[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAY_hHGKL4M&feature=channel_page[/youtube]

traderdave wrote:
I serve on my local zoning board right now (nearly finished my second three-year term) but it is an appointed position and we very, very rarely hear cases with any meat.

Go for it, but don't waste your time just winging it. Having a particular platform is the last thing you need to consider. I think Hoya might even tell you that.

Find out how many votes you'll likely need to win a seat, and go about figuring out how to accumulate that many. Literally calculate how many people you know right now who can vote for you, would. Don't be dismayed at how few that is. Then consider how you will assemble the rest of the votes you need. Be painfully tactical. Picture yourself doing it, how long it will take you to do it, & confirm you're ready to do that.

Find someone who's run & won, or run & lost, who might give you pointers.

Have fun with it.

More Iran stuff:

Alleged photoshopping of Ahmadinejad's supporters rallies to make them look bigger.

One of the specific instances of possible voting irregularities: a fall in number of votes from a 9:47AM update to a 1:53PM update.

One reason I'm glad I didn't vote for McCain/Palin: McCain's comments:

McCain, interviewed on NBC’s “Today” show, said the United States should support the Iranian people “in their struggle against an oppressive, repressive regime.” He said Iran “should not be subjected to four more years of [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad and the radical Muslim clerics.”

Obama “should speak out that this is a corrupt, flawed sham of an election and that the Iranian people have been deprived of their rights,” McCain argued.

Right now, the ruling elite in Iran is losing credibility. The last thing we need to do is lend our verbal or logistical support to Mousavi and give Ahmadinejad some anti-American ammunition he can use to draw support from people who may be on the fence about what side to support. I applaud Obama's and Clinton's restrained comments. The tidal wave of support is rising in the international community. The last thing we need is the American empire to step in and referee.

Werthless wrote:Right now, the ruling elite in Iran is losing credibility. The last thing we need to do is lend our verbal or logistical support to Mousavi and give Ahmadinejad some anti-American ammunition he can use to draw support from people who may be on the fence about what side to support. I applaud Obama's and Clinton's restrained comments. The tidal wave of support is rising in the international community. The last thing we need is the American empire to step in and referee.

This is pretty much what John Kerry said in his Op-Ed in the Times today.

drsmooth wrote:

traderdave wrote:
I serve on my local zoning board right now (nearly finished my second three-year term) but it is an appointed position and we very, very rarely hear cases with any meat.

Go for it, but don't waste your time just winging it. Having a particular platform is the last thing you need to consider. I think Hoya might even tell you that.

Find out how many votes you'll likely need to win a seat, and go about figuring out how to accumulate that many. Literally calculate how many people you know right now who can vote for you, would. Don't be dismayed at how few that is. Then consider how you will assemble the rest of the votes you need. Be painfully tactical. Picture yourself doing it, how long it will take you to do it, & confirm you're ready to do that.

Find someone who's run & won, or run & lost, who might give you pointers.

Have fun with it.

Thanks for the advice, drsmooth. I am definitely not "winging it"; it is something I have thought about for a few years and just think now is a really good time to pursue it. Regarding votes, the good news is that I might already have 15%-20% of the votes I think I'd need to win a seat (three seats available in 2010).

I have issues that are personal to me that I want to address but am sure that they are important to others as well. I have also been attending SB meetings to get a flavor of any potential hot buttons out there. Yeah, I am really looking forward to the "campaigning" process and having fun with it is going to be key.

kruker wrote:

Werthless wrote:Right now, the ruling elite in Iran is losing credibility. The last thing we need to do is lend our verbal or logistical support to Mousavi and give Ahmadinejad some anti-American ammunition he can use to draw support from people who may be on the fence about what side to support. I applaud Obama's and Clinton's restrained comments. The tidal wave of support is rising in the international community. The last thing we need is the American empire to step in and referee.

This is pretty much what John Kerry said in his Op-Ed in the Times today.

I don't what it means when I agree with Kerry, but it's noteworthy.

On an unrelated note, Obama asserts that economic growth will close the budget deficit without the need to raise taxes. This rosy projection sounds an awful lot like Bush's rationale for keeping the tax cuts. I'd be willing to bet money that the White House's growth projections are too high.
2009 (-1.2%)
2010 (3.2%)
2011 (4.0%)
2012 (4.6%)



Well, it appears that Obama agrees that the projections used to justify the stimulus were too rosy.

Obama admitted his own dissatisfaction with the progress but said his administration will increase stimulus spending in the coming months. The White House acknowledged it has spent only $44 billion, or 5 percent, of the $787 billion stimulus, but that total has always been expected to rise sharply this summer.

"Now we're in a position to really accelerate," Obama said.

He also repeated an earlier promise to create or save 600,000 jobs by the end of the summer.

Neither the acceleration nor the jobs goal is new. Both represent a White House repackaging of promises and projects to blunt criticism that the effects haven't been worth the historic price tag. And the job estimate is so murky, it can never be verified.
...
Obama spoke Monday about "modest progress" in the economy, citing fewer jobs lost last month than expected. He said he hopes to build on that in the months ahead with stimulus programs.

"We've done more than ever, faster than ever, more responsibly than ever, to get the gears of the economy moving again," he said.

Um, yeah. At least he's trying to raise consumer confidence (whereas when he entered office, all the talk was about how the economy was about to grind to a halt thanks to Bush).

I want to spazz out every time I read that "create OR save" line. It's such a bs, superficial statement.

traderdave wrote:

allentown wrote:

traderdave wrote:

Werthless wrote:Iran, in pictures.

These are very, very sad pictures. One thing I found quite interesting was in the comments below the pictures; one poster indicated that the official vote tally had Ahmadinejhad finishing third. I had seen the vote totals elsewhere but I just assumed that MA had finished second behind Mousavi.

On a somewhat separate note, I am curious, does anybody here hold ELECTED office or has sought/held elected office in the past?

4 terms on local school board.

That is awesome, Allentown. The answer might be obvious but was the time commitment worth it? I am strongly considering a run for my local SB next April; I really am very unhappy with the direct our schools are headed both in town and NJ in general and I want to be part of the solution rather than just some guy in town who complains but doesn't do anything about it.

I serve on my local zoning board right now (nearly finished my second three-year term) but it is an appointed position and we very, very rarely hear cases with any meat.

By and large enjoyable and worth it, but school boards are very constrained. Between federal and state restrictions, union contracts, and Superintendents who can be very manipulative and tight with information, board members can only influence things around the margins and only occassionally. Still, some successes and good times. It is sad how few professional education administrators truly care about educational quality.

traderdave wrote:Thanks for the advice, drsmooth. I am definitely not "winging it"; it is something I have thought about for a few years and just think now is a really good time to pursue it. Regarding votes, the good news is that I might already have 15%-20% of the votes I think I'd need to win a seat (three seats available in 2010).

I have issues that are personal to me that I want to address but am sure that they are important to others as well. I have also been attending SB meetings to get a flavor of any potential hot buttons out there. Yeah, I am really looking forward to the "campaigning" process and having fun with it is going to be key.

I should have assumed anyone around here contemplating this kind of thing would already have run their numbers

Good luck - I'm looking forward to your stories from the campaign trail

allentown wrote:It is sad how few professional education administrators truly care about educational quality.

Any zeal gets sapped out of 'em over time.

Phan In Phlorida wrote:

allentown wrote:It is sad how few professional education administrators truly care about educational quality.

Any zeal gets sapped out of 'em over time.

While I initially liked our new superintendent I have come to decide that he may have a bit too much zeal at this point and tends to run over the school board on significant issues. As such, I hope you are right about him getting sapped of it at some point - LOL!

Werthless wrote:Right now, the ruling elite in Iran is losing credibility. The last thing we need to do is lend our verbal or logistical support to Mousavi and give Ahmadinejad some anti-American ammunition he can use to draw support from people who may be on the fence about what side to support. I applaud Obama's and Clinton's restrained comments. The tidal wave of support is rising in the international community. The last thing we need is the American empire to step in and referee.

Rationally, this is very tough to argue against. Problem is that few can be rational about this. I guess that's why Obama and Clinton get the big bucks.

And FWIW, I think I can agree with your/Obama's/Clinton's/Kerry's (just wanted to type that for the humor value) position, while thinking it's needlessly dickish as well as perhaps factually wrong for Obama to assert that there's really very little difference between Ahmadinejad and Moussavi. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I don't think that Moussavi has denied the Holocaust, threatened to nuke Israel, claimed that there are no gays in Iran, etc etc.

Maybe the way to split the difference is to put the focus on "the integrity of the process" rather than emphasizing a desired outcome. If Ahmadinejad wins in a legit vote, that's one thing. Having him steal it while we look helpless is the worst of all worlds, though.

Phan In Phlorida wrote:

allentown wrote:It is sad how few professional education administrators truly care about educational quality.

Any zeal gets sapped out of 'em over time.

Sad and true. The system is set up to drive out those who care in a durable way, insiders and outsiders both.

I had a job interview of sorts a couple weeks ago in which I tried to pitch the guys I was talking with on a campaign of education policy research/advocacy; turned out both of them had advocated for years with the old NYC Board of Ed, and they all but said to me that they couldn't emotionally handle taking on that fight anymore.

Phan In Phlorida wrote:

allentown wrote:It is sad how few professional education administrators truly care about educational quality.

Any zeal gets sapped out of 'em over time.

This certainly happens and I saw it with some very promising heads of curriculum/Asst Supt types and even the occasional Principal, especially elementary Principals. This sapped zeal seems much more common among good teachers, though.

Unfortunately, I saw a lot of Principals, I'm talking mainly secondary school Principals and Asst Principals, whom I never felt had a lot of zeal for quality education. They were selected as potential good disciplinarians or members of the inner group, that has a lot of coaches/band and graduates of the same local teacher's college. Not enough were people I felt were educational quality first. As a group they were beaten into the just don't let any problems become public (including letting the School Board know). We did have some quite good secondary principals, but they were in the minority.

President Obama betrays the gay community

Tough to argue with even one word of this. Personally I wouldn't be too worked up by the Rick Warren stuff (though if he'd put in a known anti-Semite or Braves fan or something else that I'd find directly offensive, I'm sure I'd feel differently) or the "no out gay in the Cabinet" thing.

But the actual policy positions flat-out suck--one of the few things I read about politics while I was gone was an email about the administration filing a brief on behalf of the abomination that is DOMA--and I hope "the gay community" kicks his ass up and down over it.

Is anybody in the US thinking about the idea that Mousavi may have lost? The vote was probably darn close.

Who cares?

:?

Is your point that the vote might have been accurate, or that he might have won by less even if they didn't fix the count?

Because everything I've read makes it seem like the former isn't true, and if the latter is true, I don't give a shit, it's still worth everyone making a stink over.

The latter. It's worth Iran making a stink, but us living vicariously through it all seems so fake to me, like we want to be a part of something. Iran has not been some death camp on wheels, and it won't be some boner paradise should Mousavi get in there. He ran on small reforms to slowly take away power from the Leader. And hell, he's still for gaining nuclear capability.

I think people here need to just sit back and watch, and not engage. They'll end up disappointed.

edit: I should add I don't think Mousavi will end up with any power, but Ahmandinejad has been pretty effectively neutered, and Mousavi HAS succeeded a little in making the Leader and clerics take notice. It just may take another couple years for the tide to finally turn. There's still a lot of rural out there