[Continuation] Luton Airport Car Park Fire III

[Foster Zygote]

Please keep within the confines of what I said. A poster asked WHY would such news be embargoed and I SUGGESTED as an EXAMPLE, PM Sunak's links to Tata JLR, which is a reasonable one.

How is it not within those confines to point out that the "deep fake" video from the scene shows a Range Rover, which is a product of Tata Motors?

In PRIVATE EYE nr. 1623 p. 8, it confirms that the Post Office (shareholder, us the Taxpayer c/o the government) had its Communications Director (Mark Davies) put out a constant PR that the computer system (Horizon) was robust and that no fault had been found, when all along Deloitte and forensic accountants Second Sight in their audits and investigations TOLD the Post Office the system was not safe at all. I mention this example, because many people will be familiar with it (not as a talking point for that topic, which can be found elsewhere). This illustrates HOW government executives (some on multimillion pound salaries and bonuses) cynically and habitually use PUBLIC RELATIONS as a tool to withhold facts and mislead the public.

"Your Honor, if it please the court, I concede that I haven't offered any actual evidence linking the defendant to the racketeering charges against him. But I submit the names of other defendants, who, like the defendant, are of Italian descent, and were convicted of similar crimes. The prosecution rests."

The trick is in distinguishing PR from genuine news. It is obvious to me that you have been taken in by PR because you do not trust what your own eyes tell you from the two videos.

We have already established that you are not qualified to evaluate those images. Your claim that the doors are sloping different directions, for example, is mathematically
unjustifiable. You made that claim in ignorance of even the most fundamental understanding of how wrong you were. And you still have yet to admit that you are wrong, and continue on as though you've made a reasonable argument that the images are faked.

And again, can you please point out the "highly directional, jet-like flames" in that video? Can you link the color of the burning lithium in your earlier video to the color of the fire in the Luton videos, and explain how you corrected for any of many hardware artifacts that commonly affect the fidelity of color display in videos? For that matter can you even assure that lithium burns with the same color as the lithium ion salts found in batteries?

 

[junkshop]

...C'mon, Vixen. It's a simple question. Is this statement true?

...The vehicle involved was diesel-powered – it was not a mild hybrid, plug-in hybrid or electric vehicle...

Yes or no?

Answer the question, please.

To clarify:

I am not asking for your opinion of the status of the maker of the statement.

I am not asking you why they made the statement.

I am asking you if the statement is true.

Yes or no.

The other stuff can be discussed afterwards.

Vixen, please answer the question.

 

[Foster Zygote]

So please explain to us again, Vixen, how you're not claiming that whoever is responsible for the press release is part of a conspiracy, and how you're not proposing a conspiracy theory.

My guess, based on numerous interactions with conspiracy theorists and religious apologists, is that some people want to attack other people's arguments, but don't want to defend their own. Usually because defending their own arguments has historically gone rather poorly.

ETA: See the lack of response to the question in the post immediately preceding this one.

 

[Vixen]

<snip>

So please explain to us again, Vixen, how you're not claiming that whoever is responsible for the press release is part of a conspiracy, and how you're not proposing a conspiracy theory.

As I said, the details of that case is not relevant here. But corporate culture is a real thing. If you are paying your CEO and Communications bod six-figure salaries and annual bonuses of up to five million, then you are rewarding that behaviour of 'public relations', i.e., pretending that it's all in the public interest, of not wanting to alarm anybody, rock the boat or upset the government that has appointed you. Corporate culture starts at the top and trickles downwards. If the government minister, the civil servants, the CEO of a public body are all being reinforced in the 'three monkey's' ethos of 'see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing', or be sacked, then of course they will keep on repeating the corporate behaviour that rewards them. At the end of the day, they go home put their feet up and look forward to the next bonus. The public relations is just a case of 'oh, everybody does it'.

 

[Vixen]

No. That's wrong. The issue is not why they say it. The issue is your mule-headed pretence that they do not say it.

The trick is only one of discerning whether this statement is what BF&RS claim as fact. Answer: Yes it is. The primary source is their own website. It does indeed make the claim.

Once you have recognised that the statement is indeed what their own website currently claims as fact, you can waste all the keystrokes you like on trying to convince the world they didn't mean to say that or they were just kidding or some office junior did it without approval, but continuing to pretend it's not really there is just making you look stupid.

I was simply pointing out that we have not actually been told anything. All we know is what the newspapers reported at the time. Beds F&RS simply gave a narrative description of how the fire progressed and a best-guess opinion of how it started. That was on day one. Now we are awaiting the report as to the investigation findings.

 

[Vixen]

Vixen, please answer the question.

It is neither true nor false but thinking makes it so.

 

[zooterkin]

As I said, the details of that case is not relevant here. But corporate culture is a real thing. If you are paying your CEO and Communications bod six-figure salaries and annual bonuses of up to five million,

I'd love to see your evidence that this applies to the Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service.

 

[phiwum]

Context is all. That sentence is unauthored.

That's not how truth works.

We are speaking about a sentence in the English language, where the meanings of the terms are absolutely clear to us. The sentence does not include any first or second person pronouns, so there is no confusion about the referents of each term.

The sentence "The initial vehicle was a hybrid"[1] is either true or false, no matter who says it[2], because it really was a hybrid or not. Hence, it's negation is similarly just as undeniably either true or false.

You claim to have evidence that the sentence, "The initial vehicle was a hybrid," is true. It takes either a very stupid or a very disingenuous person to claim that this same evidence is not sufficient to conclude that the sentence, "The initial vehicle was not a hybrid," is false.

I'll be kind and assume disingenuity. The alternative is that you're mystified about the meaning of plain English or the workings of extraordinarily simple logic.

[1] I can spell out the meaning of the term "initial vehicle" if you wish, but it is obviously a term you understand.

[2] So long as they are speaking of the same "initial vehicle" and the same meaning of "hybrid", so let's not play any stupid games there.

 

[zooterkin]

I was simply pointing out that we have not actually been told anything. All we know is what the newspapers reported at the time. Beds F&RS simply gave a narrative description of how the fire progressed and a best-guess opinion of how it started. That was on day one. Now we are awaiting the report as to the investigation findings.

Again with the lying.

We have been told, clearly, explicitly, unequivocally, that the car was a diesel.

 

[Vixen]

I'd love to see your evidence that this applies to the Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service.

Andrew Hopkinson might be the regional Fire Chief of Beds F&RS but he has his own bosses that he is answerable to. He is highly qualified and trained in what he does, including what to say and what not to say at press conferences.

 

[phiwum]

Straw man. The context is the official publication organ of competent authority. There is no need for its individual author—if any—to be identified.

Moreover, the author doesn't matter when speaking about the truth or falsity of an unambiguous sentence which contains no first- or second-person pronouns. This sentence is either true or it ain't, no matter who "authors" it.

And, of course, any evidence that the initial vehicle is a hybrid is evidence that the sentence in question is false -- again, regardless of who says it.

 

[Thermal]

It is neither true nor false but thinking makes it so.

And the thread descends further into Bodhisattva bull ****.

 

[zooterkin]

Andrew Hopkinson might be the regional Fire Chief of Beds F&RS but he has his own bosses that he is answerable to. He is highly qualified and trained in what he does, including what to say and what not to say at press conferences.

And to answer the actual question?

 

[P.J. Denyer]

And the thread descends further into Bodhisattva bull ****.

What is the sound of a head banging on a desk that isn't there?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I was simply pointing out that we have not actually been told anything.

But that's trivially false.

All we know is what the newspapers reported at the time.

And that's definitely also false.

Beds F&RS simply gave a narrative description of how the fire progressed and a best-guess opinion of how it started. That was on day one. Now we are awaiting the report as to the investigation findings.

Three out of three. That's false too.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

It is neither true nor false but thinking makes it so.

Might be an idea to try thinking, then.

 

[SpitfireIX]

As I said, the details of that case is not relevant here. But corporate culture is a real thing. If you are paying your CEO and Communications bod six-figure salaries and annual bonuses of up to five million, then you are rewarding that behaviour of 'public relations', i.e., pretending that it's all in the public interest, of not wanting to alarm anybody, rock the boat or upset the government that has appointed you. Corporate culture starts at the top and trickles downwards. If the government minister, the civil servants, the CEO of a public body are all being reinforced in the 'three monkey's' ethos of 'see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing', or be sacked, then of course they will keep on repeating the corporate behaviour that rewards them. At the end of the day, they go home put their feet up and look forward to the next bonus. The public relations is just a case of 'oh, everybody does it'.

Please answer the question I asked, rather than the one you wish I'd asked. How is it that Davies admitted that in issuing false press releases he was part of a conspiracy, but whoever is responsible for the purportedly false press release about vehicle 0 isn't part of a conspiracy?

 

[Thermal]

What is the sound of a head banging on a desk that isn't there?

I can picture the sound of one hand slapping right about now.

 

[JayUtah]

As I said...

None of this drivel addresses the claim that you are clearly proposing a conspiracy by which competent authority is being told to lie about the facts.

 

[JayUtah]

I was simply pointing out that we have not actually been told anything.

Except that you're wrong, and we have. Whereupon you invent all sorts of irrelevant minutia you claim has not been reported so that you can maintain your head the illusion that we're swimming in murky waters.

All we know is what the newspapers reported at the time.

No, that isn't all we know. Competent authority has identified the initiating vehicle as being only diesel powered. Pretending you know how this statement arose, and therefore that according to you it can't have any authority, is simply pure fingers-in-ears desperation.

Beds F&RS simply gave a narrative description of how the fire progressed and a best-guess opinion of how it started. That was on day one. Now we are awaiting the report as to the investigation findings.

And in between those two cherry-picked dates has occurred something you simply stubbornly wish had not happened.

 

[JayUtah]

Andrew Hopkinson might be the regional Fire Chief of Beds F&RS but he has his own bosses that he is answerable to.

And in order to make that fact relevant to your claims, you need to provide evidence for what Hopkinson's "bosses" ordered him to do. Otherwise we can assume he is speaking on his own authority when he does so.

He is highly qualified and trained in what he does, including what to say and what not to say at press conferences.

But—according to you—apparently not how to properly release information later for public consumption. Either he's brilliant as you say, or he's daft for letting Jenny from Communications gainsay him on his own publicly facing web site.

 

[JayUtah]

It is neither true nor false but thinking makes it so.

Weasel words.

The statement is an allegation of fact. It is therefore either factually true or factually false. Here it is being made under color of competent authority and in a manner suggesting it should be reliably regarded as factually true.

Despite your unwillingness to face the operative conclusions of your claims, you are alleging that it is false. You claim you can determine whether it is true or false by your own armchair investigation. Rather than wait for competent authority to issue its final report—as you insinuate must occur before any reliable conclusions can be drawn—you have thrown your ignorance full force against photographic evidence and declared that you can determine the statement must be false.

Alternatively you claim can determine that the statement is false by a yarn-and-pushpins argument connecting Hopkinson's "bosses" to the Prime Minister, claiming that Sunak is manipulating this investigation in order to protect private business interests. Even if motivations could be considered a corpus delicti, your argument is based on patent ignorance of how those alleged interests operate.

You clearly believe the statement is false. You're just to cowardly to state that as a claim.

 

[junkshop]

It is neither true nor false but thinking makes it so.

Quit with the ********. It is a definitive factual statement.

Do you think it is true or untrue?

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Context is all. That sentence is unauthored.

That's not how truth works.

We are speaking about a sentence in the English language, where the meanings of the terms are absolutely clear to us. The sentence does not include any first or second person pronouns, so there is no confusion about the referents of each term.

The sentence is absolutely clear to us, yes, because we understand straightforward declarative statements written using the standard meanings of English words. We are not confused, because we understand English.

We cannot assume Vixen understands the sentence, precisely because the sentence is written in English. Vixen does not have an established history of English comprehension. Quite the contrary.

The sentence "The initial vehicle was a hybrid"[1] is either true or false, no matter who says it[2], because it really was a hybrid or not. Hence, it's negation is similarly just as undeniably either true or false.

You claim to have evidence that the sentence, "The initial vehicle was a hybrid," is true. It takes either a very stupid or a very disingenuous person to claim that this same evidence is not sufficient to conclude that the sentence, "The initial vehicle was not a hybrid," is false.

Through diligent and consistent effort sustained over months in this thread and its two predecessors, Vixen has made a compelling case for her inability to understand English sentences such as the one we're discussing here.

It is possible for a person who is neither stupid nor disingenuous to be functionally illiterate in one particular language.

I'll be kind and assume disingenuity. The alternative is that you're mystified about the meaning of plain English or the workings of extraordinarily simple logic.

In my opinion, the kindest interpretation is to assume Vixen, for whatever reason, has a great deal of trouble with the English language. We needn't speculate as to why that is so, but she has provided ample evidence it is so.

 

[Steve]

Vixen, why do you repeatedly lie?

Dunning Kruger, to the extreme.

 

[gabeygoat]

My guess, based on numerous interactions with conspiracy theorists and religious apologists, is that some people want to attack other people's arguments, but don't want to defend their own. Usually because defending their own arguments has historically gone rather poorly.

ETA: See the lack of response to the question in the post immediately preceding this one.

That's often true, but I also think it's because they don't even believe their own BS. Whether it be a religious person or a Conspiracy person. I honestly doubt Vixen believes her own "theory." I think she just wants to 'win' a debate.

 

[GlennB]

That's often true, but I also think it's because they don't even believe their own BS. Whether it be a religious person or a Conspiracy person. I honestly doubt Vixen believes her own "theory." I think she just wants to 'win' a debate.

And the quotes there are important. It's really more a case of her retaining some kind of 'face' by not openly admitting to any kind of significant error whatsoever.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

And the quotes there are important. It's really more a case of her retaining some kind of 'face' by not openly admitting to any kind of significant error whatsoever.

But Vixen always admits her mistakes...

 

[Mojo]

No. That's wrong. The issue is not why they say it. The issue is your mule-headed pretence that they do not say it.

The trick is only one of discerning whether this statement is what BF&RS claim as fact. Answer: Yes it is. The primary source is their own website. It does indeed make the claim.

Once you have recognised that the statement is indeed what their own website currently claims as fact, you can waste all the keystrokes you like on trying to convince the world they didn't mean to say that or they were just kidding or some office junior did it without approval, but continuing to pretend it's not really there is just making you look stupid.

To be fair to Vixen, the other options you suggest would also make her look stupid.

 

[Mojo]

And the thread descends further into Bodhisattva bull ****.

See? I told you he didn't runaway.

 

[JayUtah]

My guess, based on numerous interactions with conspiracy theorists and religious apologists, is that some people want to attack other people's arguments, but don't want to defend their own. Usually because defending their own arguments has historically gone rather poorly.

I think it's endemic to the double standard of proof. The mainstream narrative is rejected according to a higher standard of proof. Then in a subsequent step, the conspiracy narrative is entertained according to a much lower standard of proof. Dwelling on defending their own arguments underscores the presence of the double standard.

 

[zooterkin]

That's more or less what I thought when they decided they'd start calling it "London Luton Airport". Cheeky monkeys.

Wait till you find out about London Ashford Airport...

 

[Thermal]

See? I told you he didn't runaway.

You ever see one of those massive gory bloody train wrecks and you just can't help but keep staring at its third installment? Yeah, it's like that, but without having ever been a homemade EV hybrid train.

 

[phiwum]

Andrew Hopkinson might be the regional Fire Chief of Beds F&RS but he has his own bosses that he is answerable to. He is highly qualified and trained in what he does, including what to say and what not to say at press conferences.

How come neither Hopkinson or his bosses are watching the press releases of the BF&RS website? The bosses were so clever to ensure that Hopkinson was vague and careful in his press briefing, so that he could mislead with plausible deniability.

But then the press release of March 21 just pissed that all away.

Kinda weird that the words of a fire chief are carefully selected, but publicly accessible press releases can say just any ol' damn thing and none of the powers that be bat an eye.

 

[smartcooky]

The sentence is absolutely clear to us, yes, because we understand straightforward declarative statements written using the standard meanings of English words. We are not confused, because we understand English.

We cannot assume Vixen understands the sentence, precisely because the sentence is written in English. Vixen does not have an established history of English comprehension. Quite the contrary.
Through diligent and consistent effort sustained over months in this thread and its two predecessors, Vixen has made a compelling case for her inability to understand English sentences such as the one we're discussing here.
It is possible for a person who is neither stupid nor disingenuous to be functionally illiterate in one particular language.

In my opinion, the kindest interpretation is to assume Vixen, for whatever reason, has a great deal of trouble with the English language. We needn't speculate as to why that is so, but she has provided ample evidence it is so.

Indeed she has. Take this sentence of mine, made in this post...

https://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14314334&postcount=1098

"The car has a fault that causes a fire (something that happens over 19,000 times annually in the UK). The man tries to put out the fire but fails to do so. The fire spreads so other vehicles and ultimately burns the whole car park down."​

Any English-speaking person with a middle-school level competence in the language will understand that 19,000 refers to the number of car fires that happen in the UK annually. But Vixen's lack of comprehension skills lead her to reply with this...

https://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14314404&postcount=1112

"You are completely clueless if you believe car parks are burnt down 19,000 times a year, and totally ill-informed. There has not been one structural collapse of a multi-storey car park in the UK because of fire until Luton Airport car park 2023."​

She apparently believes that it refers to the number of car fires that spread to burn out car parks. Despite being corrected by yourself, myself, GlennB, Jack by the Hedge, Mojo, Mark Corrigan, Agatha, and others, she stubbornly refuses to admit she got it wrong, doubling down on her ignorance of the langauge in several subsequent posts on the next few pages.

Whatever is her arterial language, it clearly ill-equips her comprehend the nuances and grammar of English. That might be an excuse for getting it wrong to begin with, but is no excuse for steadfastly refusing to be corrected by people whose first language is English!

 

[MarkCorrigan]

She refused to accept that a quote she once used wasn't Shakespeare. She won't accept any correction.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Context is all. That sentence is unauthored.

It is an official statement by the fire service o their official website.

Do you think it would be there if it wasn't approved by the boss?

Do you think random employees can add and publish statements on the official website at random?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Context is all. That sentence is unauthored.

Do you think the statement is a lie?

On their official website is an official statement stating it wasn't an EV or hybrid?


It doesn't matter who authored it, it is on the official website, is that a lie?

 

[Andy_Ross]

I was simply pointing out that we have not actually been told anything. All we know is what the newspapers reported at the time. Beds F&RS simply gave a narrative description of how the fire progressed and a best-guess opinion of how it started. That was on day one. Now we are awaiting the report as to the investigation findings.

Since the initial statement on 'day one' they have published several updates on their official website.

Latest of these states that the car was not an EV or any kind of hybrid.

 

[Andy_Ross]

It is neither true nor false but thinking makes it so.

It says the car was not an EV or any kid of hybrid.

If it was an EV or hybrid then the statement would be false.

That would make it a deliberate lie.

Have the fire service deliberately lied?