WMD and Death By Chocolate Cake

Since Saddam's WMD's are in the news again, I think this is a good time to refer you to Alpha Patriot's excellent roundup from last July of the WMD's that supposedly don't exist in Iraq. Why the press persists in pushing the delusion that no WMD's were found is beyond me. Why President Bush does not trumpet this information is also a mystery, since what is listed at the link are real, verifiable items that were found and are known.

I suspect it is a type of "concrete thinking" (see here) that is to blame for this situation; or possibly an unbelievable lack of imagination. Presumably, the skeptics expected to find nuclear missles conveniently lined up and pointed at the U.S. ; or warehouses of biological weapons with labels and detailed plans of how to distribute the stuff attached to each vial. Or maybe they even expected to find a written, signed confession by Saddam admitting that he had plans to develop and use whatever weapons he could find that would kill large numbers of people. Or maybe, just maybe, no amount of evidence would ever convince some people that Saddam was a threat to the U.S. and the entire world and that he had WMD's.

Time for an analogy. Let's say that people in my neighborhood got together and voted (in the interests of neighborhood health) that I couldn't bake my "Death by Chocolate" cakes anymore (these cakes have been known to be lethally caloric). I reluctantly agree, and say I am complying with this order, but refuse to let anyone check by looking in my pantry.

Finally, tired of being manipulated by me, and concerned that I might go ahead and bake one of those destructively high calorie cake things, my neighbors force their way into the house and find THAT I HAVE NO CAKE SITTING ON THE COUNTER WAITING TO BE EATEN! How foolish they were to doubt my word! How stupid they were to imagine I might be up to my old chocolate baking tendencies!

On the other hand, they discover while carefully going through my pantry that there are 2 boxes of devil's food cake mix; chocolate bars, cake pans, pudding mix, flour and sugar, mixing bowls and a number of other questionable items. They even find a recipe book which includes several variants on the "Death by Chocolate" Cake theme--muffins, breakfast loaf, etc. And, on top of that, they have a video showing me carrying a cake-like item out of the house the day before they barged in to verify my compliance with their silly order. They suspect that I took one of the cakes to work to share with my co-workers. I calmly refuse to tell them anything.

So what is the conclusion? That I had no pre-existing cake, waiting to be eaten? Or, that I had all the ingredients to make that cake at a moment's notice, despite my having said I wouldn't; and that I even made one just before they came to check, but had taken it somewhere else to eat?

I don't know about you, but I think if you conclude that I haven't been making my famous "Death by Chocolate" cake because one isn't sitting out on the counter for you to find, then you are more foolish than even I could possibly have imagined. BWAHAHAHAHA!