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> Here is the problem, these people don't have a clue what is learned at what levels.

Looking at the backgrounds of the board members, they seem to be a very good mix of teachers, people educated in teaching, a therapist, a pediatrician, PTA members...

> Why not focus on reading, writing, math and building upon those at the appropriate times?

Kids are using iPads at this age. Why not introduce them to the idea of how the devices they use actually work, from the very beginning? Especially when they live in a city where the tech industry is a major employer? It's not like they're coding, they're just learning basic concepts.

> We have spent the last 250 years in factory schools

Have the last 250 years really been that bad? I'd rather live in 2015 than 1765 any day.

> student paced education system where each student has a customized curriculum,

This is pie-in-the-sky nonsense. Classroom teaching works, and is actually affordable. "Common Core" is just a series of education standards that proscribes a minimal level of education that children should achieve, before they (inevitably, nowadays) go on to college. I'm glad we have a system where educators aren't encouraged to give up on lower-achieving students, just because they seem to lack the "ABILITY and WILLINGNESS" to learn.

From the article, it sounds like CVUSD isn't an independent organization.

CVUSD is an independent organization. It put "Measure X" on the ballot in 2012 to raise $41 million for iPads. 66% voted "Yes".

CVUSD board members are elected, including Juanita Duarte, a three-term board member who is facing trial on charges of embezzlement, and Anna Lisa Vargas, a soft-spoken freshman board member who was targeted by a recall effort last year.

CVUSD is also laying off 147 workers including pre-school teachers to avoid bankruptcy.

I go to http://www.smartvoter.org/ for almost all of my candidate research. You can't see a judge's prior rulings from there, but at least some of them post their priorities. If a candidate doesn't submit a profile to their database, I usually ignore them come election day.

By that you mean the California voters who voted to deregulate to the system we got? I really wish I could blame the officials, but we did that to ourselves... sort of like our current budget.

Lest we forget...

Electricity deregulation began in 1996, not with an initiative as you implied, but rather with The Electric Utility Industry Restructuring Act (Assembly Bill 1890). Perhaps you were confused with 2005's Proposition 80 that re-regulated the industry.

Lest we also forget that this deregulation law was primarily written and supported by Enron and the utility traders. From that perspective, it worked perfectly. (Now tell me again why deregulation is axiomatically good?)

As a California resident and a voter, I agree that the initiative process is a crock and prone to manipulation (Perhaps not quite as trivially easy as Oregon's. (I'm looking at you Bill Sizemore!)) using the extreme rhetoric ("Oh won't someone please think of the children!") and feel good measures that it's wrought the current budget crisis. Initiatives that tie the hands of the legislature when making budget cuts, a 30 year old initiative that limit property taxes at essentially 30 year old levels, and requires an asinine two-thirds majority to increase revenue in order to pass a balanced budget? And oh yeah and the minority party is so beholden to Grover Norquist's dogma to become completely irrational and oppose any long term solution to the state's sadly predictably recurring and worsening budget problems.

We are state ruled be the extremes of the political spectrum, and thus so throughly a reflection of the schizophrenic political views of the populace. We are state that wants it all, but at the same time refuses to pay for any of it.

Or as Walt Kelly put it, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

This sounds less invasive than the California law, approved by voters by 62% in 2004, which does the following:

• Requires collection of DNA samples from all felons, and from adults and juveniles arrested for or charged with specified crimes, and submission to state DNA database; and; in 2009, from adults arrested for or charged with any felony.
• Authorizes local law enforcement laboratories to perform analyses for state database and maintain local database.
• Specifies procedures for confidentiality and removing samples from databases.

More here.

A little background: In November 2004, a frightened California public passed proposition 69, which allowed the state to maintain a DNA database of its citizens. The DNA samples are taken when you are arrested at the booking along with fingerprints and mug shots.

This means that you don't ever have to be convicted- hell, you don't even have to be charged- to have your DNA added to this database. People who are wrongly accused do NOT automatically have their DNA expunged from the database.

When do the DNA-sequence-hashed social security numbers come out again?

The tests were ordered by Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who has until Friday of next week to decide whether to decertify any of the machines for use in the upcoming Presidential primary election."

Looks like she won't need to decertify any, then. They'll all be able to deliver the Republicans the next election. :-P

As progressive and ahead of the curve as CA is in the environment, there are still some areas where the state totally caved to money interests.

And when it comes to the rights of individuals, CA can really suck. The voters gave the state the right to collect DNA information and enter it in a database upon your arrest, NOT CONVICTION. So your DNA goes on file even if you're wrongly accused. See any potential for abuse here?

Plus, don't forget the state is home to the MPAA, and the House co-sponsor of the Patriot act.

After reading JFK Jr.'s article, I went to the CA state voter information web page to see whether my state had any plans on implementing electronic voting systems. I was a bit surprised and dismayed to find that 51.6% of Californians voted to "upgrade" our voting systems in the 2002 primary elections. What was even more surprising though was that in this primary election, a slim majority of the votes were Republican (roughly 51% vs. 47%), whereas in the 2002 general election a far greater majority of the votes were Democrat (about 48% vs. 42%). To be fair, the incumbent usually enjoys a swing of votes in his or her favor between the primary and general elections.

Another interesting item I found on the CA government web site was a letter to Diebold essentially certifying their voting systems for use in the 2006 elections with the condition that they fix the machines' security and reliability problems in the long term. The fact that the state would allow a system with known vulnerabilities to be used in this upcoming election has me worried.

After reading JFK Jr.'s article, I went to the CA state voter information web page to see whether my state had any plans on implementing electronic voting systems. I was a bit surprised and dismayed to find that 51.6% of Californians voted to "upgrade" our voting systems in the 2002 primary elections. What was even more surprising though was that in this primary election, a slim majority of the votes were Republican (roughly 51% vs. 47%), whereas in the 2002 general election a far greater majority of the votes were Democrat (about 48% vs. 42%). To be fair, the incumbent usually enjoys a swing of votes in his or her favor between the primary and general elections.

Another interesting item I found on the CA government web site was a letter to Diebold essentially certifying their voting systems for use in the 2006 elections with the condition that they fix the machines' security and reliability problems in the long term. The fact that the state would allow a system with known vulnerabilities to be used in this upcoming election has me worried.

After reading JFK Jr.'s article, I went to the CA state voter information web page to see whether my state had any plans on implementing electronic voting systems. I was a bit surprised and dismayed to find that 51.6% of Californians voted to "upgrade" our voting systems in the 2002 primary elections. What was even more surprising though was that in this primary election, a slim majority of the votes were Republican (roughly 51% vs. 47%), whereas in the 2002 general election a far greater majority of the votes were Democrat (about 48% vs. 42%). To be fair, the incumbent usually enjoys a swing of votes in his or her favor between the primary and general elections.

Another interesting item I found on the CA government web site was a letter to Diebold essentially certifying their voting systems for use in the 2006 elections with the condition that they fix the machines' security and reliability problems in the long term. The fact that the state would allow a system with known vulnerabilities to be used in this upcoming election has me worried.

It's orders of magnitude more complicated.

Here's the slate from San Francisco County for the upcoming election. The one from another city or county in California will have the same state and federal positions on it, but will have completely different local questions. One from a different state will be almost unrecognizable, as it will even have different federal officials (except in a presidential election year).

Now, compare that to this sample ballot from Canada or this one from Scotland and the problem should be obvious.

I'm confused. Why are we worried about the CO2, when it's the methane that's the problem?

And isn't the bigger greenhouse problem the methane coming from bullshit spewing out of their mouths?

Which reminds me... Once upon a time, bullshit came out of a bull's ass, and horseshit came out of a horse's ass. Life was simple.

Two years ago, in an election-year fit of pique, California voters passed a $3B stem cell research bill, and now look at us. All we have to show for our $3B is a bunch of genetically-enhanced horses' asses that can switch between spewing bullshit and horseshit, out of either their asses or their asses' mouths. And we gave them all the keys to the Treasury.

Tip the United States on its left, and everything loose lands in California.

Given:
Job A: $50,000/year, $10,000 annual rent.
Job B: $100,000/year, $40,000 annual rent.

Should be more like:

Given:
Job A: $50,000/year, $10,000 annual motgage.
Job B: $100,000/year, $36,000 annual rent.


Given Job A only gives you $40,000/yr vs. $60,000 with Job B.
Assuming you spend the remainder of your salary with 5% sales tax at job A you can spend $38,000 with 8.5% (Bay Area Taxes) taxes at job B you can only spend $54,900.
With Job A you have utility costs of $1,000/year and job B has costs of $3600.
With Job A you pay $100 registration for two cars for two years. With Job B you spend $500 per year.

So now you have $36,990 with Job A and $50,800 with job B.
We still haven't factored in the costs of Gas ($2.79 v $3.20 /gal), or meals (Family of four dining out at a good restaraunt for $25 v $40), or the extra two hours you have as available family time because you don't have a commute (priceless), or that after you pay your mortgage you increase equity in your house but with rent you're only increasing equity with someone else's house (My neighborhood has seen an average of $40,000 increase in the past three years.), or the cost of movies ($5 v $8).

By my account that leaves only $12,500, and you still don't own your home. (In my case the home equity will have made up the difference between the two salaries.)

For the gas and meals I figured two cars with 12 gallon tanks filled up once per week and once per week dining out, and once per week for movies. If you dine out or drive more than I do the differences are even closer.

Something to think about :

There are a large amount of 'consensual' crimes on the books. As far as I can tell, these involve acts which a certain segment of the population finds distasteful but in the end, harms nobody. Examples of this are things such as prostitution, drug use (using the drug in and of istelf only harms arguably yourself, ergo it's consentual), gambling, and the laws that forbid certain sexual acts.

Freedom, in my opinion, is at its core the ability to do whatever you wish with your person or property. This can be extended since we live in a society to also mean that you can do whatever you want with a consenting person's body or property (since they consented to whatever it was). To me, this idea seems pretty simple. However apparently somewhere long before I was born, the idea that certain actions were distasteful took hold. People started worrying that maybe, just maybe... someone might be visiting a prostitute, or drinking alcohol. Look back at the United States' history folks. There's a line of laws a mile long about what can and cannot be done, regardless of consent. In most places, prostitution is illegal. Not because it harms someone, but because people found the idea repulsive...especially when they thought that perhaps their spouce or significant other could be going to one. Speaking of significant others, can someone PLEASE tell me the harm in homosexuality? There are so many laws, for example... the recently amended Ohio State Constitution that basically screws everyone who's not straight out of ever being considered 'married' for the purposes of insurance, taxes and death benefits. Funny, last I checked marriage was between two people who loved each other.

--"Be it Resolved by the People of the State of Ohio:

That the Constitution of the State of Ohio be amended by adopting a section to be designated as Section 11 of Article XV thereof, to read as follows:

Article XV

Section 11. Only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this state and its political subdivisions. This state and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effect of marriage." http://www.smartvoter.org/2004/11/02/oh/state/issu e/1/ --

How does this relate you may ask? You mentioned "I was doing something wrong (in this case adultery) and I got caught because of some entirely unrelated event." Adultry should not have ever become an issue for the government to step into. Yes, you could argue that the courts would need to sort out a divorce if one were to happen because of it, but adultery in and of itself isn't a 'crime'. Neither are prostitution or gambling. These are crimes simply because some people say they should be.

To further expand on this, consider the fact that reading 1984 isn't illegal right now, but if a law was passed banning it (for the sake of arguement.) then you have just become a criminal, just for reading a book. You can insert any 'bad' behaviour in this scenario... it all depends on who is determining what 'bad' means, and some of the people out there right now scare me a lot when it comes to what they think is good and bad.

I say we should leave the personal matters to people. Leave the actual CRIMINAL matters to the gov't or some other *elected* official.

For the record, an interesting book on the subject can be found here:
http://www.mcmillian.com/
The book is called "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do", look in the back for a chart (somewhat dated, I'll admit) that outlines sexual laws in the states. I'm amused that I've broken at least one quite a few times in Ohio (According to that chart oral sex is illegal here.)

My 2 cents.

A.A

This is how self-regulation in science works, regardless of the subject of research. The controversy in the lay community is irrlevant.

Bullshit. The public influences the politicians, who in turn create the laws allowing or restricting research and set the budget for the groups that fund research. In addition, voters can choose whether to endorse or reject government-funded research. See Proposition 71 in California. Public consent is essential for something like stem cell research.

Just like how the unions are saying that Proposition 75 is a way to silence union members. What is is is to say that the union can only take money out member's paychecks for political campains, after they get permission. Not jump through hoops to get a refund of polical dues. Or Proposition 75 will cut school funding. But it actually limits the amounts of spending increases.

Just like how the unions are saying that Proposition 75 is a way to silence union members. What is is is to say that the union can only take money out member's paychecks for political campains, after they get permission. Not jump through hoops to get a refund of polical dues. Or Proposition 75 will cut school funding. But it actually limits the amounts of spending increases.

No one is claiming the open source solves everything. It's a necessarly feature of a transparent voting system. There are many other rules, procedures, etc. necessary to make it all work correctly.

What I recommend: Humans performing pencil & paper counting under scrutiny of video camera and representatives of competing parties. Distribute the video tapes of the counting process on the Internet, and maintain archives for at least 12 years.

Sounds like a security nightmare to me.

1. Are you going to prepare the ballots without computers too? That's where many problems occur.
2. Sure we need representatives of competing parties. Still, consider that Democrats in the South are really Republicans.
3. The fact that they hand count in other countries is irrelevant. Typically, they are voting for one thing (Member of Parliament, for example). We've analyzed ballots with 44 contests and even 76 contests. Here's one in Santa Monica CA that had 44 contests and 95 candidates: http://www.smartvoter.org/uvote4/uvote4.cgi?addr=1 719++WILSHIRE+BL&date=2002/11/05&zip=90403
4. Consider a presidential year general election. 200,000 pollsites and an average of 500 ballots per pollsite. How many millions of counters will you need? How many millions of scrutineers of counters will you need? How many millions of cameras? How many people are needed to coordinate, train, supervise the whole process? How much will all that cost?
5. Computers are great at counting and following rules. Your proposal (which, fortunately, has zero chance of adoption here in the U.S.) has one major flaw: you want to use people for exactly what they're really bad at doing: counting and following rules.

This works fine where ballots are very simple and populations are not dense. Hand-counted hand-marked paper ballots are used for less than one half of one percent of the U.S. vote. However, 80 percent of the population in the U.S. lives in urban areas. Los Angeles County has to support 9 different languages. By law, we'll also have to have a system in place in every pollsite to accommodate people with various disabilities. This ballot has 44 contests and 95 candidates. Care to estimate how long it would take to count manually? http://www.smartvoter.org/uvote4/uvote4.cgi?addr=1 719++WILSHIRE+BL&date=2002/11/05&zip=90403

How many things were you voting on?

Now consider this ballot with 44 contests and 95 contests. Please describe how many people will be needed to hand count this and how long it will take.

http://www.smartvoter.org/uvote4/uvote4.cgi?addr=1 719++WILSHIRE+BL&date=2002/11/05&zip=90403

They will soon take your DNA, without your agreement.

This is already the case in California. Get charged or simply arrested for a felony, get your DNA added to the dbase. Done deal. Doesn't matter if you're guilty or not. An arrest is all it takes.

W

ES cell research isn't really hurting too much for funding.

I think your point is, how the heck are you supposed to develop a technology to the point it can be used to cure disease if you don't fund it?

Personally, I don't know if ES cells are ever going to be much use clinically, but just the fact that they can potentially create any cell in the body is tantalizing.

What the hell...everyone is getting stupider, watching more Fox News.

Why is it that the more ignorant one gets, the more dogmatic one becomes?

The federal ban is basically federal government research dollars shouldn't go towards research into the non-approved stem cell lines. The National Science Foundation has a chart that shows how much federal money is spent in the US by year, compared with a study by AAAS on R&D funding by state. 2002 totals come in at $84.9 billion by federal and $88.3 billion by states, in 2002 dollars. So, money could very well come from the state levels of governments, where the states that approve of the process can push their own money towards their goals... One could argue that that is the preferred path, to reduce the dependence on federal government, but I digress.

The core issue for most people is "should the government fund projects that I am morally opposed to?" It's a tricky argument, one used for and against the National Endowment of the Arts for years... Whether its Maplethorpe (S&M photos), Ofili's Madonna (elephant dung on the Virgin Mary), or any other controvercial art, these are just personal expressions of speech ... while it may offend, noone is harmed at the end of the day.

But when it comes to embryonic research, there are people that believe that the fetus is viable from the moment of conception, and that the process of extracting the cells is in effect "killing" a potential human. For them, it ranks as an abortion. Whether or not you believe that a life is being taken, many religious people do, and thus they want the practice to stop.

I would also counter that we are arguing two slightly different points. We both agree that there are two tracks that are available for research, embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. Your argument appears to be that the government should not abandon the embryonic path simply because a minority are opposed to it on (their) ethical grounds, that there are many sick people who can benefit from the results of this research. My argument is that the government should be pushing its resources towards adult stem cell research, given that both technologies are on equal footing with this one being free of any stigma, and at the end of the day they are benefitting just as many people.

Personally, I'm about 50% against / 50% for embryonic stem cell research, but 100% towards adult stem cell research. I'm discouraged (yet not surprised) that there are just as many discoveries being made every day in adult stem cells (with more successes), yet the uninformed public only hears that embryonic stem cells are the only method.

I agree that the government should stop legislating moral statements, but then the constitutionalist in me also thinks that the government has no business putting any limits on first amdendment activity anywhere... This does not mean Freedom From Religion, that means Freedom Of Religion (like it reads), that the government needs to stop telling people that they cannot bring their symbols into schools and work, that the schools need to teach an objectively balanced education (as opposed to atheist) when it comes to religion. But that's an issue for another day.

... but the League of Women Voters have a very good site called SmartVoter.org which gives you analysis on each measure/prop. They have some VERY limited information on the candidates, but they do link to more info. The info is broken all the way down to your local ballot.

While looking around for information on who/what I am voting for I came across SmartVoter which is run by the non-profit organization League of Women voters.

The site is put together nicely, and by entering your street and zip it prints out a full sample ballot of what you'll be voting on and where to vote. It's completely non-partisian and has a lot of information on each issue, with arguements for and against them.

If you're voting in either California or Ohio I'd definetly check it out before you go to the polls next week.

I'd comment on the links themselves but they're dead.

If you live in Ohio or California try this site:
http://smartvoter.org

It can be a little bland since it takes no stance but it has always been a great starting source for me and shows me what will be on my ballot.

We cast votes for many things on a single ballot. We can't just manually count slips of paper.

Like Oreo cookies? Well, the leftist extremists want to make them illegal wherever kids can buy them, supposedly because of transfatty acids. Now I don't exactly eat mountains of Oreo cookies, but if someone wants to eat them, this is supposed to be a free country! Ban those and the liberals, er, leftist extremists will have opened the door to ban all "unhealthy" foods from places where kids can buy them, which opens the door to ban all "unhealthy" foods from this country for everyone. Now under the excuse of "health," the government will be able to dictate what we eat. This is Big Brother. It doesn't matter if right wing extremists or left wing extremists do it... the legal system is supposed to be the bare minimum, with a good education system teaching people how to think and use common sense, and to suggest how they should eat healthy stuff, be polite to others, not smoke, not drink, not do drugs, etc. But the minute the government can dictate which FACIAL EXPRESSIONS you may employ when talking to someone, or which FOODS you may eat, or where your money, that YOU EARNED is going to go, that is extremism and it is wrong.

I'm very sorry... The liberals/leftist extremists have gained control over the media and the schools. They have screwed up the education system because some people are less intelligent than others, so in order to be fair and to avoid hurting someone's feelings, they have reduced the quality of education in order to level the playing field. And this results in a lot of people being idiots... USEFUL IDIOTS, as Lenin said (see link for references).

While we're here, check out San Francisco's crackpot candidate for Supervisor. This guy has actually built models of his tunnel and tetrahedron projects. If we act quickly we may be able to get him to adopt the vacuum idea before he gets elected Tuesday.

Yes, write your rep! And your senator, and the companies that own^D^D^D sponsor them...

Excellent, non-partisan orgs to assist in your civic participation:-

www.smartvoter.org (LWV-CA)

www.opensecrets.org (Center for Responsive Politics)

www.voter.com (private org)

Don't just whore for karma with your political acumen... convince the power brokers!

• "I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."