BREAKING: The British appear to have developed some sort of giant bomb, possibly attached to a rocket. pic.twitter.com/KMAltDZvP7
— Danger Guerrero (@DangerGuerrero) September 16, 2015September 17, 2015
"The British appear to have developed some sort of giant bomb, possibly attached to a rocket."
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88 comments:
Over this story.
I'm old fashioned and still wear a bomb on my wrist.
Pathetic.
Guy forgot to work in science.
Mildly amusing.
Over this story.
Same.
If it causes School Districts to revamp policies, that would be a good thing.
MadMan- agreed, but it doesn't seem to be where this story is going.
Did poor little Allahu Akbar get all butt hurt? Move on.
Save time: it's just an ordinary picture of "Big Ben" in Londinium.
The reality is that the child seemed ignorant to everybody else's post 9/11/2001, Columbine reality.
I remember shortly after 9/11 a video store kid was asked to transfer video from a video camera onto a CD. The video recording included a reservoir. The kid was reluctant to say anything because the videographers appeared to be Muslims and he didn't want to be called a racist.
So some little muzzie was cuffed and thrown in a detention facility over a science project? LOL. I'm so over this story.
The last paragraph of Drudge's linked WaPo artcle suggests that some members of the high school kid's family are involved in Islamic activism in the USA.
Assuming that the kid's "clock," with its inexplicably bulky case, was designed to bait all the right adults to act in a certain way, then it sure looks like this was a manufactured news event that was intended to reverberate in the Muslim world through their news media, and "prove" how unjust and bigoted non-Muslim Americans are toward Islam. This is agitprop of the worst kind directed at Muslims in other countries. And the American media is highly clueless.
Example.
Example.
Example.
Clever response.
I read the letter that the school sent to parents after manufacturing this incident. What struck me most strongly was how akin the boilerplate was to letters we get from our school about the annual scare. A bus driver saw a boy shooting an airsoft pistol in his own yard. Within 24 hours the school sent out a letter greasy with self-congratulatory reassurance. Please be assured, parents, that in the service of keeping our school safe we will be as panicky and over-reactive as possible. Logic and compassion will never stop us from protecting the herd from the threat of individualistic behavior.
"the American media is highly clueless."
No. Just on the other side. As is O.
If your child made a clock from scratch and wanted to take it to school, wouldn't you think it was a bit odd, if that home-made clock looked somewhat like a bomb?
For that matter, how many kids make a ticking clock and take it to school, for no apparent reason? It was not part of any assigned project, science fair, or school work. He just turned up one day with a ticking, home-made "clock" that looked like it was a lot more than a clock.
It seems to me that the incident was manufactured by the kid and his handlers, not the people at the school.
So, in an abundance of caution (or overreaction), an inexperienced (in terms of dangerous devices) teacher saw something possibly scary and notified the school resource police officer. The officer, in turn, questioned the teenager, who was sulky and refused to answer questions, other than to say the briefcase thing was a clock. So the cop handcuffed the kid until they could investigate further, presumably by having an expert examine what was inside. Once that was done, and presumably the kid decided to explain, the science teacher then located and the kid's explanation verified, the student was released. No harm, no foul, right?
Wrong. Kid is a profiled minority, and it's a BIG DEAL.
THE CLOCK TICKS!!
This was theater, specifically designed to play on stages outside the United States.
So some little muzzie was cuffed and thrown in a detention facility over a science project?
I love it when lefties get to pretend they are mocking conservatives, so the lefties can finally use the slurs they've been dying to use.
"garage mahal said..."
something reflexively sarcastic, and failed to understand the issues.
He shouldn't have been handcuffed. That was ridiculous.
But he shouldn't get a special invitation from the White House, either.
What's most interesting to me right now is that this was originally perceived on the right as a zero tolerance gone wild story and everybody piled on the school. Then the father cried "Muslim!" and media started nattering "muslim muslim muslim muslim" and suddenly some folks on the right are saying, "well, come to think of it, it does kind of look like a bomb."
Now, apart from the fact that anybody who thinks this looks like a bomb doesn't know what a bomb looks like, the ease with which certain righties redrew their team and their talking points is quite funny.
You know who I'd like to see the President invite to the White House?
The teenagers who are being charged (as adults) with child pornography for having pictures of themselves on their phones.
Would the secret service let that clock into an Obama event?
Now, apart from the fact that anybody who thinks this looks like a bomb doesn't know what a bomb looks like, the ease with which certain righties redrew their team and their talking points is quite funn
How many people know what a bomb actually looks like?
This was zero tolerance gone crazy- especially the handcuffing part.
But investigating it? That's what schools are doing these days. Leave a backpack somewhere on a school yard or street corner, and see what happens.
@tim maquire -- I noticed that as well. Sad. The theater conjecture is both fantastical and immaterial. The lesson is still that school administrators are panicky morons.
MayBee said...
You know who I'd like to see the President invite to the White House?
The teenagers who are being charged (as adults) with child pornography for having pictures of themselves on their phones.
Then vote for Clinton. I'm sure, as first Gentleman, Bill would be happy to champion this issue, an the young ladies who have been so mistreated. I bet he could even get a private email server set up so that he could gather relevant information from them.
Have any of you tried to get into a college football game with a purse? Maybe they've eased up in the past year, but two years ago I went to an NCAA in the midwest, and they were following Homeland Security guidelines: no purses, no backpacks, no bags.
Because, I'm sure, there have been so many incidents at college football games.
Our country is overrun with security theater, and this was part of it. But is this kid such a science whiz he needs a White House invite?
The kid's getting a White House invite for the same reason some conservatives are saying it looks like a bomb--because the father cried, "Muslim!" We all know if every fact were the same but he was a Presbyterian, he wouldn't be going to Washington.
The most facile stereotype is that the school people were racist rather than that the Muslim student is a terrorist......The school was hyperbolic in their caution, but that's a weird looking clock.
If the school believed it was a bomb, they wouldn't have confiscated it, they would have evacuated the school.
When I saw a photo of the clock in the briefcase, after it was photographed for the news without the briefcase, I began to think the original story might be missing some details.
Henry said...@tim maquire -- I noticed that as well. Sad.
Sad is a better word. I wrote funny and I want to laugh, but it is sad and disappointing.
William said...The most facile stereotype is that the school people were racist rather than that the Muslim student is a terrorist......The school was hyperbolic in their caution, but that's a weird looking clock.
FWIW, I think this is zero-tolerance gone wild. I don't think the conservatives who are changing their tune are changing it because they found out Ahmed is Islamic, they knew that from the start and didn't care. I think they are changing their tune because of a reflexive hatred of all things racial politic.
Their inclination when calling BS on the race mongers is not to stick to their original assessment, but to twist the facts in order to justify the call to the police. They are defending those in the wrong in order to oppose others in the wrong who they hate more and doing it so seamlessly that I don't think they're even aware of what they're doing.
The last paragraph of Drudge's linked WaPo artcle suggests that some members of the high school kid's family are involved in Islamic activism in the USA.
Yes, this whole charade was a passive-aggressive gambit from the beginning, and North Texas climbed over itself to swallow it hook, line and sinker. Here's what the "clock"everyone is referring to actually looked like to the authorities involved.
- a 14 year old Muslim boy, 2 years short of a driver's license, is still supposed to be innocent of the optics involved in bringing a tangled mass of electronics to school, uninvited, in a makeshift aluminum case. If confronted, he blinks with doe eyes "It's a clock". But in the meantime he has successfully gamed and agitated everyone involved. When they possibly overreact, he has a "racial inequality" plea ready for Twitter.
- He didn't make a "homemade clock". He reassembled pieces of a clock he'd previously taken apart and stuffed it into a case. In his own words, he "threw it together". This hodge-podge effort was his best attempt to "impress his teacher"?
- His science teacher dutifully congratulates him, then tells him, wisely, not to show it around. He not only disobeys her - the person he wanted to impress, supposedly his only reason for bringing it to school - he then plugs the thing in to an electrical socket in English class and activates it. Am I missing something? Are English students these days routinely allowed to use the electrical sockets?
Ahmed's clock is indeed a teachable moment, but not for the reasons currently being bandied about. Instead, it's a textbook example of how to game the system of liberal political correctness buttressed by social media and passive-aggressively provoke others into elevating your social and financial value.
When it's been re-christened 'Londonistan' Big Ben will be re-purposed as a minaret.
Ahmed's clock...[is] a textbook example of how to game the system of liberal political correctness buttressed by social media and passive-aggressively provoke others into elevating your social and financial value.
Just down IH35 from Irving, at Ft Hood...
One wonders why Nidal Hasan's peers and superiors looked the other way while Maj. Hasan red-flagged his radicalism and imminent rampage. Who wants to guess wrong (or even right) and see one's career destroyed?
I don't recall Pres. Obama inviting the 7-year-old "Pop Tart Gunman" to the White House. Did I mention he was white?
Nevermind that nobody went that angle until the left manufactured it. And nobody on the right noted that the "clock" was misleading because nobody on the right bothered to ask about it. We all just assumed, "yep, crazy school district again." That's how far removed it was from the race/religion angle."
But then it was all "NO WHITE KID WOULD HAVE BEEN PUNISHED FOR THIS!!! ISLAMAPHOBIA!" Which immidiately set off alarm-bells because you know, every bloody week Jimmy is in trouble for a poptart gun or hugging a girl. We had a Senator from Colorado say that it was all well and good to kick out anyone accused on college campuses without due process cause hey, better safe than sorry and it's not like we're jailing them or anything.
So once we realized this was a racewar battle-space operation, we started looking. Oh, a "clock" in a tangle of wires in a metal case. The English class. The fact the dad runs for president in Sudan.
So yes, the right's view of the situation changed, but as usual, liars like Tim M. go about trying to respin their narrative to make sure all the appropriate conclusions are met.
Seeing as how the young man now has a White House invite, imagine if he'd shown up unannounced for a White House tour with his engineering project beeping-and-flashing in his backpack.
I'm a liar, Alexander? Respin my narrative? Don't you think you should look at my posting history before making such a pronouncement? In this case, I've already addressed the point you are tryingto make (9:41 A.M.), why don't you go back and look at it?
It's not that I'm smarter than you, troll, it's that I'm a better person than you.
FWIW, I think this is zero-tolerance gone wild. I don't think the conservatives who are changing their tune are changing it because they found out Ahmed is Islamic, they knew that from the start and didn't care. I think they are changing their tune because of a reflexive hatred of all things racial politic.
Their inclination when calling BS on the race mongers is not to stick to their original assessment, but to twist the facts in order to justify the call to the police. They are defending those in the wrong in order to oppose others in the wrong who they hate more and doing it so seamlessly that I don't think they're even aware of what they're doing.
I did not see that post - I apologize. I think you are wrong on the second paragraph- I've seen people say that yes, this was orchestrated from the beginning, but arresting was still too much. I also believe that conservatives changed their views once they examined the story more closely following the left race angle, and realized it wasn't quite as straightforward as a clock brought into school.
But, while I maintain you are wrong, I don't see a deliberate intent to deceive. So fair enough - my apologies.
Anyone who'd try sending an activated replica of Ahmed's engineering project through an airport scanner and onto a domestic flight better not be allergic to latex.
To keep a boy child from enduring taunts and extra scrutiny, near 100% of White people at least know enough to not name them 'Adolph'.
" Am I missing something? Are English students these days routinely allowed to use the electrical sockets?"
Nearly every high schooler has a phone or tablet at the high school i am at. They are assumed to be able to access email during the day, with few exceptions (special ed students for one, though plenty of them have devices too).
Students will charge their phones on a table in the back of the room during class and if it is a lab or study hall plug all manner of devices in. The commons has every other outlet being used to charge phones/etc during lunchtime. Plenty of student laptops plugged in too.
This is just another device being plugged in, access to power is not considered a big deal.
White House tour with his engineering project beeping-and-flashing in his backpack
Backpacks are not allowed in the White House.
The problem with your story, Alexander, is that the new fact that caused people to go back and look more closely is utterly irrelevant. Speculations (and don't kid yourself, that's all it is at this point) about the motives of the father (who wasn't even there) or the expectations of the son have nothing to do with the events as they unfolded for the school and the decisions they made.
People say that arresting was still too much? Don't you see what a pivotal concession that is? The arrest is what this whole thing is about. A boy brought a clock to school and showed it to two teachers. Both knew it was a clock but they had him arrested anyway. That concession is not some side issue, it is THE issue.
Last Fall, my university campus was evacuated because of a bomb scare. Big alert was posted, large police presence, classes cancelled for the morning.
Apparently, a backpack was left outside of the gym area and a student walking by heard it ticking.
The bomb squad remotely detonated the backpack. No bomb inside. Big drama, little cause.
But the trouble is that in this day and age, damned if you do, damned if you don't. Don't want to over-react, but if something happens we get months and years of "what could they have done?!" A kid gets harassed but will really get a huge boost out of it for his life and career. A minor bit of bother becomes a supposed example of persecution. We live in an era of hyperbole.
Tim,
Or perhaps it's more apt to say that the "planted story" angle is only as relevant as when liberals bring it up to denounce the Planned Parenthood videos ("those were actors sent in to embarass the good people of Planned Parenthood!") or as they used to criticize the James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles "pimp-and-ho" sting of ACORN. In both those instances, conservatives- rightly- pointed out that regardless of the motives of the "undercovers," the behavior of the targets still speaks for itself. It's only on this matter, where the situation is reversed, that some conservatives believe that the motives of the kid and this being a "false flag operation" seem to matter (and as you point out, there's not yet even any proof that those were his motives, anyway).
But I've said before that many (to be sure, not all) American conservatives and liberals alike are less interested in principled consistency than they are in defending their tribe's interests. The irony is that each side thinks it's only the others who are unprincipled.
@Clayton Hennesey: Yup.
Moreover, people don't examine how people fighting wars in other countries use the mainstream media in the United States as a conduit to communicate outside this country.
As horrific as it was, the World Trade Center attack was a media event staged for Islamic audiences.
So was the "flying imams incident."
So was the kid with the "clock."
Non-Muslim America needs to be more aware of this kind of garbage agitprop and respond to it more quickly.
Take a step back and remember that "victimhood" is what's valuable in modern culture (thanks, Oprah). This kid was a victim, and better yet he is both an example of a type of person the culture likes (young, minority, non-Christian, science-y/nerdy) and a victim of people the culture doesn't like (school admin, Texans, cops). Of COURSE he deserves an invitation to the White House!
Kate Steinle's family are victims too, of course, but they don't fit the profile, so the WH won't be sending her family any invitations anytime soon.
tim Maguire said...
People say that arresting was still too much? Don't you see what a pivotal concession that is? The arrest is what this whole thing is about. A boy brought a clock to school and showed it to two teachers. Both knew it was a clock but they had him arrested anyway. That concession is not some side issue, it is THE issue.
So I see your point, tim, but that "had" in your penultimate sentence is a problem. The cops who arrested the kid don't work for the teachers, do they? I agree the problem is the arrest and I really want to see more about the cops' reasons for arresting him, but the teachers didn't arrest him.
Assuming that the kid's "clock," with its inexplicably bulky case, was designed to bait all the right adults to act in a certain way, then it sure looks like this was a manufactured news event that was intended to reverberate in the Muslim world through their news media, and "prove" how unjust and bigoted non-Muslim Americans are toward Islam. This is agitprop of the worst kind directed at Muslims in other countries. And the American media is highly clueless.
If it makes them not want to come here...then, uh, more please?
You can't argue we'd lose some major talent because, honestly, take away Israel and nothing good has come from the Middle East in centuries except oil.
Now, apart from the fact that anybody who thinks this looks like a bomb doesn't know what a bomb looks like, the ease with which certain righties redrew their team and their talking points is quite funny.
Tim, I may not know what a bomb looks like...but I do know what a clock looks like.
It looks remarkably not like a clock.
I have to deal with schools a lot and they're going to cover their asses a lot because, as much as we hate those zero tolerance policies, rest assured --- they have to deal with parents who bitch about very possible perceived slight. It's less of a headache to do zero tolerance than to explain to somebody why their precious snowflake can't do something that somebody else can.
"Nobody can do it, then" is far, far easier.
Here is the irony to come.
Ahmed stages his little stunt for whatever reason. For a kid that age, just screwing with the school for attention would explain everything, really, even if there weren't a bunch of other interesting facts attached.
But here's the good part. It earned him a trip to the White House, an invitation to Facebook, an internship at Twitter, and an invitation to MIT, if not yet a full scholarship there.
What do you suppose all kinds of kids at all kinds of schools all across the country are thinking right now? Yep, they deserve the same goodies, and of course the same lightning of good fortune will strike for every one of them as well.
So look for hordes of little Ahmed wannabes of all colors and genders extemporaneously surprising their teachers with odd-looking homemade goodies of all sorts hoping for similar outcomes.
How will the schools deal with such events? If they clamp down, why didn't little Johnny or Susie get the Ahmed break they deserved? If they encourage it, how and where do they draw the line? What, exactly, would such a "line" even be in such a scenario?
Mass groupthink. Unintended consequences. Good times.
The net result, by the way, will be the imposition of some blanket rule about students not being able to bring in any unapproved electronic devices, ever. Years from now some kid will get busted under that rule and no one will care about her.
If one of the students in this guy's English class had been shocked by the exposed 120V block and sued the school who would have voted their way on the jury? Or if he overloaded a capacitor and it popped in someone's face, something like that. I'm not Captain Safety but I also don't have to worry about liability.
The teachers being concerned wasn't crazy. An administrator asking the cops to take a look is a bit extreme (to me), but in the realm of modern corp/gov CYA it's probably not that unusual. The cops arresting the kid seems crazy but it's often true that when news stories seem crazy (and counter to how you'd think people act) it just means the story itself is incomplete or wrong. The Rolling Stone "Jackie" story seemed crazy, particularly in how her friends were supposed to have reacted--it didn't make any sense and wasn't how any person I could imagine would actually act. The cops overreacting in this case isn't quite that farfetched, but I still want more info about why they went through with an arrest.
"The net result, by the way, will be the imposition of some blanket rule about students not being able to bring in any unapproved electronic devices, ever. Years from now some kid will get busted under that rule and no one will care about her."
NYC schoolkids couldn't bring cellphones to school for eight years. Mayor De Blasio lifted the ban in March.
I wonder what would happen if he brought his "clock" to the airport?? I also wonder when president Obama is going to invite the children of police officers killed by BLM
I wonder what would happen if he brought his "clock" to the airport??
What happens when you bring your laptop, tablet, or cell phone to the airport? As ridiculous as airport security is, I will bet you dollars to donuts that they don't confuse some random electronics for a bomb. They'd screen it, see there are no explosive bits, and let him through.
The lithium battery in your phone is more of an explosive hazard than the guts of a clock radio.
while this is probably just zero tolerance run amok, when Mohamed brings in a ticking briefcase to school, it needs to be investigated just a little.
It should be settled the old-fashioned way. Four of his classmates should take this kid somewhere quiet and beat the snot out of him.
Blogger tim maguire said...
A boy brought a clock to school and showed it to two teachers.
Check your facts-
He showed it to one.
The other one, the English teacher, heard the detonator/timer/alarm/whatever went off during class while this "clock" was in his backpack. The teacher demanded to see what it was, and off we go-
I gotta hand it to the Obama PR department; they know a good story when they see one, and bringing that kid to the White House is brilliant. It will get more coverage than, say, the NCAA football champions or the World Series winners visiting.
Even Rush made a big to-do over the "clock."
But that was because the kid couldn't or wouldn't tell the police what was in his bag.
Brilliant writing on this subject, from Kevin Williamson at the National Review Online:
"Of course it is the very same self-satisfied lifestyle liberals who want to send your toddler to Gitmo for playing with a cap gun who are so theatrically appalled at what happened to Mohamed. The structures of paranoia that have been so assiduously fortified around our schools are there for a purpose, and that purpose is political: to immerse young people in a culture in which NRA literature is samizdat but how-to-fellate-your-friends literature is mandatory, where whitewashed Islamic studies are part of the standard curriculum and Christian prayer groups are verboten. The paranoia is intentional, it is cultivated with exquisite care — but it isn’t supposed to inflict collateral damage on bespectacled young men named Ahmed Mohamed. Thus, the presidential intervention, etc."
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/424202/ahmed-mohamed-clock
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/424202/ahmed-mohamed-clock
It looks like an IED. Sorry, but its true. When kids fake bomb threats and use a fake bomb they put together something that looks vaguely bombish. And frankly, thats all a bomb is. Explosives, a detonator and a time connected by some wires. If you look at various IEDs they look exactly like this kids clock.
He showed it to his teacher and his teacher said he probably shouldn't let anyone else see it. Why? Because he recognized that the thing looked like a makeshift bomb.
Meanwhile, the schools are expelling kids if they bring a pop tart to school and then shape it so it looks like a gun. That is an expellable offense. But a clock that looks like a bomb, we should assume is a clock and not a bomb. and its racist to assume it is anything but a clock.
Lets suppose you wanted to bring a bomb to school and a teacher caught you. Why wouldn't you just say "its a clock". Then they can't question whether it is a bomb. How easy then to blow up a bunch of kids. Because there's no possible way you could LIE about what it is.
I have a lot less problem with school admins arresting someone they thought had a bomb than if they caught them pointing at someone while playing as if they were shooting them.
After determining it was only a clock they shouldn't then arrest the kid, (though maybe an expulsion is still in order). But I won't fault the school for a second for assuming something that looked like a bomb might be one. Now that its determined he just built a clock, great. I support him and his enterprise. Just don't bring it to school again.
Chris wrote:
What happens when you bring your laptop, tablet, or cell phone to the airport? As ridiculous as airport security is, I will bet you dollars to donuts that they don't confuse some random electronics for a bomb. They'd screen it, see there are no explosive bits, and let him through.
They SCREEN IT for explosives? How is a school supposed to screen for a bomb? Are there explosives experts at school?
And remember the whole underwear bomber, and the liquid explosives (which is why we can't bring bottled water onto planes anymore) They find ways to sneak bombs past security. Meaning they have to find ever more ways to screen for bombs.
But schools are not equipped to deal with makeshift bombs.
There have been a lot of bomb scares at schools. Usually they are fake. But when the kids do it they construct what looks like a bomb. It's a phone or a clock attached to gameboy, or something, and connected by wires. And that's enough to approximate a bomb. They almost always get it past security and then the authorities are called to figure out whether its a bomb or not.
Because teachers are not going to touch something that might be a bomb. They have no expertise on explosives.
So, its not like an airport with the TSA
Chris said...
I wonder what would happen if he brought his "clock" to the airport??
What happens when you bring your laptop, tablet, or cell phone to the airport? As ridiculous as airport security is, I will bet you dollars to donuts that they don't confuse some random electronics for a bomb. They'd screen it, see there are no explosive bits, and let him through.
9/17/15, 1:45 PM
You're wrong. Speaking as someone who has worked airport security, I'll tell you just what would happen. The guts of that metal suitcase would show wires and gadgetry and no luggage. The screener would call the supervisor to inform him a suspicious suitcase and show him what he is seeing on the screen. The supervisor would look at it, then ask the traveler if he knows what is in his case, and to explain what is inside. When he says, it's a clock, then the suitcase and the traveler would be removed from the scene, the police called and the interrogation continued. No way in hell a security screener is going to let that "homemade clock in a suitcase" on an airplane. As jr565 said, it looks like it's an IED. It does not look like a clock, and it makes no sense to carry a "suitcase clock". You're busted, Ahmed.
jr565,
"If you look at various IEDs they look exactly like this kids clock."
Perhaps it's because I did a tour with JIEDDO, but no, they do not.
"They'd screen it, see there are no explosive bits, and let him through."
Also, airport security does not have the capacity or the personnel to determine what is explosive material. That's the job for the bomb squad, who would arrive when the police are first called. Airport screeners are taught to look for potentially illegal, dangerous, or suspicious images that come up on the screen. A suitcase "clock" full of nothing but wires and electronics could not be more suspicious.
averagejoe,
I'm not going to try and guess what TSA would do- frankly, they're a bunch of idiots, and we all know it- so maybe they might might behave precisely as you say they would. But no, it does not look like an IED. Not to anyone who has spent any amount of time looking at or working with IEDs.
What you might get me to believe, if I'd been that campus police who got the first call and made the first look, is that this was part of a WWI German-style infiltration scheme-- that is, the briefcase clock was merely the trigger device and that the explosives were being infiltrated in by some other party or parties, to be combined at some other location where you would have an actual explosive device capable of doing some damage. That's not what the police are saying they believed then or now- and certainly, to release the kid so quickly if they ever actually believed that was a plausible scenario would be quite ridiculous- but just the most generous possible interpretation we can give them. In fairness, frankly, the cops were probably borderline retarded, so anything is possible.
Nope. Doesn't look even remotely like an "IED." Holy bejeebus, people are stupid.
Now, if you were a total frigging imbecile about electronics, it might look like a detonator device of some sort.
But do you know what looks EXACTLY like a detonator device? ANY CELL PHONE, PAGER OR REMOTE CONTROL ON THE PLANET. Because they are.
Dorks.
Most people would look at a suitcase full of wires and electronic pieces and think "bomb", not clock. If there was a clock face or digital timer, then it's going to cause people to think "Time bomb", not "clock". Turning a suitcase into a clock is an absurd idea. Turning a suitcase into a bomb is a very real fear, particularly with airport security.
Lots of geeks probably fantasize about setting a bomb off at school, or going on a rampage to get back at people they don't like. In this case, it seems pretty clear that the kid was being provocative, walking around with a suitcase "clock", setting it off in class. The school had every right to err on the side of caution. Nobody wants to endure another Columbine because they were not vigilant. I would write this incident off as a wise-ass Muslim teen fucking with his peers, but I've heard that his family is the Sharia-type radical, so I want to know more about this kid. Innocent high school prank, or a hint of darker intentions and a disturbed mind?
Finally, when kindergartners are arrested and expelled for chewing a gun-shaped pop-tart or pointing their finger at someone, and the ghosts of Columbine and Sandy Hook haunt every school in America, I think it's baloney to attribute the suitcase-clock kid's arrest to racial intolerance.
And to the people claiming that a metal suitcase filled with wires and having a timing device does not look like an IED- Improvised Explosive Device. The improvisation in the theater of war probably involves lots of artillery rounds and landmines in their IEDs. But outside a war zone, explosives are improvised in suitcases, pipes, postal packages, backpacks and shoes.
Also, if you're trying to terrorize civilians instead of soldiers, it's probably better to make a fake bomb that looks like a TV fake bomb than a fake bomb that looks like the actual bombs you see in Iraq. It certainly was a crappy looking science project. Sounds like a provocation to me.
averagejoe,
"But I've heard that his family is the Sharia-type radical, so I want to know more about this kid."
Where have you heard this? In fact, Sudan's National Reform Party, under which Mohamed El-Hassan makes his futile quest for Sudanese political power, is actually considered quite moderate. See for example this Sudan Tribune article from February 2015 where he talks about repealing the apostasy law, appointing a female or non-Muslim vice president, and accused Al-Bashir's government of encouraging fundamentalist groups. Maybe your sources are better than mine- I am no expert on Sudanese politics by any means- but just a curosry review of the kid's dad's record doesn't suggest he is a "Sharia-type radical."
With respect to the briefcase clock looking like an IED, maybe we're looking at different pictures, but the picture I saw doesn't resemble a bomb- at all- chiefly because, what on Earth is supposed to be the explosive and where would it fit in that briefcase? Maybe the administration/police thought the briefcase itself was composed of explosive material- like a really sophisticated plastique explosive that was molded into a suitcase? Or maybe they thought it was just the trigger, which again I maintain is ridiculous for reasons Jason more clearly articulated at 12:56AM. But I'm willing to believe they thought either of those chiefly because the only people I've ever met that were consistently dumber than cops were school teachers (and no disrespect intended to cops or teachers on this blog, but that's been my experience). Maybe the convenience store clerks- maybe.
It looks like an IED.
What does an IED look like? My understanding is that an IED can look like anything at all. That's why they're so scary.
Sorry, but its true. When kids fake bomb threats and use a fake bomb they put together something that looks vaguely bombish. And frankly, thats all a bomb is.
That's a lot of effort when the same effect could be had by taking any object at all to school, and making a false statement. Or, hell, an object isn't necessary... just the false statement.
I suppose if adults will freak out about pop tarts, and finger ray guns, and stories about shooting dinosaurs, it shouldn't surprise me that adults will freak out about a geek who thinks making things with circuits is pretty neat, and who wants to share his excitement with his adult role models.
You guys are making me depressed. The terrorists have clearly won.
You're wrong. Speaking as someone who has worked airport security, I'll tell you just what would happen.
You're telling me that airport security doesn't actually have training, equipment, or even an idea of how to identify an *actual* explosive device. You're telling me that airport security is fundamentally arbitrary. Wonderful.
Turning a suitcase into a clock is an absurd idea. Turning a suitcase into a bomb is a very real fear, particularly with airport security.
I imagine so, if they have no fucking clue how to identify one.
Clearly, this must be a bomb.
Most of the media have been promulgating and profiting from the straw man argument that the concern was that Ahmed's contraption was a bomb. Parenthetically, there's far more media revenue to be harvested by sustaining the oppressed wonder boy narrative than could ever be gleaned by probing the facts, so inventive comments like "it was a science project" that help fill in and smooth out what otherwise would be contradictions in the narrative get a pass.
But no. Any concern that it might actually be a bomb was dismissed almost immediately. The teacher did not in fact say "It's a bomb", she said "It looks like a bomb". Guess what? Things that look like bombs cause public concern. What persisted was the question of whether Ahmed's ambivalent behavior - a clock that no longer looks like a clock, but like an indecipherable device in a mini-suitcase, his insistence on displaying it around school, his measured resistance to answering simple questions about his behavior - represented a deliberate attempt to create a false bomb hoax or merely a series of innocent miscalculations.
Although there remains quite a bit of cognitive dissonance between the Mohameds' narratives and the simple, incontrovertible facts on the ground, the brilliant ambivalence of Ahmed's gambit left the latter, innocent miscalculations, the only credible public response remaining.
Again, the disconnects still unanswered are
- Although Ahmed is supposedly a brilliant young electronics hobbyist, what he chooses to represent that to his teacher is a disassembled digital clock crudely stuffed into a household, non-electronics enclosure, creating, in other words, not an elegant, inventive piece of creative electronics but instead the sort of crude set piece typical of bad movies and pranksters.
- Instead of heeding the advice of the teacher who was supposedly the only reason for the device, instead he parades it around the school until it finally attracts its intended attention.
- When questioned, he doesn't tell the authorities the full story he later is more than happy to repeat in publicity interview after publicity interview. Instead, he simply keeps repeating "It's a clock" while refusing to answer the obvious questions: why did you take a clock and make it look like something more ominously ambivalent? Why did you bring it to school uninvited? Why did you persist in displaying it? Etc.
The two remaining elements most likely to help young Ahmed further are, first, his decision to switch schools. The sooner he does, the sooner any lingering questions about the actual facts of the incident there will evaporate. The second most beneficial thing would be for the Irving police to keep the device so that Ahmed can't show it off at the White House, on TV, etc. The more the "clock" remains part of a mythical, fill-in-your-own-details narrative, the better for Ahmed. The more it looks like the photo of it that was released the more salient the questions I just outlined become in thousands and thousands more peoples' minds.
When questioned, he doesn't tell the authorities the full story he later is more than happy to repeat in publicity interview after publicity interview. Instead, he simply keeps repeating "It's a clock" while refusing to answer the obvious questions: why did you take a clock and make it look like something more ominously ambivalent? Why did you bring it to school uninvited? Why did you persist in displaying it? Etc.
I don't imagine he refused to answer obvious questions. I can easily imagine that the adults in the room refused to accept the obvious answers: he likes to work with electronics, but doesn't have the skills, equipment, or time to make a professional looking, injection-molded plastic enclosure. The suitcase is a practical means of transporting a fragile device. He's excited about making something, and wants to share that excitement with his peers and adult role models at school.
If the kid had made some threat or false statement, I'm sure we'd have heard it by now. In the absence of such, I assume this is a bunch of government employees who overreacted, and with their defenders are sheepishly trying to retcon the story.
Chris, the off the shelf professional looking, injection-molded plastic enclosures you are referring to cost less than half of what he used instead. What aids Ahmed immensely is the broad ignorance of hobby electronics of people like you.
Again, someone without "the skills, equipment, or time" - or inclination - to create an even borderline impressive build is probably likely to succeed in not impressing, what appears to be the outcome with the initial teacher approached.
The question pivots on this: is Ahmed in fact as intelligent and skilled as he is claimed to be - in which case what he produced cannot be believed to have been created to impress a teacher - or is he really not, perhaps merely hyped by his father - in which case what he created to impress really does represent not only his best efforts but his own belief in that they were his own impressive best efforts. Unfortunately, his own statements about "throwing something together" tend to argue against the latter, leaving us to conclude that "impressing his teacher" was concocted more for reasons of plausible deniability in the course of subtly executing a prank ambivalent at first glance.
He in fact did just throw something together, a build designed to elicit foreseeably ambivalent reactions, equally foreseeably with the help of those ignorant of what they were looking at but eager to shoehorn it into a narrative of Islamophobic overreaction nonetheless.
Probably the best response comes from Khalid Hamideh of the Islamic Association of North Texas, the group that operates the mosque the Mohamed family attends"
IRVING, Texas (AP) -- One of the largest Muslim groups in Texas said Thursday that it does not fault police and school officials who handcuffed and suspended a 14-year-old Muslim boy after he brought a homemade clock to class that they mistook for a possible bomb.
Instead, Khalid Hamideh of the Islamic Association of North Texas blamed political leaders for espousing inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric and creating a "climate of fear."
"We're not pointing a finger at the school district or the police department," Hamideh said. "Under the current climate that exists in this country, you can't really blame them because when they see something like that, they have to react."
The association operates the mosque attended by the family of Ahmed Mohamed, the suburban Dallas student who became a sensation on social media after word spread about his clock and the way he was treated.
In the end, let us hope for Ahmed's sake that he really is the genius Sufi prankster he to all accounts appears to be and not instead an overhyped, politically clueless pedestrian dabbler who really did think he was only building something impressive for his teacher.
If the latter is the case, cruelty awaits around the corner in his future once the White House, Silicon Valley, Twitter, and Mark Zuckerberg tire of him in favor of the next flavor of the moment, and MIT ultimately determines that, while they're happy to host him for a day and a lunch, he doesn't quite have what it takes to be admitted.
Clayton,
A form of "peaking too early" that we see with a lot of great and really great high school athletes? I would say the likelihood of that happening is quite high, indeed.
Chris, the off the shelf professional looking, injection-molded plastic enclosures you are referring to cost less than half of what he used instead. What aids Ahmed immensely is the broad ignorance of hobby electronics of people like you.
You're trying too hard. I assume you don't want to reference the kid's skin color, his name, or his dad's politics, which is why you're hanging your bomb hoax theory on the kind of case the he used, but it's a stretch.
Again, someone without "the skills, equipment, or time" - or inclination - to create an even borderline impressive build is probably likely to succeed in not impressing, what appears to be the outcome with the initial teacher approached.
He's a 14-year-old geek. Guess what? He's probably not the best judge of what other people might find impressive.
Guess what else? 14-year-old geeks are likely to share things they think are neat with their peers and adult role models, anyway.
Looking past all the bullshit around this story, I assume he's a mostly-normal kid caught up in a stupid situation created by the adults in his life.
Looks EXACTLY like all the little experimental guitar effects pedals me and my buddies used to make in high school with soldering irons, little metal utility suitcases and whatever protective enclosures we could rig, a small town Radio Shack store, and bad ideas. My music buddies and I had garages full of stuff like this. Made our own distortion boxes, Wah-wah boxes, volume pedals made with a potentiometer, a tiny 'rack and pinion' mechanism a hinge and some plywood. Stomp boxes with A/B switches, etc. Tin foil all over the place trying to shield interference from the electric lights. We'd take them to school and try them out in the band practice rooms and wherever.
A basic clock would have been on the short list of early DIY projects, because you can easily get an IC that's designed for it and hook it to a display module and a power source, and off you go. I don't recall making a clock specifically, but my buddies and I were about 13 when we first started down that path. We couldn't care less if it were pretty. If we could get the connections to work right, we'd worry about the cosmetics later.
Most of these knuckleheads losing their minds over this seem like they've never known a tinkerer or electronics hobbyist. Lots of us were more interested in functional circuitry than the box. This is totally frigging absurd.
http://www.amazon.com/Vaultz-Locking-Pencil-Inches-VZ01479/dp/B001BXZ28K Ceci n'est pas une suitcase.
OK. I stand corrected. It turns out the kid is a geeky twit that takes after his dad.He didn't actually 'make' anything. just repackaged a clock radio. A call for help?
I still think it was over reaction though.
https://us-mg205.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=5bmmr7799rl3m
Yeah, the kid "invented" a "clock". Allahu Akbar.
This comment thread is way past its sell-by date, so I post this only to round out the fact of Ahmed's clock should anyone read this thread at a later date.
Ahmed invented nothing. He created nothing. He assembled nothing. He took the insides of a thirty plus year old alarm clock marketed by Radio Shack, and placed them inside a commercially made pencil box available on Amazon. That's it.
Did he really think he could pass it off as his own work? I don't know. But taking it to school was a teenage stunt seeking attention. In which case, he's no different than most teenagers everywhere. All the other aspects of this story, actual motivation, overreaction, possible bigotry, who said what when etc. are still open for debate and discussion. But it is certain that Ahmed Mohammed did not build a clock.
This comment thread is way past its sell-by date, so I post this only to round out the fact of Ahmed's clock should anyone read this thread at a later date.
Ahmed invented nothing. He created nothing. He assembled nothing. He took the insides of a thirty plus year old alarm clock marketed by Radio Shack, and placed them inside a commercially made pencil box available on Amazon. That's it.
Did he really think he could pass it off as his own work? I don't know. But taking it to school was a teenage stunt seeking attention. In which case, he's no different than most teenagers everywhere. All the other aspects of this story, actual motivation, overreaction, possible bigotry, who said what when etc. are still open for debate and discussion. But it is certain that Ahmed Mohammed did not build a clock.
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