09/20/15

The Curious Case of Ahmed’s Clock Part II

By: Brent Parrish
The Right Planet

Ahmed Mohamed (second from left) and Alia Salem (right), Executive Director of CAIR-Texas Dallas Fort Worth.

Ahmed Mohamed (second from left) and Alia Salem (right), Executive Director of CAIR-Texas Dallas Fort Worth.

The brouhaha over Ahmed Mohamed’s “clock” just keeps getting “curiouser and curiouser.”

In case you haven’t heard, Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old Muslim high school student from Irving, Texas, has been hailed by many in the main-stream media recently as an “ingenious tinkerer” who was allegedly “unfairly” targeted because of his religious affiliation after bringing a digital clock “invention” that looked an awful lot like an improvised explosive device (IED) enclosed in a case resembling a small briefcase.

Mohamed claims he simply wanted to bring his “invention” to school to show his teacher. The MacArthur High School teacher he originally approached with his improvised device told Ahmed that it looked a lot like a “bomb.” The teacher advised the young student not to show the contraption to any of the other teachers, lest they mistake the device for a bomb, too.

Via Top Right News:

But Ahmed then brought it into his English class, plugged it in, set an alarm to go off, and did not mention to the teacher who felt “threatened” by it that he already showed it to the engineering teacher, and to ask him about it … which could have easily resolved the security concerns.

Ahmed Mohamed's digital clock "invention."

Ahmed Mohamed’s digital clock “invention.”

Ahmed was detained and the police were called, until it could be determined what sort of device Mohamed had brought to school. Reportedly, Ahmed exhibited some strange behavior during police questioning.

The Dallas-Forth Worth-based WFAA News reported (via Breitbart.com):

Officers said Ahmed was being “passive aggressive” in his answers to their questions, and didn’t have a “reasonable answer” as to what he was doing with the case. Investigators said the student told them that it was just a clock that he was messing around with. “We attempted to question the juvenile about what it was and he would simply only say it was a clock. He didn’t offer any explanation as to what it was for, why he created this device, why he brought it to school,” said James McLellan, Irving Police.

The WFAA report contradicts comments made by Ahmed Mohamed to the national media following his detention by local police. Mohamed claims he just wanted to show his “invention” to his teacher. If that is the case, why did he not reveal this claim to the police during initial questioning?

Despite it all, the ninth grader has been receiving accolades and gifts.

Via BizPac Review:

After his release, Mohamed became an immediate darling of the left, and received numerous internship and job offers, an invitation to visit the White House, and an Islamic prayer vigil that was held for him at his school.

POTUS-Tweet-on-Ahmeds-Clock

Ahmed-Parting-Gifts

A few electronic gurus and experts have been taking a closer look at Ahmed’s “invention.” Some of their conclusions regarding Mohamed’s clock are very revealing, and shed a lot of light on what Ahmed Mohamed allegedly “invented.”

Via Thomas Talbot:

This video shows that the supposed clock invention by a 14 year old is in fact not an invention. The ‘clock’ is a commercial bedside alarm clock removed from its casing. There is nothing to indicate that the clock was even assembled by the child. I suspect this was brought into school to create an alarmed reaction.

Another individual (aka “Anthony”), who claims to have an engineering degree, did his own research in an attempt to reverse-engineer Ahmed’s digital clock “invention.” Like Talbot, Anthony claims Ahmed’s clock is nothing more than the internal electronic components of a digital clock removed from its casing and stuffed into a pencil case.

Much of Anthony’s findings corroborate with Thomas Talbot’s analysis. But he goes further by stating he believes he has located the actual model and type of digital clock Ahmed used to build his “invention,” even going so far as to offer the type of pencil case observed in the official police images of Ahmed Mohamed’s “clock.”

Ahmeds-Clock-eBay

(Credit: Twitter)

Ahmeds-Clock-Reverse-Engineer

(Credit: AV Artvoice)

Ahmed-Clock-Captioned-2

(Credit: AV Artvoice)

“Anthony” writes:

For starters, one glance at the printed circuit board in the photo, and I knew we were looking at mid-to-late 1970s vintage electronics. Surely you’ve seen a modern circuit board, with metallic traces leading all over to the various components like an electronic spider’s web. You’ll notice right away the highly accurate spacing, straightness of the lines, consistency of the patterns. That’s because we design things on computers nowadays, and computers assist in routing these lines. Take a look at the board in Ahmed’s clock. It almost looks hand-drawn, right? That’s because it probably was. Computer aided design was in its infancy in the 70s. This is how simple, low cost items (like an alarm clock) were designed.[…] There’s also silk screening on the board. An “M” logo, “C-94” (probably, a part number – C might even stand for “clock”), and what looks like an American flag. More about that in a minute. Point for now being, a hobbyist wouldn’t silk screen logos and part numbers on their home made creation. It’s pretty safe to say already we’re looking at ’70s tech, mass produced in a factory.

So I turned to eBay, searching for vintage alarm clocks. It only took a minute to locate Ahmed’s clock. See this eBay listing, up at the time of this writing. Amhed’s clock was invented, and built, by Micronta, a Radio Shack subsidary. Catalog number 63 756.

If Thomas Talbot and “Anthony” are correct—and they do provide a convincing and dispassionate assessment—then what exactly did Ahmed Mohamed even invent? And why would he take an alarm clock and just put it in a pencil case? There is nothing at all impressive about that—besides not electrocuting himself while doing it. Removing the innards of a digital clock and stuffing it in an alleged pencil case does not require any considerable talent or skills.

And let’s not ignore the obvious: Why would you put a clock in a pencil case? Is that a particularly novel or useful “invention”? Furthermore, why did he decide to bring it to school?

There is another rather curious aspect concerning the Muslim “whiz kid” from Texas. Ahmed Mohmed is the son of Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, a Sudanese immigrant who is no stranger to making the headlines over the years.

TheConservativeTreehouse.com reports:

… Aside from his presidential bids, [Mohamed Elhassan] Mohamed also made headlines for his bizarre role in Rev. Terry Jones’ incendiary Quran trial. In 2012, when the Florida pastor made good on his threat to burn a Quran in his Gainesville church and put the Quran on “trial,” Mohamed, who refers to himself as a sheik, was apparently the one Muslim willing to play along as the defense in the mock trial. “[The church] put an ad on their channel: ‘Whoever feels in himself he has the power to defend Quran is welcome,’” he told the Dallas Observer. (read more)

Interestingly, Islamic scholar and author Robert Spencer debated Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed back in 2011:

Via Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch:

Here is video of my May 2011 debate with Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, the father of Ahmed Mohamed, the 14-year-old boy who was arrested for bringing a clock that looked like a bomb to school, in an instance of zero-tolerance overreaction or “Islamophobia,” depending on your point of view.

Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed and I debated on the topic, “Does Islam Respect Human Rights?” The results were so bad for him that after the debate, The American Muslim pleaded with Muslims not to debate me. In any case, this debate is one indication that Mohamed Elhassan has been trying for several years to make his bones as a warrior against “Islamophobia.”

The debate starts at 31:48, after an interview with Walid Phares.

Recently, the ninth grader appeared on MSNBC with Chris Hayes. Ahmed did not appear with his mother or father, or even a lawyer, but instead was accompanied by a representative from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization declared an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 terror-finance trial against the Holy Land Foundation and its former officials. CAIR was also designated a “terrorist organization” by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2014.

Once again, as far as the media narrative goes, it appears we are dealing with another the facts don’t matter scenario—only the politically correct narrative: “if you see something, say something” … that is, unless you see a Muslim doing something suspicious … then you just best keep your damn mouth shut, you Islamophobic RAAAAACIST!

Briefcase-Clock-v-Bomb

Related:

09/19/15

Obama’s Muslim Identity

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

An ordinary citizen who identified President Barack Obama as a Muslim at a Donald Trump town hall meeting in New Hampshire showed that media brainwashing on the subject has been futile. The people understand that Obama asserts he is a Christian, but they just aren’t buying it. Obama has done too many things to benefit Muslims to convince people that he is not one of them.

The latest example was extending an invitation to a Muslim student to come to the White House after he was detained for possessing what appeared to be a bomb. It turned out to be a clock that looked like a bomb.

Naturally, the Obama White House treated this as a case of so-called Islamophobia, when pictures of the device demonstrated that care should have been taken and law enforcement should have been called. Obama refuses to identify Islamic terrorism as Islamic terrorism, but is quick to jump to conclusions about the supposedly anti-Islamic character of the American people. This is the mark of someone who is either strongly sympathetic to Islam, or a Muslim himself.

Robert Spencer has written an excellent article about Ahmed Mohamed’s suspicious-looking device and uncooperative behavior.

Our media are denouncing Trump for failing to “correct” the citizen who identified Obama as a Muslim. They flatly assert Obama is a Christian. The issue here is not Trump but Obama.

We have corrected the record many times on this, but it seems that another explanation is warranted. Politicians can say anything about themselves, but it is up to the media to determine if those claims are true.

If Obama and his aides had a habit of telling the truth, the claim about Obama being a Christian might be assumed to be true. But as we have noted in the past, “Unfortunately for Obama and his backers, the same Obama campaign apparatus which claimed that he is a baptized Christian asserted that the mysterious ‘Frank’ in Obama’s book, Dreams from My Father, was just a black civil rights activist. It turned out that ‘Frank’ was Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist Party member under surveillance by the FBI who served as a mentor for a young Obama in Hawaii.”

So what reason is there to believe that Obama is a Christian just because he says so? He doesn’t act or talk like a Christian, and he doesn’t go to church very often. Instead, he acts and talks like a Muslim. Obama acknowledges in Dreams from My Father that his grandfather was a Muslim (page 104) and that he spent two years in a Muslim school in Indonesia studying the Koran (page 154).

There is no evidence Obama was baptized, in any formal sense, in Jeremiah Wright’s church.  What’s more, there is no evidence that Obama ever specifically rejected Islam. Indeed, Obama could have joined Wright’s church in Chicago without disavowing the Muslim faith. Author Edward Klein notes that Wright told him that he “made it comfortable” for Obama to accept Christianity “without having to renounce his Islamic background.”

As we noted in a review of Klein’s book, Wright was asked if he converted Obama from Islam to Christianity, and Wright said, “That’s hard to tell. I think I convinced him that it was okay for him to make a choice in terms of who he believed Jesus is. And I told him it was really okay and not a putdown of the Muslim part of his family or his Muslim friends.”

Obama’s failure to attend church led us to label him “The Politician Without a Church.” We noted that “…if Obama claims to be a Christian, and the evidence suggests otherwise, it is a significant story. That’s because his alleged Christianity was a factor in his 2008 and 2012 victories.”

This is why it’s significant that the American people still aren’t buying the notion of Obama’s alleged Christianity. People have recognized a truth about Obama that the Obama campaign, White House, and the media have tried their best to conceal.

Trump doesn’t challenge anti-Muslim questioner at event” is how CNN framed the controversy over the Trump event in New Hampshire. The questioner asserted that Obama is a Muslim and that Muslims want to kill Americans. Is that anti-Muslim?

The British Guardian ran the headline, “Donald Trump fails to correct questioner who calls Obama Muslim.”

CBS News ran the story, “Trump declines to correct man who says Obama is Muslim.”

If Obama had demonstrated his Christianity through actions and statements, and if there was indisputable evidence that he was baptized a Christian and rejected Islam, the media might have a point.

In this case, they do not. The behavior of the media is far more objectionable than a simple observation, based on the facts as he perceived them, from an American citizen about the American President.

The record is clear: Obama has lied about his Marxist and Muslim backgrounds. The American people have every right to be suspicious of him.