Crimethink

Sedition from brazen insurgents:

... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security ...

'Nuff said.

Change You Can Believe In

With emphasis on you, that is. I'm not feeling particularly credulous today. The AP has performed a minor public service by assembling a number of "statements" from St. Barack on his plans for the American military presence in Mesopotamia after he's elected (and he will be ... I can't see my fellow 'Murkans installing Ol' Grampaw Angry-Pants as their new Dear Leader). I was looking into this business after hearing a piece on the subject on NPR as I was leaving the day job yesterday afternoon. My interest was tweaked by one of those block phrases that we all hear so often that they become, effectively, single words that aren't really heard at all: "combat troops." The Obam-ster was being quoted as insisting that he wasn't really drifting hawkish, not at all: he was still going to be pulling a brigade of combat troops out of Iraq every single month, leaving no combat troops at all after 16 such months.

So I got to thinking ... why the combat distinction? What other sorts of "troops" are there? Truck drivers? Driving one of the Legion's trucks has to be one of the more dangerous things you can do in Iraq. A statement from the Obama web site (cited in the AP story) seems to make a comforting suggestion:

Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats ...

But then, something a little less warm 'n' fuzzy:

if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.

Later on, it gets even more Dubya-esque:

In a March speech, he said: "We will have to make tactical adjustments, listening to our commanders on the ground, to ensure that our interests in a stable Iraq are met, and to make sure that our troops are secure."

- In June, on MSNBC, he said: "I've also consistently said that I will consult with military commanders on the ground and that we will always be open to the possibility of tactical adjustments."

Ah, yes, the infallible commanders on the ground that the current Decider invokes at the drop of a supplementary funding authorization. I wonder who Obama's Petraeus will be? Don't be too quick to assume it won't be, simply, Petraeus; I have no reason to think that a good, tame, photogenic, political general -- with a Roman-style name, no less -- is all that easy to find. Obama may have to get used to the idea of eating leftovers.

I also did some math. Obama can get all the combat troops out of Iraq in 16 months, at a "brigade" a month. That must mean there's 16 brigades of combat troops. So, what's a "brigade?" Being a mere softass civilian, I had to do a little research. Fortunately, the internets make that easy:

A brigade is a military unit that is typically composed of two to five regiments or battalions, depending on the era and nationality of a given army. Usually, a brigade is a sub-component of a division, a larger unit consisting of two or more brigades; however, some brigades are classified as a separate brigade and operate independently from the traditional division structure. The typical NATO standard brigade consists of approximately 4,000 to 5,000 troops.

Let's suppose St. Obama's talking about a "standard NATO brigade." For 4,000 to 5,000 people, let's use the middle of the range: 4,500. Sixteen times that is 72,000. And we currently have, let's see, something like 140,000 "military personnel" in Iraq, give or take a surge here and there. The result: Obama, the antiwar candidate, the peace candidate, wants to remove half the Americans from Iraq, and he wants to take a year-and-a-half to do it. And that's assuming that the commanders on the ground don't advise him otherwise in the meantime.

Tu - tu - tu - tu - tu - turn to face the strange ... changes ... look out, all you rock-and-rollers ... Oh, yeah.

What Did He Mean By "Around the World?"

Didja hear the one about the confused sex-industry worker? No? Well, it seems that there was this "escort" who accepted a hundred bucks from a guy after making a vague verbal agreement that they would subsequently "party." But then she had to give the money back. Turns out that she thought "party" meant that they would enjoy some chit-chat and light refreshments in the company of a like-minded group of partiers, and that she might choose to give the guy a firm handshake at the end of the evening; he, on the other hand, seemed to expect that they would go somewhere private, just the two of them, and do ... well, some highly private sorts of things. Well, all right, it wasn't very funny. I never could tell jokes right. It does, however, remind me of some "churches" who may not have understood what jumping into bed with Uncle might involve:

But Mr. Obama’s plan pointedly departed from the Bush administration’s stance on one fundamental issue: whether religious organizations that get federal money for social services can take faith into account in their hiring. Mr. Bush has said yes. Mr. Obama said no.

“If you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them — or against the people you hire — on the basis of their religion,” Mr. Obama said. “Federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples and mosques can only be used on secular programs.”

Mr. Obama’s position that religious organizations would not be able to consider religion in their hiring for such programs would constitute a deal-breaker for many evangelicals, said several evangelical leaders, who represent a political constituency Mr. Obama has been trying to court.

“For those of who us who believe in protecting the integrity of our religious institutions, this is a fundamental right,” said Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals. “He’s rolling back the Bush protections. That’s extremely disappointing.”

Early in his first term, Mr. Bush issued executive orders expressly allowing religion-based groups receiving federal money to consider religion in their employment decisions, although confusion often remains in this area because of conflicting federal, state and local laws.

Martha Minnow, a professor of law at Harvard University who has written about religion-based initiatives and has advised the Obama campaign on the issue, said Mr. Obama would move to “return the law to what it was before the current administration,” in other words barring the consideration of religion in hiring decisions for such programs that receive federal financing.

“I don’t think there’s anything too controversial about that,” said. “Any religious organization that does not want to comply with that requirement simply doesn’t have to take the money.”

But evangelical leaders said not allowing religious groups to hire based on their beliefs would strip them of the very basis for religion-based programs.

“If you can’t hire people within your faith community, then you’ve lost the distinctive that is the reason why faith-based programs exist in the first place,” said Richard Land, head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Well, Mr. Cizik, I can certainly understand your extreme disappointment at finding that your childlike faith and trust in "the Bush protections" was poorly invested. But then, I'd suggest that any religious institution that employed someone with a title like vice president for governmental affairs has already well and truly forfeited its so-called "integrity." And, Mr. Land, my sympathy for your desire to maintain the distinctive of the Southern Baptist Convention is rivaled only by my queasy curiosity about why so distinct an organization even has a public policy arm, much less why they pay you a no-doubt-handsome salary to head it.

O Church, you're supposed to be the bride of the Christ (Ephesians 5:25 - 30). Wouldn't it be just a little bit more becoming for you to refrain from hopping into bed with the various princes of this world?

Meanwhile, Doug Newman is just sounding more and more prophetic; after all, he wrote It's the End of the Church As We Know It back when Bush II was new. Have a look, and see if his analysis isn't being borne out by subsequent developments.

We Could Just Go Ahead and Set Our Hair on Fire

OK, let's see: crude oil set another price record today:

Crude oil rose to a record above $143 a barrel on Monday on speculation the dispute over Iran's nuclear program may disrupt supply from the second-largest OPEC producer.

Pressure on Iran to end its uranium enrichment program and the falling value of the U.S. dollar may drive prices to $170 a barrel, the president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Chakib Khelil, said Saturday. Oil is headed for its biggest six-month gain since 1999 as investors shun equities for commodities, looking for a hedge against a weaker dollar and quickening inflation.

"It is a risk Iran will take any measures to cut flows through that important region and the market is reacting to that," said Andy Sommer an analyst with HSH Nordbank in Hamburg. "There are some funds flowing from the equities side to commodities."

And AIPAC has just about got its our war with Iran arranged (as in, "let's you and him fight"):

Introduced less than a month ago, Resolution 362, also known as the Iran War Resolution, could be passed by the House as early as next week.

The bill is the chief legislative priority of AIPAC. On its Web site, AIPAC endorses the resolutions as a way to ”Stop Iran’s Nuclear Program” and tells readers to lobby Congress to pass the bill. In the Senate, a sister resolution, Resolution 580, has gained co-sponsors with similar speed. The Senate measure was introduced by Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh on June 2. It has since gained 19 co-sponsors.

The bill’s key section “demands that the president initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by, inter alia, prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran’s nuclear program.”

“Imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran” can be read to mean that the president should initiate a naval blockade of Iran. A unilateral naval blockade without UN sanction is an act of war.

Resolution 362 has already gained 170 co-sponsors, or nearly 40 percent of the House. It has been referred to the Foreign Affairs Committee, which has 49 members, 24 of whom, including the ranking Republican, are co-sponsors. The Iran Nuclear Watch Web site writes, “According to the House leadership, this resolution is going to ‘pass like a hot knife through butter’ before the end of June on what is called suspension – meaning no amendments can be introduced during the 20-minute maximum debate. It also means it is assumed the bill will pass by a 2/3 majority and is non-controversial.”

Yep, another war -- that's just what the doctor ordered! I'm sure we can finance it through our friendly bankers (the Chinese, that is.) That should really help with the weak-dollar problem, no?

"Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."

Weekend Fun

I am not the original owner of my house. It was built in the mid-1970s. A while back, one of the drawers in one of the kitchen cabinets became jammed, in part because a portion of the crapola with which it was overloaded spilled out over the top of the drawer, preventing it from being opened peacefully. In such a dilemma of mechanical logic, eventually the drawer must be opened; and since it couldn't be opened peacefully, it was perforce opened in a warlike manner, resulting in the destruction of a complex of rollers and tracks and hanger brackets known collectively as drawer slides. Once the mangled remains of these slides were extracted from the cabinet structure, I had to admit that their useful life appeared to have been exceeded anyway. They were downright pitiful with wear. Maybe a competent homeowner does some preventative maintenance on such items, on the order of periodic inspection, lubrication, and cleaning. But I wouldn't know what competent homeowners do; I tend to assume that things requiring maintenance will let me know by failing, and that's when I deal with them. In short, I'm a slug.

Anyway, I just want the vast readership of this blog (yes, all three of you) to be aware of a few things. This might save you a few of the repeated trips to Lowe's or the Home Despot or one of the other Homeowner Hells (thanks, Dave Barry) that I made yesterday.

First of all, when you take your "old" slides with you to the homeowner hell for comparison purposes, understand that you may see slides denominated in Satan's units (for example, "24-inch"), as well as some in cgs units (for example, "600 mm"). Don't be stupid, as I was, and think, after holding your old slide alongside one -- in its factory-sealed plastic sleeve, of course -- and seeing that it appears to be the same length as either a 24-inch slide or a 600 mm slide, that these are the same. You might convert in your head, using only two significant figures: let's see, an inch is about 25 mm, so 4 inches would be 100 mm, and six times that, 24 inches, would be 600 mm, so they're the same thing. This would be a grievous error, so don't do it: 600 mm is, more precisely, about 23.62 inches ... and the difference is significant. If your cabinets are sized for a 600 mm slide, a 24-inch slide won't work -- it sticks out beyond the front of the cabinet by, well, let's see, about 9.6 mm, or about 3/8 of an inch. Now, if you're banging together a fence out in your yard, 3/8 inch is no big deal. But a cabinet drawer that's 3/8 inch from being closed: well, that's noticeable, even by me, making it fully unacceptable to management (She Who Must Be Obeyed).

Moving along: if your cabinets have interior sides that are recessed (the opening occupied by the drawer is wider than the opening in the cabinet face), then the fronts of the slides will typically be attached to the sides of the face opening, while the back ends of the slides are supported by offset hanger brackets which attach to the rear panel of the cabinet. One thing must be kept in mind. If you purchase the 600 mm "Liberty" brand slides from Lowe's, they sell these hanger brackets right alongside the slides, and they label the brackets according to the model numbers of the slides with which they're supposed to work. Sounds reasonable, right? Well, let me tell you. The "old" slides were supported by equivalent brackets, made of thin sheet steel. The new brackets that I purchased with the new 600 mm slides are injection-molded plastic, and the rear walls of these brackets are several mm thick, as opposed to the equivalent dimension in the old brackets, which was maybe half a millimeter. No big deal, you say? Think again: with the brackets installed, my new slides again protrude beyond the cabinet face -- only by a couple of mm, mind you, but see above for the non-acceptability of this.

At this point, I should have returned the slides and brackets to Lowe's. But, you know, Lowe's is a ways down the road from me, and gas is four bucks a gallon, and I think I see a way around this: I can just saw a little bit off the end of the "cabinet members" of the slides. I do this, without much difficulty, and return to my installation. Now, I discover that the drawer cannot be completely closed, because the plastic hanger brackets interfere with the "drawer members" of the slides. (This has nothing to do with the shortening of the cabinet member length; this system simply doesn't work together.) And, having hacksawed the cabinet members, I now can't return the slides any more; they're trash. Shucks, and other bitter and heated comments.

So, I visit the Home Despot this time, acquiring another set of 600 mm slides; these are wide enough to fit reasonably well in my "old" hanger brackets (which, Gottseidank, I have saved). And finally, after another round of measuring, leveling, drilling, screwing (no, not the fun kind, either), fitting, testing, adjusting, and so forth, at 10:30 local time last night, I repopulated the drawer, declared victory, and crawled off toward bed. And, truth to tell, it works pretty well. All of this must have a "point" or a lesson somehow, I suppose, but I'm not sure what it is here. Unless it's: hmmmmm, maybe we really needed all-new cabinets anyway ...

Friday Fun

It's the weekend, and not a second too soon, either. Just barely in time, I'd say. So check this out. I know, I know ... I'm usually hesitant to click on these things, too, fearing the unwise investment of my precious online time. On the other hand, if you're looking at my blog, you've obviously got plenty of time. So ... sit back, and see Joe Cocker made plain and clear. Enjoy!