A little from Kent Mesplay
Kent Mesplay seems to come across as a quieter Presidential candidate from the Green Party. When he speaks though, he comes across as very intelligent. I've liked him since the Green Party debates in January. However, being quiet, I don't hear much from him very often. So I was quite happy to see his name in an article, not as part of a list of Green Party presidential candidates but as the focus of the article. He talks about Nader running as an independent, Jesse Johnson's recent vocal endorsement from Mike Gravel and what Green's need to do to get noticed by the media. ...
Also at the end of the post is a short clip from a documentary called "Seriously Green" so that people can put a face to Kent Mesplay.
And here is a blog radio interview with Kent Mesplay as well. (So you can put a voice to the name I guess :) )
Gravel goes Green
Last week you may have missed it. In the political brouhaha that is American politics during a Presidential election year, you often hear about candidates supporting other candidates but only after they have dropped out. What isn't usually newsworthy is the fact that they always support someone from their own party. So why, when a candidate who hasn't dropped out of the race supports a candidate in another party is there so little news on the event. Well, last week Mike Gravel gave his support to Green Party presidential candidate Jesse Johnson. ...
Like Mike Gravel, when I first saw Jesse Johnson in a debate I wasn't that taken with him. Perhaps it was because he wasn't officially running for president at that time. Sure, he said his first focus was to get the Greens on the ballot in West Virginia but he wasn't officially running so I didn't take him seriously. He was very intelligent and well spoken but until his run was official I just decided not to pay attention.
Recently Jesse Johnson finished getting the Green Party candidates on the ballot in West Virginia, even though the Mountain party ( the Green party affiliate in West Virginia ) has a different name. Way to go Jesse, he can make things happen. That's a bonus in my book.
Then when he is freed up from ensuring a more democratic ballot in the mountain state he did indeed officially announce his run for president. No sooner did that happen then the big new. Mike Gravel,a Democrat still running for President himself, endorses Jesse Johnson for President of the United States. I didn't think an endorsement would make any difference for me, but this one sure did.
Perhaps we'll see more of this. Disenchanted major party candidates supporting minor party candidates. Minor party candidates supporting each other. Joint tickets between minor parties? Okay maybe that is pushing it, I'm open to the idea though.
Friday Humor with Hank and Jed
I've posted a couple videos by Hank and Jed productions in the past. They are a small production company that makes some fun movies. This past weekend they launched the newest version of their site, which keeps up with their brand of humor. You can also see their movies online, in decent quality.
Check them out at HankAndJed.com. ...
Yahoo Flex Map Component Part 3 available
Part 3 in my multi part series on building a flex component out of the Yahoo! Maps API is available over at the Flexcoders group.
In part 1 of this series I talked about the reasons why you would want to make a flex component out of something you can do in actionscript. In part 2 I discussed the basics of the component architecture. From that second article you can create a component that works however you still haven't handled most of the reasons to make a component in the first place. In this article I will take care of those issues the issues of data binding, event handling and making it easier for non coders( sometimes called designers or managers :) ) to work with.
Friday Humor? Adult Freeze Tag
I'm not sure if you can call this humor, but it is worth sharing. A friend reminded me today of an Improv Everywhere mission where over 200 people froze in place for 5 minutes at grand central station. If you haven't seen it, it is beautiful. ...
YahooFlexMap part 2 is available
Part 2 in my multipart series about creating a Flex component fromt he new Yahoo! map API for actionscript 3 is now available in the my.opera Flexcoders group blog.
In part 1 of my series on making a flex component out of the new Yahoo! Maps API for actionscript 3 I talked about the reasons I was taking the time to componentize something I could easily build with pure actionscript. Today I will be talking through the basics of creating a visual component. While these basics are covered at the LiveDocs for Flex 3, I will go over them in a slightly different way, as well as talk about how they affect the Yahoo! map component in particular.
Also make sure to join the Flexcoders group as it is new and looking for new members. At the very least, feel free to ask questions in the forum.
Ralph Nader on The Daily Show
Yesterday Ralph Nader was interviewed on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. When I posted about this before I called The Daily Show the fake news. Granted, that is a term they use themselves but the Jon Stewart actually interviewed him like other Presidential candidates. Bravo Jon, if it wasn't for the Cam-Pain Carnage piece I probably wouldn't be able to call it the fake news anymore. ...
Nader on the Fake News
This Tuesday could be a very exciting day for politics. Sure, the Democratic party could finally decide on a candidate after the next set of primaries but I've already said I won't be talking about that much any more. The real news is that the fake news, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, will be interviewing Ralph Nader. This could be interesting. ...
Nader on the Daily Show could be interesting because they could have a good laugh about the whole "spoiler" issue. I'm sure Ralph is tired of the serious answer he always has to give. Of course, he'll probably only have about 6 minutes. And since this may be one of the most mainstream interviews he gets, at least for younger voters, he will be making his points as well. He's very well educated and a good speaker, I'm not worried. Hopefully he'll get to show off more of his humorous side than we usually get to see.
It should be much more informative than the guest on The Daily Show tonight( but I'll watch it anyway ). First SNL and now the Daily Show, she is really working for those youth votes.
Other than the forthcoming Daily Show appearance there is a lot being said about the Nader campaign. There is getting to be even more since he announced his running mate Matt Gonzales, who so far seems great to me. I especially like his response to the spoiler issue. For more of the news related to Nader/Gonzales check out the votenader.org news page.
YahooFlexMap part 1 available
I have made my first instructional post over at the new Flexcoders group. Here is the synopsis:
After the Flex 360 conference in Atlanta I decided to start creating components that use the Flex framework out of items that can only be done through actionscript. Due to my history with the Yahoo! maps component in AS2, I decided to make the new AS3 map API into my first Flex component. As this process has enough information to be worthy of a series, I thought I would first answer why I want to do this in the first place.
It is the first in a multipart series about creating a custom flex component from an existing actionscript API.Check it out.
In case you missed it
I almost missed it while I was at Flex 360 in Atlanta. There has been a lot of talk about Nader officially running for President of the United States of America but you might have missed it. So I've decided to post some video of his announcement on Meet the Press. ...
As always, Nader is very intelligent and more eloquent about his political points than many.
Something else you may have missed is that Ralph Nader announced his Vice Presidential running mate yesterday.
Honestly, I was amazed at how quickly the information was on Wikipedia, that Matt Gonzalez was Ralph Nader's running mate. I don't know much about him so its time to do some research.