30May/1228

Budget News

by Jeff

Image text: I will vote, no questions asked, for any candidate who describes themselves as \more of a deficit sugar glider.\""

This comic is a pun on the phrase "Deficit Hawk". Wikipedia has a great definition: Deficit hawk is an American political slang term for people who place great emphasis on keeping the federal budget under control. Deficit hawks believe the best way to reduce the deficit, pay off national debt, and balance the budget is by a combination of increasing taxes and cutting government spending.

And obviously, a hawk is a type of bird of prey.  In this case, the prey is politicians.

In the image text, there is a reference to the sugar glider, which is a small gliding possum originating from the marsupial Infraclass.

Filed under: Nature, Politics 28 Comments
18Apr/1278

Romney Quiz

by Jeff

Image text: Charlie actually delivered the Medicare line almost verbatim in the 1971 movie's Fizzy Lifting Drink scene, but it was ultimately cut from the final release.

So, Mitt Romney is the Republican candidate for President of the United States and as it says above, the former Governor of Massachusetts.  Charlie Bucket is the main character of the movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".

The absurdity and joke here is that each different quote is very not very similar and easy to tell apart.

(via wikipedia) "In 1965, Congress created Medicare under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide health insurance to people age 65 and older, regardless of income or medical history."  So, the quote being used in a movie in 1971 (which is obviously not true) is still feasible.

Filed under: Movies, Politics 78 Comments
7Mar/1247

Compare and Contrast

by Jeff

Image text: Frankly, I see no difference between thee and a summer's day. Only Ron Paul offers a TRUE alternative!

This comic is a reference to the sonnet by William Shakespeare, which as far as I can tell, is called "Sonnet 18" in which the first line is: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?".  And that is what Randall is attempting to do here in his own way, comparing who I assume is his special lady friend to a "Summer's Day".  The first line is a reference to the sonnet itself, which reads:"Thou art more lovely and more temperate".  To each their own, I guess.  Shakespeare woos women with sonnets and Randall with charts.  This certainly seems to be a love letter (love comic?  love chart?) to one specific person (Megan?) because not too many people have been arrested for releasing snakes in the library.  (At least I hope so.)

The last line in a sexual reference, on the "thee" side, not on the "summer's day" side.

And of course, the image text is a reference to Ron Paul, Republican candidate for President who is currently in the Republican Primary against a few other challengers for the nomination.  Ron Paul is frequently represented on the internet using similar language to the image text.  Paul is seen as an alternative because he is a strict Libertarian and believes the government should be as small as possible and stay out of people's lives.  People who support Ron Paul believe him to be the only true alternative to the other Republican candidates currently in the race.

No politics in the comments please, let's stick to the comic, please!  Thank you.

20Feb/1229

First Post

by Jeff

Image text: 'Nuh-uh! We let users vote on comments and display them by number of votes. Everyone knows that makes it impossible for a few persistent voices to dominate the discussion.'

So, from the look of it, this comic is taking on basically every comment section in the history of the internet.  The comic itself takes on sites (like ourselves) that display comments in the order received.  Lots of major newspapers do this and it helps only in showing what short of lunatics read and comment on newspaper articles.  I have stopped reading the comment sections on online newspaper articles.

However, the image text takes on sites like reddit that sort the comments by number of votes.  The most popular comments go right to the top.  This is certainly an improvement, but Randall uses this quotation in the image text sarcastically.  In that, he doesn't believe it, in fact he believes just the opposite.

Oh, by the way, with the political theme of the comic today, the US Election Day is on Tuesday, November 6th 2012.

Filed under: Politics, internet 29 Comments
2Dec/1155

Percentage Points

by Jeff

Image text: Grayton also proposed making college scholarships available exclusively to sexually active teens, amnesty for illegal immigrants who create room for themselves by killing a citizen, and a graduated income tax based on penis size. He has been endorsed by Tracy Morgan, John Wilkes Booth's ghost, and the Time Cube guy.

Senator Grayton is a fictional name, made up for this comic, which is a bit surprising to me as the names used in xkcd are usually references to something.

I'll see if I can do a line on each of the issues that Grayton fictionally supports:

Tax Breaks to Drunk Drivers - Grayton proposed to give money back on their taxes for people who have been convicted of a DUI or DWI.  Driving Under the Influence or Driving While Intoxicated

Predator Drones and the War on Christmas - The War on Christmas is a not a real war, it is simply Christians who believe that non-Christians are trying to get rid of Christmas trees, Christmas music and the endless barrage of Christmas-themed nonsense we get from Thanksgiving to Christmas.  I don't know how his support would go down if he supported unmanned Predator Drones to destroy people who hate Christmas, knowing America.  (Jokes!)

College Scholarships to Sexually Active Teens - Not sure how they would test for this on the scholarship application, but it is funny none the less.

Illegal Immigrants Who Murder - This is an argument for immigration, but only if they make "room" and possibly an open job for themselves by getting rid of another person.  This one is pretty evil.

Income Tax Based on Penis Size - Wow, this one would never pass!

On To the Names:

Tracy Morgan is an actor in the TV Show 30 Rock, who plays Tracy Jordan, he is known for his outlandish statements on politics and everything else in the world.  He has been reprimanded for controversial comments on homosexuals and Sarah Palin (in separate incidents).

Josh Wilkes Booth is the person who assassinated Abraham Lincoln.  He was a sympathizer with the Confederate cause and was for slavery and all its trappings.

Time Cube Guy is Gene Ray, also known as Otis E. Ray.  He has a website known as Time Cube (Thanks Wikipedia) where he sets out his personal model of reality, which he calls Time Cube. He suggests that all of modern physics is wrong, in addition to claiming religion to be evil, specifically Christianity, and the idea of family is poisoning children.

Ok, finally to the numbers:

If his polling is at 20% and drops by 19%, without specifying percentage points, that means that his support has only dropped 1% (EDIT: I'm bad at math.  Thanks commentors, it is 3.8% percentage points), because 19% of 20% is only 1% 3.8%.  That would mean after all his outrageous statements, his support dropped from 20% to 16.2%.  However, if they had said his 20% polling dropped 19% (removed percentage sign for redundancy, thanks again commentors) percentage points, that would mean his support has dropped to 1%.  Therefore, the distinction is important.

8Aug/1122

Missed Connections

by Jeff

Image text: The Street View van isn't going to find out anything Google won't already know from reading my email.

Missed Connections is a page on Craigslist in which people who saw each other briefly and want to reconnect attempt to find each other again.  If I was to hazard a guess, I would imagine it works .0001% of the time.  In the case of missed connections, one person describes themselves "Me" and describes the other person "You" in order to try to reconnect.

The first one is a goofy joke as far as I can tell.

The second one is not a reference to anything I can find, anyone know?

The third one is a reference to networking.  UDP stands for User Datagram Protcol.  UDP packets don't use handshaking to verify they have contacted the correct host, so they can get lost or confused.  The Cisco router location is just a reference to a block of IP addresses.  Cisco is a company that makes networking equipment.  This is a play on a missed connection for someone who was lost and asked for directions.

The fourth one seems to be a joke as well.  For those outside of the US (or those inside as well), Nancy Pelosi is a member of the US House of Representatives.  The (D-CA) is a common notation for politicians which notates party (D for Democrat) and state (CA for California).

The fifth seems to be a reference to Randall's upcoming nuptials?

The sixth is a reference to how the Google Street view van was not only recording photos of the street in 360 degrees, it was also collecting data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks.  The comic takes this to the next level, that the Google Street View van also scans what we have in our pockets and does a retinal scan.  In this case, the social security number referenced is the most used SSN of all time.

The last suggested the Babe Ruth, the American baseball slugger of 1914-1935 is actually a Time Lord.  Time Lord is a reference to the popular sci-fi series "Doctor Who" in which The Doctor, who is a Time Lord, uses a TARDIS, which stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space to travel through time.

22Jun/1117

Connoisseur

by Jeff

Image text: Our brains have just one scale, and we resize our experiences to fit.

This comic is a very funny one and needs very little explanation.  Joe Biden is the current Vice President of the USA.  The comic is saying that experiencing anything for a long period of time would make anyone a snobby connoisseur, even pictures of the Vice President eating a sandwich.

4Mar/118

Nolan Chart

by Jeff

Image text: Also in the right quadrant are NFPA-compliant chemical manufacturers and Sir Charles Wheatstone. Sharing the top with the internet libertarians are Nate Silver and several politically-active kite designers.

The Nolan Chart (from nolanchart.com) is a visual representation of the political spectrum that measures not only liberal vs conservative tendencies but also libertarian and statist tendencies.  In this comic, it is taken to a different end.  One one side are both Democrats and Republicans and on the other side is baseball fans.  In the typical Nolan Chart, Libertarians are in the top quadrant, but in this one "Internet Libertarians" take the spot because they love the Nolan Charts (that are found online) and have a lot of political opinions.

In the image text, NFPA-compliant chemical manufacturers are mentioned because of this diamond-shaped diagram:

Sir Charles Wheatstone was the inventor of the Wheatstone bridge, which is also diamond-shaped.

And lastly, the image text references Nate Silver, who previously worked for Baseball Prospectus and now writes a data-driven political blog called Five Thirty Eight for the New York Times.  He is both a lover of diamond-shaped diagrams and has political opinions.

14Jun/1011

Southern Half

by Jeff

Image text: Also, if you read his speech at Rice, all his arguments for going to the moon work equally well as arguments for blowing up the moon, sending cloned dinosaurs into space, or constructing a towering penis-shaped obelisk on Mars.

Not much to explain here.

Here's the full text of the speech to Rice.

Here's the full text of the 1961 speech to Congress.

2Jun/103

Worst-Case Scenario

by Jeff

Image text: To get serious analyses of hurricanes and oil slicks, see Jeff Masters' blog. To get serious discussions of worst-case scenario thinking, see Bruce Schneier's blog. To get enough Vitamin D, don't read any blogs and go outside instead.

This comic is about the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that is leaking from one of BP's oil rigs.   Just in case you have been under a rock for weeks or are reading this from the past.

Michael Bay is the director of the Transformers series amongst other movies that are famous for explosions, explosions and even bigger explosions and of course impossible and improbable situations.  Bay has been featured in xkcd before for his potential remake of Harriet the Spy.

James Carville is a CNN political commentator and Louisiana native.  He has already said that the govermental response to the oil spill was "too lax and too slow".

Here's Jeff Masters' blog on Weather Underground and Bruce Schneier's blog.

Filed under: Color, Oil, Politics 3 Comments

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