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.
— President Obama (@POTUS) September 16, 2015
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
So that proves that Obama IS a Muslim!!!1!!One!
NASA’s apparently working on an invitation letter to him as well. This particular kid should be okay. Now, about all the ones whose cases didn’t attract national headlines…
I cannot wait to see Michelle Malkin, Hannity, and O’Reilly collectively blow a headpipe over this. I can almost hear the sound of a thousand FoxNews interns clicking their fingers off, searching for something, anything, that they can use to smear Ahmed or his family. They’ve probably called off all staff vacations for this emergency. Of course in the end, all they have to do is simply make something up and let it run.
Isn’t the clock still in police custody?
#4 a clock doing time eh?
re @4:
mmm, i guess if any POTUS asks for any piece of evidence to be transported to WhiteHouse, it happens forthwith, “no questions axxed, sir”.
Hmmm…guess the cops will have to give him his clock back now. Otherwise, he’d have to tell POTUS that they’re holding it and won’t return it. POTUS could send Federal Marshals to retrieve it…that could get interesting…
Fuck.
Yeah.
@#3 (Robert Westbrook)
They are already doing that. The cops have released a photo of the clock, which was made out of a pencil case shaped like a mini-briefcase. Wingnuts are already saying that Ahmed brought a “wired briefcase” to school, even though the photo shows the scale of the “briefcase” to the electrical plug, specifically that the case is way too small to be a real briefcase.
The silver lining in all of this is that social media is increasingly making it difficult for asshats like the Irving Police and school administrators to get away with stuff like this, and maybe that means there will be less stuff like this, though that’s probably too much to hope for. It is being reported that the school is receiving lots and lots of negative blowback. I predict they’ll cave in about 24 hours or so.
None of that makes right what happens to this kid.
The US isn’t so great. Nor should its “greatness” be a concern or aspiration. There are many good reasons for wanting to inspire kids about science, but that isn’t one of them.
SC, without engineers like Ahmed, how will America create future weapons for the president to blow up more Muslims?
dianne
My hope is twofold:
1. It sends the loud message that this was not OK
2. It sends the victims the message that they’re not alone
I guess this is the type of profiling Sam Harris is talking about?
As a brown person, due to have my son in a few weeks, I wonder how soon it will be him that has to go through this at school?
Ahmed needs to hear an apology from the school, and from the police, not that I expect him to receive one.
Obama: “It’s what makes America great.” So the President is trolling Donald Trump and giving support to Ahmed Mohamed at the same time. Cool!
The kid is fourteen, so I guess another beer summit is unlikely. Root beer summit?
Anything to further call out the sheer stupidity of police arresting a child for being creative enough to build a clock.
Dammit, where was this Obama back in 2009? We could’ve used him for the last several years.
@freemage: It seems like Obama has woken up in the last year or so… Wish the US had this Obama for all the 8 years.
Still, this was a great move: send a strong signal (as Giliell notes #13) AND troll racist rhetoric.
“Hey Ahmed.”
“Yes.”
“Remember that time you got arrested?”
“You mean the time I got invited to the White House?”….
That’s pretty damn fine outcome for such a stupid, bigoted event.
He also just got an invitation to Google’s Science Fair.
I hope these racist shitstains have made his university years free of charge. :)
I wonder why the teacher wasn’t arrested as a co-conspirator.
Only in Texas . . . . .
(Unfortunately “only” in far too many other places as well.
Oh. And what #13 said.
Glad the kid got public support but the idea this is Obama acting on non-political motives, being a decent human (catching a yay Obama! vibe in some comments) doesn’t hold up at all as he’s killed quite a few Ahmeds for empire without a hint of remorse. To take but one example: http://www.salon.com/2012/02/05/u_s_drones_targeting_rescuers_and_mourners/
Clearly that was his plan all along, what a clever plot to get near the POTUS…
Ask your paranoid self, what other reason can there be for a brilliant young person to build a clock that just happens to awake the most primitive fears in a few teachers and a police station? Well played, sir, ahem I mean Well played, terrorist dude!
When all you have in your head are nails, everyone looks like a hammer, or how did that saying go?
The apology needs to accompanied by a substantial (6 figures, minimum) check to show that it is sincere.
Is this the same Texas that teaches barely repackaged creationism or that slavery was “social security” for blacks? Yeah, I’d have been surprised if their scientific knowledge wasn’t this miserable. On the plus side, the family is already looking at a lawsuit which will hopefully pay his way through college.
@#27 (treefrogdundee):
It’s a plus side for the family; and it’s a plus side for their lawyers, who are going to have loads of fun at depositions. But apart from that — and without denying that this IS an appropriate, hell, pretty much the ONLY remedy under our system — there is little to cheer at in the prospect of a big lawsuit against a city. Because who do you think is going to pay the inevitable settlement or verdict? A city is a fictitious entity, it doesn’t generate its own money. The funds aren’t going to come from the pockets of those hateful cops or the dumb*** school administrators. The school district pencil pushers, who spend their “work” days circulating racist “jokes”– their salaries, pensions and benefits are all safe.
Who’s going to suffer when the check has to be cut? Not the evangelical wackaloons, who enjoy the most outrageous, most secure government subsidy despite openly meddling in politics; not the corporate whales who use racism and fear-mongering to distract voters and secure crucial support for their ruinous economic policies.
No, that settlement (or verdict) will be funded by the bulk of the taxpayers, i.e. the burden will disproportionately fall on the shoulders of the poor and the working class — in the form of both higher taxes and reduced services. Municipal services will shrink, teachers will get laid off, educational programs will be cut, parks and playgrounds will close. Sure, Ahmed may go to college on that money — but it will ultimately be at the cost of other kids suffering reduced opportunities. And if the city and the state have to defend lots of lawsuits like this, to the point where it starts really hurting — they can always blame the “trial lawyers”, the “ambulance chasers”, the out-of-control juries — and bring about a nice round of “tort reform”, which will make it more difficult, if not impossible, for victims of discrimination to secure justice, while doing nothing to curb abuses by public officials.
So yeah, if you take the long view, it actually sucks pretty bad.
Just trying to find a silver lining. The ideal solution would be to get every creationist anti-intellectual theocrat in the country, squeeze them all into a nice sliver of Texas, and allow them to emulate their CSA heroes by seceding. They can muck around listening to the voices in their heads without trying to drag us back to the Dark Ages and embarrassing the country as a whole. Unfortunately, this isn’t too likely so I’m willing to settle for one smart kid being given the chance to use his abilities. True, it will come at the expense of the taxpayers, but THEY have the option not to keep electing idiots like are currently in charge.
Adorable!
I’m still waiting for the administration to clarify just what “prohibited Item” Mohamed brought to school.