Thursday Open Thread [9.17.2015]
John Fluharty is out as the Executive Director of the Delaware Republican Party. That is a shame. He is the only redeeming aspect of the Delaware Republican Party.
The US Treasury is planning to put a woman on the $10 bill alongside or in place of Alexander Hamilton. Here is who the luminaries that are the Republican candidates for President would nominate:
Here’s who they’d nominate:
Rand Paul: Susan B. Anthony
Mike Huckabee: His wife
Marco Rubio: Rosa Parks
Ted Cruz: Rosa Parks, but keep Alexander Hamilton on the $10 and replace Alexander Jackson on the $20 bill instead
Ben Carson: His mother
Donald Trump: His daughter
Jeb Bush: Margaret Thatcher
Scott Walker: Clara Barton
Carly Fiorina: Don’t change anything
John Kasich: Mother Teresa
Chris Christie: Abigail Adams
Ted Cruz has the best idea of his entire life and of his entire political career, and I agree with it. Well, I would change it a little bit. Replace Hamilton with Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Jeb Bush says his brother kept us safe. Well, except that one time when 3,000 Americans were killed. Well, except that one time when he lied to create a war and then 4,486 Americans died and 1 million Americans were gravely injured in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Well, except that one time when he let the city of New Orleans drown.
So Anne Coulter is not even hiding it anymore as she goes on a Twitter tirade about the “f–k– Jews.”
Donald Trump is a Jenny McCarthyite Vaccine Truther.
“Something unusual happened here Wednesday when the Republican presidential candidates met for their second debate: For the first time since he joined the race, Donald Trump wasn’t the commanding presence on the stage,” the Washington Post reports.
“Not that Trump wasn’t the Trump whom Americans have seen nonstop on cable television… But at other times, particularly when the discussion shifted from what Trump has said about the others to issues of domestic and foreign policy, the candidate who has dominated the summer and leads the polls was far less a force.”
Gerald Seib: “While many of the questions posed by the CNN moderators began with a recitation of comments Mr. Trump has made, which left him still at the center of the conversation, his competitors managed to launch a conversation that, for the first time in weeks, got beyond the Trump orbit.”
For once, it wasn’t all about Donald Trump. After the billionaire businessman steamrolled the rest of the Republican field during last month’s primetime debate, Trump’s rivals managed to get in their punches—and airtime—during the second showdown.
The first question of the night went to Carly Fiorina, who opted not to take the bait and slam Trump. But when Fiorina was asked to respond to Trump’s “Look at that face” remark disparaging her appearance, she was devastatingly succinct.
“Trump says he heard Mr. Bush very clearly,” Fiorina said, playing off Trump’s critique of Bush’s statement earlier this summer that “women’s health issues” are overfunded. “I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said,” Fiorina said.
Conservative Rick Wilson:
All my life, the Republican Party has been my political home. Helping it succeed has been my work for decades. It was never perfect, but families never are.
Flawed, and given to wrong turns from time to time, we had good years and terrible years. We elected presidents, took back Congress after decades, lost it, and took it back again. Our leaders ranged from bad to extraordinary. But through it all, the GOP was the one party even vaguely amenable to limited-government conservatism, to at least some adherence to the Constitution over the social preferences of the moment, and to the constraints on government power that our Founding Fathers so cherished. It was nice while it lasted.
Today the Republican Party has two choices before it: It can either reform itself, or fracture and surrender to the Troll Party.
Jonathan Chait says the Republicans tried to out-crazy Donald Trump. And they succeeded.
The debate revealed a party wedded to the tenets of Bushism — rabid, debt-financed, regressive tax-cutting, reflexive hostility to regulation, and a pervasive anti-intellectualism. Trump at one point implicitly defended his lack of foreign-policy knowledge on the grounds that the current administration had many knowledgable people (true) and the world was on fire (questionable). This open attack on brainpower would have been astonishing, except that Marco Rubio repeated it himself, declaring, “Radical terrorism cannot be solved by intellect.”
The most revealing pair of exchanges came at the end. First, Jake Tapper asked Rubio about former Reagan secretary of State George Shultz’s argument that it would be prudent to take out an insurance policy against the effects of carbon emissions in case scientists are right. The question was designed to cut off every possible escape route. Tapper did not ask Rubio to accept climate science, merely the possibility that it might not be wrong. Nor did he ask him to endorse a specific program. Rubio swatted away the premise of the question, insisting, “We’re not going to destroy our economy.” It was telling that Rubio defined literally any policy response to the theory of anthropogenic global warming as economy-destroying.
Tapper then asked Trump about his statements linking vaccine use to autism, a dangerous conspiracy theory that has been conclusively debunked. Trump cited anecdotal evidence to support his crackpot beliefs. Worse, the two doctors on the stage, Ben Carson and Rand Paul, had chances to correct Trump, and both instead gave him tepid support. It is depressing that a presidential field with two doctors cannot even produce sensible views on medicine, let alone anything else. The party’s decades-long flight from empiricism and reason shows no sign of abating. Alas, from Trump to Rubio to Carly Fiorina, it is filled with talented demagogues well suited to pitch America on nonsense.
Jeb Bush would like to see Margaret Thatcher on the twenty? That has to be from the Onion or something.
Admit it, Onion or not Bush is dumb enough to say something like that, especially if he’s unprepared. As for the rest of the field trying to out crazy Trump you knew it was coming , as Yogi Berra would say: “It’s Deja Vu all over again!”. And no surprise what so ever. Republican David excepted.
Some random goings-on in the Kingdom of Saud… our friends in the region.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/saudi-arabia-juvenile-prisoner-faces-death-by-crucifixion-after-appeal-dismissed-1520047
Meanwhile the war planes and missiles we provide the Kingdom are reigning terror down on Yemen.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/world/middleeast/civilians-reported-dead-in-yemen-saudi-strikes.html?_r=0
The hate us for our freedom…
Why does Obama always interject publicly with knee jerk reactions concerning anything racial before the facts are even out there?
Remember he started out doing it with the incident at Harvard with the professor and the cop, and it ended up with the ridiculous “beer summit”. He did it in the Treyvon Martin tragedy. He did it in the Michael Brown incident, and now he does it with the Ahmed Mohamed “hoax bomb” or “clock” deal.
I keep hearing the media refer to this “clock” as an “invention”. How is taking out the inside of a clock and putting it in a beat up looking metal briefcase an invention?
Tinkering around with stuff is cool, but this thing looks like the typical representation of any improvised bomb that you may see in a movie scenario complete with little wires sticking out of it.
Yes, the cops and school probably overreacted and this is unfortunate, and a sign of the times, but what is more unfortunate is that Obama continues to jump on board in typical political hay making fashion.
If a lawsuit ensues, I will be even more skeptical.
@fbh “Tinkering around with stuff is cool, but this thing looks like the typical representation of any improvised bomb that you may see in a movie scenario complete with little wires sticking out of it.”
I defy you to find a picture of one real bomb that looks anything like that.
People who think this looks like a real bomb are total idiots!
…just like those idiot cops who almost shot a girl from MIT for having LED’s on her chest in 2007. Looks nothing at all like any real bomb… Total idiots!!
“I defy you to find a picture of one real bomb that looks anything like that.”
I googled “briefcase bomb”, and I would think that most reasonable people would agree that Ahmed and his dad’s “clock” looks a hell of a lot more like those images than it does any sort of clock.
What time is it? Oh, wait, let me just open up my briefcase clock and take a look.
This is looking more and more like a scam.
You know, if they actually thought it was a bomb then why wasn’t the bomb squad there? Why didn’t they evacuate students from the building with the bomb in it? You want us to take your Bruce Willis fantasies seriously, then why didn’t everyone involved in this incident take it seriously?
They didn’t think it was a “bomb”. They thought it was a “hoax bomb”.
Are you serious? That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
Zero tolerance, right? Pop Tarts bitten into the shape of a gun and such.
Zero tolerance gets you suspended or expelled. Tell me how the bomb call went?
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“Please come. There’s a hoax bomb!”
You really sticking with that?
lol.
pwnage.
@FHB “I googled “briefcase bomb”, and I would think that most reasonable people would agree that Ahmed and his dad’s “clock” looks a hell of a lot more like those images than it does any sort of clock.”
Real briefcase bombs have the clocks on the inside.
Putting the clock on the outside defeats the whole purpose of having a briefcase bomb. Yea… Let’s tell everyone when it’s going to go off….
You’re very observant LI, I stand corrected…. Just kidding, you’re wrong. It’s on the inside of the case.
I hope the White House will allow us to see Obama’s reaction when he sees this “clock”. I need a good laugh.
Whatever. You still haven’t addressed the point. If they really believed this was a bomb then all of them need to be fired because they took no precautions to keep the other students safe. You can’t have it both ways.
@fbh “It’s on the inside of the case.”
So you want to be technical? OK then the clock was on the inside, but the clock’s LED display was on the outside. It was large and visible, and you didn’t need to open up the case to see it.
So once again… what kind of idiot would think that was a bomb?
So once again… what kind of idiot would think that was a bomb?
Oooh! I know the answer to that question! 😉
These people will be accusing this man of being a bomb next:
The display is Inside the case LI. Any reasonable person who is not just a cog in the gears of some PC manipulative array of agenda driven misdirecting drivel, knows that this “clock” resembles a bomb. And furthermore, the evidence is looking more and more like this was a ruse perpetrated by this kid and his well known father.
I do give Ahmed and his father credit for being pretty smart though. The crowdfunding sites have already raised some serious cash for Ahmed, and with the inevitable interviews and appearances he stands to make a pretty penny.
If somebody is resourceful enough to capitalize on the unfortunate status and circumstances of post 9/11 life in America…then I guess they deserve what they can get, right.
There isn’t enough tin foil in the world to make a hat big enough for you.
You’re close FBH, but a little off. I looked into your claim of Ahmed’s “well known father”. He is a man who clearly cares about others and is an advocate for those with whom he shares a faith. He has been a presidential candidate in his home country and has tried to make peaceful dialogue with the most vile of would-be christian terrorists (Terry Jones). Excellent research, mah’ man.
But here is where you (and breitbart.com… which is really the only place i found anything to back up your claim) are wrong.
As with Dr King, another peaceful advocate for equality, the authorities in Texas are having non of this guy’s “agenda”. They long for the days that ‘his people’, “knew their place”. They seized the opportunity.
The Texas state government placed Mr Mohamed’s children in class rooms with the right teachers, people sympathetic to the cause of white supremacy. All they needed was a chance to pounce. Take the teacher’s initial reaction of interest and joy in the clock. This person saw their golden opportunity. Not being very well trained and probably a little dim, the teacher had to compose themselves, THEN pretend to be afraid and threatened. From there, it was just a matter of involving the police, who have been willing participants in this kinda stuff for decades (this IS Texas).
Luckily, their attempt to besmirch Mr Mohamed’s name, by destroying his son’s very bright future, has backfired horribly. These guys arent caught up to the modern world.
The suspicion was warranted. The arrest was way out of bounds. To not just admit that the kid should not have been arrested and apologise is ridiculous.
This pretty much sums it up.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/21/nerds-rage-over-ahmed-s-clock.html?source=TDB&via=FB_Page
DG, how is the suspicion warranted? I can see… “understandable”, given the context of “it happened in Texas and most white people in Texas, even teachers who should know their own students better, are racist and suspicious”, but it don’t see “warranted”.
I’m sure it sums it up for you as it was referred to as a “conspiracy theory”.
The idea that scientists, engineers and science writers would scrutinize a 14 year old kid’s school work is very telling. So OK all he did was take apart a commercially available clock and refashion the parts. So? I fail to see what that proves exactly.
The idea that we could somehow prescribe ulterior and untoward motive to that act is hilarious and stupid.
There was never any reason in my book for this to be anything other than a school disciplinary issue, and even that’s a little much in my book. I don’t subscribe to all this zero tolerance nonsense.
They should have just told the kid not to bring his “clock” to school anymore.
@ben It’s a box full of switches and wires. Is everyone from the custodian to the secretary to the cafeteria cook to the art teacher to the crossing guard suppose to know what that is on sight?
Unfortunately, in this day and age, whether black, white, brown, yellow, girl, boy, trans, Jew, atheist, Muslim… in Maine or Texas or Nebraska or New York City or Boise… you need to ask. I think it’s fair to ask. I believe somebody should ask… that’s warranted.
Like, Hey, Ahmed bhai, what do you have there? How does it work? How did you put it together? What gave you the idea? And I see no reason to involved the police at all. I probably should have mentioned that as well.
Once that’s all sorted and it’s clear it’s a clock they should have called it a day. But, as happens so often when we involved the cops, the coppers find a reason to escalate because when you’re trained to be a hammer you hit everything… Cops need to apologise for their mistake.
From what I understand, and I realize this is the news so my basis for understanding could be flawed, he volunteered that it was a clock right away. He was proud of his work and wanted to show it off. Had he been sneaking around with it, I would agree with you, but it looks like he did everything right.
FBH, you’re totally right. A school should do all it can to suppress creativity and pride in a job well done.
Yeah, it’s interesting. The school staff could have turned this into a real cool lesson and made Ahmed feel really good about trying to do something creative by asking interesting questions. Instead they called the cops. Very dumb.
You know. One thing that still doesn’t make sense to me is that they say the clock made a beeping noise. The picture of the clock shows no 9v battery in the back up, yet the clock’s alarm went off. Did this kid plug the clock into a wall socket during class? That to me would have been a disciplinary issue, not to mention the risk of electric shock.
You’re thinking about this one too much.
“FBH, you’re totally right. A school should do all it can to suppress creativity and pride in a job well done.”
What was the “job well done”, ben? You see. This is what I mean. Ben and people like him are so attached to the fabricated narrative of this, and the fact that Obama tweeted about the “science” of it, that it clouds their perception of reality. Again ben, the “job well done” is just an old clock shoved inside a little metal briefcase(pencil box). There was no “job well done” about it, unless the kid is a little slow in which in that case, I would take back what I said.
You’re thinking about this way too much.
He’s not thinking about it at all. Scientists, educators of scientists and businesspeople dependent upon science have reached out to this kid. Creative exploration is what it is all about — which is why you didn’t get past a class on the freakin’ weather.
He has to overthink this, Dorian. It’s the only way he can excuse what everyone else sees. FBH, needs to make a 14 year old’s science project the issue. It didn’t meet FBH’s engineering standards. Remind me, FBH. What engineering degree do you hold? Is it a dual major? Engineering and climatology? What exactly was your major? Do you work in that field, or in another STEM field? I thought you had a landscaping business? Which is great (awesome, really), but you probably need to step back from talking about subjects (science and engineering) you know nothing about.
You know nothing about this kid. This might have been a huge accomplishment for him. Who are you (and others) to judge whether this clock was “good enough”. Maybe it was great for where he was academically.
There are four people in my household. Everyone, but me, is (or is majoring in) an engineer – and that’s my cross to bear. Obviously, you don’t know many engineers. Many start out exactly as this kid did – taking something familiar and tinkering with/rebuilding it. One of the things my mech engineering son use to do, that drove us nuts, was take apart his toys and try (many times unsuccessfully) to put them back together. He wanted to see how it worked, because it’s highly unlikely to “invent” something new if you don’t understand the basics. My daughter is a college freshman, majoring in engineering. Her intro to engineering course started with electrical engineering – a field she hadn’t considered, but now is. It started with the basics, because everyone knows you can’t go forward without them.
That’s cool that your kids are studying engineering pandora. They can explain to you what this “invention” is. It will probably sound something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=232&v=CEmSwJTqpgY
For the vast number of DL readers who want an analysis if Achmed’s clock from someone who knows what he is talking about, see here.
You’re *this close* to being sent back to a remedial weather class, FBH.
Does anyone know when Ahmed is going to the White House, because I really want to see Obama plug that thing into an electrical outlet.
You have an extremely unhealthy obsession with this 14 year old boy. I don’t have any respect for people who make war on children.
“War on children”? It’s not about the kid pandora. It’s about you…and the President, and all of the other leftists who peddle in fabricated narratives to further a political agenda. Nice platitude though.
In a world replete with otiose, boring discussions about the most inconsequential bullshit, this one may take the fucking cake.
Yes, it is about the kid. You have spent an inordinate amount of time discrediting what he did. Do you walk through science fairs and call out kids who made solar systems and erupting volcanoes?
Your point is that his project wasn’t good enough to justify the attention he’s receiving. But that isn’t the point of this story. The point is he was arrested and humiliated for this project. You keep ignoring that fact.
Actually, you’ve done more than ignore the point. You actually said this: “And furthermore, the evidence is looking more and more like this was a ruse perpetrated by this kid and his well known father. And you wonder why no one takes you seriously. This is completely nuts.
The point isn’t about whether his project was good enough, but that’s the hill you’ve chosen to die on. I don’t get it, but I should since you told us in your first comment on this thread what really upset you:
“Why does Obama always interject publicly with knee jerk reactions concerning anything racial before the facts are even out there?”
Your problem is with a black President speaking out on issues about black and brown people. Got it.
“Your problem is with a black President speaking out on issues about black and brown people. Got it.”
There’s the rub. I wonder if FBH is even aware of how he comes off??
…how he looks to reasonable people??
I’m not sure why everyone is up in arms over this story. In the past we’ve had stupid, stupid instances of children being suspended for:
Toy soldiers on birthday cupcakes
Hello Kitty bubble gun
finger guns
slice of pizza gun
pop tart gun
pictures of guns
gun screen saver
and one kid was even arrested for having the theme song from the Fresh Prince as his ringtone because of the line, “shooting some b-ball outside of the school.”
Good grief, discuss the problem, the extraordinarily stupid “zero tolerance” rules that so many schools have that turn kids who are playing/inventing/creating into criminals. This isn’t about race, it’s about a complete lack of common sense in some of our schools.
“extraordinarily stupid zero tolerance” in schools is a direct result of an extraordinarily stupid litigious society we live in. Schools can ill afford the costs of defending themselves from those whose perceived harms demand compensation. So they go overboard in an vain attempt at prevention. What are they preventing exactly? Anything and everything.
@anon – Children suspended and this kid handcuffed and arrested are two different things. I would have thought this was clear enough. This has zero to do with so-called zero tolerance.
Suspicion was warranted and the arrest was a mistake. Of course nobody will simply apologise because it’s somehow un-American.
Can’t we stop wasting time on this now?
OK…you want “arrested”? Here you go, this is from a blog outlining other “idiotic arrests” though a couple are just terrible incidents involving police and one was a strip search by adults https://www.copblock.org/140900/stupid-reasons-police-arrested-kids-school/:
At one public school down in Texas, a 12-year-old girl named Sarah Bustamantes was arrested for spraying herself with perfume.
A 13-year-old student at a school in Albuquerque, New Mexico was arrested by police for burping in class.
Another student down in Albuquerque was forced to strip down to his underwear while five adults watched because he had $200 in his pocket. The student was never formally charged with doing anything wrong.
A security guard at one school in California broke the arm of a 16-year-old girl because she left some crumbs on the floor after cleaning up some cake that she had spilled.
One teenage couple down in Houston poured milk on each other during a squabble while they were breaking up. Instead of being sent to see the principal, they were arrested and sent to court.
A 12-year-old girl at a school in Forest Hills, New York was arrested by police and marched out of her school in handcuffs just because she doodled on her desk. “I love my friends Abby and Faith” was what she reportedly scribbled on her desk.
A 6-year-old girl down in Florida was handcuffed and sent to a mental facility after throwing temper tantrums at her elementary school.
One student down in Texas was reportedly arrested by police for throwing paper airplanes in class.
A 17-year-old honor student in North Carolina named Ashley Smithwick accidentally took her father’s lunch with her to school. It contained a small paring knife which he would use to slice up apples. So what happened to this standout student when the school discovered this? The school suspended her for the rest of the year and the police charged her with a misdemeanor.
In Allentown, Pennsylvania a 14-year-old girl was tasered in the groin area by a school security officer even though she had put up her hands in the air to surrender.
Down in Florida, an 11-year-old student was arrested, thrown in jail and charged with a third-degree felony for bringing a plastic butter knife to school.
An 8-year-old boy in Massachusetts was sent home from school and was forced to undergo a psychological evaluation because he drew a picture of Jesus on the cross.
A police officer in San Mateo, California blasted a 7-year-old special education student in the face with pepper spray because he would not quit climbing on the furniture.
A 5-year-old boy was arrested, handcuffed, and had zip ties placed on his hands and feet. He was also forced to go to a psychiatric hospital. The boy suffers from ADHD and had pushed a cops hand away from him. He was charged with assaulting a police officer.
At one school in Connecticut, a 17-year-old boy was thrown to the floor and tasered five times because he was yelling at a cafeteria worker.
A teenager in suburban Dallas was forced to take on a part-time job after being ticketed for using foul language in one high school classroom. The original ticket was for $340, but additional fees have raised the total bill to $637.
Police were called out when a little girl kissed a little boy during a physical education class at an elementary school down in Florida.
A 6-year-old boy was charged with sexual battery for some “inappropriate touching” during a game of tag at one elementary school in the San Francisco area.
In Massachusetts, police were sent out to collect an overdue library book from a 5-year-old girl.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested for kissing his classmate on a dare. Now, he faces second-degree assault charges.
A 13-year-old student was arrested for FARTING in class.
And the kid with the “Fresh Prince” ringtone was also arrested.
Every one of these kids, and the kids that were suspended for things like Hello Kitty bubble guns should all get apologies.
I think it’s ridiculous that Ahmed was arrested, and I think arresting a kid for “farting” or “burping” or a “plastic butter knife” or having a ringtone with the word “shooting” in it are equally ridiculous. All ridiculous, all a waste of taxpayer money, and every one of these incidents do nothing except sap the energy, creativity and life out of a kid.
This is from 2012 from the DailyKos, it’s “Teach Your child How to Survive Being Arrested at School”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/30/1059937/-Teach-Your-Child-How-to-Survive-Being-Arrested-at-School#
The chances are increasing that your child will be arrested for being a child and behaving in a childish fashion at school. Behavior that once got a child a trip to the principal’s office or detention will now get them booked at the police station. Doubt me? Look it up: a 5 year old arrested for having a temper tantrum in kindergarten and a 12 year old arrested for scribbling on a desk, a 13 year old boy was arrested for burping, a 5th grader arrested for giving a wedgie, and I’m sure you can find more.
It’s never too early to teach your child what to do if they get arrested at school for normal behavior, as demonstrated by the arrest of the above children.
So, I’ll ask again, why is everyone up in arms over one stupid instance of “arrest” and/or suspension when there are so many examples of this stupidity that the Daily Kos put out a “Survival Guide” about it in 2012?
Flatulence, kissing the opposite sex………those were the days.