Gates of Vienna is following the strange explosion of a building in Minneapolis on New Years Day. The fire chief rushed to call it a gas leak. There are doubts, however. When you go to the below Gates of Vienna link, click the link to the Lee Stranahan blog. He is a blogger who contacted the gas company spokesperson, Rebecca Virdin, who stated that here was no natural gas leak in the area. She also confirmed that she was told that a police officer had been in the building interviewing an occupant about an unrelated issue just a couple of minutes prior to the explosion and had been sitting outside in his squad car when the explosion occurred. She also told Stranahan that she had been misquoted by the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
http://gatesofvienna.net/2014/01/what-the-police-and-the-gas-company-really-said/
I am not ready to pass judgment on this yet, but it does bear following.
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6 comments:
In the latest breaking news, the explosion in Minneapolis is still under investigation and no cause has been determined. Even Gary Fouse won't speculate. But since it happened in a Somali neighborhood, Gary wants to remind us that nothing is really known yet.
Anyone remember the Saturday Night Live coverage of Francisco Franco's medical condition? He remains stable -- he's still dead.
Tell you what Siarlys, You keep reading the Star Tribiune and I'll follow the blogs. Let's see who gets to the truth of it first if it really is a bomb involved.
P.S.
Mea culpa, I have yet again managed to let a thread (is that not what they are called??) go to the dead letter file and find it necessary to attempt to post off-topic. I would humbly beg the forbearance of Gary (see how well I can toady??) in the hope he will continue to occasionally allow late posts this way.
elwood p suggins said...
P.S. for Siarlys--let me ask you, if I am Elmer Fuddish, but more intelligent than you (which I am), who/what does that make you?? Just curious.
January 2, 2014 at 1:42 PM
Siarlys Jenkins said..
elwood, your premise is unsubstantiated. Therefore your conclusion needs no refutation. I would never offer my own evaluation as proof of my intelligence, no matter how much I believed it to be true. But if you want an objective measure, my IQ has tested everywhere from 70 to 145.
January 3, 2014 at 6:18 PM
Siarlys (aka Boris)--What in the world are you talking about, and what is wrong with you?? You apparently have either an exceedingly poor or exceedingly selective memory.
Since IQ is most certainly an evaluation/measure of both individual and relative intelligence, offering your own IQ score (aka evaluation) as proof of your intelligence is exactly and precisely what you originally did several months ago (and for which you are now chastising me), which was to announce to us that your IQ was 140 (not 145 as you now state). This is particularly so since your action was voluntary, unilateral, and unsolicited, with no one having asked you what your IQ was that I recall. So much for what you would never do.
I further recall that I advised you (admittedly somewhat tongue-in-cheekly) at that time that my IQ exceeded yours by "14 per cent and change", and that, at least in terms of IQ, my intelligence was also necessarily somewhat greater than yours. You had all the info you needed at that time, if you had both the inclination (which you obviously did not) AND the ability (about which I am unclear), to calculate a close approximation of my IQ score. You apparently did not do that.
I already had your objectivity (and you also had mine back then but perhaps did not realize it), but fast forwarding to the present, here in turn is a little bit more objectivity for you. I also took a battery of 3-4 IQ tests. My scores ranged from the high 140's to a high of 160. The tester, a tenured university psychology department chair PhD who had previously been in private practice wanted to do further individualized testing, which she assured me would result in even higher, perhaps even significantly higher, readings, but I never got around to it.
I would hope we can agree that IQ tests generally primarily test for qualities such as logic, logical and reasoning ability, spatial deduction, etc., rather than general knowledge. To the extent that these things define intelligence an IQ test is then, I believe, most definitely a measure of how intelligent a person is, specifically/particularly compared to averages, ranges, and relative to other individuals.
Since you have now put up a new IQ score of 145 for yourself, I will do the math for you and state that based on new numbers, my IQ score and, at least to the extent to which scores are proportional and representative, my intelligence exceeds yours by 10.34 per cent (to two decimals).
All the above means that my premise was previously substantiated months ago, is reinforced now, is essentially self-substantiating, and thus requires no further substantiation.
Accordingly, then, I guess you had best get to refuting my conclusion.
Lenin is indeed dead, no matter how well preserved. Save your breath elwood -- IQ is not established to be a good measure of much of anything, and since my lowest score is 70, I don't much care if the high is 140 or 145. I also don't care if your numbers are higher or lower. I offer the numbers in a spirit of ridicule, not as hard evidence to vindicated myself.
I don't read the Star Tribune or many blogs. When someone has a conclusion, I'm sure it will be widely available. In the meantime, harping ominously on the fact that we really have no idea what happened makes you look awfully foolish, and obsessive.
Siarlys--quit crawfishing, it is not seemly in a grown man. For someone who puts little if any stock in IQ testing, you certainly appear to have wasted some time and energy, if not money, by getting tested on what is apparently three separate occasions, or at least three separate tests, relative to an essentially worthless activity.
Further, you reported this results of this worthless process to us as I previously described, with no hint of ridicule (or sarcasm, or whatever) at the time.
As with many, probably most, other issues, we will just have to continue agree to disagree. The testing is, at least for the most part, scientifically conducted and scored. While IQ is certainly not the be-all/end-all of the issue of intelligence (and I never said it was), it must be at least somewhat, if not quite, significant in relative/comparative terms; otherwise, IQ testing/reporting would not enjoy the very widespread uses it has in various applications.
Poor elwood... always looking for a conspiracy...
I was tested on four occasions during my thirteen years in the public schools. Not only was it not by my choice, it was without my knowledge of what the tests were or how they would be used or interpreted.
I know the results because I asked to see my file during my senior year of high school, and there they were. I remembered a few things about the tests when I read the file -- including the orally administered one, when I was asked "Tell me what is wrong with this statement: You are going to be hanged, said the judge, and I hope it will teach you a lesson." I was laughing too hard to answer for the first minute or so.
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