Apparently all the swag and educational/career opportunities that famed hoaxer “Clock Boy” Ahmed Mohammad received from his slightly re-purposed commercial digital clock was not enough to satisfy him and/or his family. They are now suing the taxpayers of Irving, Texas for $15 for the usual “emotional distress” reasons.

Ahmed Mohamed: ‘Clock boy’ seeks $15m from city and school

In case anyone has forgotten, Ahmed took an old digital clock, removed it from it’s plastic case and put the guts in a new metal case. Originally it was battery & wall-cord powered, but in its new configuration it only worked with the cord, which makes the choice of a conductive metal pencil case a dubious one. He took the piece of junk to school and claimed to have “invented” it; he plugged it in in class with an alarm set to go off during class, disrupting the class. The clock was examined and promptly found to be not a bomb; but it was determined that Ahmed had tried to make something that other people – my guess would be his fellow students – might think was a bomb and be freaked out by it. As a result the police became involved, as is normal and proper whenever there’s even the lamest, least-likely bomb threat at a school. As a result of properly playing the media, Ahmed was transformed from a prankster with minimal engineering skills into an engineering genius, inventor and victim of racism. He and his family have scampered off to Qatar and are suing Irving from a distance.