A 14 year old Texas high school student has learned the hard way that the clock is ticking for common sense in the West these days. Ahmed Mohamed from Irving constructed a digital clock from spare parts, and was so proud of his accomplishment he took it to his school on Monday to show his teachers.

Bizarrely, despite Mohamed making no effort to conceal the item, and explaining what it was to his teachers at MacArthur High School, the school made the decision not just to confiscate the clock – but also to report him to local police on the grounds they were afraid that it was actually a bomb. Even more bizarrely, the police decided to extend the vacation from common sense further, by removing the aspiring young engineer from the school in handcuffs, refusing to let him contact his parents and questioning him as a terrorist.


Perhaps Ahmed’s next invention should be a device that prevents people from over-reacting.
That will be a fact from a different perspective.