Oyez Oyez! Moira is back. This is a good thing, except that in her absence she seems to have developed a bias against coffee.

Moira, coffee is what it is, and all of us must learn to accept coffee as it is. It comes from a culture in which coffee stains are marks of honor. Thus, to complain of coffee stained reports merely shows your Western cultural bias. And besides, I am sure that each of those stained reports (or their authors, or perhaps their author's second cousins by marriage on their mother's side) did something, sometime to deserve their stains. I mean, coffee stains don't just happen, they happen for a reason. If we, as Americans, could all just discover that reason and learn to get along with coffee in peace and harmony, I, for one, am convinced that coffee stained reports would quickly become a thing of the past.

 
On Effective Procrastination

I moved into the house I now live in about seven years ago. I moved from a house with a 25 foot driveway and no sidewalks to a house with a 50 foot driveway (which, for about half of its length, has 8 foot walls over which one must throw snow) and 200 feet of sidewalks (since the house is on a corner lot). The first two winters I was here consisted of one snowstorm after another after another. I dutifully went out and shovelled. Pretty much alone, I might add. The kids were too young to help, and, while my wife helped when she could, that wasn't much. Along about the fiftieth snowstorm of the second winter I gave up and hired someone to come in with a plow.

Following those near heart attack experiences, (from both shoveling and paying the plow guy, since I am known to be somewhat parsimonious) I broke down and purchased a snow blower. In the off season, because I really am cheap. A big one, because I am (a) even more lazy than I am cheap, and (b) male. It was a very effective expenditure of funds, too, because for the next three years it caused all major storms to avoid northern Jersey altogether. I further assured the complete absence of snow by religiously paying to have the damn snow blower serviced.

Fast forward to the most recent snow storm, a week or two ago. For the first time is something like four years, we got five, maybe six inches in my area. It had stopped snowing before I went to sleep, so I could have gone out and done the driveway like my more industrious neighbors. But, being the lazy soul that I am, I try never to do today what I can put off until tomorrow. I decided that I would get up early the next morning and do the driveway. The wife would be pleasantly surprised at my industry.

Or so I thought.

I awoke early, as planned (about 5:30) , only to find an entirely snow free driveway and fully shovelled sidewalks. This was not one of those jobs where you cut an 15 inch path down the middle of the sidewalk. The whole thing was clear of snow. I concluded that since I had been such a good boy, the snow shovel fairies had come in the night and shovelled the driveway and sidewalks.

Alas, reality is a bit more prosaic. My wife informed me (somewhat archly) that she had never told the plow guy not to come back, so he had shown up done the job an hour before I got up.

You think next time I should go to sleep with a snowball under my pillow?

 
The VodkaMan asks why the proposed replacements for the WTC look as though they've already been attacked by terrorists.

Protective coloration?

 
Drive by blogging will continue for the foreseeable future. In the meantime:

Martin Devon has been one of my favorite bloggers since I read Barbarians last April (which, in blogyears, was centuries ago).

Today, Martin writes about the weapons inspections in Iraq. In that post, he argues that there are only three possibilities in terms of results of the inspections. Those are:

(a) Iraq has WMD and the Blix team could find proof that they exist.

(b) Iraq has WMD and the Blix team could miss them.

(c) Iraq does not have WMD and the Blix team won't find them, since they aren't there.

I disagree. There is, in fact, a fourth possibility:

(d) Iraq does not have WMD, but despite that fact, they (or false evidence of their development) are "found" by Blix, et al.

Pop Quiz: If the inspectors report back with a discovery, which of the foregoing alternatives do you think Saddam will claim to have occurred? You get three guesses to choose one of the two "we found WMD" alternatives. And the first two guesses don't count.

Anonymous Iraqi General: "That thing that looks so much like a gas centrifuge is simply one of my more elaborate cappucino makers. I bought while I was on vacation in Italy. No one with any technical background could ever mistake it for a real gas centrifuge. Silly inspectors. Evil Bush." See Scott Ott.

The inspections were never the issue. It is too easy to cloud the issue. Anyone who already wants to oppose a war with Iraq will continue to do so, regardless of what the inspectors find. Few, if any, will be convinced a report that WMD or evidence of same have been found. The entire purpose of the inspections (from Bush's point of view, at least) is to convince the American electorate that his administration has attempted to work within existing multlateral structures (the UN) and despite the best efforts of the US, that attempt was a complete failure.

The report by Iraq is the issue. Is it truthful and comprehensive?

My opinion: It is unlikely to be. If that is the case, the "material breach" has already happened, and all those "serious consequences" are already in the pipeline. The only real question in my mind is how much Bush is willing to expose our intelligence sources in proving that the report is neither comprehensive nor truthful.