Saturday, June 2, 2007

Antarctica


Even though there is no official flag of Antarctica, since there is no government there (thankfully!), there are many widely used designs.

This design was based on a flag design used on the Antarctic dollar. The blue represents the night sky and the ice and the Southern Ocean and water. The yellow represents the aurora australis, a common sight in Antarctica. The white represents Antarctica. A representation of Crux appears right by the hoist of the flag, and Crux is a symbol of the Southern Hemisphere. The stars are represented by circles instead of pointed star symbols because different countries use different symbols for stars, but no countries use circles as representations of stars, symbolizing Anarctica having no government and possibly being the happiest place in the universe. It is placed by the hoist so the strong Antarctic winds do not wear it off of the flag. The flag is of long proportions for the same reason.

There are three widely used designs for the flag of Antarctica, but they all have problems.

One design is a design with an orange background, a white capital letter "A" on a part of a circle, with two hands holding that up, all in white. The white hands could offend some people. The hands themselves are complicated. The orange does not represent anything.

Another design has a United Nations blue background, and a United Nations white map of Antarctica. First of all, Antarctica is not controlled by the United Nations. Second, the map of Antarctica is very complicated,

One more design is similar to the design pictured, but it has a few bad differences. First, the flag is too short and will wear out quickly in the strong Antarctic winds. Second, Crux is placed on the end of the flag, which will make it wear off very quickly. Third, Crux is made with five-pointed stars, and the five-pointed star is a symbol of the United States. Fourth, the stars in Crux are placed as accurately in position as possible, which could get quite complicated, and pointless, since it will be worn right off of the flag very soon.

This design is much better than the other three I was just talking about.

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