You assume she flies?

reads the news?

Only drunk red staters pay attention to the MSM

you moron

Many time, actually. I even dumped my Salon Premium membership because of your hit piece on Wes Clark back in the 2004 Primaries. Don't even bring up your series on the Ohio election.

But your Machinist blog does not suck. I read it, sometimes agree, sometimes disagree, but I am able to respect your take on the subject. You know your shit and do your homework. And it is interesting and brings up stuff that needs bringing up, for machine-heads such as I consider myself. This last article was pretty damn good, as were your pieces on the iPhone.

I don't hate you anymore, and I generally like your column. I'm gonna quit paying extra for a WELL account and log back into Salon Premium (no more ads for butt-washing toilets!).

Keep doing what you're doing.

You don't get it.

An innocent student gets ARRESTED and almost KILLED because a bunch of numb nuts think blinking lights = BOMB. This sort of paranoia is useful only to enlarging the security industry and if unchecked will kill our country. One would hope that a tech savvy area would have more intelligent people than this incident demonstrates.

In the US about 115 people die everyday in traffic accidents. However society has placed many resources on the EXTREMELY unlikely event of being killed by a terrorist bomb. The largest terrorist bombing in the US killed 168 people and DID NOT involve flashing lights. Only idiotic TV shows like 24 have bombs with flashing lights.

Why would a bomber want to alert victims?

One more of these and it is time to move MIT.

**** P.S. ****

Silenced - YES I blame people when their IRRATIONAL fears almost get someone killed. Screaming FIRE in a crowded theater when a cell phone lights up comes to mind. I would rather have them keep their MOUTH SHUT than to have their paranoid concepts hurt an innocent person or feed the security industrial complex.

hangin_off - You are an idiot and a racist.

Asperger's is a dangerous syndrome to have because even really smart people can end up making fatal misjudgments about how normal people perceive the things they say and do.

You can't just blame the stupid people and be done with it. If you want to be safe, you have to do better than that. You have to start thinking of empathy not as a sign of weakness but as a survival skill.

This student was almost killed because she misjudged the reactions of the people who aren't on her special gifted wavelength.

I might not be a MIT student but isn't that a breadboard, not a circuit board. I know that you can put circuits on it but it's not a circuit board. There's the media up false images to people who haven't seen the pic of the "bomb".

Before up in my post it should say putting.

Yes that is a breadboard - I have several - wonder if they're now classified as "bomb-making equipment"

being on bombs, I get a kick out of people who think that a bomb would have different colored "standardized" (as in red for power, black for ground) wires. Its not Hollywood kids.

If I saw that jacket, I wouldn't think "bomb", and I'm pretty much a normal person. Now, if I walked into an airport carrying a bundle of road flares wired to an alarm clock, I'd expect people to think it was a bomb. But how can I be held responsible for not figuring out every possible item some idiot might think is a bomb? And aren't most suicide bombers crafty enough to wear their explosives UNDER their clothes?

Well, okay, I can actually see the police stopping her and searching her. But she explained herself, had no bomb, and should have been allowed to go. But the cops have to justify their reaction, so they arrest her. At that point, she's clearly a victim of official bullshit.

By the way, read the article. She didn't "refuse to answer" the information clerk. He had to ask her a second time (maybe she's not paying attention) and she explained the cicuit board was art. What else do you want her to say? If she had said "don't worry, it's not a bomb" she'd been arrested for saying the word "bomb" in an airport.

Given the sense of humor of MIT students - I wouldn't be surprised if half the school shows up at the airport with breadboards tomorrow.

Or the graphic novel, if you prefer, though I must admit I've not read it.

Does anyone recall the scene where the cops shot a child engaged in a bit of graffiti with a can of spray paint while wearing the V costume? Finally, the "just go along and get along" crowd has their ire raised enough to fight back against the overused, overpowerful, and overeager authority.

Thank the cycle of life for its gift to all of us of the young. Whether due to naivete or arrogance that has not yet been beaten into submission, they still have the irrational bravery to at least take potshots at the establishment from time to time. Sometimes they even succeed in making us old farts realize that it only *has* to be this way if we let it.

"This student was almost killed because she misjudged the reactions of the people who aren't on her special gifted wavelength."

NO!!!

This student was almost killed because other people THOUGHT THEY WERE GIFTED enough to know what a bomb was. Some of these people should have known better. It is a sad day for Boston when this sort of madness happens.

She most likely didn't think anything of her attire because it was HARMLESS.

To take this idiocy to the terminal form police will be shooting red shirted people on Tuesdays because Fox News and 24 implied they might be dangerous. If you don't watch Faux then you will soon be dead.

Ms. Simpson DID NOTHING WRONG.

Hopefully she will sue the piss out of the Airport, City, Police, Jail and whatever employees of the above agencies were involved. At the very least those involved need to be reassigned to positions that don't require working with the public.

*** P.S. ***

"Asperger's is a dangerous syndrome"

Are a doctor? Able to diagnose via the news like Bill Frist? Then you must be on the "special gifted wavelength".