Details over the next month.

This year, it’s not scary – it’s hopefull!

All observers and poll watchers may not:
Electioneer within 300 feet of the polling place entrance or exit.

What worries me about this is, during the 2000 election there was heavy pressure outside many polling places from PAC’s and other groups (I’m not bold enough to assume the pressure came from any candidates election team officially). This happened at my polling place (just up the street from my house), where I was pressured by firemen to vote for George W. Bush.

Electioneering is defined (dict.org) as “To make interest for a candidate at an election.” In other words, presenting handbills for/against a measure or candidate(s), speaking in a suggestive manor to any person waiting to vote – or having voted, displaying stickers or posters or any other materials on vehicles or polling locations suggesting for/against a measure or candidate(s).

Now here’s what worries me: Early polling monitoring has shown as much as five hour waits for voters. If the lines are so long, and the wait so lengthy, won’t voters be in line a distance greater than 300 feet? Potentially beyond the public land used as the polling place? If so, there’s nothing stating on the State elections Web site guarding the voters.

I haven’t yet learned whether electronic ballots will be used throughout King County (I have learned that advanced voting for accesible requirements does include electronic ballots). From previous elections, I understand some counties/states allowed for the request of a paper ballot wherever electronic ballots are used.

I’m a tech-head, and I still wouldn’t trust my vote to an electronic ballot. This coming from a person that lives off his ATM machines.

Update: Not an electioneering issue, but something of even greater importance: My wife just notified me (she learned from a mailroom notice) that the absentee ballots in WA require .59 cents in postage – so please don’t forget to check  your postage before mailing!

There were many proud days, many hard days, and during the 2000 Presidential election, the days (and nights) were often both.

Since leaving The News-Press in 2001, I have often checked the paper’s Web site, partly to keep up with events in Fort Myers, and partly to check on what code I’ve deployed still remains in use.

It saddens me to see advertising so blatent on the homepage of a newspaper Web site – especially when it’s political. Shouldn’t a newspaper be as neutral (as Fox News would put it “Fair and Balanced”)? I understand many newspapers endorse candidates, and even more flavor their news and information to their customers (ever heard your local paper called a “red” paper, or a “blue” paper?), but an advertisement (Flash, even!) of this size just makes me sad. And I’m even an Obama supporter!

Photo has been resized to fit (better) in your browser.

All I’ve wanted is for the candidates to talk about themselves, and only themselves. What are you up to? How’s your day? Got anything specific you want to tell me about your plans?

Well, Obama has done a fair job at that, but barely a fair job. McCain – nothing at all until I tuned into his Web site (the splash page videos were a good start). Now today I found the video below on The Huffington Post Web site, and I’ve got to say while there’s no specifics mentioned (“your investments? they’ll grow again…”), McCain at least kept Obama’s name (and his “friends”) out of the ad.

I love talking head ads that are 100% candidate – regardless of the script handed them.

I can’t believe I’m saying this: Score one for McCain. Take away half a point for the lack of specifics, but give the half back because it’s 100% McCain.

I found many answers I was looking for, some that steered me back and forth to either candidate (these aren’t idiots; they employ very smart campaign staff that help in crafting an exacting message – except for some of the gaffs and miscommunications between campaign staff, reality, and what drops from certain candidates mouths).

Beyond the answers, however, I noticed something that – while it doesn’t have ANYTHING to do with how a person should ultimately vote – really shows the attention to detail that one candidates camp shows over the other.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Web sites of Barack Obama and John McCain: My :30 second review.

1. Barack Obama’s “Splash Page” (or “donate page”):

First thing I noticed, the Barack Obama Web site (overall) has a largely Web 2.0 feel to it (lots of whitespace, and gradients galore). As a 30-something voter that has used the Web for many years, I’m drawn to layouts like this. For a specific demographic, score one for Obama. This layout is clean, without bells and whistles, and for some reason, reminds me of waking up on a farm. Or taking a lot of easy, deep breaths.

Second, the size of the splash screen (the required browser size in order to eliminate any scrollbars) was quite small – different from the main site by some amount. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or bad, but I’m glad to see that I’m not required to maximize the browser on my laptop in order to get the “meat” of the Web site. For a screen real-estate hog (me), score one for Obama.

2. John McCain’s “Splash Page” (or “disaster on web 1.0′s wheels”):

McCain’s Splash page, before it got resized.

McCain’s splash page – in all it’s enormity.

I gotta say, when I loaded the John McCain splash page without resizing the Barack Obama window (I wanted to test differences in layout) I wasn’t prepared for the massive amount of screen real-estate I’d have to adjust for to eliminate the scrollbars. I mean, c’mon McCain staff – I had to hide the dock on my MacBook Pro just to get the vertical scrollbars to go away – and for what? So I could load the really poorly designed bevelled buttons? Did someone just get gifted a copy of Photoshop 6 and went all ape over the preset “styles” flyout?

Ok, that off my chest, let’s get back to raw comparison of the splash screen. Let’s see, enormous size? Check. Really badly designed buttons? Check. Embedded movies right off the front that scared the crap out of me at 1:53 AM? Check! I haven’t broken out my pica-ruler yet (I keep one by my desk at work), but I could swear the type on McCain’s splash page couldn’t get any tighter without starting sparks.

Finally, to get off the bashing of the McCain splash page, while I personally don’t agree with autoplaying video on a Web site (and certainly not without some kind of warning – a little pee came out, people!), having videon on the splash does help his message (in my opinion – wait, isn’t this ALL in my opinion?). The “ads” that played were more along the lines of “get to know John,” and less about “there’s a terrorist in your midst – don’t elect Dr. Zaius!” I guess score one for a cleaner, more “about me” campaign video.

3. Let’s talk code:

Dreamweaver?? Are you frigging kidding me?!

First off, I’m going to talk about the McCain splash page. I secretly look at the code used to build Web pages that I browse (yeah, nearly all of them – I’m SUCH a nerd!). When I looked at the code behind the John McCain splash page I nearly choked on my midnight snack (Justine made brownies!). Dreamweaver? Seriously? Dreamweaver? I’m all for reform on spending, but c’mon John, couldn’t your staff paid a little more for a better “grow your own” designer? You’re using out-of-the-box MM_ functions for Christ’s sake! Maybe it’s the same designer that got Photoshop 6 finally. I’m so annoyed, I’m leaving it at that.

Second, off to Obama’s code (still talking about the splash pages here, folks. Follow along). What a breathe of fresh air. In the <head> area of the code (the stuff that includes searchable keywords, titles of pages, etc), the Obama staff took it upon themselves to include keywords of common misspellings of Barack Obama’s name – I noticed that throughout Obama’s political career, he’s had to overcome the misspelling and mispronunciation issue time and again (watched a PBS special on the two presidential nominees tonight). So, there’s a point for Obama’s team.

Still on Obama’s code, I noticed that they use some pretty nifty CSS (the code that styles colors, page layout, stuff like that) tricks, like input[type="text"]. Thats some fancy code in this developers mind. Also, Obama’s team is using JQuery and auto-loading Firebug! Take that, Dreamweaver!

4. Finally, the main Web sites.

Right now, it’s 2:20 AM and I’m really not in the mood to discuss the deeper parts of the Web sites. I know, I know, you’re all disappointed, but come on! I totally gave you a lot to read with 1-3 up there. Get off my back. Both Web sites do a good job in their pure size, while I still have to give the clarity and less AOL-looking layout award to the Obama team. The McCain Web site is just a color explosion that makes my tummy hurt.

I’ll do a deeper review at some point (yeah, right).

One last thing (before the asterisk that you all forgot about that appears below): None of the crap I wrote tonight will sway my vote towards or away from a candidate. While I do believe one candidate knows modern computing better than the other, I absolutely certain that neither fired up TextMate, BBEdit, Dreamweaver, or god-forbid FrontPage on their own to craft these Web sites. It takes a village of in-house designers, developers, and writers to put together these beasts (that, or it’s all outsourced).

* Ahh, you forgot about the footnote, eh? Well, look back in the first few lines. There, I mention the two major candidates, careful not to say “these two dudes are your choice, that’s it. A or B.” While I do believe these two are the most likely candidates, I won’t exclude anyone else that may be on the ballot and risk pissing off say, eight nor nine people that will still vote for Nader.

Damn It Feels Good To Be A Banker — A Wall Street Musical from Leveraged Sell-Out on Vimeo.

And The Official Obama/McCain Debate Drinking Game

The first evening we arrived, exhausted, dragging suitcases behind us, morale a little bit bruised, the Kurdish family sent over their representative – a 9 year old boy missing two front teeth, holding a lopsided cake, “We’re Abu Mohammed’s house- across from you- mama says if you need anything, just ask- this is our number. Abu Dalia’s family live upstairs, this is their number. We’re all Iraqi too… Welcome to the building.”

I cried that night because for the first time in a long time, so far away from home, I felt the unity that had been stolen from us in 2003.

That paragraph came at the end of her most recent post on moving to Syria, and admitting that she and her family are now refugees.

Why does the world tolerate our war?

I don’t usually get sucked into the Bush-era scare tactics, but this message on the Seattle Metro bus (line #8) scared me a little this morning.

I’ve heard about these ads on metro buses in New York, some that even listed the number of 911 calls and incidents (I don’t have the exact quote, but it was something like “19,000 people saw something – and did something about it!”). That kind of “watch your neighbor” stuff scares the bejesus out of me. Way to go, Homeland Security. Way to go.

For the past couple of years, I have read the Baghdad Burning blog by Riverbend, a woman that posts a regular blog about living in pre and post Iraq war from Baghdad.

For the last few months, I have checked nearly daily her blog to see if there’s been an update. Any length of time without a post fills me with worry that something bad has happened. She’s had raids, family members gone missing (and then found dead), and a multitude of disasters that any normal person living in our world today should never have to face, let alone accept as the norm.

Until today, her last post was from April, a post about her leaving Baghdad and the great wall of segregation that was being erected in Iraq. Since that time, I have been worried about whether she and her family had gotten out, and whether or not there had been any problems or death. Mind you, this is a person I’ve never met, a person I know little about other than the careful words she has written on her Web site and have been published in a book. Strange to have so much care for a stranger. Stranger still that such care is considered odd for a fellow human being.

Today, she posted an update from Syria, outlining her exit and the long road, physically and mentally, that lead to her exodus. I wish as an American, as a human even more, that there was something that could be done. Something that would keep a person from having to go through what she’s endured.

I’m glad she and her family are safe. Her blog has been a beacon into an otherwise media-saturated story of lies and deception. I hope she continues to write, and I certainly hope there comes a day when she can return to her home and hang her photographs back on her walls. That will never replace the neighbors and family that have long since disappeared, but at least it’s something. Something that someday may be called ‘normal.’

[video width="320" height="240"]http://www.chadedge.com/personal/hu.wmv[/video]

Tahlequah Daily Press of Tahlequah, Oklahoma has a curious way to address our Commander in Chief: by accidentally calling him a “Big Fat Liar.”
Of course, this is a typesetters nightmare, but what can you do what the Frankie Muniz movie aired just before the President’s Address?