It's been about ten weeks since my previous entry on the subject of our next President, during which time there have been countless speeches, lots of debates, and honestly it makes my head hurt.

So, some musings:

1) It would be nice if candidates were honest. If they said what they thought, rather than what they think their audience of the moment wants to hear, it would save a lot of time. I have read that Mr. Obama has on several occasions not pandered to his audience, for which I give him some credit. Of course what most of them are thinking, if spoken aloud, might offend so many voters that they would immediately cease to be candidates.

Hmm, not necessarily a bad thing!

2) In spite of endless blathering by pundits, the fact is that there is no way to know how well any of the current candidates would do as President. No one—I repeat—no one can predict the future. We guess, we assume, we hope, but no one can predict what will happen next week, month, or year. So we can talk until we're breathless, but in the end we are going to guess and hope.

3) My own very personal opinion is that anyone who runs for President is probably crazy, or at the very least has an ego the size of Jupiter. This is not reassuring to me. It is quite possible that if the next President were chosen by random lottery from adult citizens with no arrest record and at least a high school diploma, we might do as well—while saving a lot of time and money—as we will with the current system of choosing. We might even get someone with good manners, common sense, and some real work experience. Imagine a President who had worked for a living, paid taxes, didn't have investment income, maybe didn't have health insurance. Could bring a refreshing dose of real world vision to the Beltway.

Perhaps for the next few debates, the moderators could be English teachers or other professionals who could, on the spot, pin down the speakers. "[Candidates Name], you didn't answer the question. Please do not change the subject/make stupid jokes/recite memorized drivel/insult our intelligence. Do you think it is okay for fifty million Americans to go without health insurance? And if you do not think this is acceptable, please explain, in detail, what you would do about it. You have ten minutes to outline your ideas and we will be taking notes. If you do think it is okay for so many citizens to go without health insurance, please explain why you feel it is necessary that you have such insurance when they do not."

Then again, in the age of sound bites, do we voters really want to listen carefully to answers which take longer than one minute? Lincoln and Douglas, spinning in their graves...

Last year we hosted a successful fund-raiser for F.I.R.S.T. (the Foundation for Ichthyosis and Related Skin Types). This year we've offered to host another which will be held between 4pm - 7pm on Monday, October 1st, in our retail store. 30% of all sales will be donated to the foundation. Please call retail if you have any questions: 207-761-2503 x211. Thanks!

I've been fooling around with Yahoo pipes and created a bead store finder:

It's limited to what Yahoo local pulls up within a 20 miles radius of the city and state you enter, but it's still kinda fun. Note that it offers either map or list views of the search results.

A few intrepid employees came to work yesterday and we packed up lots of the new Miyuki Xmas kits which will ship out today.