Best Cartoon Ever

by publius

Via Ezra Klein:

Comments

[Sasha]

"What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!"

[kenB]

Sasha is pointing out the mouseover text on the original comic. Copying an XKCD comic without the mouseover is like serving a sundae without the cherry on top.

[xanax]

So that's what Farber really looks like!

[Adam]

So, er, that debate was somethin', huh?

[Tom]

Publius, the fact that you took this long to repost that comic suggests you are not reading xkcd regularly. This is a mistake you should begin correcting at once.

[Bill]

Procreation is important to the State.

Cases like this are exactly why we should immediately commission a new branch of the Obama Youth (copyright 2008) that specializes in Internet re-education. Perhaps we can call them the Interbama Rangers.

A husband in every bed and a chicken in every pot!

At the risk of sounding like I’m pimping a web-site, click on ‘Bill’ to see how Brown University’s electronic text of Orwell’s 1984, used in one of their classes, differs from my paper version. I ran across it tonight. It’s weird. Brown University.

[publius]

tom - will do

[liberal japonicus]

Bill,
I think you need to work a bit harder on your conspiracy theorizing. At the point in the novel, Winston stops reading at that point, but then returns to the book to continue reading and the passage you claim is deleted is there in all its glory. If you click on this link, you can see it in the page. Better luck next time.

[novakant]

This is hilarious - and maybe it should, erm, give us pause.

[Jesurgislac]

Hee!

*pauses for self-examination*

Oh well. I'll take the weekend off.

...don't make the Internet too wrong before Monday, will you?

[Bill]

LJ

Your link references Brown University’s electronic copy.

451ingly yours;

[liberal japonicus]

Yes, and if you look, the link goes directly to the part that you claim was deleted, so it doesn't differ from your paper version. Again, better luck next time.

[Bill]

Creepier still-
Brown University’s website has been updated with the original Orwell text.

Well done. I should learn to copy web pages.

Professor?

Interbama Lieutenant?

[Slartibartfast]

the passage you claim is deleted is there in all its glory

I wasn't seeing it, but after searching further down in the text, it's there. It's just that Winston is reading out of a book, and he's interrupted, resumes reading at a different place, apparently, before he continues on through the irreconcilable bit.

Which Bill seems to have missed. Honest mistake, possibly, if you don't know the book.

[Slartibartfast]

I should learn to copy web pages.

"Copy" works unexpectedly well.

I'm thinking that you just made a mistake, Bill. Not that it's a slam-dunk, but the part that says last edited by Zachary McCune on Apr 04, 2007 at the top of that page ought to be suggestive that he hadn't edited it for a while.

[KCinDC]

Slart, don't be so naive. The "last edited" note is part of the conspiracy.

[liberal japonicus]

On the other hand, it's good to know that Bill's habit of selective reading is not confined to the Qur'an but indicative of a more general approach.

[Matthew G. Saroff]

Ummm...It's good, but not the best. Heck, it's not even the best xkcd ever. The guy is a bloody genius.

[Gary Farber]

"the Obama Youth (copyright 2008)"

Setting aside the fact that there is no Obama Youth and won't be, any more than there is a Bush Youth (he expanded Americicorps! Observe them marching in the streets with their armbands and political indoctrination and uniforms!), or a Clinton Youth (he created Americorps!), or a JFK Youth (he created the Peace Corps!), or an LBJ Youth (he signed the bill creating VISTA, (Volunteers in Service to America!), so you're being entirely a lunatic on this, the parenthetical phrase following makes no sense whatever. You can't copyright a name.

You might look into this whole "I'm saying crazy things that make no sense, because things I don't understand irrationally alarm me, and I don't know what I'm talking about!" problem. It tends to make other people look at one funny, and can interfere with business and personal arrangements, although maybe you only take it out and show it on teh internets.

[Anderson]

What mouseover text? It's not happening for me at xkcd.

[Bill]

Well, we’ll have to defer judgment to those who looked last night. 70/30 that Hilzoy did (AKA I’ll tell). Some people never learn that it’s not the thoughtcrime, it’s the cover up.

And we’ve all got our consciousness to deal with.

[Bill]

The Interbama (copyright 2008) is a collective responsible for modifying or deleting embarrassing Internet postings when exposed or when contemporary opinion makes previous policy positions untenable. The Interbama is in many ways similar to Minitrue, but is less predictable. It is loosely organized around the Obama Youth © and, to a lesser degree, the Obama Scouts ©.

[Slartibartfast]

Well, we’ll have to defer judgment to those who looked last night.

Or, those who looked sufficiently well, last night. I'm betting that you stopped at the first "irreconcilable". I'd consider that an honest mistake, the first time.

[Bill]

Slartibarfast;

You’re right. I’m wrong. Crow for me.

[KCinDC]

So much for Clinton going quietly. She's ramping up the Michigan and Florida rhetoric again. Does she really think that helps her do better in Texas and Ohio? That, after all, should be the only thing she should be worrying about at this stage. If she doesn't do that, then Michigan and Florida won't be enough even if she gets everything she wants.

[Ugh]

The problem with Clinton is that the likeliest candidate for someone to step in and tell her to pack it in is Bill, and obviously he's essentially running for co-President so he's not in a position to do that. Maybe he'll do it if she loses in TX/OH but the FL/MI talk makes it sound like they won't give up even if she does lose.

[KCinDC]

Yes, Ugh, but I had been feeling more hopeful that this could end on March 4 after Bill said he didn't think she could be the nominee if she didn't win both Texas and Ohio.

[Ugh]

Yes, Ugh, but I had been feeling more hopeful that this could end on March 4 after Bill said he didn't think she could be the nominee if she didn't win both Texas and Ohio.

I was going to mention that but work intervened. The flip side is she might also be the person least likely to listen, e.g., (i) you're my husband, shut up and support me; or (ii) after all the sh!t you put me through over the years now you're telling me to drop out? Conversely, maybe she will listen him to because he's here husband.

Okay, I think that's enough psycho-analyzing clinton family dynamics for me.

[Sasha]

Another xkcd classic: "Wikipedian Protester"

http://xkcd.com/285/

Make sure to read the mouseover.

[Gary Farber]

Incidentally, this cartoon is also the plot of Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, except that the characters take offline steps subsequent to making the same resolution after being shown the relevant Wrongness On The Internet.

"Another xkcd classic"

Now that was an exceptional likeness of me with the sign. Did it make me look fat, though? I thought it made me look fat.