Quiz time!

OK, Class: today’s story comes to us from The New York Post via Instapundit.

So, this footpad espies a van–a red van, class–parked for about a month on at 53rd Street and Second Avenue in Sunset Park in Brooklyn. On July 3 at about 5:00p.m. he decides to check out the contents of said vehicle and effects entry with larcenous intent. He was, as the Post reports, “stunned” to discover the haul:

it was filled with gas cans and Styrofoam cups containing a mysterious white substance with protruding wires and switches.

The street is lined with brownstones, and there’s a ballet studio and a small Muslim school. So he drove the van 15 blocks to 37th Street and parked it at a desolate waterfront location behind the Costco store and next to some little-used piers.

He then called a cop he knew and alerted him to the van and its contents, probably, said a hig-ranking police office, “saved a lot of people’s lives.”

So, what do we notice about this story? What is the most salient detail?

1. The van is red. Y or N

2. There’s a ballet studio on the street where the van was parked. Y or N

3. It was 5:00p.m. when the prospective robber broke into the van. Y or N

4. There’s a Muslim school on the street where the van was parked. Y or N. (Hint: In the last ten years, this part of Sunset Park has seen “a growing Arab muslim population mostly of Palestinian background.”)

Time’s up! How did you do?

Take a brief recess. Then consider the overall picture, again via Instapundit, in The Daily News. The headline gives a good sense of the burden of story:

Undercover city detective finds hints of danger among mosques

And the body of the story has the expected details:

At great personal risk, he participated in everything from prayers at a mosque to martial arts training under cover of darkness to watching jihadist videos, with many of the activities laced with talk of killing, according to a source familiar with the undercover’s investigations.

His experiences paint a vivid portrait of the potential for local terror.

Based on your reading of other such news reports, common sense, and the general state of your instinct for self-preservation, how will the next sentence mostly likely begin?

No hurry.

Take your time.

Ready?

Do you have a piece of paper and a pencil?

Ok, write your answer.

And here’s what the story says: “While the picture is in no way indicative of the city’s Muslim population. . . ”

Did you come close?