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The Farmer File: Does IQ really mean smarts?
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A sometime citizen of Marco Island made a dumb mistake the other day.
While suggesting online that he thinks Marco Island is a dictatorship, he also said he has an IQ of 173.
That’s either a lot of smarts or a lot of rubbish.
Still, he might really have a secret decoder ring from Mensa, an international smart persons’ organization with members here.
I don’t know much about IQs in general, which may be a measure of mine, so I stretched my attention span to Google my brains out.
I learned:
-- About 1 percent of earthlings have IQs over 135.
-- Most high-IQ people don’t flaunt it, smart enough to know how annoying that can be in any gathering --- city council meeting, Supreme Court session, cockfight, whatever.
-- If our local genius really has a 173 IQ, he’s smarter than Albert Einstein, who had a 160. But maybe it’s all relative.
-- Our part-time braniac’s IQ trounces Mozart, Darwin, Copernicus, Descartes, Abe Lincoln and George Washington. However, Washington never told a lie, which apparently is unrelated to IQ. Our guy is smarter than Steven Hawking, Bobby Fischer and Hillary Clinton, the smartest woman on the planet.
Still, our 173-watt bulb has a way to go to top the IQ list, occupied by such bright lights as Michelangelo, da Vinci and Charro.
Then there’s Korean engineer Kim Ung-yong.
He walked and talked at five months and played chess at seven months. His IQ is 210, which makes our Jeopardy King seem like a slug.
Kim Ung-yong lives in South Korea, but if we could convince him to come to Marco, he could kick some serious IQ-173 butt.
To entice our occasional resident #173 back, we could promise him a bullhorn and a booth at the next citywide garage sale where he can publicly recite the first 206 billion digits of pi.
Soon as he finishes, WHACK, courtesy of Kim Ung-yong, who can sing the pi numbers before breakfast.
Maybe our local egghead is misunderstood. Maybe his 173 IQ label is not his intelligence score. Maybe it’s his e-mail password. Perhaps the number 173 was the number he pulled from the Take-a-Number thing at the Publix deli counter last week.
Yes!
And the “IQ” doesn’t mean smarts. IQ must be the initials of his real name, not the alias he uses for online screeds.
His first name must be Irving or Ivan or Ian and his last name must be Quixote.
His ancestor must be Hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha, that delusional 17th century Spaniard who went around tilting at (jousting with) windmills that he thought were giants.
You remember from high school, the Cervantes novel, Don Quixote? He was a hapless chap, whose last name is the root of the word quixotic.
The phrase “tilting at windmills,” created by the author who made him up, Cervantes, is the idiom meaning attacking imaginary enemies or fighting battles he cannot win.
Yep that must be it. He’s Isaac Quixote. I guess his name could be Ian Quarrelsome, which also would be appropriate for him. But no, Irv Quixote it is. Except for one little detail.
Don Quixote, you see, was a fictional character, a figment of Cervantes’ imagination.
Maybe our Mr. IQ guy isn’t real either.
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E-mail Don Farmer at don@donfarmer.com
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For those of you that haven't made the connection yet, the pompous bottom that said he has an IQ of 173 was none other than our beloved "Island Idiot" Ed Foster. Read the emails attached below where self-proclaimed know-it-all, Ed Foster claims he has a Nobel Prize winning IQ of 173. He must have taken the IQ for Dummies test that MENSA puts out for the mentally and socially retarded.
Mr. Foster, we both know that you do not have an IQ of 173. Albert Einstein had just over a 160 IQ. You have just proven once again what a hypocritical phony you really are!
Intelligence Interval Cognitive Designation Common Possessors*
85 - 114 Average Pupils at junior high school
115 - 124 Above average Pupils at senior high school
125 - 134 Gifted University graduates
135 - 144 Highly gifted Intellectuals
145 - 154 Genius Professors
155 - 164 Genius Nobel Prize Winners
165 - 179 High genius
180 - 200 Highest genius
>200 "Unmeasurable" genius
http://hem.bredband.net/b153434/Index....
There should be a special category for Ed Foster, "Unmeasurable sense of self and deceit!"
--------------------------------------------------------
READ BELOW A BLOG THREAD FROM THE VERY APT ejburger AND FOSTER…
ED FOSTER YOU ARE A COWARDLY, DIM WITTED SHALLOW MAN.
You lost your court battles, lost your support and lost your supporters moneys and ran off like a coward.
For some unexplained reason you still feel the need to stick your fragile egotistical nose into Marco Politics.
You do realize that there was a landslide victory where 6000 citizens said FINISH THE STRP and ENOUGH OF THE NEGATIVITY. You Mr. Foster were the genesis of this Islands darkest hour.
Posted by ejburger on February 22, 2008 at 12:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Mr. Burger,
If an IQ of 173 is DIM WITTED, I plead guilty.
Ed Foster
Posted by EdFoster on February 22, 2008 at 1:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)
#1 Posted by Montel on February 29, 2008 at 12:28 a.m. (Suggest removal)
What a newspaper. It actually compensates a writer to write a negative piece about a local character. A character that has little reknown in SWF. A nameless person, to avoid liablity, I'm sure. I see this type of immature and cowardly writing in these comments on occassion but never before by a professional writer of this paper. I did not realize that the NDN or the MI Eagle actually had a policy to give space to and compensate contributors that participated in this activity. Without limitation or disclaimers it would appear. I wonder if this is a Scripps Newpaper Group policy or if it is someting the local editors have decided upon themselves to allow contractors to perform a hit on anyone they personally dislike (or is it a stated position of that person that the editorial/colomnist staff disapproves of?) Lest some irresponsible excuse making muckywok who agreed to print this piece uses the excuse that Mr. Farmer is a columinst and thus the paper has no control over him, I say baloney. Who will this paper go after next? An apology to it's readers is necessary.
#2 Posted by Beowulf on February 29, 2008 at 7:41 a.m. (Suggest removal)
i have no personal stake in the matter, just an opinion on the story and all the hate projected forth toward mr foster. the responses that are sent constantly, no matter the original story line, in an effort to get even with him shows the mentality of the writers. so i feel that the iq of the ed haters doesnt appear on the list given. must be below 85. they act like kindergarteners. so i think the score is 1-0 in eds favor. yeah, i know. pack my stuff.....
#3 Posted by islandman4now on February 29, 2008 at 3:39 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Montel,
Ed hasn't lost any of his supporters myself included. I know your IQ is really low, it has to be with the vile you spew. In fact I think Ed is even smarter than he claims to be and we all know he has A LOT more class than you have.
Think about that while you PUKE.
#4 Posted by dc5799 on February 29, 2008 at 5:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)
People of superior intelligence are frequently assaulted by those who are less bright. This article brings to mind the bully in the fourth grade that used to flick spit-balls at the nerds that always had the "right" answers. The only people who whould find enjoyment in such a piece are those who share Mr. Farmer's obvious intellectual inadeqacies and propensity to act out like a bully would. If this article is referring to Mr. Foster, then I think it likely is personal and should never have been approved to be printed as a column in this newspaper. It is common knowledge on Marco Island that Mr. Foster has been a frequent critic of Mr. Farmer's use of this paper, to champion his support, for the current political power base in Marco Island. Mr. Farmer should write to something he has some understanding of and leave the measure of intelligence to others.
#5 Posted by Hawke1 on March 1, 2008 at 8:04 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Monte:
A few corrections:
1) The Nobel Prize is not given for IQ. There is a Nobel Peace Prize. Al Gore got it ... for making a film!
2) Einstein's IQ was never measured. It has been estimated at various levels usually well over 200.
3) IQ tests are notoriously unreliable at both ends of the bell curve ... above about 160 where mine apparently resides ... and below about 40 where yours seems to be. Suffice it to say that mine has never clocked in above 173 (that being when I was suffering from a hangover while taking a scholarship test at a major university) nor below 160 when I was sober at another scholarship exam. From that you may conclude that it pays to drink beer before taking IQ tests and not become obsessed with specific numbers above 160 or below 40.
4) For Mr. Farmer to say (and you to believe) that Darwin, Abe Lincoln, George Washington, Michaelangelo (and God knows who else) had IQs below 173 and to accuse me of claiming to be smarter than they establishes the ignorance of both of you. The term IQ was not coined until 1905 so how would you know what Michaelangelo's IQ was?
Monte, go back to polishing up your "civility ordinance." The new council may very well pass it and put people like me in the stocks (or burn them as witches) for telling the truth. A wise man on the island once told me: "the reason these people hate you so much, Ed, is that you're smarter than they are and they can't stand it." Farmer's article and your blog don't bother me (although Farmer owes Scripps an apology for embarrassing them!). It just proves the wise man to be right. Get over your jealousy, Monte. Get a life!
Ed Foster
#6 Posted by EdFoster on March 1, 2008 at 12:34 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Beowulf, you are so right. People need to quit supporting the Eagle and its advertisers if this Don Farmer character is still allowed to spew his hate.
Why would a paper compensate him for this hateful excrement?
It seems to me everyone is talking about soothing over the wounds that have developed over the last few years and moving forward. Doesn't appear Mr. Farmer is interested in helping.
Bob Brown
#7 Posted by rcbauburn on March 1, 2008 at 3:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)
rcbauburn: I don't think Farmer is so much a hate spewer but rather a talentless writer in search of some attention, any attention.
#8 Posted by gernblanstone on March 2, 2008 at 1:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Why aren't you losers chastising Foster the fool for lying, spending your CARES donations and leaving town?
Go ahead and make all the noise you want; we all know now for sure that you are just the vocal minority. Too bad so sad!!!!!!!
#9 Posted by Flowerpower on March 2, 2008 at 10:13 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Foster you are so pitiful. You keep attacking Monte Lazarus who is a humble Yale Law Grad and retired Executive VP of American Airlines. I would put Lazarus against you any day of the week in a mental battle of the minds. If your IQ was above 130 I would be amazed.
#10 Posted by Semper_Fidelis on March 3, 2008 at 7:50 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Retired? Didn't they give him a parachute and a boot out of the coorporation when he lost an expensive lawsuit against the pilot's union? Yale or Jail? Did not our president and John Kerry both attend the humble school known as Yale? I wouldn't brag too loudly about that.
#11 Posted by Lolala on March 3, 2008 at 11:40 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The one who made the mistake last week was Don Farmer for writing this piece of trash. With all the problems facing the city, he wastes his column belittling a citizen. Farmer becomes more disgusting by the week. If he doesn't get his walking papers for this one, Scripps ought to replace the President & Publisher of the Naples Daily News once again. Last time didn't work.
#12 Posted by blackwidow on March 3, 2008 at 12:02 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Great article Don. Foster is a mental midget with way too much time on his hands. He doesn't even live here but still is a fly in the ointment.
As for lolala and gang, the vocal minority is alive and well...just know that no one listens to you anymore!
Cavedweller alert has dropped to yellow.
#13 Posted by ejburger on March 3, 2008 at 12:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)
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