Website Design Considerations I

There was a time long, long ago in technological advancement years when website design was out of the reach of all but the relative few who could write the hyper text markup language better known by its acronym 'html' from start to finish.

Computer Man Hard At Work

Designing Award Winning Web Sites

Website design, then as now, was in high demand for those with the tools and ability to help a client target an audience, develop a world wide web presence, and populate it with fast loading (at 28.8 Kbps) web pages.

Of course those early days saw sprites rendered in 256 colors as opposed to today's true color programming (eats up lots and lots of resources) , and those historic basic colors ruled in a tile-based world and we thought they were something. Specificity of product, of course, especially if images were to be employed, became the real challenge as they could be inordinately cumbersome and slow to load. The result being one of three options, to wit: (1) wait and wait and wait - maybe while you mow the lawn, (2) become exasperated with the tedious task of internet speed - actually modem speed - to the point of "clicking off" the website, or (3) losing your treasured internet connection.

In 2008, companies such as AOL, Net Zero, and many other Internet Service Providers (ISP) offering cheap internet connections assures that there remains enough people using dial-up to connect to the internet that one doing website design must be ever cognizant of loading speeds. The standard for this measurement remains 28.8K for the Computer Man Website Design Team although no one in the United States can expect to efficiently, if at all, cruise the internet at that speed.

The difference being that almost anyone can design and build some measure of a website in the 21st century with little or no help. Many companies that offer internet hosting also offer basic website design and promotional tools. One can sign up for a sub domain, build a nice web site, add an avatar and promote it to a few search engines in an hour or less.

Missing in this scenario are the tags a website needs and any special requirements of the entrepreneurial enterprise. If the site is personal for family and friends such an under taking may be more than sufficient. All that is left to do, is an e-mail to your contacts to let them know where they can find your postings, photos, etc and you only need to change the web site when the spirit moves you. If, however, you hope to use the site to generate revenue either as a hobby or primary source of income you could be way off base.

Let’s be clear. There is no problem with a sub domain per se or as pertains to search engines. The search engines treat a sub domain as the separate website that it is. Perhaps we can cover this complicated subject in a separate article.

No. The problem is with the flexibility of the primary domain's shared website design templates. These are templates set up specifically for sharing as little bandwidth (space) as possible with sub domains. When you compare the features and space allocated to you with that of the host, you will quickly see many of the limitations of the majority of these hosts and arrangements.

Best practices, even if using a free sub domain, is to create your website the way you want it with a third party program and upload it to your new sub domain. This can be done relatively easily with such programs as Alley Code, Evrsoft, Coffee Cup, Page Breeze or other free html editors. You can also use free WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get - maybe) website creators such as Nvu or Sea Monkey. For a Free online store creator one might try the free version of "easy store creator"... of course. What else would it be?

For more complicated and user friendly websites most will still need to retain a professional website design team. However you go about designing your website, make sure you understand and comply with the pre-requisites of the host or you will find that all of your work was in vain as your site will be rejected one way or another for one reason or another - too numerous to cover here.

Publication of Burk Pendergrass, J.D., a Cherokee Indian and Viet Nam Vet
Website Design by Computer Man

Tennessee Mountain Man
Burke Pendergrass

Life Just Ain't What It Used To Be

Over the last fifty years or so we have invented all sorts of time saving strategies that have some how managed to leave us with the greatest time deficit ever experienced by man.

Few people live on farms any more where labor is from daylight to after dark. We don't even work in factories today. No. Modern society runs on the service industry from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. How misleading!

Why is there no time to sit on the porch and just enjoy God's nature? Oh, yeah... right. Most houses have no porches and the few that do can't be enjoyed for the fear of gangs and hooligans roaming the neighborhood. And, should one get passed those concerns who can enjoy the sound of cars literally flying up and down the highway just a few feet away, the ever present blaring of car horns, sirens screaming through the night, and the neighbors you don't know living on top of you when the ones you used to love lived a quarter of a mile away.

Back then we visited on a regular basis and got around to socializing with everyone. Now we barely speak, if we do at all, to the guy living thirty feet away. Maybe we will invite him to a backyard barbeque once a year to assuage our conscience, but probably not. Instead of helping him repair his house, we bitch about the noise he makes during the process, and resent the fact he needs to borrow a hammer rather than taking the time to prepare him a cold pitcher of lemonade made from scratch to quench the thirst he works up.

The Tennessee Mountain Man recalls that there was a time when the city was a million miles away and no one from the country went there unless they had to. In our modern world the city has moved into the country and the new reality is that the farm is now a million miles or so from the city next door. It is dirty. The people there are dirty - never mind that their conscience is clean. The place has a foul odor that assaults our sensitive metropolitan olfactory glands and we dare not venture there unless it is absolutely unavoidable.

At a time when we said grace before every meal, we ate hearty and were in little, if any, danger of being over weight. Now that we think perhaps Grace is the lady living two houses down the street in the home needing it's lawn trimmed we suffer from a national obesity epidemic though religiously practicing our yo yo diet and binge eating.

Computer Man used to get up before daylight to build a fire, do the morning chores, and cook breakfast before going off to a day of work. But that is so passé. Now we get up just in time to gulp down a cup of instant coffee or coffee set to brew automatically the night before while 'nuking' some instant pre-boxed meal stripped of all nutrition to eat while we over charge our metabolic system in front of the boob tube blasting 'The View' into our living rooms andappropriately raising blood pressures.

Man dare not sleep with his face in an open window any more regardless of whether he lives in the country or in the city. Therefore he can't hear the rain on the roof, the barn owl hooting off in the distance, the cry of a new born calf, the mating call of God's creatures that rule the night, the wind whistling through the old barn, nor the defining silence of the new fallen snow.

We used to sleep a little later on Sunday and get up with every action deliberate and geared toward getting us to God's house on time for the morning worship service. Now we repeat the last six days except we are content with getting our religious instruction watching some televangelist only because 'The View' is not shown on Sunday television. And, why go to church when some greedy self serving prophet comes to us?

Nope! Life just ain't what it used to be. If you think it is, just open the door or pull out the chair for a lady and notice the looks you get if you manage to escape an outright attack. Listen... did you hear that? I thought I actually heard a child say, "please, excuse me, sir".

Publication of Burk Pendergrass, J.D., the Computer Man, a Cherokee Indian and Viet Nam Vet specializing in website design at computermanwebsitedesign.bravehost.com/ and remotehelpdesk1.com/ specializing in online web based computer repair.

Free Movies... On Your Desktop... Legally... Really!!

Your Website Design Team has been enjoying a new web launch as we worked late this week, and we wanted to share. Netflix and Blockbuster are going to have to get up to speed with a newly launched NBC and Fox joint venture website or loose their proverbial kyster in the opinion of Remote Helpdesk 1 who hosts "My Name Is Bill W". The true life story of the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).

NBC and Fox have teamed up to offer great movies Free, TV shows Free, and clips Free right on your desk top... no trips to the store... no waiting on snail mail. Movies on demand... on your time... at the place of your choosing... on your desktop... LEGAL and (did Computer Man mention?) FREE... an idea whose time has come.

The new video on demand website launched Wednesday, 12 March 2008 and is supported through advertising. Sound familiar? O.K. So it is somewhat like TV. Who cares? It is still a real entertainment alternative - a real entertainment value, and the Tennessee Mountain Man predicts it will be a big hit.

Like Tivo, you can fast forward, pause, etc. The only draw back is that if you are fast forwarding to skip an advertisement it won't exactly work. You will land on an ad you must allow to play to continue watching the movie.

Initial Line Up Looks Like This:

Full Length Movies Alphabetically

4

* The 40-Year-Old Virgin

A

* Alien 3
* Alien Resurrection
* Alien vs. Predator
* Aliens
* All Dogs Go to Heaven
* All Dogs Go to Heaven 2
* Attack of the Puppet People

B

* Beer
* The Big Lebowski
* Big Trouble in Little China
* The Birds
* Blue Denim
* Blue Juice
* Blue Steel
* Boat Trip
* The Break-Up
* Bring It On
* Broadcast News
* Brokedown Palace
* Broken Lizard's Club Dread
* Bulworth

C

* Cheaper by the Dozen
* Cheech & Chong's The Corsican Brothers
* Cheech and Chong's Next Movie
* Clay Pigeons
* Cleopatra
* Code of Silence
* The Comedy of Terrors
* The Curse of Inferno

D

* Date Movie
* The Day the Earth Stood Still
* Daylight
* The Devil Wears Prada
* Die Hard With a Vengeance
* Dirty Work
* Do the Right Thing
* Dodgeball
* Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine
* Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs
* Dragon - The Bruce Lee Story
* Dude, Where's My Car?

E

* Enter the Ninja

F

* Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
* Field of Dreams
* Fierce Creatures
* Fierce People
* Flight of the Phoenix
* The Fly
* Free Money
* The Full Monty

G

* Garden State
* The Girl Next Door
* Going Overboard
* Gridlock'd

H

* Hercules in New York
* Home Alone

I

* I Heart Huckabees
* Ice Age
* Ice Age: The Meltdown
* The Immortalizer
* In Dangerous Company
* In the Mix
* Inspector Clouseau
* Into The Night

J

* The Jerk
* Joe Kidd
* Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie
* Juno
* Just Between Friends

K

* K-Pax
* Kagemusha
* Keep Your Eyes Open
* Killing Zoe

L

* A Life Less Ordinary
* Little Miss Sunshine
* Live Free or Die Hard

M

* Man on the Moon
* Masquerade
* Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
* Me, Myself & Irene
* Miracle on 34th Street
* Moonstruck
* Movieola Shorts: Animation
* Movieola Shorts: Comedy
* Movieola Shorts: Drama
* Mulholland Drive

N

* Napoleon Dynamite
* National Lampoon's Movie Madness

O

* October Sky
* Office Space


P

* Parents
* Penitentiary
* Permanent Midnight
* Planet of the Apes
* Psycho
* Psycho ('98)

Q

* Quest for Fire
* Quills

R

* Raising Arizona
* Red Dragon
* Reno 911!: Miami
* Requiem for a Dream
* Robin Hood: Men in Tights
* Robots

S

* The Seven Year Itch
* The Shape of Things
* Sideways
* The Simpsons Movie
* The Skulls
* The Slums Of Beverly Hills
* Smokin' Aces
* The Sound Of Music
* Speed
* Star Maps
* State Property
* Super Troopers

T

* Thank You for Smoking
* That Thing You Do!
* There's Something About Mary
* Three Amigos!
* Titan A.E.

U

* Undiscovered
* The Usual Suspects

V

* Very Bad Things
* Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

W

* Waitress
* Walk the Line
* Weekend at Bernie's
* Working Girl

X

* The X-Files
* X-Men: The Last Stand
* X2: X-Men

Plus TV Hundreds of TV Shows From Jerry Springer to Top Chef, and much, much more - something for every taste.

It is called Hulu and it is located appropriately enough at hulu dot com

So, what are you waiting for? Grab the popcorn and meet the Computerman's Website Design team there!

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The Question Is, Margaret, How Deep Is The Recession

President George Bush is right, the country is "not headed for a recession". It has arrived - Remote Helpdesk 1 knows we are there. Besides politics, recession is the major concern of the common man as the summer vacation season hurdles towards the masses. Winter will soon be a memory and family thoughts will turn to spring break and anticipation of summer vacations. The truth is less Americans than ever before will not be able to take a vacation this year. The number of people finding themselves stranded at home during vacation times and holidays have been trending upward for years now.

The economy has slowed according to the White House and has replaced the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the genocide in Darfur as the average American's priority. Republican nominee John Mc Cain promises to address the issue as house prices fall, fuel and food prices increase, home foreclosures soar, the dollar is in free fall, America loses 63,000 jobs in February alone - the most in the last five years and the government now admits January 2008 numbers were also negative, and we find ourselves at an all time high in auto repossessions. The Tennessee Mountain Man wonders why politicians are always promising to fix something while running for office that they already had twenty-five years to correct.

Having been a student of business sciences in college, a life time of two ago, the Computer Man recognizes that there must be official definitions of such phenomenon as a recession and a depression, however political correctness be damned. When your rent and utilities are past due and you, your children, or your aging parents are hungry and you can do little about it, you are in a depression. The dirty little secret no one wants to address is, when some are in a recession, many are of necessity in a depression.

For way too long our elderly have had to choose between medicine and food, and of having to pay a portion of their utilities one month and paying their rent the next while children must eat two meals a day at school or go hungry.

Although it is disheartening to watch the wealthy republican establishment decry the less financially secure people of the world who make their life style possible, it was a positive sign when the newly minted world's wealthiest man, Billionaire Warren Buffett, recently said "the U.S. economy is essentially in a recession even if it hasn't met the technical definition of one yet". Perhaps he knows because Kirby vacuum cleaners are harder to move these days and those who want one can't qualify for the financing, and those, like the Tennessee Mountain Man, who use his gecko insurance can barely keep it from lapsing.

Most folk of Buffett's stature, those simply suffering from the little man syndrome, and the wanna be lose touch with the average American. Even George W. Bush, the President of the United States, who has a cabinet and an army of advisors who are supposed to be in touch with the people and keep him informed recently declared, "I’m ‘focused’ on gas prices but unaware of four dollar a gallon gas".

During a recent press conference, a reporter asked President Bush what his “advice” would be to the “average American” who is “facing the prospect of four dollar a gallon gasoline.” Bush replied, “That’s interesting, I hadn’t heard that.” After all he travels in a 20 car motorcade fueled by the Secret Service on our dime, and when his truck needs fuel on the ranch they surely don't let him run down to the local convenience store, refuel, grab a bucket of chicken, and a cold drink.

Thursday, March the 6th, 2008, fuel hit well over a hundred dollars a barrel and hit a new all time high of $109.00 a barrel Tuesday, March 11th on it's way to two hundred dollars while the value of American Currency continues to fall around the world.

When we began to get bombarded with SPAM like this, "Lowest priced homes: foreclosure deals are everywhere!! Beautiful 3-4-5 bedroom homes in all areas - starting at $25,000 - sometimes with nothing down!", hard working Americans - the middle class - are in serious trouble irrespective of what some condescending snob wishes to call it.

When your lender shows up for his collateral and leaves you with the parting shot, "we'll see what it brings at auction and then we'll go from there" you know what he means. The collateral will be sold quickly and cheaply and then he will be back not with groceries to help you feed your children nor with money to help you pay your doctor bills and buy medicine but to seize any and everything else you possess.

A real kick in the teeth while you are down. Just what you need at the moment. A recession by any definition remains untoward struggle and pain. Ask the suffering - the lower and middle classes in America. Where does it end? when you lose your job? when you are in bankruptcy? when you are homeless?

Yes, Margaret, technicalities notwithstanding, the United States is in a recession. The fed can cut interest rates until the bank pays us to borrow money and the world bank can pump all the cash it wants to into the system, but in reality it is not going to get better for the majority of us any time soon. Technicalities don't get hungry... technicalities don't become delinquent...technicalities don't worry about sky rocketing medical bills... technicalities don't have to worry about obscene burial costs... technicalities don't get sick... technicalities don't lose jobs or take cuts in pay... technicalities don't hurt... technicalities don't get depressed... technicalities don't commit suicide... technicalities don't cry... technicalities don't lash out in frustration - but, people made in God's image do.

When you lie down tonight - wherever you lie down tonight - please try to remember that there really is someone who is hurting more than you, and say a little prayer for that Child of God.

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Because She is a Monster!!

Meet the Clintons alone in an ally on a dark night and it is believed the chance of you coming out without getting rapped by one and cut up by the other is not very good. It certainly would not attract Las Vegas style odds, and in 2008 they seem determined and poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of success for the democrats.

There is a reason white men, married men, and men of a certain age prefer Obama three to one. All one has to do is take a look at Hillary. Like one alcoholic or addict knows another, one look at Hillary and, even if you knew nothing else about her, you get the picture - you know, and the smart run for the hills while some destructive types have to hang around for the party.

If this is what you want...

This is Not It

The electorate like the online helpdesk team fell in love with Obama in part because of his positive message... because he was above everything the Clintons not only stood for but practiced over the years. We must ask ourselves who better reflects the politics, ethics,
and work style of the 55th Speaker of The U. S. House of Representatives, Thomas (Tip) O'Neill? That person is our candidate! And, that candidate is not a good ole boy - or girl - from Arkansas or New York or Pennsylvania, or wherever they are from this week.

Many Americans feel Hillary is a monster. We know she and Bill don't play by the rules. Just consider their history as well as theircurrent push regarding the changing of the rules for Michigan and Florida to favor them at all costs. It is all about Bill and Hill despite her claims that it is all about you... that her desire to be President is for you. They are willing to throw anyone and everyone under the bus for personal benefit.

Obama, in the Tennessee Mountain Man's opinion, should have stood his ground. Don't throw anyone overboard to appease perjurers. We are in the corner with Harvard professor and former (unfortunately) Obama advisor Dr Samantha Power. Tell the Clintons to get over it and move on after all they see no issues with their surrogate referring to Obama as Ken Starr.

Americans must decide whether they want a fresh new start in everything politics, and whether we want someone indebted to no one but the people for their coveted position. The only alternative is gutter politics as usual with professional politicians holding positions doled out by party bosses, paid for with dollars by high powered lobbyists, and bought with the blood of the people who keep going to prison around the Clintons while they skate.

Remote Helpdesk 1 believes there is a reason Hillary is so divisive. She was the "b" behind, protecting, and enabling Bill and she is the secretative "w" in her own political and public life willing to unleash her husband as well as her feminine charms as required to bully or seduce. How many more people shall be sacrificed to team Clinton before we make up our collective mind that we deserve better and that we can have better, and then have the intestinal fortitude to stand our ground.

The only way to rid ourselves of the scandals of the Clintons from the past and those sure to follow any success they have is to banish them to the trash heap from which they evolved as we did the Enron Team. And, the only way to do that is to get past the manipulation both Clintons employ against the American people.

If This Is Whom You Desire

This Will Not Do

We don't have to fear them says a web based helpdesk company... they are not virtual viruses. They are not to be pitied... they are not the victims of vast right wing conspiracies. We all know they are not to be trusted... they are closer to used car salesmen and their repo teams than anything. They are not Jack and Jackie and they are not the Beatles... they are not Sonny and Cher. They are not even Ike and Tina Turner (boy I hate using Tina's name in the same sentence as the Clintons).

Why would any sane nation return to the White House one who was impeached the last time he held the office? Why return to the Presidency one who lost his license to practice law the last time he was in that position for lying to a federal body? oh. oh. oh. Make no mistake - Big Willy will run the show should the weeping offended feminine willow win.

Although he tried to rehabilitate his image during the Bush years, we know what kind of man Bill is. If only Vince Foster were here to tell Hillary's story in his own words we might be able to determine what an evil person she really is. Do we really want these two at the helm of the most powerful nation on God's earth?

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Practicing Alcoholic - Professional Sot

Welcome to the short version of the life of a friend of Bill W. When dealing with the intoxicated, you might want to keep in mind the caveat of Oklahoma's Favorite Son and the esteemed movie actor, cowboy philosopher, political humorist, and Cherokee Indian Will Rogers who proclaimed, "I have Indian Blood in me. I have just enough white blood for you to question my honesty!".

He countered the white man always ready to take pride in and brag about how his ancestors arrived in America by quipping, "my ancestors didn't come over on the Mayflower but they met it". A thought that gives the Tennessee Mountain Man a chuckle to this day.

To Watch Click Picture

What has Will Rogers to do with this subject? Well, for a teetotaler who has been dead since 1935 he had some sage insights into modern day politics as well as the fallacy of over imbibing in fire water. Insights appreciated by the Criminal Defense Lawyers Association like, "Our constitution protects aliens, drunks and U.S. Senators" (ouch!), and he has at least one Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) Chapter as well as a Rehab and Recovery Center named after him.

A few days ago the computerman unexpectedly met some former colleagues and friends of Bill W. They had once enjoyed a close relationship. Soon a young man in their company looked at the computer man and asked, "are you a practicing alcoholic?". To which he replied, "no... no I'm not", and walked away with a smile on his face.

Just before getting out of hearing range, an alcohol and drug counselor was heard explaining to the young man, "He used to be our chaplain".

"Really?"

"Yep, and you would have been better off asking him if he drinks."

"Why?"

"His answer would have been, not since the invention of the funnel."

"So, you know him pretty well, and he does have a problem?"

"No. No problem. And, he will tell you he stopped practicing in 1968 when he found Chevas Regal. He had found the answer. He was a professional. He no longer had a problem drinking - his practicing was over. He had learned to love it. His trouble was with stopping which he didn't do until 1990. He was one of the few people a bar tender couldn't switch to the house brand after a few drinks. He liked what he liked, and he knew every time someone tried to switch him. It would be like trying to sneak a Sprite in on you when you were expecting a Dr Pepper."

"Okay. So, he no longer drinks? Or, does he?"

At this point the conversation was lost, so let us hear it straight from the horse's mouth - uh, pen.

There being no legal booze in the state, the computer man lived next door to a bootlegger as a child. Like the drug dealer, the old man used up all his profits. Having seen the bootlegger setting passed out, upright in a straight, ladder back, chair with a white foam stretching all the way to the floor the child said, in his mind, "I will never be like that".

Then came a war in a far away land called Vietnam, and the child - now a young man with a wife and children of his own found himself in a strange land he did not know, among a people he could not understand with strange religions and customs and living in fear. Here he learned to never say never.

There were, of course, too many reasons to count. But then any friend of Bill's knows any excuse will do. How about the reasons to keep it together? Like many soldiers there he got his Dear John Letter, his wife had an affair with another, and had their children seized by the state which was hard to do in those days. Upon securing the return of the children, they were told they did not have a daddy - he got killed in Vietnam.

At the height of his addiction, he drank a gallon and a half of Scotch Whiskey a day... every day... seven days a week until he was in DTs and could no longer afford it. Bouncing checks where ever he could get one cashed, he was drinking the cheapest whiskey he could find at the unbelievable rate of three (3) half gallon bottles a day..

His liver? Oh, God is good. It still works. And, although he would drink nothing for years, he now drinks one or two shots of Scotch or a beer most days. The remainder, he consumes no alcohol. His primary care physician says, "look, you have CHF and cancer - if it makes you feel better use it man".

He does not however, recommend it to anyone. AA is right in their stance that alcoholism and addiction are diseases of mind, body, and spirit. It doesn’t simply attack one of these areas, but all of them to some degree.

Susan Yarrawonga sums it all up on Yahoo! Answers in her answer to the question, "Is it possible for a true alcoholic to only drink socially or on the weekends?".

She said, "There are practicing alcoholics and non-practicing alcoholics. A non-practicing alcoholic is a teetotaler who used to be a practicing alcoholic.

There is a saying that for an alcoholic one drink is too many and 100 is not enough.

Most alcoholics who try to drink socially or only at weekends fail miserably. With supreme and extreme will power an alcoholic may perhaps be able to drink in moderation but this is highly unlikely."

Publication of Burk Pendergrass, J.D., a Cherokee Indian and Viet Nam Vet specializing in website design at computermanwebsitedesign.bravehost.com/ and remotehelpdesk1.com/ specializing in online web based computer repair. Reprint authorized with credits.

Ralph Nader and Nader's Raiders Strike Again

The republican party got an early Easter Basket Sunday, 24 February, 2008 when Ralph Nader announced on NBC's Meet the Press with Tim Russert (the same forum where he announced his 2004 presidential run) that he was tossing his hat into the ring for the Office of The President of The United States of America.

In 1992 a third-party candidate, H. Ross Perot, claimed a large share of the American vote, nearly Twenty (20) percent , playing a role the Republican base will never forget.

The day following Nader's announcement, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is apparently contemplating his own independent presidential bid, defended Ralph Nader's right to seek the Nation's Highest Office.

So while Nader may be the nemeses of the democratic party, it may be that the republicans have a spoiler of their own on their hands. If so, like H. Ross Perot, he has enough money of his own to make the country take him seriously - at least for a time.

Nader is a member of the Green Party. He came to prominence in the 1960s as a consumer advocate. His most significant program to the mind of a car lover, like the Tennessee Mountain Man, was spearheading the demise of what he dubbed the coffin on wheels - the Chevy Corvair. Computer Man saw one of Nader's rolling coffins in mint condition traveling on Rossville Boulevard in Chattanooga, Tennessee just a week or so preceding Nader's announcement, and wondered if "the spoiler" would show again.

Given Nader's ego and his apparent thirst for power, he could have done no less. Having run unsuccessfully in 2000 and 2004, the 2008 bid will be Nader's third run for the office. Will the third time be the charm? Surely not.

Although Nader attracted just 2.7 percent of the vote nationwide, the democrats have not forgotten, nor forgiven, Ralph Nader for what they believe cost Al Gore the 2000 election. In 2004 he garnered only 0.3 percent of the vote, and yet he once again finds himself vilified in the Blogosphere as being in bed with The Grand Old Party.

Obama, who briefly organized with a Nader influenced group as a young man, taking the high road, said, "Ralph Nader deserves enormous credit for the work he did as a consumer advocate, but his function as a perennial candidate is not putting food on the table of workers." Obama did opine, that Ralph Nader in recent years tended to assume that candidates are fatally flawed if they fail to recognize the wisdom of his views.

Hillary, talking with reporters onboard her campaign plane said of Nader's run “Obviously it’s not helpful to whomever our Democratic nominee is, but it’s a free country" . In reference to the AL Gore - George Bush race of 20000, she suggested that Ralph Nader's Green Party candidacy cost the nation the "greenest president'' it could have had. She believes Nader's new candidacy for the White House, at best, poses an unwelcome distraction.

Nader has run as both a Green Party candidate and an independent in past elections. He has not yet declared how he will run in the upcoming general election. Whatever his decision, he will be a power with which the Democratic Party Nominee will have to contend.

Not surprisingly, the Republicans were not so dismissive. On the other hand, Ward Harkavy, in the Village Voice Blog, dubbed Nader, "America's Suicide Bomber" while The Age saw him as the "Democrats bogeyman", and The Nation Blog apparently believes America still needs Ralph Nader to be Public Citizen Number One pursuing matters as a consumer advocate and not a presidential candidate.

Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee couldn't resist a little fun at Nader's expense and joked on CNN that Republicans would welcome Nader's entry into the race and hope that maybe a few more will join in. Huckabee said in a television interview that a Ralph Nader candidacy was a suicide mission and would more likely pull votes away from Democrats than Republicans, and he welcomed the longtime consumer advocate into the fray.

Ron Paul's camp believes there is unhappiness among the electorate, and that he (Paul) best captures that anger, and that Ralph Nader is not the proper vehicle for the expression of America's year of discontent. Nader, they feel, was a spoiler in 2000 and will long be remembered as being responsible for the election of George W. Bush, and that just as when he ran again in 2004 there will be few who care in the final analysis.

John McCain being the odds on favorite to benefit the most from the Nader candidacy has appropriately remained mum on the subject.

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