I’m sure Ahmed’s family won’t be able to sleep at night until they dissuade all the internet trolls and imbeciles by giving the school licenseto do what they like with Ahmed’s academic record.
Seeing as how everyone has been perfectly reasonable so far, what could go wrong?
I would be surprised if that school is any great shakes, given what kind of mayor they have, not to mention its being in Bumfuck Texas. I just don’t see a binary choice between “support the school” and “buy into all of Ahmed’s questionable claims”.
Except that no one needed to “connect the dots” to guess why people were marching in Washington. The kid and his family deny any activism here. That’s a motive you’re creating without evidence.
So your argument is that this was secret activism the father talked his son into, taking the risk of exposing his son to terrorism charges, etc all for the goal of talking to a reporter and embarrassing a school/Texas/America/whatever.
I mean, you’re certainly welcome to hold whatever conspiracy theories you want to hold. Asking other people to accept them based on the evidence you’ve provided is another matter.
Part of the problem is that we’re just failing to give enough credit to SlackerInc’s innate talent at sussing these things out.
SlackerInc, do you know what confirmation bias is?
The thing is that there’s no actual evidence to indicate this was anything other than the simplest explanation. It’s just guessing based on the kind of guy you think his dad is. To me, that’s not nearly a good enough reason to accuse them of possibly acting in a deceitful manner.
I should also note that there’s a huge difference between “letting your kid march” (especially as part of a large group) and “masterminding and encouraging your kid to partake in your scheme” (where your child will be the sole target).
Of course, there’s also a huge difference between “peaceful demonstration” and “hoax bomb threat” but, eh, I think this has fallen apart enough already.
When I entered this thread I’m pretty sure I still knew nothing about his dad at that point. My initial assumption, later revised, was that the kid came up with the prank on his own. In any case, it was not his dad that made me doubt the official story here. (Also, please keep in mind that I still give the “it was completely innocent” scenario a 40% chance of being true, which is far from infinitesimal.)
has to be the worst ‘prank’ ever if he only showed it on demand.
People keep saying this, and I keep asking them to provide a cite for it supposedly having only been shown on demand. The wording of the story I saw is ambiguous, but sounds to me like he voluntarily showed it to both teachers.
You all are letting your dislike of SlackerInc (and I admit, I have some too) into getting on his case when he has a good point.
IF it were a planned hoax by the dad and/or Ahmed, no one had to have Muad’Dib levels of precognition to insure the “planned hoax” would go the way it did. It just had to go somewhere. The bigger the better. I wouldn’t even have thought anyone could have forseen how poorly the school officials and police would overreact.
On the other hand:
Bolding mine.
Irving is a major suburb of DFW. It is the exact opposite of Bumfuck Texas, which is somewhere like McClean. You’re not helping yourself with cracks like that.
Aside - someone upthread mentioned that Obama had sent the message “nice clock” before any pictures had been released. If that’s true, that’s really disappointing. The President should get his facts before speaking (a rule SlackerInc should also follow). When he spews forth without getting the relevant data, he begins to look just like the right portrays him. Of course, he’s not the first President to do that.
Mea culpa, sorta. I did assume this was someplace more rural. But I also fully admit I have never been to Texas and I pretty much have an idea of it all being “Bumfuck”, except for Austin. Which is not to say that there couldn’t be anyone decent or progressive or hip even, outside of Austin. I live in Bumfuck Missouri and I think I am all of those things. 
We know he showed it to engineering teacher - we know the alarm went off in 6th hour were he then showed it to that teacher We say “on demand” simply because we have nothing to state he would have shown it otherwise or if the alarm had not gone off - the demand could have been as simple as
teacher - what is that? what do you have in your backpack?
Ahmend - its a clock I built -let me show you.
We have no evidence or statements that he showed it to anyone else during the schoolday, nor that it was left somewhere to be found, etc.
worst.prank.ever
Presumably he showed it to the first teacher voluntarily. Since that didn’t get a rise out of anyone, he set an alarm to go off during class.
OK, that’s a bit of speculation on motive, but clearly Ahmed set the alarm. Alarms don’t set themselves, especially for the middle of the day.
Simster, You may assume that, but I do not. The impression I got was that she told him to stop it beeping and he did so. Then after class was over, he voluntarily walked up to the front of the room and said something like “So, in case you’re curious, that sound was the clock I made and here it is.”
Or it was set and he forgot. Or it ended up set for 10:00am instead of pm. Or the clock reset to midnight at some point during powering on and off.
Not all that clear to me.
Sure, I said as much that I was speculating on motive. He could have set the alarm for the middle of the day in some innocent mistake.
But he set the alarm.
Who sets alarms for 10 p.m.?
The mayor suggested that he might have. I don’t think anyone has presented any sort of evidence though.
To be of any value, it had to land in a pretty specific place: big enough to be news (no one cares about a one day detention), but not so big as to put the kid at risk of being brought up on terrorism charges or a felony “hoax bomb” conviction under Texas state law. Unless we’re assuming that the father doesn’t care if the kid gets a felony conviction so long as they get to talk to a reporter.
I have. When rebuilding devices, testing alarms, and generally playing with clocks, alarms get set and reset, turned on and turned off. It happens.
.
Fine, but you must concede there are some elaborate suppositions/handwaving required on both sides of this argument.