9th Grader Arrested in Houston for making ... a clock.

[GNU_Ninja]

This incident makes me angry too. When we're trying to encourage kids to consider careers in STEM, this kind of massive over-reaction is just baffling.

More interesting is going to be how they try to dig themselves out of it. Now global news, it's the #2 read item on the BBC News website now. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34266389

Police spokesman James McLellan said that, throughout the interview, Ahmed had maintained that he built only a clock, but said the boy was unable to give a "broader explanation" as to what it would be used for.

Er... WTF do you think a clock's for, Sherlock?

If you want to know the time don't ask a Policeman 

[wraper]

He brought something to school that should not be on school grounds, period.
He at least could have asked his teacher first.

WTF, why someone shouldn't bring a clock to the school, yet even ask if he allowed to? Almost everyone has some kind of gadget, like mobile phone or tablet in the backpack. How the hell DIY clock is different from bringing them in.

It was not 100% clear what it was, so yes you can imagine someone uneducated like an english teacher to get nervous and take it serious.

Not obvious only for idiot society grown on stupid Hollywood movies. IMO USA is ridiculous, failing to ban unrestricted availability of weapons, then be in fears of psycho attacks possessing guns, or prosecuting or killing innocent people for suspected bad intentions, although there were none.

[zapta]

Nope, the vast majority of the 'debate' is about zygotes, even going to the extent of claiming IUDs, the pill, and other contraceptives etc are 'killing babies' by not letting eggs get fertilised or letting them implant.

This's not the main debate in Texas but if it's different in your country I will leave it to you and your people to sort it out.

[Howardlong]

Unbelievable. And I don't mean the NASA T shirt.

[Mechanical Menace]

Nope, the vast majority of the 'debate' is about zygotes, even going to the extent of claiming IUDs, the pill, and other contraceptives etc are 'killing babies' by not letting eggs get fertilised or letting them implant.

This's not the main debate in Texas but if it's different in your country I will leave it to you and your people to sort it out.

Erm, what sorry? That's what I've seen of the debate in Texas and what is publicised by the anti-choice side. The vast majority of it seems to be about Jesus and their bastardised interpretations of the bible and how to make others live by them. It's not a debate at all here tbh.

[BradC]

All I can say is that poor kid... having to grow up in an environment surrounded by ignorant pigs...

[GNU_Ninja]

Unbelievable. And I don't mean the NASA T shirt.

Land of the free ... my arse 

[retrolefty]

 Well I think this incident has grown here on this forum to be a Venus fly trap for political opinions that doesn't really explain why the situation evolved as it did. I would propose that it was just a case of personal ignorance and fear of the unknown.

 I blame mostly the English teacher for starting a process where everyone involved, English teacher, principle, called authorities and all were trust into a 'cover our ass' situation. Who among those directly involved would have dared to take a stance and the liability of "I'm sure there is nothing sinister here, lets move on".

 With our 24/7 news that cover every 'scary' committed  crimes, it's no surprise to me that the school system deferred making a decision on their own and turned to local police to make a determination with then more cover their ass decisions and actions.

 So to me it's not about Texas, Conservative politics, religious beliefs, racial discrimination, U.S. policies, States Rights, pro-choice/pro-life opinion, but rather one ignorant English teacher (that I wouldn't expect to look at a home made electronic device and understand what he/she was seeing) that set off a cover their ass, protect the children at all costs, that forced a response and decisions by the school and authorities.

 So you are all free to continue with all the political clap-trap opinions, but to me it's just a situation of human fear and knowledge of past situations occurring at schools (Columbine anyone?) and how organizations feel they must respond to 'scary' situations.  I'm actually surprised  they didn't evacuate the school and call a bomb squad to destroy the device as it would be the only way to be sure and the safest path to take. 

 

 

 

[zapta]

Nope, the vast majority of the 'debate' is about zygotes, even going to the extent of claiming IUDs, the pill, and other contraceptives etc are 'killing babies' by not letting eggs get fertilised or letting them implant.

This's not the main debate in Texas but if it's different in your country I will leave it to you and your people to sort it out.

Erm, what sorry? That's what I've seen of the debate in Texas and what is publicised by the anti-choice side. The vast majority of it seems to be about Jesus and their bastardised interpretations of the bible and how to make others live by them. It's not a debate at all here tbh.

The debate is if it should be legal to abort/kill/destroyed fetuses/babies at different stages of the pregnancy. There is also a side debate whether the government should subsidies such procedures. The counter argument for your side that that fetuses/unborn-babies are human lives and deserve protection by the government. The debate is legal, not theological. BTW, the other side is not against a 'choice', they are against termination/abortion/destruction/killing of live fetuses/unborn-babies.

Don't ask me for my personal opinion on this issue. I am just correcting the propogandish' representation of this issue and Texas in a previous thread (no flame intended).

[Kjelt]

This is a place that wants to make it illegal to ban guns from schools 

That is insane. How many kids have to die?

and you're saying a clock, and not just a clock but one that was built with knowledge that came from a course of independent study, shouldn't be on the grounds at all?

Well apparently TWO teachers independently of eachother questioned his choice.
The first said "do NOT show this to other teachers" Now why should a science teacher say that if the device had no relevance to other secondary thoughts at all?
Why did he not lock it in the locker after that comment. Why not pull out the power source so it did not go off in class. Why make it look like it could be something else at all?
If it was a orange bouncing ball we would not have this discussion now would we?
So yeah arresting is way too far but a meeting with the principal and his parents could have been a more normal cause of action and also then we would not have this discussion.

[GreyWoolfe]

Being reasonably serious, everyone with a brain knows that today in this world every household has as many chemicals in it as needed it to build a home made IED. So in theory we are all terrorists with the ability to make such by their thinking, best get my lawyer fired up in case of a visit if the feds want to make something of that fact. Arresting some poor kid is an insult to anyone with any intelligence for building a home made clock.

Quite true. Building an IED is arguably easier than building a clock. If we were to really push it to a ridiculous extreme, a GCSE/A-level chemistry textbook could be considered "materials useful to someone planning a terrorist attack"... and all you need to make potassium nitrate is piss, straw and patience 

Back in the 70's when I went to college, I took a political science elective called the Politics of Pot and Other Drugs.  Eight students and we met in a meeting room in the building that housed the political science department.  One the the books we had to have for the class gave all the information on how to synthesize Meth and PCP among other drugs- I mean, materials needed, detailed manufacturing steps, everything.  Imagine being caught with that book in school now.  The funny thing was I took the class to fill out my last elective and thought that it would be an easy grade.  Boy was I wrong, I worked hard in that class to a decent grade.

[DrGeoff]

You know exactly why they did this one, they wanted to force the poor kid into saying " oh well yes it could be used for a bomb I guess ". he has then incriminated himself with that big word, BOMB mechanism. There really is only one word for these law officers , and I wont repeat it here.

Precisely. Which is why you should never say anything during a police interview.
They are building a case for the prosecution and are not in the least intersted in helping your case.

[wraper]

The first said "do NOT show this to other teachers" Now why should a science teacher say that if the device had no relevance to other secondary thoughts at all?

Maybe he knew how big idiots some other teachers are.

[firewalker]

He won free holiday trip to Cuba.

Alexander.

[Mechanical Menace]

BTW, the other side is not against a 'choice', they are against termination/abortion/destruction/killing of live fetuses/unborn-babies.

They aren't unborn babies. There is no such thing as an unborn baby. By definition it's not a baby until it's born. No matter your stance on the subject you can at least be honest and call things by their real names. And yes, I do refer to 'miscarriages' as spontaneous abortions.

Don't ask me for my personal opinion on this issue. I am just correcting the propogandish' representation of this issue and Texas in a previous thread (no flame intended).

They should do a better job at getting their point across if what I said isn't what they mean. I didn't get that opinion of their true motives from the pro choice, pro sex ed etc propaganda but from their own propaganda. I haven't just assumed it's mainly theological in nature, that's the angle they go with when giving their arguments. If they're just saying that to gain popular support and don't really believe it that's even worse.

And TBH you don't know my personal opinion on this subject either. I just don't like dishonest representations.

[AF6LJ]

texas?  islamophobic?  say it ain't so!

yeah.  go read up.  this is widely reported on, over and over.  check any international discussion forum (such as fark; seriously) and you'll see what the view on texas is when it comes to being afraid of those who are not exactly like them.  sorry, but some areas do deserve their labels.

there is also a war on women in texas.  read up on that, too.  such hostility toward women who want to have control over their own bodies when it comes to giving birth.  texas has a really bad track record when it comes to womens' rights.

All those Californians who moved to Austin and San Antonio.
It was in the national news on and off from 2004-2006, all those people looking to escape high taxes, a real estate bubble and a more reasonable cost of living.
SanDiego California went from the sixth to the eight largest city.
So I guess Texas is a pit and The People's Republic of Kalifornia is a paradise. 

[zapta]

BTW, the other side is not against a 'choice', they are against termination/abortion/destruction/killing of live fetuses/unborn-babies.

They aren't unborn babies. There is no such thing as an unborn baby. By definition it's not a baby until it's born. No matter your stance on the subject you can at least be honest and call things by their real names.

Around here it's common to refer to fetuses as babies. An example below. Might be different in your country, "my fetus is kicking again' and such.

http://www.webmd.com/baby/fetal-movement-feeling-baby-kick

[AF6LJ]

The population of Canada will spike if this happens and I'll be the first one over the border.

What's the deal with the US/Canadian border?
Can you guys just move there and live/work and vise-versa?

No you cannot.
Now if you are from Mexico you can come to the US and get money from the government, housing and free medical care. You won't find Canada handing out free money to US citizens.
To add to the insanity; over 300 cities in the US are called Sanctuary cities, they harbor illegals and often won't turn over criminals to the feds for deportation, a recent case of a woman shot and killed in San Fransisco is an example of the city of SF not cooperating with feds. The guy that killed this woman had been arrested for noumerous crimes before and the city just let him go. https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=woman%20killed%20in%20san%20francisco%20by%20illegal%20alien

We could discuss this further but not on this forum since it involves poltics and the destruction of individual rights by political pressure groups.

[continuo]

why did the police handcuff a child? that picture looks so wrong. didn't they feel ashamed themselves to do something ridiculously stupid like that?

[AF6LJ]

BTW, the other side is not against a 'choice', they are against termination/abortion/destruction/killing of live fetuses/unborn-babies.

They aren't unborn babies. There is no such thing as an unborn baby. By definition it's not a baby until it's born. No matter your stance on the subject you can at least be honest and call things by their real names.

Around here it's common to refer to fetuses as babies. An example below. Might be different in your country, "my fetus is kicking again' and such.

http://www.webmd.com/baby/fetal-movement-feeling-baby-kick

A quick look at various laws in countries such as AU and the UK will show a vastly different "opinion oh what constitutes a human life. Many parts of the world don't hold the value of human life as highly as the average American, as much as I would like I tend to stray away from these kinds of discussions, they usually won't end well.

The older I get the more I find mysef going back to that Rodney King Quote.

[setishock]

After reading this thread I have come to the conclusion that terrorists have done what they started out to do. Make us become paranoid of each other.
They won't have to fly a plane in to another building. They won't have to set off another bomb. They won't have to fire another shot.

We'll simply self destruct.

[AF6LJ]

why did the police handcuff a child? that picture looks so wrong. didn't they feel ashamed themselves to do something ridiculously stupid like that?

To understand what goes on here you really need to listen to what passes for news here.
For one thing six companies control 95 percent of the mass media, much of that news is gray or dark gray propaganda. Think the USSR in the 1970s.
There has been a lot of social engineering going on here for a long time, thankfully people are beginning to wake up to it. 

[Mechanical Menace]

why did the police handcuff a child? that picture looks so wrong. didn't they feel ashamed themselves to do something ridiculously stupid like that?

I've seen situations where it was necessary, not just to make life easier for the police or to stop others getting hurt but to protect the kid in question from themselves too. In this case it seems wrong though.

Around here it's common to refer to fetuses as babies. An example below. Might be different in your country, "my fetus is kicking again' and such.

Yeah it's common here. Doesn't make it right. Makes me cringe. But the whole idea of pregnancy and child birth does too. We should have some sort of Laidlawesque gestation pods by now lol. But meh, that doesn't matter. Unlike some I'm not for legislating based on my personal disgust. You're anti-abortions don't get an abortion, simples.

[AF6LJ]

After reading this thread I have come to the conclusion that terrorists have done what they started out to do. Make us become paranoid of each other.
They won't have to fly a plane in to another building. They won't have to set off another bomb. They won't have to fire another shot.

We'll simply self destruct.

The terrorists have had help.
The degree of fear mongering in mass media has steeped up since September of 2001.
This is a country where 20 % of the men and 31 % of the women are on some kind of psych drug. And it gets worse from there.
I hold out hope things will get better.

[firewalker]

It will be interesting if U.S.A. authorities start monitoring youtube channels like Applied Science... Lots of stuff to design a bomb...

Alexander.