Best Flag Designs

"NAVA, the North American Vexillological Association, conducted a poll on its website, asking its members and the public their opinions of flag designs in the U.S. and Canada....

"Participants rated 72 flags on their design qualities (rather than on political, historical, or geographic considerations)...

"The public’s overall responses paralleled those of NAVA members quite closely... Their insightful comments showed a strong intuitive grasp of flag design and confirmed NAVA’s expert opinions on design principles. One doesn’t need to be a flag expert to know a good flag design....

"The highest-scoring flags all embody the five basic principles listed in NAVA’s publication on flag design, Good Flag, Bad Flag:

"1. Keep It Simple (The flag should be so simple that a child can draw it from memory...)

"2. Use Meaningful Symbolism (The flag’s images, colors, or patterns should relate to what it symbolizes...)

"3. Use 2–3 Basic Colors (Limit the number of colors on the flag to three, which contrast well and come from the standard color set...)

"4. No Lettering or Seals (Never use writing of any kind or an organization’s seal...)

"5. Be Distinctive or Be Related (Avoid duplicating other flags, but use similarities to show connections...)

"Good Flag, Bad Flag: How to Design a Great Flag is downloadable free from the NAVA website. It can help any organization, tribe, company, family, neighborhood, city, county, state, or even country design a great flag."

--North American Vexillological Association, 2001 June 10


1. New Mexico

3. Quebec

4. Maryland

5. Alaska

6. Arizona

9. Republic of the Marshall Islands

10. South Carolina

The flag of Maryland is one of my favorite flags. I hate the flag of Arizona; it looks like a nondescript mall decoration.

the entire Eastern seaboard might join the European Union

"The front page of the December 29 issue of the Wall Street Journal carried a story about a Russian professor, who predicts the disintegration of the United States by 2010....

"Igor Panarin, a former KGB analyst, forecasts economic, financial and demographic turmoil in the U.S. leading to a political and social crisis that will result in social unrest and a civil war before the country breaks up along ethnic lines....

"Panarin, the dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s academy for future diplomats, first predicted a U.S. collapse in 1998 at a conference in Linz, Austria... [Attendees] lined up afterward and asked him to autograph copies of the map showing how America would break into different regions that would align with foreign lands.


"He essentially predicted nearly a decade ago that California and many western states will become part of China (or fall under Chinese influence), Alaska will go back to Russia, Hawaii will go to either China or Japan, Texas and several southern states will become part of Mexico, northern states will become part of Canada and the entire Eastern seaboard might join the European Union.

"Panarin spends plenty of time at receptions in the Kremlin, lecturing to students, publishing books and appearing in various media outlets as an expert on U.S.-Russian relations, which are pretty dismal right now....

"His projections of a U.S. breakup have made him a darling of the Russian media and power circles.

"White House reaction at a December news conference drew laughter from the press corps. But Panarin warns a similar 1976 prediction by a French political scientist, Emmanuel Todd, correctly predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union 15 years before it happened."

--Rick Killion, Prairie Business Magazine, 2009 March

Russian America

“His comrades were Slavonian hunters and Russian adventurers, Mongols and Tartars and Siberian aborigines; and through the savages of the new world they had cut a path of blood.”

--Jack London, “Lost Face,” 1910

Age of Info

Discovered Google Earth last night.

1. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
2. Minot, North Dakota
3. Karlsruhe, North Dakota
4. St. Paul, Minnesota
5. Provideniya, Chukotka, Russia
6. Nome, Alaska
7. South Pole
8. Baghdad, Iraq
9. Besancon, France
10. Cancun, Mexico

Knowledge Advances

“Ever since Thomas Jefferson began collecting Native American artifacts and displaying them in his foyer, many theories have been proposed to explain how people first came to North and South America. The most widely accepted was the Clovis-first theory, named for the elegant, fluted spear points found in association with the remains of mammoths, bison and other animals near Clovis, New Mexico, in 1932...

“In the 1960s and early 1970s the ecologist Paul S. Martin and the geoarchaeologist C. Vance Haynes Jr., together with James E. Mossiman, began to develop a dramatic theory about how the Americas were settled. They hypothesized that about 11,500 years ago, at the end of the most recent Ice Age, a single band of mammoth hunters from Siberia crossed the Bering land bridge into Alaska, and from there began spreading across North America. According to this theory, there were no people in the New World until that time. The new arrivals and their descendents prospered and, in just a few centuries, purportedly settled two continents.

“The Clovis-first model gained enormous scientific prominence—in fact, to question it was to risk virtual professional suicide... Now, however, thanks to the new archaeological finds and analytical advances, the Clovis-first model has been refuted.

“In 1977 Thomas D. Dillehay began excavating at the Monte Verde site in southern Chile. Dillehay’s work showed Monte Verde to be at least 12,500 years old, and he was widely criticized for challenging the validity of the Clovis-first theory... Three years ago a special team of archaeologists, including avowed skeptics, inspected Monte Verde. The result was vindication: the experts confirmed that Monte Verde was a legitimate pre-Clovis site... Other sites—and there were many—that had been in limbo because they seemed to predate Clovis could now be acknowledged...

“Not only has the idea that the Americas were devoid of people until 11,500 years ago been disproved, but a second important tenet of the Clovis-first theory has also crumbled: the assertion that the Americas were colonized only once. The latest research shows that the New World probably underwent multiple colonizations: instead of originating in a small area of northeast Siberia, as predicted by the Clovis-first model, the first Americans probably came from many parts of Eurasia.

“Perhaps the nail in the coffin for the Clovis-first theory is that no Clovis-style artifacts have ever been retrieved from archaeological sites in Siberia...

“The idea that the Americas were settled more than once and by different groups of people is supported by evidence from ancient skeletons that been examined with new techniques, such as the study of the DNA in the mitochondria of cells...

“The molecular anthropologist Theodore Schurr and other investigators have identified five distinct mitochondrial lineages, or haplogroups, as they are called, in modern Native Americans. Four of the haplogroups—A, B, C and D—are also found in varying frequencies in different Asian populations, which suggest that early immigrants to the Americas may have come from more than one region of Asia. The fifth haplogroup, known as X, is much rarer than the other four haplogroups, and its origin is not clear. It occurs among certain European populations but is absent in contemporary Asian populations, which suggests that it may record another distinct migration to the Americas, possibly from western Eurasia...

“The advent of the personal computer has enabled Paleo-American investigators to apply powerful statistical techniques to multiple sets of data...

“The work has yielded some tantalizing results that corroborate much of the DNA evidence. For example, the physical anthropologist C. Loring Bruce and his research team have concluded that the modern native peoples of North America are the descendents of at least four different colonizing populations from two different parts of Asia...

“Likewise, the physical anthropologists D. Gentry Steele, Douglas Owsley, Richard L. Jantz and Walter Neves have compiled and analyzed measurements from the earliest known North and South American skeletons. Their research has demonstrated that early New World skulls are quite distinct from the skulls of modern Native Americans...

“The reasons for the difference between early and later New World skulls have yet to be fully explained. The discrepancies may be the result of gradual evolutionary changes that took place over time. On the other hand, the differences may indicate that the early skeletons are unrelated to those of modern Native Americans.

“Thus a radical new idea has emerged: the people who inhabited the Americas when Columbus arrived—the tribes referred to today as Native Americans—may not be descended from the earliest Americans. There is no reason to assume that the first immigrants to the Americas took hold and prospered. Perhaps some of the early colonizing groups died out before later groups arrived. Or it may be that later colonizing groups replaced earlier groups as a result of warfare, the introduction of new diseases, or higher birth or survival rates.”


--Robson Bonnichsen and Alan L. Schneider, “Battle of the Bones,” first published in The Sciences, 2000 July/August

War on Terror: The Boardgame

"Wage War on the Most Dangerous Abstract Noun Known to Man"

"The actual War on Terror is offensive. This is just a board game."

Just released last month; already banned at several toy fairs.

Clearly designed lovingly by people who enjoy critical thinking, this thing looks smart (stylish) and smart (intelligent). Check out a couple "Empire Cards" from the Card Appendix:

"Weapons Inspector - You need to make sure they haven't got anything that might trouble your liberating forces."

"Terrorist Upsurge - Seems like not everyone wants to be liberated. Ungrateful swines."

As a cartophile and sometime fan of Risk and Axis and Allies, I can't help but pore over the gameboard: New Zealand and the Philippines are apparently planned for the "Southeast Corner of the Map" expansion pack, Alaska is exhibiting symptoms of palsy, and - betraying the game's British origins - the Falklands are way prominent. (Only British folk could design a game of world domination in which the Falklands receive the high-profile treatment. Maybe also Argentinians.) More than offsetting this, however, is the inclusion of Antarctica, which is crazy cool. Antarctica is labeled as "Nowhere."


And Mongolia is on there! It has powdered off to the west and borders Afghanistan, but it's still nice to see it. Kazakhstan didn't make the cut.

Our friend Lajos commented on the game at BoardGameGeek.com:
"Ooooh, I can't wait to read more about this game (preferably the rules). The theme is absolutely brilliant and so are some of the card texts. How can anyone with at least some sense of humour be offended by this?"

For more info from BoardGameGeek, here's a shining review and a play session.

In closing, from the creators:
"The dialogue has effectively been closed. If you think terrorism is a symptom of a wider problem, rather than an inexplicable phenomenon, then you must be a terrorist. We hope this boardgame might play its humble part in opening up that dialogue."

"...stop itinerant cows or sheep..."

FROM THE NORTH AMERICA-MONGOLIA BUSINESS COUNCIL (NAMBC)

November 17, 2005

RE: President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to visit Mongolia November 21

Dear Friends,

President Bush's visit to Mongolia next week caps two years of unprecedented high-level visits by senior US officials and a year that has seen a record number of special conferences devoted to Mongolia in the US.

In January 2005, General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Ulaanbaatar, followed four weeks later by the visit of Richard Armitage, US Deputy Secretary of State. This past summer, US House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) led a high-ranking Congressional Delegation to Mongolia, followed by a smaller Congressional delegation headed by Congressman Jim Leach (R-IO), chairman of the Asia and Pacific Subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee. [When Leach was in the US Foreign Service as a young man, he was one of the few officers assigned to Mongolian language training.]

Last month, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited Ulaanbaatar (and received a horse that he named "Montana"), during which he committed $17 million for additional training of the Mongolian military for UN peace-keeping operations (PKO). We are grateful to US Ambassador Pam Slutz for her unrelenting advocacy and facilitation of these high-ranking visits.

Mongolian Ambassador to the US Ravdan Bold was the driving force and "invisible hand" behind three important and high-profile conferences devoted to Mongolia this year. The first was in Washington last February at the Heritage Foundation, co-sponsored by the Asia Foundation and Georgia Tech; the second last month, also in Washington, sponsored by the Asia Society, featured lectures by every former US ambassador to Mongolia plus Ambassador Pam Slutz; the third was held last week in Honolulu, on Northeast Asia and Mongolia, co-sponsored by the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, the School of Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific Studies, the East-West Center and the Mongolian Academy of Management. Ambassador Bold will be in UB for President Bush's visit.

Adding to this new visibility are the growth in the number of English-language websites devoted to coverage of Mongolia. One of the best is _www.mongolianartist.com_ (http://www.mongolianartist.com/), which covers a lot more territory than its site name suggests.

PRESIDENT BUSH TO SPEND A CROWDED FIVE HOURS IN UB -- The President will spend only about five hours in Mongolia on November 21, arriving in the morning from Beijing on Air Force One (a specially configured Boeing 747 jet) and departing in the afternoon for a re-fueling stop at Elmsdorf Air Force Base in Alaska en route home to Crawford, TX, for Thanksgiving. Because of the length of the runways at UB, Air Force One can only land with gas tanks half full.

The President is traveling with an entourage of about 500 people, including Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and other officials, White House and NSC staff, Secret Service and the entire press corps that will have accompanied the President on his visits to Kyoto, Pusan and Beijing before arriving inUB.

[This is not unusually large for a Presidential party, especially since the trip includes the APEC Summit as well as working visits to Japan, Korea and China. When Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited UB in 1998, her party numbered around 250 people.]

The White House characterizes this trip as a "working visit," not a "State Visit." The Administration said that Bush was coming to Mongolia at the invitation of President N.Enkhbayer, who himself first met with President Bush in the fall of 2001 as Prime Minister, soon after Mongolia became the first Asian country to offer support to the US following the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

President Bush will deliver an address in the newly-refurbished auditoriumin Government House, which will be broadcast live on Mongolian TV. He will hold separate meetings with President N.Enkhbayar and Prime Minister Ts.Elbegdorj and meet with Mongolian soldiers who served in Iraq and their families to thank them. Mongolia maintains a force of over 130 peacekeepers in Iraq, which distinguished itself by adroitly interdicting a terrorist assault on US troops. The White House said the President and First Lady Laura Bush will also visit a "traditional Ger village" and see a cultural performance that includes Mongolian throat singing and horse-head fiddle playing.

Despite Ambassador Pam Slutz's best efforts, it proved impossible to carve out time in the President's schedule to meet with the NAMBC -- or even just American ex-pats working in Mongolia.

Buyant-Ukhaa International Airport will be hard-pressed during the visit by the number of Boeing 747 planes carrying the President's party. Regular commercial air traffic will be delayed or grounded. One US plane will be carrying the President's specially made bullet-proof limousine, which the Secret Service requires on every trip. Security experts tell us US fighter jets will be circling UB to protect Air Force One.

An advance team of about 250 Secret Service officers and staff arrived in Ulaanbaatar 10 days ago. Among their requests was to immediately repair potholes on the road between the airport and the city so that the President's motorcade can race into the city at top speed. Mongolian police and security forces will closely patrol the shoulders -- primarily to stop itinerant cows or sheep from wandering into the roadway. For security reasons, when moving the President by car, the Secret Service prefers to travel at the maximum safe speed. Even in Washington, DC, when the President goes to Capitol Hill from the White House, streets are closed off to all other traffic briefly so that the motorcade can move at 60 MPH or faster. Security will be tight on November 21.

Bush is the first US President to visit Mongolia. US Vice President Henry Wallace, who served under President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his third term, visited Mongolia during World War II. Secretaries of State James Baker and Madeleine Albright visited during the Bush-41 and Clinton Administrations, respectively. In 1995, Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) visited Mongolia as First Lady. Twenty-eight years before he was elected President, Herbert Hoover visited Mongolia when he was working in China as a mining engineer and President Jimmy Carter visited Mongolia 24 years after the left the White House.

BUSH AGENDA IN UB --- The simple fact and symbolism of the Bush visit to Mongolia is probably more significant than any specific issues that might be discussed. One retired Chinese diplomat told us, "That your President detours to visit a country with a population smaller than metropolitan Washington, DC, says a lot to Moscow and Beijing all by itself. It is a message like thunder."

Although there is still some hope that President Bush might announce some progress towards signing a Millennium Challenge Account compact, the President's remarks in a seven-minute on-camera interview with UB's EagleTV on November 8 appeared to signal that an MCA compact was not imminent.

According to Agence France Presse, Bush "warned Mongolia that there 'should be no corruption in government,' if it wanted to receive American aid." As a matter of policy, countries eligible for MCA grants have experienced reductions in the level of normal USAID grants; Mongolia's annual USAID allocation has dropped to US$7 million from US$12 million.

Bush also told Eagle-TV: "I will say on your TV screens, there should be no corruption in government, that one of the foundations of any government is the ability for the people to trust the government, itself...A foundation of our foreign policy, and a foundation of our Millennium Challenge Account is that there be honest government." Bush described Mongolia as "a friend" but then went on to say, "On the other hand, we will insist that as a condition of the Millennium Challenge checks being written that there be honest government, that there be investment in health and education of the people, that there be a dedication to rule of law and to the marketplace." Bush concluded by commenting that "I think investments will help the people of Mongolia. In other words, there's a way for people in America --businesses, for example -- to invest in Mongolia, because that means jobs and stability and a good future...you'll find Americans are very compassionate people that love freedom. And they want to help people be free. And by the way, your form of government is democracy, but it ought to reflect your traditions and your great history. And I know it is. Listen, I'm looking forward to going to your wonderful country. It's going to be a fantastic experience. I'm excited, I truly am excited to come."

The National Security Council Asia Director, Dr. Michael Greene, responded to an email question on the White House website recently about why the President was going to Mongolia: "In Mongolia the President will congratulate the Mongolian people on the progress they have made to become a mature and stable democracy and he will thank them for their role in Iraq. Per capita only two other countries have sent more of their soldiers to help the Iraqi people establish a democratic and stable nation. It is young democracies like Mongolia's that often understand freedom the most, and the President wants to say thank you. He also wants to demonstrate that even remote countries have a strong friend in the United States when they embark on the path of reform and good governance.