591–600 of 994 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is an actual bomb threat. Fun, but probably a felony.
Only in the USA would this pass as an actual bomb threat. Seriously...
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If you really want to tie them in knots, get a bunch of small "Amazon"-type (empty) cardboard boxes, and write "BOMB" in bold letters with a magic marker on the sides. Distribute the boxes in slightly-hidden spots, like Easter eggs. Fun times! EDIT: Thanks Mike, that's a great improvement!
Make three boxes. Label them BOMB 1, BOMB 2, and BOMB 4. Put them in various places around the school. Grab some popcorn and a comfy chair.
Instead, label them BOX 1, BOX 2 and BOX 4 and put "geo-location circuity" (it doesn't have to work, just make it look like it could) in it and place those at various points in the school, preferably with visible wires.
Then you can claim that you were trying to build your own local mini-gps to monitor your movements throughout the day.
Same popcorn value, less time in prison.
> The newspaper quoted a police spokesman, James McLellan, as saying that Ahmed never claimed his device was anything but a clock, and the police have no reason to think it was dangerous. But officers still did not believe Ahmed was giving them the whole story. “We have no information that he claimed it was a bomb,” Mr. McLellan said. “He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation. “It coul…
"It could reasonably be mistaken as a device if left in a bathroom or under a car." Okay, so charge him with a hoax bomb if he does that, but he didn't so what's the deal?
What you just did is the deal.
What do I mean? You just said that had he left the device in a bathroom it would be more reasonable to charge him with the crime. They shifted the debate over and you followed with it. Instead of arguing if a kid should be charged over leaving a clock in the bathroom, you've now given them that ground and have moved on to debating charging them for having a clock at all.
Of course, on an individual level this doesn't do much. But they are pulling this sort of trick on the whole of society. At that scale, it is not ineffective.
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Ermmm... why? Would you be "slightly concerned" if Matt Jones brought that to school? Or Alice Jackson?
Because he's profiling, it's a survival instinct. He sees on the news daily about Muslims using bombs and blowing things up and he's associating it with this kid. He believes statistically that Ahmed is more likely to be carrying a bomb than Alice. Is this true? I don't know, maybe it is? It's the same reason I am cautious when I walk alone downtown at night and a stranger approaches me. I act differently because I k…
I mean, you even fucking admitted it.
Anyone know why the teacher had him hide it? Are they restricted from having electronic devices and toys at school? Is it because the teacher thought it looked suspicious?
Either way it's unfortunate that the teacher didn't just ask to hold on to it until after school was out. If one reasonable adult had stood up for him before another adult freaked then it may not have been an issue.
If anyone is actually surprised by the administrations intelligence - I should remind you of 3 events: - A teacher confiscates Linux CDs claiming that the student was essentially distributing illegal copyrighted software - because no software is free [1] - A system administrator was fired for installing/running seti@home on school computers. There is a lot of controversy about this case - but I read one news article…
Running seti / etc on the school computers does result in thousands of dollars spend on extra electricity. He was number one on SETI for years, running the client without approval on 5,000 machines. It's not surprising that people get fired for increasing costs by that much without getting approval first. See also http://www.securityfocus.com/news/300
Of course the reaction to this is completely insane but what's even sillier is that they're continuing to assume that real threats would be things that they can see. If someone wanted to blow up a building they could hide a bomb in a backpack among hundreds of others and never show it to anyone. It's the same crap they pull at the airport where you must throw out your bottled water; and then their solution is to toss…
I think the liquids ban is dumb, but given that it exists, throwing confiscated liquids into a bin is completely reasonable. It's one of those weird game theory things. Your goal is to prevent dangerous liquids from being brought onto planes, but you can't reasonably tell them apart from other liquids, so you ban all liquids. Because it's banned, you can be reasonably sure that nobody is going to try to bring dangero…
> Ahmed was arrested for making while brown This line really bothers me. Probably because I simply don't think this way. I don't see color in people. It is because of this, perhaps wrongly, that I can't accept the idea that this kid was arrested because he is brown. I think a white kid would have been arrested just the same. Why? Because the problem, as I see it, is our schools, in some areas, are bastions of ignoran…
If you really "don't see color", then that's commendable. If you don't think it's possible that other people see color -- well, that's just willful ignorance.
The rest of your comment is irrelevant speculation. You have no idea about the political backgrounds of the teachers of this school. And if I had to speculate, I wouldn't think it's likely that you'd find a lot of hard-line liberal teachers in a suburban Texas high school, in a town whose mayor is notoriously anti-Islam. [1] In any case, it wasn't the teachers who put this kid in handcuffs and interrogated him, it was the cops.
I'm not going to watch a couple of hour-long videos of talking heads, but I'm well aware that people like Sam Harris believe liberals are "intolerant" of anti-Islam sentiment. I'm struggling to see how it's relevant to this issue.
[1] http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dall...
"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."