1062: "Budget News"

[songandsilence]

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

I, of course, would just love to see someone get divebombed by a hawk on TV.

EDIT: Forgot the quotes in the title. I knew I was missing something.

[rhomboidal]

I'd vote for any candidate describing themselves as a "deficit pteranodon." Or a "budget Ghidorah."

[Lightsecond]

The.. quotes.. They bother me...

[glasnt]

This must be a US politics reference. I have no comeback.

Instead, hi joee.

[Quicksilver]

Clearly the work of BHG, down there at the front of the audience.

[Ronster]

Budget Budgie?

[JimsMaher]

Sugar Gliders

[DavidF]

What's the deal with the backslashes and quotation marks?

[Djehutynakht]

Hm... quick, some US citizen look up the House and Senate Rules.

Does either House bar Hawks on the floor?

If not, this could get interesting...

[Eternal Density]

This must be a US politics reference. I have no comeback.

Instead, hi joee.

Apparently birds have something to do with decifits defecets defecits decifits dicifets WHATAMIDOINGWRONG deficits in America. *shrugs* Or perhaps hawks specifically have something to do with politics in general?

Moving forward, they may be in high dungeon to the point that they can't chew and walk gum at the same time - or perhaps it's hyperbowl?

[Princess Marzipan]

Wikipedia to the rescue, letting me blame other people if the information's wrong instead of being culpable if I misremember!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Hawk#V ... f_the_term
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deficit_hawk

[Quicksilver]

Maybe it's just a birdemic?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE5dJDgZ644

[Lightsecond]

Clearly the work of BHG, down there at the front of the audience.

I did not notice him till you pointed out. Now that I think about it. It does sound like something BHG would do.

['); DROP TABLE users;]

What's the deal with the backslashes and quotation marks?

Quotes are special characters in programming, generally used to delimit strings (text) - in this case, the title text. That means that if you want to actually put a quote mark inside a string (e.g. have a quote mark as part of the title text) you have to "escape" it (make the server interpret it as a quote mark that should be displayed to the user rather than one that marks the end of the title text) by putting a backslash in front of it. Clearly Randall is having a little trouble with this today.

Edit: see here http://xkcd.com/234/ and the title text here http://www.xkcd.com/208/.

[squonk]

This feels like a comic that Randall created long ago and realized wasn't really good enough for the site, but kept around for use as an emergency filler for an occasion when he didn't have time to do a real one.

[jonadab]

Apparently birds have something to do with ... deficits in America. *shrugs* Or perhaps hawks specifically have something to do with politics in general?

Neither.

However, certain birds of prey are known for their excellent eyesight. From this we get two figures of speech.

I'll talk about the other one first, because it's simpler. Calling someone an "eagle-eye" is the more direct of the two: it implies that they have good physical eyesight. That's straightforward.

The figure of speech built around the hawk is more... figurative. If we say that someone watches something "like a hawk", we mean that they watch it very closely and will notice even small issues.

I've never heard of a "deficit hawk" before, but I would assume that the simile has been turned into a metaphor and we're talking about someone who watches (or perhaps wants to be perceived as watching) the budget very closely, probably with the intention of curtailing deficit spending (or at least being perceived as curtailing deficit spending).

HTH.HAND.

[radtea]

"Hawk" and "Dove" have long been used in American culture to describe the simplistic, ridiculous and wildly ideological (and therefore simplistic and ridiculous) stances that are prevalent in American society, which eschews nuance and subtlety in favour of Manichean monotones.

During the Cold War "Hawks" were people who wanted to start WWIII--the sooner the better--and Doves were people who wanted to surrender to the Soviet Union and march themselves off to political re-education camps. In the '80's there were people who called themselves "Owls", who claimed the wisdom of Doves and the sharp claws of Hawks, but they simply couldn't fit into the bipolar opposition of American politics, in which any sort of difference at all is immediately converted into bipolar oppositional dysfunction.

There are of course no deficit hawks in the US today: cutting the projected rate of growth of the deficit over the next decade is not cutting the deficit, which is what a deficit hawk would do. It is accepting the deficit as a fact of life and hoping you'll be dead before your children realized what a disaster you've handed them.

[J Thomas]

This must be a US politics reference. I have no comeback.

Instead, hi joee.

Apparently birds have something to do with decifits defecets defecits decifits dicifets WHATAMIDOINGWRONG deficits in America. *shrugs* Or perhaps hawks specifically have something to do with politics in general?

It's complicated.

Before the American civil war, there were people who were ready to murder to decide whether kansas would have slavery or not. The murderers who were against slavery were called jayhawkers. It started out with jayhawkers only attacking people who owned slaves and the equivalent southern groups only attacking people who opposed slavery, but as things got worse both groups wound up taking what they needed from anybody who had it.

After the war, there was enough hard feeling that people in kansas who had supported the south tended to leave or at least change their names, and over time "jayhawker" came to be used to describe anybody who considered himself a kansas citizen.

Later, the Wizard of Oz stories included a girl who came from kansas to the magical land of Oz, complete with witches, wizards, munchkins, flying monkeys, etc. The girl says to her little dog, "I don't think we're in kansas any more, Toto". The people of kansas are considered to be plainspeaking no-nonsense types who don't hold with witchcraft or flying monkeys. And so the jayhawker label evolved from fanatical idealists who turn into simple murderers and thieves, to plain common-sense people.

When the USA fell into controversy about the vietnam war, warhawks were plainspeaking no-nonsense types who said that when we get in a war we have to do whatever it takes to win it, and never give up until it is completely won. They said that we were in a generations-long war against international communism and we had to push the communists back wherever they infiltrated. Meanwhile the doves said it was the wrong war at the wrong time and we needed to cut our losses.

Now deficit-hawks are plainspeaking no-nonsense types who say that the USA should not have deficits, that the US government should never spend more than it collects in taxes, that we should pay off the national debt until it's gone and never go into debt again.

The "hawk" label is always applied to Republican fanatics and conservative fanatics, never to Democrat fanatics or liberal fanatics. And the connotation that they have lost their ideals and devolved into common thieves seems to be mostly missing from the label, though often people say that independent of the "hawk" word.

[veysey]

Today's comic was kind of the inverse of a picture I took about 2 years ago. Made me want to share it ...

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B2ZrDfBFI6POVXlnMy1oS3NnOG8

[SFW - it's a picture of the US Treasury building with a hawk on it ... ]

[Apeiron]

Pass the Monetary Reform Act and the national debt will be gone in two or three years. Then we can stop making interest payments on the national debt. That alone would allow republicans to have to toys they want and democrats to have the social programs they want.

[Fire Brns]

A deficit hawk can save enough money to buy a falcon.

This feels like a comic that Randall created long ago and realized wasn't really good enough for the site, but kept around for use as an emergency filler for an occasion when he didn't have time to do a real one.

IDK, that looks like Romney hair in the pic so I doubt it is that old. Still sub par.

[SerMufasa]

The "hawk" label is always applied to Republican fanatics and conservative fanatics, never to Democrat fanatics or liberal fanatics.

This is incorrect. Joe Lieberman was considered a hawk, even when he was in the Democratic Party.

[siosilvar]

As soon as I read the story title, the popped into my head:

[Sprocket]

adorable alt text.

angry birds.JPG (19.15 KiB) Viewed 5806 times

[dp2]

Funny how "war hawks" favor war spending while "deficit hawks" oppose deficit spending.

Anyway, I don't get the joke here.

[anian]

I love these political cartoons, they always create more crazy rantings by people on the forums.

[thesingingaccountant]

I will vote, no questions asked, for any candidate who describes themselves as 'more of a deficit sugar glider.'

Sugar gliders are possibly the cutest animals EVER. Nevertheless, I still intend to vote for Howard the Duck.

[San Fran Sam]

I will vote, no questions asked, for any candidate who describes themselves as 'more of a deficit sugar glider.'

Sugar gliders are possibly the cutest animals EVER. Nevertheless, I still intend to vote for Howard the Duck.

Papoon for President! He's not INSANE!

[Whys]

It's simple. Those calling themselves "deficit hawks" are so far from it, real hawks couldn't be more offended. And a real hawk, being a real hawk, attacks!

[J Thomas]

The "hawk" label is always applied to Republican fanatics and conservative fanatics, never to Democrat fanatics or liberal fanatics.

This is incorrect. Joe Lieberman was considered a hawk, even when he was in the Democratic Party.

Technically you are right, but I can't accept Lieberman as a counterexample. Is he a liberal fanatic? If he's a fanatic at all, he's more of a conservative fanatic who happens to be a registered Democrat.

[StClair]

Oh yay, political forum thread. Because there just aren't enough of those.

[Tova]

"... attacked by regular one" somehow failed to get a laugh out of me.

I dunno, I just feel that there is a genuinely funny joke in there just dying to get out.

The alt text did get a laugh out of me, though.

edit: Thinking a bit more, maybe "DEFICIT HAWK ATTACKED" would have been funnier, because it would have let the picture tell the joke. It's not often I feel that xkcd has overexplained the joke.

[Princess Marzipan]

What about the fucking hawk?

[flicky1991]

Have the strip numbers messed up for anyone else? This strip is now 1061, Crowdsourcing appears twice, and Old-Timers and Bel-Air have disappeared completely.

[VaebnKehn]

I'm just going to leave this here: http://bendigo2004.thecgf.com/library/i ... 0front.jpg

[jpers36]

Shouldn't the image be clickable?