Ye gods those are huge. Especially that Conservative one. I'm going to have nightmares now of that logo chasing me around. While I'm naked or something.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Canadian Political Party Logos: the Superhuge Version
So an addendum to the trawl through logoville: Wikipedia offers ridiculously large versions of some of these logos. Here are the logos of the five 'major' parties. If you click on any of them, you'll be treated to a picture big enough to be seen from space. Enjoy! Or not...
Ye gods those are huge. Especially that Conservative one. I'm going to have nightmares now of that logo chasing me around. While I'm naked or something.
Ye gods those are huge. Especially that Conservative one. I'm going to have nightmares now of that logo chasing me around. While I'm naked or something.
Canadian Political Party Logos
So I find myself on Election Canada's website, and I discover that there are 18 parties registered federally. There's a single page with details about each of them, including logos. I loke logos. I like politics. I found myself admiring and detesting them in equal measure... well, I wish I could say that, but we've got a lot of ugly party logos up here. Ah well. Let's get this party started... God, I wish I hadn't just said that.
ANIMAL ALLIANCE ENVIRONMENT VOTERS PARTY OF CANADA: This unwieldy title comes first alphabetically. With more words in its title than candidates in its organisation, it seems a bit confused by itself. We get a bluish maple leaf (God are we going to see a lot of maple leaves) with a bingo card of animals, I think, and an X in a circle in the centre. Representing the sole vote they got last time round.
BLOC QUÉBÉCOIS: The Bloc come next alphabetically, with a trusty logo that's been kicking around for years. It's more clever than it is aesthetically appealing, with a stylised fleur-de-lys evoking the letters B and Q. All in that Québécois light-blue colour. But it's kinda ugly, isn't it? The base of the B is softer than it was in the 90s. As is the party.
CANADIAN ACTION PARTY: This nothing of a logo was almost going to be okay, with an Impact-like font turning the party's acronym in both languages into the red bars on a Canadian flag. But it's that tiny little "action" written in top of the maple leaf that turns it from bland to hokey.
CHRISTIAN HERITAGE PARTY: Canada's longest-lasting scary-party, the CHP have spent years in the netherworld between 'fringe party' and 'minor party'. And there they do dwell, with a strangely harsh logo looking like a sports-equipment company. Doesn't seem overly Christian, mind you. But what was I expecting, a cross?
COMMUNIST PARTY OF CANADA: Ah, now here's some real nostalgia. I've got to admit that some of the cheese we've seen so far makes a classic wheat-sheaf-and-machine-cog logo bring a tear to my eye. Black instead of red for no good reason, and fitting a circle inside the Canadian maple leaf involves distorting the national logo so much it's now wearing a skirt, but still lovely.
CONSERVATIVE PARTY OF CANADA: The party in power, of course. And they got there with a singularly ugly Möbius-loop capital C with a wonky maple leaf in the middle. This has been their logo for the duration of their existence, but attempting to resolve its two-dimensional logo into a 3-D form in your head will only lead you to head-scratching confusion. Like the past few years of government have.
FIRST PEOPLES NATIONAL PARTY OF CANADA: This logo is fresh out of MS Paint. With - yeesh! - Papyrus. But we forgive them. I looked at their web page to check out the story of the logo. My hunch that it represented Turtle Island was correct, but apparently the red, white, black and yellow colours represent, ahem, the races that now live on Turtle Island. A concept that is surely as insulting to Canadians of southern Indian ancestry as it is to anyone who deplores stereotypes of race, particularly the outdated 'colour' system that just seems ridiculous today.
GREEN PARTY OF CANADA: While it's clear that the Greens spent more money having their logo professionally designed than anyone else did, I'm not sure what it's supposed to represent. It's green, which is a good colour choice, but it looks way too much like BP's logo, which is way too ironic for Canadian politics. It's pretty, but unless it's supposed to be one of those little kids toys that twirl when the wind hits them, I'm at a loss...
LIBERAL PARTY OF CANADA: You gotta love this one. The Official Party of Bilingualism is stuck with a brand name that differs between the two languages by a single accent ague. Giving so much importance to that accent that they've designed their whole logo around it, the Liberals have a bland but professional-looking font, to go with their bland but professional-looking leader, and a maple leaf whose stem just happens to represent all that's silly about Canada's approach to bilingualism.
LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF CANADA: There's a high 'WTF' factor to this logo, which appears to be the tail of an airplane flying a Canadian maple leaf. This can't be coincidence, as the party's wordmark replaces one of the two letter As in their name with a maple leaf, just as Canadian Airlines used to with their greater-than-symbol logo, back when they existed. It didn't look any more like an A than a leaf does.
MARIJUANA PARTY: Tough to take this party seriously, really, any more seriously than, say, the Animal Alliance. For awesome names, they're trumped by their Québécois counterpart, the Bloc pot, but it's still an impressively single-minded single-issue party. And the logo is nice. A marijuana leaf, obviously, stuck in a rather dour ring. What does the ring represent? Er, well... I forget.
MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF CANADA: Here's some confusion. A good old hammer-and-sickle is even better than the Communist Party's retro logo (all that could trump this would be that Che Guevara picture in a logo), but it's so tiny, being stuck in a star that's stuck in a silvery thing that's stuck in a flower that's stuck in a red box that's trapped by acronyms on all sides. Not a logo that young communists are going to idly doodle on their school textbooks, unfortunately.
neorhino.ca: The Rhinoceros Party has always defined awesomeness. Reincarnated as a party with a url as its name is a nice touch. The rhino in the logo appears to have an exoskeleton, or else body armour. Which is very impressive, if not biologically accurate. I don't believe the camel feet are either. This kids can doodle.
NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY: This is a bit lame, really. Okay, orange and green. The fact that they've been the NDP's colours for ages now almost excuses the fact that they're a god-awful colour combination. Like the Canadian Action Party, you've got the party's initialisms in both languages flanking a maple leaf. A leaf that in this particular case is inexplicably wonky and askew - so, quite appropriate to the party in question, who nevertheless have done more for moustaches than any other party this century.
NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR PARTY FIRST: The second of three regional parties, with an unfortunately lame logo. The 'traditional' Newfoundland flag is nice. The map on top is, well, lame, but we can deal with it. The "NLF" is getting worse, looking like the letters that sports teams sew onto leather jackets. But the lameness is about to go stratospheric. Next up: the party name with an ellipsis after it, for no clear reason (imagine "Liberals..." or "Conservatives...") and... oh my God... a picture of the sky with clouds. The horror. I mean: the horror...
PEOPLE'S POLITICAL POWER PARTY OF CANADA: This awesome masterclass in alliteration (if only it were active in Pakistan, Panama or... Pennsylvania) sounds like a pretty cool party, and not the religious wackjob case it actually is. Stealing the Heart and Stroke Foundation's logo and sticking some wheat on it might look like a good illustration for an article on healthy eating, but there's just way too much text here. Too much to even bother reading, I'm afraid.
PROGRESSIVE CANADIAN PARTY: When Brian Mulroney's party got sucked into Stephen Harper's they lost their 'progressive' half. Quite literally. That left a nomenclatural vacuum that Sinclair Stevens immediately Hoovered up, replacing the second word with 'Canadian' so that the acronym would remain the same (and creating by far the world's most deceitful name for a right-of-centre party). But intending to evoke a party that died in the 90s means hopelessly retro graphics. This looks like it should be stuck on the tower of some IBM desktop computer.
WESTERN BLOCK PARTY: Saving the best for last, by far. How awesome are you? Let me count the ways: (1) You are a 'Western Canada' equivalent to the Bloc Québécois with a misspelt name to match. (2) Your party sounds like a cool thing to be invited to ('hey, we're going to a Western Block Party; wanna come along?'). (3) You're run by a neo-Nazi crackpot who nobody takes seriously and even the other 'western independence' parties distance themselves from you. (4) You have history's most awesome logo, an obvious pencil sketch by a schoolkid on his notebook of the four western provinces with 'home' scrawled in the centre, clearly begrudgingly offered when Elections Canada would not stop harrassing you to provide a logo for them. WBP, you rule in awesomeness.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Prince Announces Ambitious Reissue Project
Image via WikipediaIn a surprise move today, a well-dressed, lucid and responsive Prince held a press conference with Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman, Jr. to announce a healing of the decades-old rift between the artist and his former record label.
Seated at the same table as the CEO of the label he had a very public dispute with in the early nineties, Prince revealed long-anticipated plans for a complete overhaul of his back catalogue. Offering sample CD cases for the cameras' benefit with thick, lavish booklets filled with unreleased photos and lyrics, the artist explained how he and Warners catalogue division Rhino Records would work together to remaster the original albums using the most up-to-date 5.1 technology. Further, he added, the original albums would be released in deluxe 3-disc packages filled with contemporary b-sides and remixes and with voluminous offerings from the much-lauded 'vault', where hundreds or perhaps thousands of greatly-anticipated outtakes reside. A third disc in each package would be a Blu-Ray disc filled with contemporary music videos, live performances and documentary footage, featuring interviews with the principal figures involved in the various phases of Prince's recording career. A special feature of each disc would be a lengthy interview with Prince in which he discussed in detail the creation of each song on the album in question and the motivation behind them.
Revealing a roll-out plan by which the new albums would be released over the next twelve months, Bronfman added that the long-deleted The Gold Experience and albums by 'associated artists' such as The Family and Jill Jones would also get the same treatment. Bronfman added that all material would also be made available on iTunes for download, and that Prince's videos would once again be made available for viewing on YouTube. Prince also revealed plans to launch a new website, tentatively called 'deadinternet.com', albeit one that would focus on promotion only. He revealed that his experiments with unconventional online music distribution would come to an end, and that he would "trust" digital distribution "to the experts". Prince revealed that as a gesture of apology, he would offer a 25% discount on all online sales of his remastered back catalogue to all disgruntled subscribers to lotusflow3r.com. With remarkably sober contrition, Prince apologised for his hostility and negligence towards his online community of fans, promising to heal the rift and regain the confidence of those whose support over the years had kept him in business.
Bronfman added that Prince and WMG were also in discussions to bring the same quality reissue programme to Prince's self-released work on his own NPG label, including the material released online over the years. They revealed that they hoped to have a North American retail-distribution deal for 20Ten ready by, well, 2011. As a fully remastered version of "When Doves Cry" began to blare from the speakers behind them, Prince and Bronfman, with beaming smiles, shook hands, and as the press members in attentence applauded in appreciation, Prince turned toward the array of flashing flash bulbs and with a smile said, "Making music naturally, me and WB..."
...and that's when I woke up.
Friday, August 20, 2010
And Bingo was his name-o.
Far be it from me to pick nits, so to speak. But "There was a farmer had a dog" is simply terrible grammar. Has nobody ever pointed that out to a group of clapping toddlers before? I mean, get with it, people. That's simply not going to cut it 16 years later when you're in university, is it?
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Typosquatting Wikipedia
So I was reading about how Google has secured a huge list of domain names like gogle.com or googel.com or other things that could potentially be typos made by people really looking for Google, and made these domains merely reroute themselves to the proper site. It's a good idea, and since it's dirt cheap for a company as big as Google, worth it. I tried it a bit and found that they were completely bu not entirely successful. A few of my attempts were just not registered domains (or at least simply returned an error) and a few others were cybersquatted by private organisations - you know the ones, that put a page full of links hoping to ruse unsuspecting bad spellers into clicking on links and, presumably, making the squatters money. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're an extraordinarily good speller.
Anyway, I thought I'd try it with Wikipedia. Here are my results:
- wikipedia.com: reroutes to wikipedia.org.
- wikipedia.net: reroutes to wikipedia.org.
- wikipedia.edu: not found.
- wikipedia.de: seems to be a Wikimedia-owned page, a kind of primitive portal.
- wikipedia.ca: says 'Coming soon', but appears to be a squat.
- wikipedia.xxx: not found.
- vikipedia.org: squatted.
- wikpedia.org: not found.
- wikipidia.org: squatted.
- wikkipedia.org: squatted.
- wikipoedia.org: reroutes to wikipedia.org.
- wikipedea.org: squatted.
- wiikpedia.org: squatted (reroutes to a games site).
- wicipedia.org: squatted.
- wikypedia.org: squatted.
- wijipedia.org: squatted (reroutes to a domain-name site).
- wakipedia.org: squatted.
- wixipedia.org: squatted.
- wigipedia.org: squatted (reroutes to the same games site as above).
- qikipedia.org: squatted.
- wikibedia.org: squatted.
- wikippedia.org: squatted.
- weekipedia.org: squatted.
- wikipeedia.org: not found.
- wikipeda.org: squatted.
- wikipadia.org: squatted.
- wikipledia.org: squatted.
- wickipedia.org: squatted.
- wiffipedia.org: squatted.
- wikipedo.org: I entered this one as a joke, but it's a games site. Not really a squat since that seems to be their chosen name with which they operate (though it's not a wiki, and as for the second half... well, what can I say?)
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Cordoba House and the Never-Ending Stream of Bigoted Nonsense
Image by permanently scatterbrained via FlickrPeople who oppose plans to build a mosque in Manhattan are, we all can agree, completely off their rocker, right? I mean there isn't even a teensy little bit of wiggle room, right? This is merely an ongoing attempt to demonise all Muslims, to paint all Muslims with the same brush: as terrorists, as enemies of the state and as 'outsiders'.
I honestly didn't believe this idea would catch fire. I try to be generous in spirit and say, 'the majority of American conservatives are not reactionary bigots who oppose things for their own sake and secretly want religious homogeneity in the USA'. I try to think that nobody outside of a fringe would honestly be ridiculous enough to claim that putting a mosque in the same neighbourhood as the former site of the World Trade Center (I hate the phrase 'ground zero', by the way) would be considered a 'slap in the face'.
But no. It really is as ridiculous as this. It really is as ridiculous as Obama needing to remind Americans that they have a constitution, as Democrats opposing the mosque and Republicans supporting the right to build a mosque, but no one actually coming out and supporting the mosque. As ridiculous as the Jewish Anti-Defamation League saying the mosque should be built elsewhere. As preposterous as people getting all upset about Imam Rauf's comment to 60 Minutes that American policies were an 'accessory' to the crime of 9/11 - a comment that just seems to me to be common sense and not in any way pro-terrorist or anti-American.
But... but no. Instead we have legions of raving lunatics talking about respect for the families of the victims of 9/11, an argument that seems almost comical in its absurdity, were it not so sad and pathetic. And no, the image accompanying this article doesn't have anything to do with Cordoba House. It's just another example of what annoys me so much about the American Right.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Blah.
Image via WikipediaBlogging is easier to do if you're unemployed... I just don't seem, or more to the point, the mental energy to write anything. I guess this is why professional media outlets exist, eh? Bloggers are perhaps slightly less reliable. Or at least I am. Well, if I'm a blogger, that is.I do wish I had more time and could put more effort into it. I have like 9000 blogs and 8999 of them are dormant. And dormant blogs are sad, pathetic lonely things, aren't they?
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