hitherto unexplored levels of madness

So, I have a design dilemma, and I want your guys' input.

I don't know how well I will be able to explain this in pictures, but I'll try.

My kitchen cabinets, which came with the house, are Ikea. As you may have noticed from the pictures I posted a while back, it's a small kitchen and there's not much storage because there are no cabinets in hanging over the counter/breakfast bar. This is good because it opens up the room(s). It's bad because of the lack of storage.

So I decided to get clever... I identified the style of Ikea cabinets and went to their store and bought another cabinet. It is 24" wide, 13" deep and 39" tall. I want to put it on the blank wall that's above the counter with all the water bottles on it.

Here's my design problem. The cabinet is 24" wide. The counter you can see in the picture is about 37" wide... 24" for the lower counter part and 13" for the slightly raised bit. So, do I make the cabinet flush with the inside edge or outside edge of the counter?

Inside edge --
Pros: It would be easier to get to stuff inside
Cons: See that light? Well, if it's mounted on the inside it will be reaaaally close to that light. Also, I'm afraid it will make the kitchen seem even smaller.

Outside edge --
Pros: No issue with the light, keep things in the kitchen area less crowded
Cons: Could be hard to reach across the counter and get things in/out.

So, what do you guys think? Inside or outside?

The $170 million Inauguration

Even ABC is noticing it now.

So the word is that Obama's inauguration is going to cost more than Bush and Clintons' combined. But what's the problem, right? He's just stimulating the economy. And a lot of the money has been donated.

But maybe that's the problem.

The biggest group of donors were none other than the recently bailed-out Wall Street executives and employees.

"The finance sector is well represented, despite its recent troubles," Ritsch said. "Those who worked in finance still managed to pull together nearly $7 million for the inauguration."

The donors will get some of the best seats in the house for the inauguration, as well as admittance to some of the best balls and other events.

So, $170 million, and a good chunk of it donated by some of the people who just got a big chunk of taxpayer money to bring their companies/industries back from the brink.

...

[Poll #1333921]

Last-minute action

This is fantastic news.

On his last full day in office, President Bush commuted the controversial sentences of two former Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a Mexican drug runner in 2005.

The imprisonment of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean had sparked outcry from critics who said the men were just doing their jobs and were punished too harshly. They had been sentenced to 11- and 12-year sentences, respectively.

Their sentences will now expire on March 20 of this year.

Ramos and Compean were sentenced in connection with the shooting of Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, who was shot in the buttocks while trying to flee along the Texas border. He admitted smuggling several hundred pounds of marijuana on the day he was shot and pleaded guilty last year to drug charges related to two other smuggling attempts.

Nearly the entire congressional delegation from Texas and other lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle pleaded with Bush to grant them clemency.

I was really worried that Bush would leave office without having done anything for these guys. I'm not saying they were completely without fault, so it's fitting that it's a commutation and not an outright pardon. But the fact that the prosecutors in this case actually brought Davila into the country to testify and, IIRC, basically gave him immunity... bah. It was a complete cluster and the sentences were much too harsh.

Canada refuses noted terrorist/friend of future President

This cracked me up.

An American education professor, one of the founders of a radical 1960s group known as the Weather Underground, which was responsible for a number of bombings in the United States in the early 1970s, was turned back at the Canadian border last night.

Dr. William Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois-Chicago and a leader in educational reform, was scheduled to speak at the Centre for Urban Schooling at University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. But that appearance has now been temporarily cancelled.

"I don't know why I was turned back," Ayers said in an interview this morning from Chicago. "I got off the plane like everyone else and I was asked to come over to the other side. The border guards reviewed some stuff and said I wasn't going to be allowed into Canada. To me it seems quite bureaucratic and not at all interesting ... If it were me I would have let me in. I couldn't possibly be a threat to Canada."

What I want to know is what is he doing sneaking off to Canuckistan when the coronation is tomorrow!?