The internet is aflame over the story of Ahmed Mohamed and his home-made clock. In short, his piece of electronics got him suspended and arrested because the school thought it was a “hoax bomb.” As would have been entirely predictable, since the kid ain’t lily white, and since he is a Muslim, the claims are going around that this is clearly a case of unwarranted Islamophobia, a result of America’s racist demonization of our peaceful Islamic brethren.
Uh-huh.
You know, there might be a case to be made here. Except… hmmm. Let’s take a look at the clock in question:
Hmm. That’s kinda… dodgy. Sure, it’s probably just the electronic bits needed to make a clock (in a not-in-the-slightest-suspicious hard-shell case). But imagine trying to take that through the airport as a carry-on. Does it look like a bomb? Well, I don’t see any explosives. But does it look like what a lot of people seem to think a bomb looks like? Well… yeah, I guess. Is it over-reaction on the part of the authorities? Almost certainly. Is it Islamophobia? Is it racism? Hmmmm…
Now, if you can make a case that that Pop-Tart looks as much like a real gun as that briefcase-clock looks like a briefcase bomb, then *maybe* you’ll have a case that Ahmed is the victim of racism or Islamophobia, more than he’s a victim of “zero tolerance” policies. Let me know when any of these *other* kids get invited to the White House like Ahmed did.
Gawker recently posted an interview with a politically active feller. It starts off thusly:
Gawker:Your involvement in electoral campaigns is mainly organizing for progressive Democrats?
Interviewee: Yes, mainly progressive Democrats and independents at every level, whether it be city council, state rep, Senate, Presidential. I was really active in both Obama campaigns. Actually I was his precinct captain for his Senate campaign in Illinois.
OK. So who’s being interviewed?
A) Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager
B) A Baltimore Mayoral candidate
C) The national chairman of the Communist Party USA?
The latest in Newspeak from some of the Junior Diversity Fascists at the University of New Hampshire (note that the actual administration of the University seems to be trying to separate themselves from this):
An integral part of UNH’s mission is to continue to build an inclusive learning community, and the first step toward our goal is an awareness of any bias in our daily language. As we begin to understand bias, we explore the truths of hierarchy and oppression. When we free ourselves of bias, we are thus affirming identities that differ from our own. When we do not affirm another person’s identity, we are characterizing an individual as “less than” or “other”. This makes them invisible, and for some, it feels like a form of violence.
This guide is meant to invite inclusive excellence in our campus community. Each step of inclusion moves us closer to a full democracy. The text was prepared for faculty, staff and students of the UNH community to encourage the full range of contributions that we offer as individuals and members of various groups. The guide presents practical revisions in our common usage that can make a difference and break barriers relating to diversity.
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Micro-assault, verbal attack
Example: “Dogs smell funny” to a blind person using a guide dog.
———-
Micro-invalidation, degrading a person’s wholeness through making false assumptions about the other’s ability, causing a sense of invalidation.
Example: “The new international student is having language challenges.” (More appropriately, we would say that the new international student is concentrating on learning a new language.)
——–
Glossary of Language
Preferred: people of advanced age, old people*
Problematic/Outdated: older people, elders, seniors, senior citizen
Preferred: person who lacks advantages that others have, low economic status related to a person’s education, occupation and income
Problematic: poor person, person from the ghetto
Preferred: person of material wealth
Problematic: rich
Preferred: people of size
Problematic/Outdated: obese*, overweight people
Preferred: U.S. citizen or Resident of the U.S.
Problematic: American Note: North Americans often use “American” which usually, depending on the context, fails to recognize South America
———-
… and so on in that fashion.
Note: this sort of thing does not “offend” me. Instead, I simply view it with amused contempt.
When that power of the working class is once achieved, as it has been only in the Soviet Union, I am for maintaining it by any means whatever. Dictatorship is the obvious means in a world of enemies at home and abroad.
I saw in the Soviet Union many opponents of the regime. I visited a dozen prisons — the political sections among them. I saw considerable of the work of the OGPU. I heard a good many stories of severity, even of brutality, and many of them from the victims. While I sympathized with personal distress I just could not bring myself to get excited over the suppression of opposition when I stacked it up against what I saw of fresh, vigorous expressions of free living by workers and peasants all over the land. And further, no champion of a socialist society could fail to see that some suppression was necessary to achieve it. It could not all be done by persuasion.
It seems in later years Baldwin came to understand that that Soviet system sucked. But for a while, while he was in a position of historic importance, he held the view that dictatorship and suppression of the opinions, property and lives of countless individuals was perfectly acceptable so long as these individuals were being oppressed by socialists.
Some guy was wearing a belt that looked like a belt of rifle cartridges (appears from the photo to actually be a belt of ammo), some idiots panicked and called the cops, the cops showed up, examined the belt, recognized it for what it was…and arrested him anyway. He was charged with “unlawful possession of ammunition, unlawfully carrying a dangerous weapon and disorderly conduct,” but the charges were later dropped.
Unless the “punk” in question was acting like a jackass (certainly possible, but no indication of that is given in the article), all the blame for this falls on the side of the panicked idjits and the cops who arrested a guy for his fashion choice. Even if the belt of ammo was a belt of live ammo, you know what’s missing from this story? A *gun.* Where’s the M-60 machine gun that would be required to actually make the ammo go “bang?” According to THIS, “the passengers were in a panic, fearing that the suspect was about to pull out a weapon.” Where, exactly, did these brave Bostonian geniuses think he was going to pull out a 30-pound, four-foot-long machine gun *from?*
And how the hell can it be unlawful for a 26-year-old to possess ammunition?
AIS employees create fake accounts on social media and news websites, and then use those accounts to post thousands of comments and posts in accordance with the daily pro-Kremlin talking points, creating the illusion of widespread support for Vladimir Putin’s government.
In her suit, the 34-year-old Savchuk called the AIS a “troll factory,” a reference to the 30,000 comments produced daily by AIS employees.
Amends the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act to: (1) prohibit the purchase or sale of a firearm unless the purchaser presents proof to the seller and the seller verifies that the purchaser is covered by a qualified liability insurance policy, and (2) require any person who purchases a firearm on or after this Act’s effective date to be covered by such a policy. Exempts the purchase or sale of a firearm for use by a federal, state, or local agency.
Defines “qualified liability insurance policy” to mean a policy that: (1) provides liability insurance covering the purchaser specifically for losses resulting from use of the firearm while it is owned by the purchaser, and (2) is issued by an insurer licensed or authorized to provide the coverage by the state in which the purchaser resides.
From the text of the bill:
“(2) In paragraph (1), the term ‘qualified liability insurance policy’ means, with respect to the purchaser of a firearm, a policy that—
“(A) provides liability insurance covering the purchaser specifically for losses resulting from use of the firearm while it is owned by the purchaser; and
“(B) is issued by an insurer licensed or authorized to provide the coverage by the State insurance regulatory authority for the State in which the purchaser resides.”.
(b) Penalty.—Section 924 of such title is amended by adding at the end the following:
“(q) Whoever violates section 922(aa) shall be fined not more than $10,000.”.
And the inevitable and obligatory:
“(B) Subparagraph (A) shall not apply to the purchase or sale of a firearm for the use of the United States or any department or agency of the United States, or any State or any department, agency, or political subdivision of a State.
So, which is this more? A way to make firearms ownership too expensive for poor people? A way to enrich politically active insurance providers? A simple way to increase the number of people in the US who suddenly switch from “law abiding” to “criminal,” thus justifying an increase in the police state?
Here, this will shock you, I’m sure. A list of those sponsoring this bill:
The rules of flying on a jetliner are generally pretty simple. You’re stuck in a small space with a bunch of other people, with minimal room to move around for *hours.* So what should you do? Be quiet, try not to stink, behave yourself. Just spend a few hours trying to get along with the strangers stuck there with you.
Or… screw it. Do like this woman:
Go on a bizarre loud political rant and light up a cigarette. That’ll win you friends among those seated near you. Even better… when the flight attendants come along to tell you to stop smoking, blame it on the poor schmoe sitting next to you:
According to this purported eye witness, the rant went on for half an hour or so. And, shockingly, there was booze involved. This was even *before* the plane took off, so the police had the opportunity to come aboard and hustler her off.
And finally a mugshot:
She is *reportedly* a sociology professor at a Pennsylvania university.
UPDATE: She is Dr. Karen Bettez Halnon, Associate Professor of Sociology, Penn State, Abington. You want some irony? Well, I got ya covered:
Halnon, K. B. (1995). Women’s agency in Hysteria and its Treatment. Boston College Dissertations and Theses, AAI9613827.
And here is the entirely unsurprising areas of her expertise:
Research and Teaching Areas: racial and ethnic inequality; capitalism and class; White and Black poverty; empire and imperialism; Central or Latin American studies; consumption; music scenes and subcultures; liberation theology; revolution; stigma; symbolic interaction; women and madness; marijuana; sociology of deviance; Marxist theory; postmodernist criticism; ideology
This is why a STEM education is important:
1) If a math or engineering professor gets likkered up before a flight, he/she is very unlikely to go on a rant on the plane about the importance of Poisson’s Ratio or the transcendental nature of Pi.
2) If a physics or electronics professor holds whackadoodle leftist garbage beliefs like this sociology professor… they are unlikely to form a major portion of the classroom curriculum.
It seems to be the libarts where exterior crazy becomes syllabus-mandatory.
Additionally: this is one of those cases where a little bit of room to stretch out might have been handy. When you add booze, cramped conditions and progressive professorial privilege to the reduced oxygen environment of an aircraft, wacky things like this are not unlikely. Perhaps the problem would be lessened by using aircraft with a lower passenger density. For US Transport Projects #3, one of the aircraft described would have been somewhat slower than a standard jetliner, but it would also have provided several square meters of floorspace per passenger. (It was also wholly insane as an operational concept…) With room to stretch out or even sack out, perhaps Crazy Lady here could have simply slept off her issues.
A few years ago, people started realizing that 3D printers and small CNC mills were going to revolutionize not just general manufacturing, but firearms manufacturing in particular. How can the government regulate firearms, when you can simply print one – or a dozen – up in your own home?
Well, a way to throttle innovation has been implemented: fear.
A small CNC mill, designed expressly to be able to mill out AR-15 receivers, is a perfectly legal device. It’s just a complex power tool. You don’t need to have any sort of license to own or operate such a thing. But FedEx and UPS have decided to chicken out on shipping them because they are afraid that they will be set upon by the government.
Couple this with the Obama administrations recent realization that while it cannot infringe on the freedom of the press it can ban ink, things are starting to look interesting in the world of organized gun-grabbing.
