Obama Invites Texas Teen To White House After "Bomb" Clock Incident At School 657
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? (Score:2, Insightful)
will the tsa / SS let him take the device in?
Re:will the tsa / SS let him take the device in? (Score:4, Informative)
will the tsa / SS let him take the device in?
Absolutely, once they inspect it and confirm that it's not a bomb.
Electronics are allowed on planes. Explosives aren't.
That's not a bomb, it's a clock! (Score:5, Funny)
Now, if there is any good chance to smuggle a bomb into the white house, this is it.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Gofundme (Score:5, Insightful)
I dislike the term "taxpayer" - it implies that there are people who don't pay tax. But everyone who buys anything, let alone earns money, ends up contributing toward government coffers. Even if you've always been completely reliant "on welfare" - a very unusual scenario, relative to the whole population - you're acting as a conduit for money into private hands. The latter will generate wealth by investing that money (hopefully), and that means more tax is paid.
So, it's the people that will pay - all of them.
Now, the government is elected by the people - really, it is! there might be a lot of lobbying going on, but ultimately it's democracy that determines whether corruptible people are elected or not.
The government is responsible for the police force and the school system.
Working backward, the police/school answers to the government answers to the people.
So, who is ultimately responsible for this? The people.
The party responsible is going to end up paying for the damage done.
Cynic as I am, I won't deny when something is working right. And if you go all, "I know a better system of government than a democratic republic!" good luck enforcing it - because the two options are will-of-the-people and force. Even the Objectivist arch-capitalist and the purest of Marxist communists agree that each final system develops out of the consent of thinking people - they just have different ideas on what the choice of people acting in their interests ends up being.
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There are people who don't pay taxes. For instance, I am not a Texas taxpayer. I pay no taxes to Texas. "Taxpayer" is a convenient way to denote the people who pay taxes in the context of where the term is used.
It can refer to particular jurisdictions: Nation, state, county, city, etc. It can refer to particular taxes: income, sales, property, gas, consumption, estate, capital gains, etc.
Furthermore, there are no doubt, some people who indeed pay no taxes, and the term "taxpayer" distinguishes those peo
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I dislike the term "taxpayer" - it implies that there are people who don't pay tax. But everyone who buys anything, let alone earns money, ends up contributing toward government coffers.
The word "taxpayer" is a useful word in contexts like this because it tends to reinforce that the settlement (if there is one) will come out of the taxes that the people pay. It also serves to suggest which people are going to pay -- namely, the people who pay taxes in the relevant municipality, or school district, or maybe the whole state.
So yes, "people" works too, but "taxpayer" does a much better job of reinforcing the principle being discussed, and is therefore (IMHO) the correct word to use.
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yeah this Reprobate [thesmokinggun.com] will never get a tech job anywhere!
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Damn, that was his plan all along!
Terrorists everywhere (Score:5, Insightful)
There were lots of terrorists involved in this incident. The terrified child vowed never to bring another invention to school.
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http://southpark.wikia.com/wik... [wikia.com]
I'd love to link to the scene where Cartman asks if he has been checked for bombs, but alas, DMCA and all...
Re:That's not a bomb, it's a clock! (Score:5, Insightful)
Would a kid of any other background been arrested?
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Would a kid of any other background been arrested?
YES....
Yes, especially in Boston. (Score:5, Informative)
Yes. Have we already forgotten the Boston lightbright scare?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare
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Or the Dangerous Denver Diminutive Robot [gather.com] incident.
Re:Yes, especially in Boston. (Score:5, Informative)
If a terrorist wants to cause wide spread terror he just needs to distribute tiny robots throughout a city. It would shut down the whole city down. Using bombs would be far less effective.
Re:Yes, especially in Boston. (Score:5, Insightful)
At this point, you could probably cause widespread terror with post-it notes with the word "bomb" written on them. For under $10, a terrorist wannabe could cause major panic.
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Really, they don't even need toys. Boxes of roofing nails distributed on select thoroughfares at rush hour will plunge just about any city into complete chaos.
Clearly, it's time to lock up the roofers.
Re:Yes, especially in Boston. (Score:5, Funny)
Tell me about it... one time I put a MyLittlePony doll in.... well.. nevermind, but I had to stand still for a while.
Re:Yes, especially in Boston. (Score:5, Interesting)
When my dad was a hippie in the sixties and lived briefly in Milwaukee they had the same "red line" for "long-hairs" as for blacks. He literally walked half a block into the wrong neighborhood, and was stopped by the police and told which side of town he was allowed in.
The difference is, as a long-hair he was driven back to "his side of town." If he was black, he'd have probably spent a night in jail to "explain the situation." That was before they realized they could just shoot blacks, of course.
Back then, I'm also not sure being "brown" would have even been different than "black."
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You don't need to show that the kid has that motive, because the two individuals in Boston didn't have that motive. The Boston motive was to promote the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie.
Re:That's not a bomb, it's a clock! (Score:5, Informative)
Especially if the kid nibbles a Pop Tart into the shape of a pistol.
Then, it's," Katey, Bar the Door!"
Re:That's not a bomb, it's a clock! (Score:4, Informative)
That kid has become the "hot coffee lawsuit" of students.
The "hot coffee" eh? You mean the lawsuit everybody uses for an example of mockery towards the legal process, while themselves being substantially unaware of the actual physical injuries suffered by Stella Liebeck, that she offered to settle for far less than the jury awarded, and that evidence was brought for that McDonalds knew their coffee was served at an excessively hot temperature which they required their franchisees to use, and that hundreds of other people had also been burned by their coffee.
Is that really the example you want to use?
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I thought that it was primarily because McDonald's served a hot beverage in a cup that easily collapses when you grab it, and the lid pops off. Now their cups are very rigid even with no lid.
Re:That's not a bomb, it's a clock! (Score:4, Informative)
I thought that it was primarily because McDonald's served a hot beverage in a cup that easily collapses when you grab it, and the lid pops off. Now their cups are very rigid even with no lid.
No, guessing things that are easily looked up is not "thinking. You did not "think" that.
McDonalds stood their ground and refused to lower their coffee temperature to a safe level, or an industry-standard level. They really did have scalding hot coffee that was hotter than what consumers would expect, because it was way hotter than every other chain, hotter than standard commercial coffee equipment heats it to when used according to manufacturer's specifications. They simply did not care about the injuries that numerous people had suffered. Coffee doesn't even taste better when brewed super-hot, it tastes worse. But, their customers don't know or care about coffee quality, and if it was hot or not is all they really report on.
Cups were changed later, for whatever other reasons. Nobody was asking that they change their cups, or do something different than everybody else. They were asked to serve coffee that it is in the temperature range that food and drink are customarily served in the United States, and that is regarded as safe for humans.
Re:That's not a bomb, it's a clock! (Score:4, Informative)
The temperature of the McDonald's coffee was from 82 to 88 C at the max according to plaintiffs lawyers, so by the time served less. The recommendations from manufacturers, coffee drinking clubs, and grinders they recommend in the 90 to 96 C range.,
Re:That's not a bomb, it's a clock! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. Ordinary whitebread suburbanite kids with chemistry sets have been hassled by the authorities in this country, and Slashdot has indulged outrage about it too, as recently as last June. Put away your little group-think grievance detector.
Re:That's not a bomb, it's a clock! (Score:4, Informative)
Well, here's one from Canada. [io9.com] Here's another one from New York. [wikipedia.org] Here's another one from a month ago [statesman.com], though in their defense, there were some criminal acts involved (B&E).
Re:That's not a bomb, it's a clock! (Score:5, Informative)
Here's exactly the one he's talking about. Last June.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/... [slashdot.org]
It wasn't that hard to find, dude. Probably took less time that it did for you to write your reply (which somehow got modded up).
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It would be nice if we stopped painting entire organizations, professions, states and countries every time a story like this comes out. In the discussion of this story, the role call of villains includes the USA or 'murica, Texas, the city of Irving, Republicans, Teachers, Police and most of all White People. At most there was a handful of people involved and a free press with an activist citizenry turned the whole thing around.
This kid has gone from oppressed to a likely poster child in about 6 hours.
Re:That's not a bomb, it's a clock! (Score:4, Informative)
It would be nice if we stopped painting entire organizations, professions, states and countries every time a story like this comes out.
If the head of an organization (e.g. the Irving PD Chief) says something in their capacity as head, it's supposed to reflect on the organization. That's why they've called a press conference; are responding to interviews; etc. is to explain the position of the organization (although not necessarily the position of the members of the organization). If they give a dumb response it reflects poorly on the organization, the same way as if they give a good response it reflects well on the organization.
The rest of your post is either a straw man or you're responding to the wrong post. I didn't talk about any of those things.
Damage was already done (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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The problem is we can't get anymore plutonium from the Libyans.
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The internet (Score:3)
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.
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Which is utterly boring to adults, but to an 11 year old kid, it's pretty fascinating.
And while not patent worth in its own right, it shows a sense of curiosity and exploration, and maybe a desire to have something that no one else has - a cool looking clock.
I mean, sure, it's not really invention, but then again, we like people who repackage stuff - like Ben Heck who repackages consoles into "laptops" and stuff.
And think of it this way - she g
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They've already said, before this incident, that they wanted to move but cannot afford to.
Re:Damage was already done (Score:5, Funny)
Being bright is his real crime. The police probably suspected something was wrong with him when they learned he didn't play football or beat up kids smaller than he was.
Like a grownup (Score:2)
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 mi
Re:Like a grownup (Score:5, Informative)
They would not let him call his father when the police questioned him. This is a direct violation of his and his parents rights. It's illegal to question a minor without their guardian present. I really hope everyone is telling their kids out there to refuse to answer questions in such a situation without their parents present.
The police department and school district are going to be paying his family some serious money once the lawsuits are filed. I dare say he won the lottery with this highly illegal and stupid treatment.
Re:Like a grownup (Score:5, Insightful)
Its just sad that that payout is gonna come from the taxpayer, NOT the idiots who perpetrated this. Theres a large number of people involved with this that should be behind bars, and have their pay garnished for the rest of their life to pay this kid for this...
Re:Like a grownup (Score:5, Insightful)
Its just sad that that payout is gonna come from the taxpayer, NOT the idiots who perpetrated this.
Good. Because the part of the school that sets policy is the fucking school committee, elected by the public.
Elect morons to the school committee which does important things like set the budget and hire administration and you get stupid policies like this.
Stupid should hurt.
--
BMO
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No, kids should learn if they did something wrong they should know when to detect an illegal interrogation, and then tell them right away where all the other evidence is so that when the fruits of that interrogation get thrown out, all the evidence will too.
Oh, wait, maybe that was a different moral lesson.
I grew up on both sides of the tracks.
Re:Like a grownup (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure. I'm "sensitive to this issue" because I saw the same sort of stupid abuse of authority, albeit in a minor way. Abuse of authority should get pushback. People make mistakes, and that's fine, but the people who screwed this up should have been told to knock it off before the kid was disciplined.
It should have ended almost immediately. Teacher suspects a bomb, someone competent determines it's a clock, everyone goes about their business, parents get a courtesy call to let them know what happened.
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Agreed.
Re:Like a grownup (Score:5, Insightful)
I just wish they handled this privately with the parents
You're talking as if he still did something wrong.
He made a "my first EE project" - something he should have been praised for. But instead even the teacher he initially showed it to (a geek like the rest of us) basically said "hide it."
The problem with this is that none of the adults involved in this stupidity outside of the parents and Obama, acted like adults.
And he's right in declaring that he won't bring his own projects to school anymore. They don't deserve to see creativity out of this kid. Because they're douchebags, every last one of them at that school district.
He should GTFO of that school and get home schooled. Better yet, the whole family should get out of Texas and move to Cambridge MA. And the school district should pay for it.
--
BMO
Re:Like a grownup (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama did the right thing, IMO. The people who did this need to be embarrassed, personally.
Inviting the kid to the White House immediately shows how fucked up the school district is.
Were I president, I would have done it even if I had to pay out of pocket.
--
BMO
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The idea that the school suffers if this child does not display creativity troubles me. The school does not suffer either way, the only one who suffers is the child. The immediate lesson he has learned is that he must keep his head down and be just like every one else. Creativity will be punished.
That is a hell of a thing to teach a child.
Way to go
It's not just the child. See it repeated over and over again. The frequency with which incidents like this happen mean that the upcoming generation is going to have all the initiative beaten out of it. From "Can Do!" to "Don't Dare!" in under a century.
Re:Like a grownup (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to be insinuating that there was anything even slightly wrong with what Ahmed did (by claiming that he "needs guidance" or that it needed to be "handled," even privately). Let me assure you that there is not. Ahmed is totally and completely innocent of even the appearance of wrongdoing, and having the school officials apply any sort of "handling" or "guidance" (let alone the "threats" and "punishment" that actually happened!) would be wrong on their part.
This is not a situation where a student should be admonished "hey, that's too much like a bomb; don't do it again." This is a situation where a student should be praised that "hey, that's a cool project; keep up the good work!" What we have here is a model student who did everything right, but whose reward for that excellence was to be punished for it by bigoted, paranoid imbeciles. He should not have been arrested. He should not even have been "handled" or "guided!" He should have been celebrated!
paging JonKatz (Score:3)
nerd rage is the funniest rage.
If I had a child now (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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This is our culture of fear and ignorance blossoming!
We have a society which ostracizes the individual in favor of group think. Anyone not conforming to the pre-defined mold is immediately cast as suspect, ridiculed and shunned. Some of these individuals will take this negative energy and overcome adversity. Others will snap and go on killing sprees.
Acceptance should be pushed in schools, Get to know people because I can guarantee you no person (group thinker or loner) is the person they are viewed as on t
Re:If I had a child now (Score:5, Insightful)
I would home school him or her.
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.
The solution is homeschooling? I thought it was work with your community to improve your schools so that EVERYONE benefits. We've become a society of not only "me first," but "only I matter."
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I'd just like to point out that the people involved in this story were teachers. There's nothing magic about having a teaching credential that somehow imbues one with the ability to impart knowledge to others. Give a kid access to the required resources and foster the right attitude about learning and they'll pretty much teach themselves.
Children are natural scientists. But a zero tolerance arrest kids for reasons so trivial that the offense actually isn't a crime anywhere outside of the Gulag called a school they are in will take care of that in short order.
What about social environment?
Sports, boy scouts/girl scouts (find a troop that actually does real backpacking/canoeing), friends, home school group outings.
Versus arrests for too much perfume, failed science fair experiments or disagreeing with teh school commisars - now that's a positive social experience.
How do you teach teamwork?
Sports, boy/girl scouts, homeschool groups (I'd be shocked if there isn't one nearby that does rocketry or robot building or other similar nerdy group projects). Team based online games? Tabletop RPGs with friends? Hell, they can even get involved in an open source project or something.
In ou
You stay classy, Irving ISD (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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Article I, Section 9, Clause 3 US Constitution
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Electronics used to be taught in high-schools (Score:5, Insightful)
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..
Re:Electronics used to be taught in high-schools (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Electronics used to be taught in high-schools (Score:4, Interesting)
Good Move (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good Move (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good Move (Score:4, Informative)
It's a good move, but I know an even better one. How about "inviting" (summoning) the teacher, the principle, the police officers and their chief of police to the White House, to ask them what the fuck they were thinking. The president giving these idiots an earful semi-publicly (not in public but it'll make the news) might give other panic-mongers and closet dictators some pause. It'll be worth it even in the extremely unlikely event that the backlash from a presidential chewing-out allows a terrorist to slip through. Fear, suspicion, surveillance and oppression aren't going to stop them anyway.
That would be an overreach - which is everything the president has been accused of doing by the GOP with very little actual evidence of such. Intervening directly in a non-federal matter like this is exactly the wrong thing to do. What he has done is neatly publicly shame the school district and the cops without intervening directly in their discipline.
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In the US, the federal government is responsible for some things, and not allowed to intervene in others. Education is reserved for the states to set up.
In fairness, it's not how we would probably set up the country if we were doing so today, but government education wasn't on the horizon when we wrote the constitution, and "state's rights" were made very explicit because states had to be convinced to join.
"Immediately report suspicious behavior" (Score:5, Funny)
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."
Not sure I would want to study STEM in the US (Score:2)
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?!?!?!
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commentsubjectsaredumb (Score:2)
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
Look hon! There's job openings in Irving! (Score:3)
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...
Talk about public relations failure (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Re:I wonder if they're going to use this as "proof (Score:4, Funny)
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Only because chemistry class was that afternoon.
Re:I wonder if they're going to use this as "proof (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I wonder if they're going to use this as "proof (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Re:I wonder if they're going to use this as "proof (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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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?
Re:I wonder if they're going to use this as "proof (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I wonder if they're going to use this as "proof (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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What should the adults in a position of authority do differently?
Be brave and don't panic
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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?
Re:I wonder if they're going to use this as "proof (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I wonder if they're going to use this as "proof (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I wonder if they're going to use this as "proof (Score:5, Informative)
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... [washingtonpost.com]
Re:I wonder if they're going to use this as "proof (Score:4, Interesting)
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. [usnews.com] And if you figure that there are around 765,000 [wikipedia.org] 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.
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And that's just to get on the plane.
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What do you think will happen when he tries to take this past the TSA at the airport?
The TSA will inspect it, confirm that it has no explosives, and then send him on his way.
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Sorry to poke holes in your knee-jerk Obama hating, but President Obama said very early in this whole thing that it is a teachable moment and that Ahmed's teachers failed him.
Don't let reality interfere with your hating-points, Jr.
Re:No push for teacher education? (Score:5, Insightful)
In which case you must be appalled at the teacher's actions, which were to confiscate the device, put it in a desk drawer, and continue teaching the class. If it could have been a bomb, the teacher was endangering the life of everyone in the classroom.
Re:No push for teacher education? (Score:5, Insightful)
This kid built, knowingly or not, an actual triggering device out of an alarm clock.
No he didn't.
He built a clock. A clock is not the same as a bomb trigger. If you keep on insisting it is, then literally every watch and phone the kids are wearing/carrying is a potential bomb trigger.
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Re:No push for teacher education? (Score:5, Insightful)
But admit that this device, while not an explosive, was EXACTLY the same as a bomb trigger.
This device was not the same as a bomb trigger. One obvious difference is that a bomb trigger is attached to a bomb. If it's not attached to a bomb, then it's not a bomb trigger. Just like the fact that the cell phone in your pocket is not a bomb trigger until you decide to attach it to a bomb. Once you attach your cell phone to a bomb, then instead of being a cell phone it's a bomb trigger. A clock is not a bomb trigger, it's a clock.
This kid built, knowingly or not, an actual triggering device out of an alarm clock.
A "triggering device" is also not a bomb trigger. Note the distinct lack of a bomb to trigger.
We cannot loose sight of what this device COULD have been used for
Your car can be used to intentionally strike and kill a person. Should you be allowed to drive it? What about the knives in your kitchen? Do you perhaps own any guns? I hope you don't use acid to help maintain a pool, and god help you if you fertilize your lawn.
This wasn't just an innocent shop class project the kid says he intended it to be
Actually, yeah, it was. Would you be fine if he 3D-printed some fancy plastic case so that you couldn't see the wires, would that calm your heart rate and make your palms stop sweating? Because that's the only real difference between what he built and what sits on your nightstand.
until the authorities could firmly establish what his intent was their actions where justified.
They could have firmly established his intentions by talking to his electrical engineering teacher and hearing that the kid showed the clock to the teacher. It would have been pretty obvious what his intentions were: to build a clock and show his EE teacher. They weren't interested in that though, they had a narrative that they wanted to reinforce and only had the evidence that he possessed something that had wires in it, his skin is brown, and he's Muslim. So instead of looking for actual evidence and intent, they just decided to arrest him. It's the lazy way to go, which is something that cops are pretty good at.
That some stupid teacher shoved the thing into a desk drawer, not withstanding.
Seriously. Obviously a clock goes on the desk, not in it.
Re:Who builds a clock that doubles as a briefcase? (Score:4, Insightful)
Zero tolerance policy
Zero tolerance of what, precisely? I though zero tolerance was meant to be zero tolerance of breaking rules. Not zero tolerance of random shit made up on the spot by mad people.
Last I checked, clocks weren't against the school rules.
Plus who builds a two foot by two foot portable clock that looks like a bomb?
It only looks like a bomb because oooh scary circuit boards!!1111one1!oneONE1!