For the Ohioans...

Just wanted to point you to these posts over at Mike's blog, regarding Jimmy Stewart, a former physicist and candidate for State Representative in Ohio's 22nd District: Dublin and Clintonville. I don't know him from Adam and so this doesn't constitute an endorsement in any way, but apparently he's reaching out to the blogosphere for both questions on his positions, and, of course, support. Mike's already asked him some questions (including ones about intelligent design and overall science education in Ohio's schools), and I submitted some as well that have reportedly been passed along. His answers look pretty good so far, and he doesn't pussyfoot around the ID issue. As I've mentioned, I grew up in Findlay, Ohio and went through the public school system growing up, so I asked him some questions regarding school funding, college tuition, Ohio's "brain drain," and gay marriage. Stay tuned--I'll link the post with his answers when/if it appears.

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Hey Tara, this is Jimmy.

Yeah, endorsements are nice, but (as you mentioned) you don't know me from Adam. The big reason I'm doing this is to encourage discussion of the issues. Some of the issues in my district in Ohio are the same that effect many other areas (the I.D. crap, health care, affording school, etc), and many are specific to Ohio (health care and school funding details, the extremes of our culture war).

In today's climate, challengers win when people are talking about the issues, and incumbents win when people are thinking about their enemies. So I do what I can to encourage discussion of the issues.

Where better to engage people in a science and education discussion?

  Regards,
  Jimmy Stewart
  http://FriendsOfJimmyStewart.org

P.S. One of the things I learned in grad school is that I'm far from infalliable. Even good teams of sharp people can overlook something.

I may lay out an argument that's broken. If I do, the sooner I get called on it the sooner I can fix it. Peer review is an excellent thing.