April 05, 2004

• Actually, only an A-. Apparently they don't like the leaf.
• Hee hee. This is interesting. Thanks Orbit. I know Americans are supposed to feel patriotic and proud when we see our flag, but even as a kid I wondered why Betsy Ross couldn't come up with something more attractive. Rule #1, the client's spouse should never have design input. Rule #2 (from my dad), don't let the hard-boiled Quaker ladies decorate the meeting house.
• "Silly trident thing looks ridiculous." Well, made me laugh a couple times. That I was in some chemical-induced altered state helped alot, I think.
• A co-credit for this really belongs to this guy.
• Not to mention some arguments with his subjective comments and ratings, there are some problems with the objective ones. How are the Soloman islands marked as having too many stars (with 5), while Venezeula isn't?(with 7). There are surely some issues with this guy's grading of the flags, but I sure agree that Guam has a damn ugly flag.
• Not to be taken seriously, as the author's home page groups this with his "humour" pages, but he's clearly put some thought into it. OTOH, many of these flags are full of meaning and symbolism to the country's citizens, but he doesn't seem to have considered that at all. Oh, and what shinything said.
• He doesn't seem to have included the very greatest flag in the world, though. Stupid list.
• dng, based upon his critera I don't think the Welsh flag would be very well recieved. Especially considering the Vietnam is the basis for an A. I agree with you though, stupid list.
• Colonial Nonsense Used for countries that have the flags of their colonial masters as a part of their flag. The colonial master in question is nearly always the UK, but that's just because French territories all use the French flag, and US external territories all use something the local military commander has created using Microsoft Frontpage. This amused me.
• dng, based upon his critera I don't think the Welsh flag would be very well recieved. I expect you're right, bah: Rule 2a: Do not put a picture of anything on your flag. That's right: no pictures. The fool. Dragons are great.
• Overall, a little silly and arbitrary, but the Northern Mariana Islands IS priceless. "Appears to have been constructed from clip art." Heehee.
• I agree with some of the criteria of the judge. 1. Don't put a map on your flag. Duh, you already know where you are. 2. Don't write the name of the country on the flag. See number 1. 3. Don't put a picture on the flag. Some of the others seem arbitrary, though. 1. Do not use a tricolor unless you are in Europe?!? Then he bitches when a country uses a four-color. I would add one of my own: the flag should be simple enough that it can be reproduced with a ruler and compass, i.e., only simple lines.
• Flying a flag upside down used to be a signal of ditress, but it's hard to see how see some of these can be turned upside down. Question: Should upside-downess that is visibly different from a flag's rightside upness still be a criterion?
• Curses! "distress" not ditress.
• I think if he had his way, all flags would look alike, with just maybe differing colors that he found acceptable. If the citizens of a country like their flag, why would I worry? I'll never see most of them waving in the breeze, anyway. (Flags, not citizens.) On the other hand, money that doesn't look like US currency should be banned. (Kidding, and wishing that ours was more interesting.)
• I'm with dng on the dragons. When I visited the UK last year, I couldn't bear to part with any of the really pretty pound coins I kept getting, but the best were the dragons. I'd trade my leaf for a dragon.
• Yeah...I brought a half-dozen of those dragon pound coins home after my last trip. They were heavy, but worth it.
• Lots of flags don't work upside down as a distress signal, but this has been true for so long that it's never really been a universal. Some countries, notably the UK, have special marine ensigns that can be clearly differentiated upside down from the right way up. Canada got rid of its marritime ensigns when it got the new flag in 1967, which I always thought was a great pitty for precicely this reason. Israel has both a naval and a civil ensign for use on ships, but both look just the same upside down as they do the right way up, which I always thought was a pretty dumb decision. On the bright side, there are many other ways to signal distress, as well as many other useful messages.
• This is awesome! Great link...