XKCD: It's more than a comic

There's a reasonable few if you're immature enough. OMG (Omega Airport Namibia), COK (Cochine International Airport), CNT (Charata), Fuk (Fukuoka)

These are good, but I dare you to top the Dutch Catholic University of Tilburg, whose acronym was KUT (a Dutch swear word which can mean something between shit and c**t) for a while.

YYZ is Toronto Pearson, but I bet that's the only one in the comic that's actually true.

Oh, and there was also that school I went to that had a division abbreviated to SOA (STD in Dutch).

Y'know, Randall does these hurricane of puns-style comics every so often, but I think this was one of the few where it actually built up and got funnier and funnier.

Meet Me in Silent Hill has a nice ring to it.

edited 4th Jan '18 7:06:55 PM by thatother1dude

Meltdown and Spectre

2016 Election Map

Incoming rage about how we need the Electoral College to balance out the evil influence of liberal city-dwellers in 3... 2... 1....

So, a 3-million-vote difference would be represented by one side having 12 more stickmen than the other?

Yep.

Yup. The clustering is really evident when you put it out that way. :)

It's annoying how many people think land area votes, not people.

@ 15908 / Fighteer

I'm not a raging sort, but I think that it is a quiet confirmation of the central nature of why our system allocates the House and the Senate differently, with one providing a fixed number of representatives for the state and the other one based on population, and why the decision was made to have the system for presidential elections follow the same model. Land doesn't vote, but blocs of people in the same area will generally vote in their own interest, and what's good for New York City, New York isn't necessarily what's good for Butte, Montana, even before you get into the question as to whether the average voter is even voting for what would truly aid them most.

Now the subject of all-or-nothing electoral voting... that's a completely separate thing in my mind, and it practically guarantees that the elections comes down to a few states every four years. And, of course, it is almost the sole cause for the "won the popular election but lost the electoral college" situation (it would be possible to have it happen in a proportional vote, but would be a lot more difficult).

I for one would go with a modified proportional system. Since each Electoral vote is ultimately tied to a specific congressional seat, award the vote according to the vote total in that district. The 2 per state that come from the Senate seats remain winner-take-all for the state, since those seats are state wide.

edited 8th Jan '18 3:58:33 PM by Zyffyr

How terrible that people who live in cities will vote like people who have to live within a system together.

Indeed. Admittedly, each of those cities is indeed a large system that thinks itself self-contained.

We have to do something about the East Coast. People are falling into the sea!!

can confirm. i've lost my brother and my friend after they fell into the sea due to overpopulation. send help.

Voting for stronger federal-level systems wouldn't be the action of a city that believes itself self-contained.

Aren't the rural areas the ones that believe themselves more self-sufficient? I mean, cities at the very least completely understand that they aren't the ones growing food.

I'm fairly sure that rural areas are very aware of the fact that they're dying due to the general lack of job growth. The issue here is that they've largely fed into the idea that the right-wing has pushed that removing restrictions on business will somehow stimulate job growth rather than ruin it more.

I don't know about the US, but in Canada most places that aren't big cities or suburbs are losing population, even as the national population grows. It's at least understandable that some people don't want to live in big urban centres (they're expensive and busy and can be alienating; I've lived in 3 midsized-to-big cities and one small town, and while I prefer city life on the whole, it was far easier to get to know people in the small town and everyone was super friendly and helpful), and that people wouldn't want to see the place where they live disappear off the map. So I'm sympathetic to the idea of rural areas needing some representation.

That said, the electoral college is ridiculous. The presidency is exactly the sort of position that should be elected by mational popular vote - both so that everone's vote counts equally, and so that the candidates nedd to campaign for all the votes, not just those in a handful of swing states. In s presidential system, the legislature is best suited to provide regional representation, which it already does via the Senate. The electoral college doesn't give rural representation (Kansas, and the Dakotas aren't in play and thus get little attention) - it just gives overrepresentation of a few specific swing states.

edited 8th Jan '18 6:58:12 PM by Galadriel

You saw the map, in a national popular vote, the northeast coast, the southwest coast and the gulf coast pick the president, and the rest of us better like it.

What a crime it would be for the places where the most people live to have the most say.

I think you mean 'what a crime it would be for everyone to have an equal amount of say'.

Or, possibly, 'as opposed to now, when Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania pick the president and the rest of us better like it'.