09:44 – I understand there was another presidential debate last night. Barbara and I watched a Dalziel and Pascoe DVD instead. These debates are all boring. Talk, talk, talk. They need to adopt my proposed debate format: give each of the participants armor and a short sword, and let them have at it.
Although October is one of the slower months for kit sales, we’re still on track to sell maybe 40 kits this month. November should be similarly slow until about Thanksgiving, when sales for Christmas and second semester start to kick in. But we’re in perilously low inventory status on the chemistry kits and particularly the biology kits. Those 15 chemistry kits we just built are dwindling fast, and the new batch of 30 biology kits isn’t ready to go yet. So, the first goal is to get those 30 biology kits finished and ready to ship, followed by a new batch of 60 chemistry kits, followed by yet another batch of 30 biology kits. Oh, and the first batch of 30 life science kits. Those should carry us through the end of the year, or nearly so.
10:37 – Ambrose Evans-Pritchard nails it: Britain has left the European Union in all but name
It has never been in Britain’s best interests to be a member of the EU, other than the common market. For at least a couple of years now, it’s been obvious to anyone paying attention that that’s exactly where Britain is heading. In terms of the common market, the EU needs Britain more than Britain needs the EU, so it’s unlikely that the EU will put up much resistance as Britain continues to withdraw from the other aspects of the EU. As the EU continues to decline and the euro crashes, I expect to see other member countries and countries with strong links to the EU also withdraw, starting with Norway and then Sweden, followed perhaps by Finland and Ireland. It is in the interests particularly of Britain, Norway, and Sweden to remain as far as possible at arm’s length from the EU, and to focus their trade-development efforts on the English-speaking countries and the developing world rather than continental Europe and distance themselves from the increasingly command-driven economies of the core EU members. I suspect that the current UK government is the last that will pay even lip service to maintaining full EU membership.