Can we all agree that this year’s presidential election candidates are terrible? Is the good old US of A so down on her luck that we really can’t find two better people to run for our chief executive office?

No, of course the problem is that the 2-party system relies on the fact that it’s normal adherents will vote “the party line,” and so the parties choose a candidate that (a) will offend the least people, while more importantly (b) attracting the most swing votes. This, a small section of the population has great influence, the tail wags the dog, and most of us have little-to-representation in our “representative” government. This “least of all evils” system results in poor management of our nation, which is leading to the slow and steady decline of this nation’s wealth and influence.

So, I have a relatively easy fix:

In order for any candidate to win an election (including winning the vote of a member of the Electoral College), the candidates henceforth would be required to have a majority plus one of all the votes. However, in order to avoid the situation (like now) where people vote for the least of the 2 evils, we also must include on the ballots a “None of the Above” candidate. Therefore, you can’t be the least hated candidate to win, you actually must be liked by more than 50% of the population.

So, again, 2 things that would lead to better representation: (1) To win any public office, the candidate must get more than 50% of the vote, and (2) each office has a “None of the Above” selection.

This, of course, causes a few small problems. What happens when there’s a 3rd party candidate? (In the runoff campaign, only the top 2 winners compete for the final runoff.) Are there extra costs for secondary elections? (Yes, but less than the enormous sums of money that the politicians waste now.) There would be complications with the timing of everything. (So what?) And we’d have to figure out exactly how this applied to the Electoral College … but I for one would love to be EXCITED to vote for a candidate, rather than depressed that I had to vote for Idiot #2 because he/she was better than Idiot #1.

Of course, this will never happen. Both parties are only interested in achieving and attaining power, and what we, the people, want is somewhat irrelevant.

(So … which one of you is starting the “None of the Above” grassroots movement? Count me in as a supporter.)

Next time … Why I — and you will, too — completely agree with an article stating that we have NO Constitutionally-granted Rights.

My cousin Jake was here a few weeks back. We were supposed to go to Europe together, but for various reasons the trip didn’t happen. So we decided that if we couldn’t go around the world, we would at least eat around the world.

Here’s the list of what we had in his first few days here (I stopped tracking after about 5 days), all local to central Orange County. It’s pretty amazing what you can find in just a small area:

Venezuelan Arepas
Turkish Coffee
Japanese Pub Food (Yakitori)
Mexican Mesquite Grill
Persian Kabobs
“Mediterranean” (whatever the restaurant meant by that)
American BBQ
Thai
Cuban
Californian (CPK, does that count?)
Indian
Japanese (sushi)
Greek
Mexican taco stand

I wish I could remember the rest … but not bad for just a few days in suburbia…

So … I’ve been doing a bunch of baby pictures lately. Everyone has seen the cute ones, and although they’re fun to post here and there, I’m liking the more expressive looks right now.