WTF is going on in Irving

[Mr. Deez]

I think, in this entire narrative, the fact that this so-called kid has been anointed some "skinny, bespectacled genius", probably bothers me the most.
He isn't that smart!
There are hundreds of thousands of smart kids who are stuck in poverty, or a poor school district, or in fine schools. That this one kid, who, from people who aren't pushing an agenda and actually know something about electronics, did nothing beyond scooping out the contents of an assembled clock and dump them in a container is getting so much attention, when so many other well deserved kids aren't seems incredibly unfair.

It is a sad commentary that a well respected physicist from Oxford was forced to do a 180 on his tweets (that pointed out the fact that this teen did nothing remarkable) all within a 24 hour time period due to the outrage of the liberals. Our country is disintegrating into a place beyond political correctness...it has become so divisive that one side is totally, 100% unable to even attempt to understand the other. I tried to talk to some "friends" on Facebook about this, and was totally blown away by 1) their total inability to admit that this "clock" could in any way look like a bomb, and 2) their immediate profiling of me as some kind of racist moron from Texas. When I pointed out that what they were doing without even knowing me, or any of us knowing all the facts, they simply fell back to the whole "poor little brown boy" story. Oh, they have added how generous and loving his daddy is since he fed the media hordes.
I don't think food is all daddy is feeding the media.

People lose all credibility, in my opinion, when they are unable to see even a tiny shade of grey in an issue.

You're describing everything that's wrong with politics. This happens to me every time I discuss climate change. (I consider myself a climate change agnostic because of failures by both sides to prove their cases.). The "deniers" tell me I'm an America-hating Bolshevik if I don't completely reject climate change. However, the "believers" call me a barn-dwelling, sister-banging dumbass hillbilly if I even question the climate change dogma or ask specifics about why they accept it so unreservedly. You can't have a serious discussion about it with anybody.

Frankly, this is the kind of **** that made me abandon politics as a career pursuit. You either completely accept one of the conventional political orthodoxies, or the party you mostly agree with will deem you a total MFer. There's no intellectualism at all, and you can't be your own man.

 

[Horn6721]

Now that some of the facts about putting together the "clock" have come out ( learning on Wiki of all places that the exact same clock was used to bring down a plane with 329 people killed was a shocker)
I wonder how Ahmed got the clock and box?
Did he get them off ebay? who paid for it?

 

[Larry T Spider]

You're describing everything that's wrong with politics. This happens to me every time I discuss climate change. (I consider myself a climate change agnostic because of failures by both sides to prove their cases.). The "deniers" tell me I'm an America-hating Bolshevik if I don't completely reject climate change. However, the "believers" call me a barn-dwelling, sister-banging dumbass hillbilly if I even question the climate change dogma or ask specifics about why they accept it so unreservedly. You can't have a serious discussion about it with anybody.

Frankly, this is the kind of **** that made me abandon politics as a career pursuit. You either completely accept one of the conventional political orthodoxies, or the party you mostly agree with will deem you a total MFer. There's no intellectualism at all, and you can't be your own man.

People also feel the need to have an opinion or stance on every single issue out there. We discussed this a while back when you posted about the death of expertise. For example, on climate change, I am in no way qualified to really have much of an opinion. If I spent my free time reading report after report on the subject, I might eventually form one. But the knee jerk reaction that somehow forms an opinion that one must never abandon kills me. It's amazing to watch people take issues where there is tons of grey, do no research, and form a hardline stance based on understanding 1% of a subject. Classic example is common core. Not that hard of a topic but many issues in play. One could reasonably understand most of it with about 3 hours of reading. Yet it has become a subject that I literally refuse to talk about because everybody already has their mind made up and 90% of them know nothing. They also can't accept any answer that begins with "its complicated but....",

 

[Larry T Spider]

The school district evidently has more information that they are willing share but the family has to waive some privacy laws and they aren't willing to do that.

Possible right wing speculation that could be true but I'm not sure yet:
Father is a Muslim activist
Sister was suspended a while back for saying she was going to blow the school up.
Uncle started a company called twin towers transport. That could be a tribute to the fallen for all I know but the family does seem interesting if this stuff is true.

 

[zork]

But, but, the sister is not the special snowflake that super genius Ahmed is!?! how can this be? I am guessing there is more that will come out given what Larry has learned. Is there any source for the information about the sister, etc?

 

[Mr. Deez]

or example, on climate change, I am in no way qualified to really have much of an opinion. If I spent my free time reading report after report on the subject, I might eventually form one. But the knee jerk reaction that somehow forms an opinion that one must never abandon kills me.

I'll readily admit that I would be unlikely to form much of an opinion even if I read a mess of reports for one simple reason. It's a multi-trillion dollar issue, with self-serving special interests throwing colossal sums of money around right and left. Who's the bigger liar? Exxon Mobil (oil) or General Electric (makes those wind turbines)? I have no idea.

Before I could put much stock in a report, I'd have to know that the author had never taken money from an oil company, a green energy interest, or a government, nor had he relied upon the assumptions or research of someone who had. That's going to be tough to find.

It's amazing to watch people take issues where there is tons of grey, do no research, and form a hardline stance based on understanding 1% of a subject. Classic example is common core. Not that hard of a topic but many issues in play. One could reasonably understand most of it with about 3 hours of reading.

Common Core has become a political taking point more than a real issue, and 99 percent of the people who have an opinion on it know next to nothing about it.

3 hours? Other than horny 40 year old women reading 50 Shades of Gray, nobody reads anything that long anymore. They learn about issues from 2 minute YouTube videos.

 

[Horn6721]

I will try to find the source that I read last night that reported the engineering teacher actually told the kid to put the device away, away, not just to not show it to anyone.
Yet the device ends up in an English class where amazingly coincidentally the alarm goes off.
too bad this remarkable genius student didn't know how to turn the alarm off before he went into any class. He was concerned enough to not want the clock to seem " suspicious" but not concerned or smart enough to make sure the clock alarm didn't go off during a class.

Sadly it looks more and more like the father used this kid, who is likely only a geek.

I still want to know where he got the clock and who paid for it.

 

[Larry T Spider]

I don't even think he's a geek. Hes a smart *** who bought a clock and put it in a case in a way that would clearly be suspicious. I don't think he knew it would blow up (get it?) like this, but he knew what he was doing. The sad part is the adults that want to blame everybody that acted responsibly so they can score political points.

 

[Horn6721]

LarryT
You may be right. I was relying on what his father said, the Ahmed fixed stuff around the house including his cell phone, which now that I know more was really naïve of me.
But jut like with ferguson the damage is done. This family is certainly benefitting from all the faux outrage.
Maybe they will learn something from their trip to Mecca.

 

[Hollandtx]

The more I see him interviewed, the more smarmy and smart *** he seems.
I think he is reveling in the attention, and I am more and more convinced there is information not being revealed that would help clear things up a bit.
My hope is that the whole truth will come out, but fear his age will prevent that from ever happening.
I don't stand with Ahmad.

 

[Horn6721]

You would think this beleaguered innocent family would all information out there, to reinforce how racist and hateful Irving ISD and Irving PD are.

I do wonder if the people at Google and Microsoft etc know they were duped?
bo might know but he wouldn't care. He already got to score some points on Republicans and he is happy. You would have thought bo learned his lesson when he bashed the Cambridge Police before the facts came out.
No one has answered who bought the clock. If it was the parents then they are part of the hoax.

Ahmed and family sure look like they think they put one over on America.
Smarmy is the perfect word.

 

[Larry T Spider]

The more I see him interviewed, the more smarmy and smart *** he seems.
I think he is reveling in the attention, and I am more and more convinced there is information not being revealed that would help clear things up a bit.
My hope is that the whole truth will come out, but fear his age will prevent that from ever happening.
I don't stand with Ahmad.

The school has that info, but privacy laws won't let them release it. Time and time again schools get trashed in the media and are completely unable to tell their side of the story. I think the law should include privacy for the students and their families. However, if they go to the media, they forfeit that right, and the school gets to tell their side too. It seems that many of these stories don't seem to be that big of a deal once all the facts are out, but the media has usually moved on by then.

Exhibit A would be the pop tart gun case mentioned in this thread....that actually has nothing to do with a pop tart gun and everything to do with disruptive behavior.

"As much as the parents want this case to be about a 'gun,' it is, rather, a case about classroom disruption from a student who has had a long history of disruptive behavior," Nussbaum wrote in his opinion, which was dated June 26, the Washington Post reported. He asserted that the suspension came as a result of disciplinary problems the boy had, and not just because of what he did with the breakfast pastry.

"Had the student chewed his cereal bar into the shape of a cat and ran around the room, disrupting the classroom and making 'meow' cat sounds, the result would have been exactly the same," Nussbaum wrote, according to the Post.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/examiner-recommends-school-board-uphold-pop-tart-suspension/

 

[Horn6721]

Wow
reading the link even after Nussbaum seemed to make it out that this 7 yo was this big disruptive monster the kids attorney made the best point

"It seems to me that schools need, with all their expertise and experience, they need to know how to deal with 7-year-old second-graders without putting them out of the educational setting," Ficker told CBS News. "They need to deal with them rather than just throwing in the towel.

"If they can't deal with 7-year-olds, how can they deal with 17-year-olds?"

not exactly rises to the level of a bomb looking device

 

[rantanamo]

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/comm...rving-shifts-from-celebrity-to-conspiracy.ece

 

[Larry T Spider]

Wow
reading the link even after Nussbaum seemed to make it out that this 7 yo was this big disruptive monster the kids attorney made the best point

"It seems to me that schools need, with all their expertise and experience, they need to know how to deal with 7-year-old second-graders without putting them out of the educational setting," Ficker told CBS News. "They need to deal with them rather than just throwing in the towel.

"If they can't deal with 7-year-olds, how can they deal with 17-year-olds?"

not exactly rises to the level of a bomb looking device

I cant judge this case, but I have seen seven year olds that have cussed out teachers and children, broke windows, smashed computers, etc. Don't let their age fool you. I'm not saying the school should throw in the towel on those kids, but sometimes suspension is an appropriate consequence for repeated disruptive behavior. You can't complain about bad behavior in school but then remove one of the very few options a school has in dealing with it. BUT, my point in posting that was to show that the story has very little to do with a pop tart but that is what the media has latched on to.

 

[zork]

It seems Irving ISD is sticking to their story that they wouldn't change a thing. Seems reasonable. Knowing the full story would be helpful to those that don't get it.

 

[Horn6721]

LarryT
The frustration at not being able to handle students who disrupt classrooms would be enough to drive me out of teaching. Thank god there are still people like you.
Of course the parents are mostly to blame BUT society also shares blame. Instead of addressing the problem parents way too often blame the school and the teachers.


I read that DMW article. I am sure there are conspiracists out there. I had not heard about the countdown clock theory.
There is a blog that suggested the circuit board he "invented" had all the markings of a commercially prepared one from the 70's. The clock in that pencil box was not exactly easy to use as a clock.THAT is no conspiracy.
Mark Cuban is as far from a conservative and or conspiracist as one can be He was only commenting on that he could hear the 18 y o sister feeding answers to Ahmed.

Like Zork said let the story and facts come out.

 

[Seattle Husker]

This story got way too much attention. If the conspiracy theories have validity, shame on this family. If they aren't, shame on those that are espousing them.

I'll apply Occam's Razor to this. The kid likely wanted to show off what was a simple electronics creation that looked cooler outside of an alarm clock case than inside it. He's learned a stiff lesson about the risk of creating anything that looks suspicious.

 

[Horn6721]

Yes as long as the facts/story aren't known the attention will likely continue.
It seems to me legitimate to ask why this geek brought a hastily put together device consisting of an bought alarm clock tucked into a briefcase looking pencil case with cord around it so as he said 'it would not look suspicious"; why if he if was brilliant as reported did he bring such a simple device to a high school teacher to impress? Why would he think it might look suspicious?
After the teacher was not impressed and advised the kid to put the device away and not show it to anyone else did he carry it around?
How did the clock then go off in English class?

Why won't the family meet with Irving ISD, Irving PD or Irving city officials? Why won't the family allow the facts/ story to come out? What exactly did the engineering teacher say? What did happen in the principal's office before the police got there? what does the police report show?
To most people including the teacher responsible for children did the device look like it could be a bomb? Did the ethnicity of the student have anything to do with the teacher actions?

if the story can come out it could show even though the kid understood the device could look suspicious this really was a geek 14 y o trying to impress a teacher .

 

[Mesohorny]

I remember more impressive 6th grade science fair projects. Kid should have stuck with a magic crystal garden or the dry-ice-in-water volcano.

 

[Monahorns]

The issue here is that Ahmed's dad is a member of mosque in Irving that tried to get Sharia courts established to handle cases outside the US/Texas/Irving government. The mayor rejected their efforts, correctly.

Now his son shows up with a clock-bomb looking thing. It causes a whole mess for the same people that denied his mosque to set up their own courts. Plus the parents have missed 2-3 scheduled meetings to discuss the matter with the school. The news conference was actually held during one of those times they were scheduled to meet with the school. Alongside the family at the news conference is CAIR who is the Muslim Brotherhood in the US.

It really looks like this was staged so that claims of "islamophobia" could be hurled at the city government. And the CAIR lawyers well understand, the school is part of the government.

 

[Seattle Husker]

The issue here is that Ahmed's dad is a member of mosque in Irving that tried to get Sharia courts established to handle cases outside the US/Texas/Irving government. The mayor rejected their efforts, correctly.

Is that confirmed? According to that organization it was setup as a mediation organization for marriage disputes and is not binding nor supercedes any laws. I don't have any more information than was in a video blip from a Texas news station.

 

[Monahorns]

I don't think we need Sharia divorce courts in the US. And by Islamic law Sharia is above any secular court. If Muslims in the US need to go to a court to settle disputes they need to go to US courts. We don't need 2 systems of law in this country.

Also, no reasonable person believes that a Sharia court will only deal with marriage disputes. Once it is in place, any and all legal issues dealing with Muslims will be tried in those courts. Or at least that is what will be attempted by those in charge of them.

 

[Seattle Husker]

I don't think we need Sharia divorce courts in the US. And by Islamic law Sharia is above any secular court. If Muslims in the US need to go to a court to settle disputes they need to go to US courts. We don't need 2 systems of law in this country.

Also, no reasonable person believes that a Sharia court will only deal with marriage disputes. Once it is in place, any and all legal issues dealing with Muslims will be tried in those courts. Or at least that is what will be attempted by those in charge of them.

No reasonable person? My parents before their divorce entered into marriage counseling in the Catholic church. Upon their decision to get a divorce my grandmother urged the Catholic church to annul the marriage. Civil disputes enter in non-legal mediation all the time.

By no means do I think any religious organization or religious rights should supercede federal/state or local laws but the assumptions in your last paragraph definitely send off "Islamophobia" warning bells in my head.

 

[Horn6721]

The only pertinent question IMO about sharia law in USA is can a female bring her issue/ grievance directly before any sharia/muslim council.

 

[Monahorns]

SH, I think there is a huge difference between what you described in the Catholic church and a Sharia court. Even in your own words what you described was non-legal.

All of my comments were about legal courts, so I stand by my comment of my concerns being reasonable. It is also reasonable for a mosque to perform counseling or offer religious guidance to couples starting, ending, or during a marriage.

You can label with whatever slur you want, but that is exactly what establishment of Sharia systems provides. It is a fear yes, but a rational one.

 

[Mr. Deez]

Monahorns,

SH is right on this. The hostility to Sharia courts is paranoia. Everyday, people agree to take their disputes outside of a US court and usually don't even know they're doing it. I guarantee that you have done it yourself. It's called binding arbitration. The arbitrator's decision is binding, unappealable, and usually in private. Furthermore, there's no guarantee that they're going to follow the law, and if they don't, that's not sufficient grounds to ask a civil court to vacate their order. In fact sometimes, it is agreed that they will not follow the law but apply some different standard.

When Muslims agree to submit to a Sharia tribunal, they're doing the same thing, but instead of using a lawyer, they're using a cleric. You could do the same thing with a priest, a rabbi, or anyone else whose opinion you revere.

 

[Horn6721]

mrD
some questions.
I know you aren't saying the people entering into binding arbitration don't know they are when they actually go to arbitration. They may not have read the part of a contract where they agreed to binding arbitration but somewhere along the line they are informed. They may be outside the court but are they outside our laws?
In current binding arbitration agreements whose laws are followed?

In sharia law are women and children equal to men?
Can a woman bring an issue or grievance directly to a sharia court/counsel?Men can.
Right now it seems benign( unless you are female or a child) but will it stop at arbitration or counselling? WHY would we think it would stop? Sharia is harsh espousing the ultimate supremacy of Islam even above a country's laws.

Yes as SH points out may people use their forms of Christianity, in Husker's case Catholicism,Jews their own in counselling BUT on what are our laws based?
I need to read more about sharia. What I know now is it is an extremely hard "law" covering all aspects of muslim life with many of it tenets directly opposed to our Constitution and rights. It is hard to think a moderate form that would cede to our laws is acceptable to Muslims. Maybe some research will help me understand if that is possible.

I see clockboy has hired lawyers.

 

[NJlonghorn]

When Muslims agree to submit to a Sharia tribunal, they're doing the same thing, but instead of using a lawyer, they're using a cleric. You could do the same thing with a priest, a rabbi, or anyone else whose opinion you revere.

In fact, this practice is very common in the Orthodox Jewish community. Contracts between two Orthodox Jews typically call for disputes to be resolved by an arbitration forum called a "Bet Din" (Hebrew for "House of Judgment"). These courts apply Biblical/Talmudic law, which is radically different from US law and some of the rules (and rulings) would shock the sensibilities of most Americans (including non-Orthodox Jews like myself). With rare exception, US courts will enforce a Bet Din's ruling. There is no reason Muslims should be barred from having their disputes resolved by a Muslim arbitration forum, so long as it is consensual on both sides.

The question of consent is a complicated one. Fortunately, it is well-established that the decision on "arbitrability" is made by the US court, not the arbitration forum. Courts tend to be reasonable on this, although I'm sure there are exceptions out there if you look for them.

 

[Mr. Deez]

The question of consent is a complicated one. Fortunately, it is well-established that the decision on "arbitrability" is made by the US court, not the arbitration forum. Courts tend to be reasonable on this, although I'm sure there are exceptions out there if you look for them.

It's not particularly complicated in Texas. If the claim falls within the arbitration clause and isn't otherwise prohibited by law from being arbitrated, you're basically stuck in arbitration. Furthermore, failure to order the parties to arbitration is reviewable by mandamus, so a party pushing for arbitration isn't going to just accept a trial court's refusal to order arbitration and try the case. (And as you'd expect, Texas appellate courts and especially the Texas Supreme Court are absurdly pro-arbitration and anti-individual in general.)

Unconscionability exists in theory, but the standard required to prove it is so high that as a practical matter an individual has no chance. Not signing the agreement also isn't enough to beat it, particularly in the employment context. If an employer adopts an arbitration policy and you don't immediately quit your job, you're going to arbitration for any claims.

Of course, I'm not familiar with them dealing with a case involving an agreement to go before a Sharia tribunal. The Sharia law scare is a popular talking point in GOP primaries. I could see the Texas Supreme Court pulling some cockamamie theory out of its *** to refuse to enforce such an agreement, unless of course, a big money interest is involved in the case. That would complicate matters, and what they'd do would probably depend on how much media coverage the case is getting. If the media is following the case, they'd probably go against the Sharia tribunal. If the case isn't getting media attention, then the usual precedent will be followed, meaning the rich guy wins. If he wants to go to the Sharia tribunal, it will. If he doesn't, then it won't.