about the arrest of 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed for bringing a homemade clock to school that was mistaken for a bomb"
It wasn't mistaken for a bomb. The teachers are so afraid of getting fired that they won't make a judgement call but immediately report the incident back up to senior management.
Except phones really can be used to trigger bombs. That's one of the things the movies gets right. You just attach another phone to the bomb, and wire it up/program it right to set off the bomb once it receives the right call/text, and BAM! now you have a remote trigger that can work almost anywhere courtesy of the cell phone network.
Yep. Yep. Except for the people who literally declared their war on cops and encouraged others to kill cops, there is no war.
Nope, not going to do a simple google search and inform yourself. That's too much effort. The better play is to demand that I do it, then if I bother to come back and actually deliver, you can declare all my sources as partisan liars and therefore don't count.
A war on bad law enforcement is not a bad thing. But law enforcement has unions, thus an attack on an incompetent is seen like an attack on all of them.
Some of them were even shot multiple times by multiple officers while they were running away... you have to watch the actual videos to appreciate this. The news media tries to make it look like the officers were responding to a threat while they stood there in their military gear shooting the guy in the running for his life. The threat? He threw a rock at someone earlier. After their paid vacation, sorry "administrative leave", this city did what most cities do in situations like this. They found "no wrong doings be the officers".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-0uqFTBclo
This thing he built looks for all the world like a device that could trigger a bomb,
It also looks like something could not trigger a bomb. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.
Agree. The cops should have figured out there was no problem in about a minute. Schools are too caught up in paranoia these days.
Good job owing the title of asshole
At least you are honest.
No, they thought it was a hoax, and were trying to get the kid to admit he was trying to scare people. They knew it was not a bomb and was not ever going to be a bomb, it just happened to look a bit like a bomb if you've watched too many bad movies. If this thing could have been turned into a bomb, then any clock radio could have been also; arrest anyone bringing a clock radio to school. Arrest the science professors too, lots of dangerous stuff in their class rooms.
They asked the kid what it was, he said it was a clock, it clearly was a clock with even cursory examination. It only looked like a bomb if you were paranoid (it was far too small for one). They had all the information they needed to decide to tell the kid to put it away and go back to class.
Lesson learned. Stick to the test and don't think outside the box. If we ever need any thinking done in this country then we can always offshore it.
But everything looks like a bomb trigger if you're paranoid. If you're smoking and are caught with matches in your pocket then it's time for the perp walk. Carrying around a soldering iron means you're a potential bombmaker. We can't teach engineering or electronics in any schools because all of them will be perp walked out of class for learning about such dangerous magical items (this being Texas after all).
And the thing is, they DID establish without a doubt that this device was NOT a bomb trigger. And they still gave him the perp walk. This is a problem!
I saw the picture. It does not look dangerous at all. It's a tiny box that tells time. The photo was misleading since it looks like a larger briefcase or equipment box but when you look closer it's not very big at all.
If it actually did look dangerous to the teacher then the class would have been evacuated.
The real problem was that because this was a smart kid he was automatically treated as a trouble maker.
It does not look like a bomb. Nobody panicked over it. No one was evacuated. What we have are all the anti-Islamic blowhards deciding to play catch up and damage control by giving excuses on behalf of the stupid school and police officials.
But it did not look like a bomb trigger. Sure, it had a suitcase like box, but a small box the size of a textbook. He said it was a clock, and it could have been easily demonstrated to be just a clock. All it had were electronics, and electronics should not be scary except in medieval states where such things look like magic. If you showed up with this device on the set of some cheap ass Syfy show, they'd turn you away and ask for a more realistic looking bomb. Yes, it COULD have worked as a bomb trigger, but if you searched every student and classroom you'd probably find hundreds of things that could have worked as a bomb trigger. Good thing Radio Shack is out of business otherwise law enforcement in Texas would be raiding them on suspicion of aiding and abetting mad bombers. Cancel the science fair, that paper mache volcano might go off.
They also determined before arresting him and leaving school that they had no case and they knew he was not a danger; they only did the perp walk to shame and scare him. That's the only reason for taking a kid on a perp walk. The police had to save face, make it look like they were spending the tax dollars wisely, and get a pat on the back from the rabidly paranoid mayor of that town.
How can you apologize for those bozos?
Texas is in its own world.
This is America! Fu*k Yeah!
The only things kids need, are bibles, and guns, preferably both.
If you see a kid NOT carrying a bible, gun, or both, or a gun with bible verses, they must be up to no good, especially if they are trying to some of that
"fancy learnin" that doesn't come from the only textbook kids need, the bible.
Bibles = GOOD.
Guns = GOOD.
Bibles AND Guns = SUPER GOOD
Anything else = BAD
That's all the learnin we need in our schools.
There are actual pictures of the clock floating around the interwebs. You might consider acquiring access to the information superhighway so that you can view these pictures.
There was no "disassembled alarm clock with wires soldered to it." There was a home-made circuit board, connected by ribbon cables to a small battery and digital display. There was no taken-apart alarm clock with drama-department wires attached to road flares, or any such nonsense. There was no Wile. E. Coyote alarm clock contraption. There was no part of the device that looked like explosives.
The teacher who claims to have "thought" it looked like a bomb picked it up and walked off with it, and sent the student to the office... without evacuating anybody. If the teacher has an IQ above 65, then I'm gonna call bull-pucky on having thought it actually looked like a bomb. If the teacher is a former special-ed student living the dream, OK, I can believe the story, and maybe it is just a "training issue."
Here is a picture of the clock, just so we know what we are discussing:
http://www.24hmontreal.canoe.c...
You say there is a "home-made circuit board" there, can you point it out to me? The clock he "invented" are just the innards of a production alarm clock mounted in a different case. If you look at the picture, there is a standard alarm clock cord, poorly spliced with electrical tape (presumably he had to cut the cord where it went through the case) connected to a small transformer. The transformer output is connected to a production PCB, which appears to be the logic board and LED display driver for the clock. That board is connected with 2 ribbon cables to another board, which is edge-on to the camera so it is difficult to see what is on it. It looks like this is probably an input board.
Here is what makes this appear to be just the innards of a mass-produced clock:
-None of the solder joints appear to be hand-done, they all have the look of a factory solder job. Something that is done in a reflow oven, not on a workbench.
-Production PCBs: He didn't make these PCBs, they were made in a factory. Yes, I know there are discrete LED display driver boards that you can buy, but that isn't what the main board appears to be, as the board appears to handle several different functions.
-There doesn't appear to be any home-brew technology in the device, no perf boards, no wire wrap, etc.
-The battery backup - this is something that is almost all production alarm clocks but would probably be implemented differently in a homebrew device (if implemented at all). If he designed this from scratch AND wanted to put a battery in it, he would have made the whole thing battery powered, there would be no reason to have an AC transformer.
-Screw marks on the LED. There are four mounting holes for the LED display but only two of them have screws. The other two show marks where larger screws (or plastic pegs) used to be, like this display was taken out of an existing device.
-The edge-on board appears to have the PCB traces that underlie membrane switches. The four grouped together are probably the clock/hour/minute/alarm switches with a single snooze? switch on the end where the power wires enter from the main board.
- The way the ribbon cables and power connect the 2 boards together makes it hard to mount them in his case. If this was designed for this case those boards would either have longer cables between them to allow for their position in the case.
Yes, it's possible that the kid designed a pair of custom PCBs, had them screened and shipped, assembled them and soldered them in the reflow oven in his room (instead of the soldering iron shown in the press pictures) and then stuffed them into his pencil case, but all the evidence points to this being the contents of a simpl
Enigma
Columbine back in the 70's? Nice subtle clue that you are really spouting BS.
Excellent trolling here and throughout the thread.
I applaud your old-school trolling, the like of which we haven't seen since, oh, 1999.
Smart motivated kids like this become terrorists when you alienate them from your society for doing something they are proud of... like showing off their cool, benign project.
I love the police chief's refusal to admit any mistake as well:
'“We live in an age where you can’t take things like that to school,” he said. “Of course we’ve seen across our country horrific things happen, so we have to err on the side of caution.”'
Well heck, let's just stop going to school.
Idiots.
Ha ha!
Politicians are all liars because they have to be. Nobody votes for the honest ones, because nobody likes their promises, their realistic expectations, nor their facts. Furthermore, there is such a wide variety of political agendas among the voting base that no politician can afford to take a strong opinion on all the important issues, since that would eliminate too many voters. They must speak vaguely, out of both sides of their mouths, to get enough people of opposing viewpoints to all vote for them.
The set of candidates is automatically filtered such that all the ones that the honest ones who would really serve the country well are eliminated at the starting line.
Obama is no exception. He, like many presidents of both parties before him, succeeded by being the most popular liar. His successor will be the just the same too.
Until the American public learns to regard all politicians as necessary evils that must be kept under perpetual scrutiny, they will continue to get away with terrible abuses against us.
Fucking morons. Who the fuck builds a real bomb and brings it into class and shows it off to everyone?
If the kid was a real terrorist then the first anyone would have seen of his bomb would be the shrapnel blasting its way through their eyeballs.
Except phones really can be used to trigger bombs. That's one of the things the movies gets right. You just attach another phone to the bomb, and wire it up/program it right to set off the bomb once it receives the right call/text, and BAM! now you have a remote trigger that can work almost anywhere courtesy of the cell phone network.
One problem. Your explanation for what a cell phone bomb trigger looks like in order to attack a criticism that you watch too many movies, sounds just like you got it from a movie or just have absolutely no clue what you're talking about.
They didnt treat it like it was an explosive. No evac. No disposal. So really bizarrely stupid.
He built a digital clock. It looks just like the one I built in electronics class when I was in high school. Only somebody who has seen way too many cheesy movies thinks that digital clock = bomb. I agree that cops might be stupid enough. It could be a bomb trigger. All that was missing was a detonator. Oh wait, the teacher's cell phone could be a bomb trigger too if you added a detonator. Cell phones are often used as bomb triggers. Why didn't the cops haul the teacher off in cuffs too?
Towards preventing this kind of shenanigans and more closely scrutinizing any possible policies. But by all means...
Quack, quack.
When a black man kills another black man, everyone expects he will be sent to jail, including other black men. When a cop kills a man, black or white, he's unlikely to even lose his job, much less go to jail. That's what gets people pissed off.
Get it now?
These "professional educators" are the morons to whom you are entrusting your children. They are so dense they cannot tell a geeky kid with a clock from a terrorist ... or from a kid who chews his pop tarts into the "wrong" shape ...
What makes you think these flunkies are smarter and wiser than you are and are better-qualified than you are to raise and educate your kids?????
It's a VERY recent perversion of human history that parents hand their kids over to government to be raised and educated; it's a byproduct of the industrial revolution when society (and wealthy industrialists) wanted a huge number of interchangeable worker "cogs" for their industrial manufacturing systems. When Ford or GM needs an unlimited supply of people who are all equally trained who can be plugged-into a spot on an assembly line to "insert tab A into slot B" over and over again as products slide by on a conveyor belt, the brick-and-mortar palaces of mediocrity we have created are PERFECT.
Unfortunately, our obsolete government-run schools have given in to the inevitable fate of all things tied to government (and therefore tied to politicians); They are now intimately tied to political activists and agendas which they value far more than objective instruction. Most of the teachers in the US are unionized, and therefore part of the most-energetic wing of the Democrat coalition (remember all the teachers going wild in Madison, WI?) with administrators elected using lots of teacher union money, and lawyers (also mostly left-of-center) driving a hyper-sensitive response to every grievance group with a megaphone. This is how we went from schools in the 1950s where no student had a clue about the politics of their teachers to schools today where kids have been taught to sing songs praising Barack Obama.
Want your kids to be propagandized morons with super-high self esteem? Put them in government schools.
Want your kids to have functional brains? Get them out!
But they ARE sure that it is not a threat.
Now they are charging him with making a HOAX bomb.
He is quite literally being charged with NOT making a bomb and saying that it is NOT a bomb.
Are exposed wires a felony now? Is that the world you WANT to live in?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
This was not some rednecks at some church-run school pushing "God, grits, and Guns"
This was one of your run-of-the-mill secular government-run schools that thinks the only things kids need to learn are "tolerance" and "non-violence" and the multitude of uses fer dental dams, condoms, and lube. They were freaked out because they were leftists and leftists freak-out at everything they don't understand or that violates their anti-dangerous-tech religion.
In short, this would NOT have happened in the places you ridicule and did in fact happen in the sort of place you apparently prefer. In short: you are objectively wrong in your thinking.
You really are part of the problem. And you don't even see it. What is wrong with you?
"immediately report any suspicious items and / or suspicious behavior." - Because the last time, it worked so well - no persons were harmed by the insidious contraption ...
F'ing paranoid @ssholes ... US people who aren't killed by US companies' health-degrading food are taken down and jailed ... and you wonder why the Chinese (and just about any other country on this earth) are kicking your asses in the workplace ...
You've got things that could be used to trigger a bomb in your house, your car, anywhere you have electronics, electrics, and others. Includes wind-up clocks, digital clocks, thermostats, numerous other things. I once built a simple thermostat to control heating in a greenhouse - that could have been used to control anything. Building a clock is a basic exercise for kids to learn electronics. (I started myself building several radios , but that would probably have got me arrested in North Korea. )
It is texas... texas! Of course they will arrest him. He has to be happy they did not shot him.
"...the bomb scare started after his 18-year-old son was arrested for trespassing, entering an abandoned warehouse and salvaging mercury switches, which can be used to detonate explosives."
I see how this is different from a guy building a clock and showing it to his teacher with the words "look, I built a clock".
For God's sake, NO.
14 year old kids in Texas do not, in general, build bombs with electronic triggers (in fact, can you find any evidence of it ever happening, ever?). Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
'Circuit board==bomb' is the result of fucking idiotic fear mongering, right wing propaganda and islamaphobia since 9/11.
There was ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to think this kid had tried to make a bomb. If his teachers were doing their jobs, they would have known him. They would have known he tinkered in electronics. He should have brought it in to show and tell and got a fucking medal.
Grow up. Be realistic. Stop being scared.
I never said they thought it was a bomb.. They though it was a BOMB TRIGGER you ninny...
No, they thought it was a bomb hoax. No one but you thought it's a real bomb trigger.
Both building a bomb and building a bomb trigger are illegal you know....
So, watches and cellphones are illegal? Or, is it just things that go from a current source to a controlled explosion (e.g. low explosives) illegal? Such as these:
http://www.amazon.com/Generic-...
When you make shit up, be specific!
SJW n. One who posts facts.
A populist band-aid makes the pain go away every time.
He probably just put it in the aluminium case to help carry it but that made it look like the sort of thing bad guys mock up in movies. Of course it didn't look like a real terrorist bomb. They look like vending machines, telephones, etc.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
He needs to take his toy home and grow up a bit...
Ever heard of technology classes? Or you're a "no need to practice to learn" kind of guy?
Uh...
A watch is a decent bomb trigger. A cellphone is an *amazing* bomb trigger, since it's literally dial-a-boom. Better arrest all the kids that have any of these; never know what they might be planning.
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
By that measure my cell phone is a trigger. Actually, cell phones are very popular bomb triggers. But we're not slapping every kid with a cellphone in handcuffs. Or every kid with a Casio watch (the venerable Casio F14 watch that's been sold since the 1980s is a popular trigger for IEDs). Do we cuff any kid who comes into school wearing a Casio F14?
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
I think you watch too much hollywood shit.
Well put. I guess the teacher was afraid that other people might be afraid it was a bomb. That's what the police were afraid of. From what I understand, they didn't call the bomb squad, and they didn't arrest him for possessing a bomb, they arrested him for possessing a "hoax bomb". No-one was actually afraid it was a bomb. It wasn't a dangerous-looking thing. It was, perhaps, a kind of thing that looked like it might look dangerous to someone else, if there is such a kind of thing.
So you admit an alarm clock could be used to trigger a bomb. Worse, it could also be used to wake someone up on time to set that bomb. Frankly, I find your cavalier attitude unfathomable.
Shoes! What about shoes? There are people that tried to use shoes to blow up a plane! Ban all shoes.
And don't look up the fact that mines were made to look like toys, especially to target children.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I'm kinda impressed. On one hand, the kid is getting some intense positive reinforcement. On the other, the officials who screwed him are shamed without anyone having to say a single negative thing about them.
Wth? Almost anything can work as a bomb trigger ffs. If someone wan't to make a bomb trigger that doesn't look like a bomb trigger it can look like anything. You cannot tell a bomb trigger from anything else. Did the teacher suspect the kid is of the type that just might want to blow up the school? 99,999999% of kids aren't blowing up schools, and that might be a damn low estimate.
...if it was a white, affluent, kid, Obama wouldn't have even blinked his eyes.
Oh yes it was, I've seen the pictures. The kid actually built something that COULD have triggered an explosive device out of an alarm clock.
I have 4 devices on my desk right now that could do the same thing. And I am sitting at an average desk in an average office, with stock standard office equipment on my desk. Are you going to arrest me for our contract with Dell, Cisco and Samsung?
Unfortunately people get up in arms over the justifiable shootings more than the questionable ones. It makes me doubt their sincerity.
Regular people get attacked at gas stations all the time, and cops are regular people... So I fail to see your point.
As Client Eastwood once said, "A man gotta know his limitations."
"invited the teen to the White House via Twitter" should link directly to a tweet
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
I agree with GP. I don't want a hysterical liar like you running anything I'm close to.
The kid didn't show it off in English class. The kid showed it off to his engineering teacher. It alarmed during English class, and that's when the asshole English teacher saw it. What did the kid lie about? Except when under duress, his statements seem consistent with being a kid who fiddles around with electronics and doesn't see anything wrong with making something that's not anything like a weapon.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
This seems to be a shitty stat - Shouldn't it be shown as a percentage of the police population killed by citizens this year compared to the percentage of the citizen population killed by police this year?
You have managed to encapsulate the entire reason I no longer live in the US into a few paragraphs, I only wish you were playing the devil's advocate, instead of being serious.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Again: there is no war on police.
And if there is, it is a pittance compared to the War being waged by police upon the citizenry.
There isn't a war but if there is then who cares? Sure, let them feel the wrath brought upon them!
First of all, just looking at police deaths is not enough to make a blanket statement that there is no increase in the mentality of targeting police for homicide. This source is assuming that because the statistics agree, then the motives do as well. It's easy and convenient that the numbers agree, therefore it must be true! Never mind what people are actually thinking.
Well, what else is true is that maybe, just maybe, we can hold both agendas. We need to hold people accountable that believe in targeting cops for blind justice AND ALSO our political agenda of holding cops accountable can be pursued. Let's not ignore the bad eggs that will only give police more cause to be afraid.
Of course it could be used as a bomb trigger. Do you have a cell phone that other people have seen? Ever been perp-walked out of the building wearing handcuffs because of it?
Investigating the device's builder involves asking questions in a non-hostile environment, and perhaps asking questions of other people (the kid's engineering teacher would have been a good one to talk to).
If you're going to believe what movies show about bombs, please try to disarm the next one you encounter. You do know which color wire to cut, don't you?
And, yes, it's regrettable that the age we live in includes people like you.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Okay, I'll try to use short words. Bomb triggers are not going to hurt people. Bomb triggers are not weapons. In order for one to be dangerous (sorry, long word), it has to be hooked up to something that goes boom really hard. That something would be called an "explosive", and there was no such thing in the case.
I certainly hope you never have a kid.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It was a prime example of escalation. Teacher calls it in, next person in line thinks "Hey, if I don't DO SOMETHING, and something bad happens, I'm screwed. So for CYA's sake, I'm going to be serious about it." And each person along the chain then escalated the issue trying to cover their own ass, with images of every school tragedy floating in their head.
Ah nostalgia,
Here in the arse-end of Africa, the specialty was bombs made from brake fluid and calcium hypo-chloride.
The latter freely being available from any household with a swimming pool.
The nice part is that the reaction rate was very sensitive to the surface area of the hypo-chloride. Which was a huge unknown in a sealed glass bottle.
Many a finger lost in the pursuit of science.
Happy days, now its all f*&^&ing Excel and Powerpoint. How we have been emasculated.
And this is where I literally LMAO while at the same time crying... The damn thing BEEEPED!! for God's sake. It beeped!! How many bombs made by guys named "Mohammad" around the world were built with an audio circuit? Bombs aren't made to beep.. They're made to go BOOM. Beeping bombs are hollywood, just like satellites that go beep in outerspace. (Newsflash, they don't beep in space).
With a clearance and 3 years deployed in a situation where I have read hundreds, if not a few thousand, post-analysis reports on IEDs, not a single one. Not. A. Single. One. included a circuit to make an audible signal.
Then of course there's the obvious, "You even screwed up the bomb found scenario." Let me get this straight, you're telling me with an honest face that you found something you THOUGHT was a bomb, and you didn't immediately lock down the building, evacuate and send in an EOD robot? Wow, great job failing at even getting the mistaken scenario correct as well (in terms of response). Now a real terrorist knows how dumb you are.
Recently I was traveling and found myself in SEATAC. My S.O. tried several times to call me while I was in the terminal building. None of those calls rang through. However, about 10 minutes after she notified me via chat that she could not get a call to me, I saw the voice mails appear. I had no problem at all calling out. We did several tests after that. In each case the call was sent to voicemail as if my phone were turned off. Once I left the terminal building and the surrounding area inbound calls were again allowed to ring through.
Granted, the odds of one of the R candidates supporting somebody named Ahmed Mohamed were already slim. Now that Obama has come out supporting this kid, I will be shocked if any of them to come to his defense. Just look at the comments on a GOP news site. This isn't even the most vitriolic one out there. Mind you, these are the same people who rant when "Obama's" TSA takes their favorite pocket knife, calling it government overreach and unamerican. And here they are saying things like "the dumb kid deserved it," or "maybe he was just testing our defenses for a real bomb." Really?! WTF!? No wonder everybody thinks we're a bunch of racist fucks.
Seriously... Some are like "Good move, Obama". Yeah, nice of him to not miss the publicity stunt opportunity. Don't worry, back to ordering to drone kill strikes on potential terrorists tomorrow. Oh, sorry, I meant "potential terrorists and their families".
Determining whether something could be a bomb by whether it looks like a bomb from a movie? Which means that if someone really did build a bomb but did not make it look like a movie bomb would be able to explode it. The authorities would then explain that the device did not look like a bomb because it did not beep and did not have blinking lights...
I would expect more from teachers and police officers.
I have two cellphones. It is possible (and has been done) to use a cellphone to trigger a bomb. ALERT ALERT!
I also have a car. It is possible (and has been done) to fill the car with explosives and then explode it when needed. You can even fit a small nuke in something like a lorry. I saw a lorry, it must be the terrorists! ALERT ALERT!
I have a piece of wire. It is possible to use the wire to strangle someone (if the wire is long enough) or to use it to ignite gasoline to cause a fire. ALERT ALERT!
I have a big book. A book can be used to bash someone in the head, potentially killing them. ALERT ALERT!
I have some cigarettes. You can extract nicotine from cigarettes and then use it to poison someone. ALERT ALERT!
I have clothes on. I can take off my T-shirt and use it to strangle someone. ALERT ALERT!
So, we need to arrest: all cellphone owners, all car drivers, all smokers and everyone who has a piece of wire or even a string and everyone wearing clothes.
Let me guess, you vote Republican?
That's the world that people like you have made for us to live in, because you were scared shitless after 9/11, so much so that you were willing to throw everything else - sanity, rights and liberties, the free society itself - under the bus, all for the sake of your precious lives. Because terrorists.
It doesn't have to be that way.
No, it means being put on trial for manslaughter when they raid a wrong house and shoot and kill someone because some retard in blue thought that a cellphone looked like a gun, because there's no way a black person could hold anything else when interacting with police.
I under the issue of who pays, but sometimes the assertion blurs distinctions between taxpayers prcitizens and humans. In the sense that a lot of the time when someone cries "I'm a taxpayer' they also seem to be saying that mere citizens or human beings have a lesser status that they do, or that their taxpayer status trumps the other two.
Yes, you can avoid taxes, but it's fairly hard to avoid all taxes. Although if you live in Washington State they have no income tax, and if you drive over to Oregon they have so sales tax. Works for some of my relatives).
Cell phones used as bomb triggers ... have wires attached to them....
Yeah, like a USB cable...
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Never claimed this device looked like a bomb, but it does look like a bomb trigger. It is obviously home made and resembles something you'd see in a Hollywood movie representing a bomb trigger.
Actually, it looks like the kind of homemade circuit that generations of boys built to learn electronics. Perhaps you are too young to remember that. There were dozens of books on how to build that stuff, and they were avidly read. Radio Shack and other electronics stores used to sell parts and kits to support the hobby. The enormously popular fiction series "The Mad Scientists Club" by Bertrand R. Brinley (familiar to lots of Boy Scouts of that era) was essentially based around a group of kids in the hobby and their adventures. There were a number of other books with similar themes that I read in the school library, but it's been too many years for me to remember the titles ...
I remember taking an summer electronics class when I was even younger than this kid. The class was taught at the local high school (we were far too young to be high school students: the class was explicitly electronics for kids), and the instructor went over the basics of simple electrical circuits. We made a lot of different circuits in the class, including clock circuits.
As part of the class fee, every student got to take home an electronics kit (I think it was a 150-in-1 kit). We played with those kits for years, doing all kinds of fun stuff with them, before moving on to more advanced stuff. In 9th grade, several of us did some more advanced stuff as extra credit for our science class, building the circuits at home on breadboards then bringing them in to school to demonstrate.
Those experiences were probably what sent me into electrical engineering instead of history in college.
Ironically, the electronics I did as a kid was far more sophisticated than the labs for the physics II class at my Ivy League college, which were supposed to provide an introduction to circuits. They really dumbed down things in that college class, I suppose because most high schools no longer teach electronics (and perhaps because the instructor was more interested in research than teaching).
This is a clear case of police officers violating their oaths to uphold the Bill of Rights, which among other things protects any form of reasonable conduct under the 9th and 10th Amendment (rights retained by the people, rights reserved to the people) irregardless of federal and state law. Those oaths being preconditions to holding any position of public trust or responsibility, the individuals involved are now former police officers. Similarly, the school officials need to find jobs more suited to their level of competence. Any other outcome will essentially treat the Bill of Rights as toilet paper.
the kid is part of Obama's muslim socialist secret army, and he is going to be interrogated as to how his plot failed.
probably going to end up gay married, too.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
I was cheering for the kid when I first heard the story about the 14 year old who "built" his own digital clock. I was curious as to the implementation. My first guess was an Arduino board, which would still be pretty cool.
Turns out it's nothing but an old alarm clock that he disassembled and put into his pencil box.
http://makezine.com/2015/09/16...
What a giant let-down. He's getting attention from the White House and tech companies for stealing someone's work and passing it off as his own?
Remember back when apple pie and baseball were quintessential "American" things? For some reason, this story seems to represent my impression of the new "America". A country that exudes fear and gives out awards to non-achievers.
P.S. ... looking for the slightest hint of "racism" from anyone, anywhere so that we can feel good about ourselves for condemning it.
I forgot the USA's new defining attribute
The kid was arrested for doing a "bomb hoax" and it's easy to see why the folks in charge might get the idea that's what he was doing.
Hindsight is 20/20 and yes they likely overreacted given what actually took place, but there are policies and procedures that MUST be followed and in the light of the post Columbine world it's easy to see why the procedures are so brain dead.
So nobody did anything wrong here.... Except perhaps for that 14 year old boy, but it's easy to explain HIS issue as being just naïve..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
When I was 6 our teacher introduced "show and tell" and asked us to bring something to school to do with our father's job. Dad was in the RAF and gave me an old 25lb training bomb. The teacher asked if it was "live" and I said no you screw a flare into the back. No fuss no panic and everyone looked it.
The point is that, statistically speaking, there has been no discernible uptick in killings of police. 2014 was double 2013, but 2013 was the lowest EVER on record. In fact, depending on whose statistics you use, 2014 was lower than 2012. There is no war on cops.
The opposite is also true. There is no war on black people either. At least not in the sense of an increase of killings of unarmed black men. On the other hand, society hasn't systematically disadvantaged police for centuries and written drug laws that specifically target them for disproportionately higher minimum jail sentences. So it's kind of hard to compare.
The kid was arrested on suspicion of committing a "bomb hoax" which implies they suspected that the device he built was INTENDED to look like a bomb and that he was trying to act like it was a bomb.
So, by virtue of the fact the device looked the part of a hoax bomb, the authorities had to act per their process in these cases which is CALL THE POLICE, who acted in accordance to their process as well. None of this seems unreasonable if you do a bit of thinking about what each of the decision makers might have seen and what we all can imagine the process says they have to do in these cases.
I would like to remind EVERYBODY that we are only getting one side of this story and that comes from the kid and his parents. The school and the police have clearly indicated that there is more to this, but they are unable to discuss it because of their policy. In hindsight it sure looks like these people overreacted, but we don't have all the facts and there are some pretty plausible scenarios that might put this in a whole different light.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Ah... so it wasn't a bomb but a trigger. Looking at it from your perspective, I guess we should be glad they didn't call in Jack Bauer to torture the kid to find out where he hid the explosives. So in that case, Irving ISD and police did an outstanding job practicing restraint and common sense. Well done!!
Again, the only reason why what the kid did was even perceived as a bomb hoax (despite him doing everything to convince people otherwise) is because people like you have created the culture of paranoia and fear around all things Muslim.
"Diverse society will fail" --Putnam;
Let black Police deal with black Culprits;
http://www.boston.com/news/glo...
Casteism
Just to follow up, yet more numbers to further dispel this "war on police" myth:
www.npr.org/2015/09/17/441196546/is-there-a-war-on-police-the-statistics-say-no
In short: 2014 only looked bad because the previous year was the all time safest year for police. Ever.
(much like global warming deniers who try to claim arctic rebounded because 2013 had more ice than 2012....the lowest year ever recorded)
Quote:
The notion of growing "warfare" against police stems in part from a statistical jump in the number of law officers murdered — "feloniously killed," in the jargon of the FBI's numbers.
In 2014, the year of the Ferguson protests and increased media attention on police misconduct, 51 officers were killed nationwide. That was a jump from the 27 killed in 2013 and many took it as a sign of greater danger for police.
But even 2014 was statistically part of an ever decreasing trend and not really a departure from normal:
While the number of police officers killed on duty nearly doubled from 2013 to 2014, the increase is deceptive, says Seth Stoughton: 2013 had unusually few deaths. 2014 was comparable to other recent years and to the 10-year average.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Well, maybe because I live in a country where people are not as afraid of bombs or terrorists as people in the US, but I would expect a "bomb hoax" to involve 1) saying it's a bomb and 2) sounding serious about it. But it seems that Ahmed built a clock, said it's a clock and still got arrested for a "bomb hoax". What did he have to do to avoid being arrested? What if, say, I wanted to build a "prop bomb" and show it off? Would I be arrested even if I explicitly said that this was a prop bomb and not a real one?
In my country, a bomb hoax usually involves somebody calling the cops and saying that there is a bomb in some store or wherever (causing the special forces to evacuate the building and look for the bomb), while there is no such bomb.
Then again, the elevator in the building where I work started beeping for some reason, we joked that it was a bomb and talked how stupid it would be to build a bomb that beeps (or that maybe it's an alarm that the elevator is about to fall down). While being in said elevator. I guess this thing in the US would cause somebody to crap their pants.
I can't find anywhere on this article... did he actually make this stupid clock or did he just disassemble a cots alarm clock and stick it the parts in a briefcase? It sounds like the latter, because why would you make it plug-in if you're making your own alarm clock to go in a brief case?
We don't know what this young kid said or did because his parents have so far refused to release the school and the police to disclose this information. The school and police are bound by their policy not to discuss such matters without a release from his guardians, and the boy's parents have yet to allow it.
So, my point here is that there is possibly a valid reason for what happened to this boy and his "clock" but we are only getting one side of the story so it's really hard to know. I choose not to jump to conclusions either way, but there just MIGHT be a bit of fault to lay at this boy's feet.... It just MIGHT be that the authorities acted totally properly and within their policy...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101