I want the Green Party to be rise, but at this rate, they will never win the web.
I like the green party. I would like them to win someday, although I am not sure they have their act together yet. And as I was reading Rodney's post about the candidates that are in the running for the green party nomination, I went to all their sites.
As you may know, I am a web developer by trade, so I am often more critical of sites than the average bear. That being said, the Green Party will never get ANYWHERE at this rate.
Number one, Jesse Johnson. Not sure about his logo from a design point of view, but I AM sure that it should not be that pixelated. Header and footer design are a bit lacking in terms of style. Not liking the font either. But I REALLY don't like how the navigation is present only on the home page, and is gone on every other page (although there is a 'back to the home page' link). Seriously, dead end every click? And needless to say, it doesn't pass validation.
Number two, Kent Mesplay. Not sure what year it is, but is isn't 2008. Those buttons are nice and smooth. The header takes up the entire 'above the scroll' area. Awesome. Table layout. No doctype? You can imagine how validation went.
Number three, Kat Swift. oooookkkkkk really? This is your bid for the president of the united states? Really? Your index page doesn't even have your full name on it. Perfect for SEO. The blog link is first and foremost, but it is off site. And written by someone else. Design wise, I won't even start. Again, tables (surprised?). And Doctype is also missing. Serisouly. It is tabbed nicely, so that is a plus. White and yellow text on a black box with a green background is not a plus. My eyes are still adjusting. I'll stop here.
Number four, Cynthia McKinney. This one actually looks like they used photoshop, so that is cool. Not sure on the middle hump top shadow thing, not sure what light source could actually create that. I guess I am supposed to think the green box is coming TOWARDS me. But the other buttons on the page have lighting effects that don't support that. Glowing text is a good use of a filter in the aforementioned photoshop. ALMOST had the heavy header thing working, but for some reason stopped shy of full width. The even have a gradient in the background. Would have been cooler if the background and the content box worked better together. They are the only one with an RSS feed, which is good. Not updated too often, but hey, they have one. Table layout. And this is the ONLY site I have ever seen were w3c couldn't complete the validation. Oddly enough, this seems to be due to a comment in some script. The calendar link takes you to another site, with a totally different look and feel. I wish they had done some more styling of the text in the site. But really, this is the best (?) site of the bunch.
So this is the current state of the Green Party's candidates.
Good Christians. Awesome.
I saw the clip last week, but this commentary is awesome and provides more awesome links. God I hate religion (intentional).
It covers religious bigots who claim to be religious (Surely jesus would side with them, he was big on denying things to those that didn't agree with him. He also loved rich people, and I am sure he would love the media today). It touches on the media's inability to report on things that matter, which could imply that the average american is an idiot. Awesome.
VOTE
I swear I will go kick each and every one of you that don't vote.
Seriously. Vote.
And PLEASE, vote for the candidate you WANT TO WIN, NOT AGAINST THE ONE YOU DON'T WANT!
The more I think about it, the more I hate the 2 party system, as it forces people to only vote for 2 candidates. I mean SURE you can write in, but that is not a good alternative. And yes, the green party made the ballot in IL this year, and that is awesome.
But the idea of 'throwing your vote away' or voting for the 'lesser of 2 evils' is not actually going to CHANGE anything really. It won't ever break our 2 party system. It won't ever really bring about any change.
So go out. Vote for the candidates YOU want. The candidates that best align with YOUR beliefs.
For IL governor...
Rod, topinka... or consider the green party candidate, Rich Whitney... or the libertarian candidate, Mark McCoy ... or the Constitution candidate, Randy Stufflebeam.
There are options. Your candidate might not win. But if you ever want to see any change, why not vote for the person you WANT? If enough people actually paid attention to the issues and voted for the person they liked the best, imagine what could happen. Oh, and you are going to need to review the candidates EACH ELECTION! Party lines DO change over time.
So go vote.