Add this one to the older collection of ironic protest signs.
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More on truth and opinion in politics. More political jokes.
Tag Archives: joke
Statistical Jokes (42): Graphs and Axes
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More serious posts about what happens when you forget about or mess with the axis of a graph are here, here and here. More statistical jokes here.
Political Jokes & Funny Quotes (117): Women Are Always Wrong
More political jokes here.
Statistical Jokes (41): Pie Chart
More pie charts. More statistical jokes.
Political Jokes & Funny Quotes (116): White Pride
(source unknown)
If your proudest achievement is being white then that says a lot about what you’ve done with your life.
More political jokes here.
Political Jokes & Funny Quotes (115): Religion is Like a Penis
(source unknown)
More about religious liberty – which of course includes the liberty to not be religious - is here. More on proselytizing here. And more political jokes are here.
Political Jokes & Funny Quotes (113): Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia
by Princess Hijab
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From The Onion:
RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA—In the wake of the watershed decision granting them the right to vote in the 2015 elections, Saudi women have received their husbands’ explicit consent to rejoice, sources reported Wednesday. “It is with great pride that women all across Saudi Arabia have been allowed to leave their homes under the guardianship of a male relative and celebrate this cultural landmark,” father of four Khalid al-Kazaz told reporters. “It brings us great pleasure to permit them a few moments in which to smile beneath their hijabs before returning to their daily duties.” Saudi officials followed the announcement with another historic decree that lowered from 10 to 7 the number of lashes that will be administered to women who drive themselves to the voting booth.
More on Saudi Arabia, women’s rights and the veil. More Princess Hijab. More jokes.
Political Jokes & Funny Quotes (111): The Dangers of Morality
Eric Fischl - Untitled
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I argued before that morality can be and often has been the cause of a lot of evil in the world. The conviction of knowing what is good and right can lead to violent coercion of others who don’t conform to certain ideals. At the very least, moral certainty inhibits cooperation and compromise. Hence the claim by George Carlin:
I think motivation is overrated. You show me some lazy prick who’s lying around all day watching game shows and stroking his penis and I’ll show you someone who’s not causing any fucking trouble!
Of course, he’s not doing any good either, but the point is that doing good isn’t always good. More Carlin. More quotes & jokes.
Statistical Jokes (38): Percentages of Percentages
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I don’t want to insult anyone’s intelligence, but in case you don’t immediately get the joke: is Mr. Grayton’s level of support currently 1% (20-19)? Or 16,2% (81% of 20%, a reduction of 19%)?
More statistical jokes here.
Statistical Jokes (37): Significant Digits
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But please, have some sympathy for the statistician. He’s not really a nihilist and he does care about people dying. All he wants is that the nihil regains its place at the right side of estimated numbers.
Political Jokes & Funny Quotes (109): Lying Politicians
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More on truth in politics here, here and here. More on the stupidity of voters here. More jokes here.
Political Jokes & Funny Quotes (106): The Rise of Dictators
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More here on the reasons why countries are dictatorships rather than democracies, or vice versa. More on the Gini coefficient and on the link between GDP and democracy.
The Joke That is the U.S. Supreme Court
Jack Nicholson in The Shining
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Not good: naked people
Good: pretending to kill people, and having the state actually kill people.
Statistical Jokes (31): Prosperity Just Around the Corner
Alfred Frueh’s classic, published in The New Yorker 0n 16 January 1932, commenting on President Hoover’s statement that prosperity is just around the corner
More statistical jokes here.
Statistical Jokes (30): No Way to Bias a Coin Flip
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This excerpt from a scientific paper is not a joke, but it’s funny nonetheless, at least to me:
Dice can be loaded — that is, one can easily alter a die so that the probabilities of landing on the six sides are dramatically unequal. However, it is not possible to bias a coin flip — that is, one cannot, for example, weight a coin so that it is substantially more likely to land “heads” than “tails” when flipped and caught in the hand in the usual manner. Coin tosses can be biased only if the coin is allowed to bounce or be spun rather than simply flipped in the air. …
The law of conservation of angular momentum tells us that once the coin is in the air, it spins at a nearly constant rate (slowing down very slightly due to air resistance). At any rate of spin, it spends half the time with heads facing up and half the time with heads facing down, so when it lands, the two sides are equally likely (with minor corrections due to the nonzero thickness of the edge of the coin) … Jaynes (1996) explained why weighting the coin has no effect here (unless, of course, the coin is so light that it floats like a feather): a lopsided coin spins around an axis that passes through its center of gravity, and although the axis does not go through the geometrical center of the coin, there is no difference in the way the biased and symmetric coins spin about their axes. (source)
Statistical Jokes (29): Causation-Correlation Again
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Here’s a similar one:
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More on the causation-correlation problem here. More statistical jokes here.
Statistical Jokes (28): Learning Statistics
Learning Statistics is like taking a Mediterranean cruise.
You gain a new appreciation for the vastness of the world; you meet dozens of new characters, half of them with Greek names; and after 2 hours you feel utterly seasick.
More statistical jokes here.
Political Jokes & Funny Quotes (105): Soviet Propaganda
A Soviet journalist walks into the hospital and tells the desk nurse, “I want to see the eye-ear doctor.”
“There is no such doctor” she tells him. “Perhaps you would like to see someone else?”
“No, I need to see an eye-ear doctor,” he says.
“But there is no such doctor,” she replies. “We have doctors for the eyes and doctors for the ear, nose and throat, but no eye-ear doctor.”
No help. He repeats, “I want to see the eye-ear doctor.”
They go around like this for a few minutes and then the nurse says: “Comrade, there is no eye-ear doctor, but if there were one, why would you want to see him?”
“Because,” he replies, “I keep hearing one thing and seeing another.”
Statistical Jokes (27): Averages
Patient: “Will I survive this risky operation?”
Surgeon: “Yes, I’m absolutely sure that you will survive the operation.”
Patient: “How can you be so sure?”
Surgeon: “9 out of 10 patients die in this operation, and yesterday died my ninth patient.”
More statistical jokes here.
Statistical Jokes (26): Control Variable
the twins from the movie The Shining
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A statistician’s wife had twins. He was delighted. He rang the minister who was also delighted.
“Bring them to church on Sunday and we’ll baptize them,” said the minister.
“No,” replied the statistician. “Baptize one. We’ll keep the other as a control.”
And a bonus joke:
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More statistical jokes here.
Statistical Jokes (25): Dangerous Neighborhood
“Why are you moving? You have arrived to this lovely neighborhood just a few weeks ago.”
“Yes, but I read in the local paper a bit of statistics that said, ‘most auto accidents happen within eight miles of your home’.”
More statistical jokes here.
Statistical Jokes (24): Probability
drawing from a British driving manual
There was this statistics student who, when driving his car, would always accelerate hard before coming to any junction, whizz straight over it , then slow down again once he’d got over it. One day, he took a passenger, who was understandably unnerved by his driving style, and asked him why he went so fast over junctions. The statistics student replied, “Well, statistically speaking, you are far more likely to have an accident at a junction, so I just make sure that I spend less time there.”
More statistical jokes here.
Statistical Jokes (23): Coin Toss
Apple's coin toss application, for all those occasions when a coin is hard to find
A statistics major was completely hung over the day of his final exam. It was a True/False test, so he decided to flip a coin for the answers. The stats professor watched the student the entire two hours as he was flipping the coin…writing the answer…flipping the coin…writing the answer. At the end of the two hours, everyone else had left the final except for the one student. The professor walks up to his desk and interrupts the student, saying:
“Listen, I have seen that you did not study for this statistics test, you didn’t even open the exam. If you are just flipping a coin for your answer, what is taking you so long?”
The student replies bitterly, as he is still flipping the coin: “Shhh! I am checking my answers!”
More statistical jokes here.
Political Jokes & Funny Quotes (103): A Pole’s Three Wishes
Image by cnemil via Flickr
A Pole walking along the road happens to spy a lamp. He picks it up, and as it is covered in rust he gives it quick rub. Out comes a genie.
“I’m the genie of the lamp and I can grant you three wishes,” the genie says.
“OK,” says the Pole. “I want the Chinese Army to invade Poland.” Odd choice, the genie thinks, but nevertheless he grants the wish, and the Chinese Army comes all the way from China, invades, and goes back home.
“Right, second wish. Maybe something more positive,” says the genie.
“No,” replies the Pole, “I want the Chinese Army to invade again.” So the Chinese come all the way from China, lay waste to more of Poland, and then go home.
“Listen,” says the genie. “You have one last wish. I can make Poland the most beautiful and prosperous place on earth.”
“If you don’t mind, I want the Chinese army to invade one more time.” So the Chinese army comes again, destroys what’s left of Poland, and then goes home for the last time.
“I don’t understand,” says the genie. “Why did you want the Chinese army to invade Poland three times?”
“Well,” replies the Pole, “they had to go through Russia six times.”
Statistical Jokes (20): Privacy and the Internet
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More on privacy, and on the internet. More statistical jokes.
- Internet Privacy Rights – Six Guideposts For Employees (livecrunch.com)
- Schmidt’s Solution to Street View Privacy Concerns? ‘Just Move’ (searchenginewatch.com)
- White House Enters Online Privacy Fray with Privacy Subcommittee (socialtimes.com)
- Google ‘Mortified’ Over WiFi Data Gathering (informationweek.com)
- Statistical Jokes (17): The Illusion of Precision (filipspagnoli.wordpress.com)
Political Jokes & Funny Quotes (102): TV Censorship Priorities
More on violence on television here and here; something on violence and gaming is here; something on pornography and violence here; something on “naughty words” here and here; and on censorship in general here. More jokes here.
Political Jokes & Funny Quotes (101): Trickle Down
One for balance:
More serious stuff about trickle down economics is here. More on income inequality here. More jokes are here.
Political Jokes & Funny Quotes (100): Same-Sex Marriage
More on same-sex marriage. More jokes.
- Over Time, a Gay Marriage Groundswell (nytimes.com)
- Beck on Same-Sex Marriage [Dispatches from the Culture Wars] (scienceblogs.com)
- Shifting Attitudes Take Gay Rights Fight Across Globe, Experts Say (socialpsychology.org)
Statistical Jokes (18): Bye S?
On the off chance that some of those 13% are reading this blog and are unaware of the google, here are two dictionary definitions:
Something more substantial on the role of the media in a modern democracy is here. More about bias here. More statistical jokes here.
Political Jokes & Funny Quotes (99): Proof of Anti-White Racism in Spellcheckers
photo by geishaboy500
(source, source)
From some commenters at the Volokh Conspiracy Blog:
Commenter 1: By the way anybody else notice that Hispanic, African-American, or Asian all get flagged by the spell checker if they aren’t capitalized, but white just sails right on through? When are they going to fix that?
Commenter 2, replying sarcastically: I know, it’s almost as though whoever programs the spellchecker thinks that “white” isn’t related to a specific geographical location, and thinks that nouns and modifiers that refer to a specific geographical location are always capitalized in English, and thinks that modifiers that are basic colors are not capitalized in English.
For my part, I capitalize neither “black” nor “white” in any context (except as first word in a sentence, as part of a title, etc.)
But then, I always capitalize “Hitler” and “Satan,” and never capitalize “baby” or “puppy,” so I’m sure you can tell where my sympathies lie, if you are one of those who understand that capitalization has nothing to do with rules of English usage, and everything to do with a secret political agenda dictated from our socialist PC (no pun intended) masters in Redmond.
The Germans, of course, capitalize every noun, and no modifiers at all, a harsh system of inequality that the German Karl Marx railed against in his influential 1867 work “Das Kapital.”
More on racism, prejudice, Marx and PC. More political jokes.
Political Jokes & Funny Quotes (97): 24 Types of Libertarian
I know, this is no substitute for philosophical discussion, but it has the appeal – as well as the lack of nuance – of a good caricature:
(source, click image to enlarge)
I’ve added some numbers and linked them to some less “cartoonish” but also less humorous descriptions:
- This reflects the belief in involuntary and automatic systems (market, invisible hand…). More here and here.
- Reflects the value absolutism of libertarianism and the refusal to get into the “dirty” business of reconciling and balancing different values. More here and here.
- More on privatization here.
- More on big government and gun rights.
- More on the undeserving poor and on Heinlein.
- More on hypocrisy.
- More on some of the extreme consequences of libertarian logic is here.
- More on taxation.
- More on justice and merit.
- More on the libertarian view of the free market is here.
- More on abortion.
- More on the war on drugs, police abuse, and war.
- More on libertarianism and discrimination is here.
More about libertarianism in general is here. More jokes are here.
- 24 Types of Libertarians vs. 24 Types of Authoritarians (neatorama.com)
Statistical Jokes (17): The Illusion of Precision
Gabriel García Márquez
If you say that there are elephants flying in the sky, people are not going to believe you. But if you say that there are four hundred and twenty-five elephants in the sky, people will probably believe you. Gabriel García Márquez
Statistics give the impression of precision. Giving people a number does indeed make a statement seem more plausible. In reality, of course, statistical numbers often serve to obfuscate or to lie. And even if they don’t we often forget that they are mere estimates and extrapolations with margins of errors, and that they are often based on very messy data collection procedures and a lot of assumptions.
More statistical jokes.
Political Jokes & Funny Quotes (96): Poverty
The weird thing is: that’s not such a silly idea. More on poverty. More jokes.
Statistical Jokes (16): Statistics on the Skill-Luck Continuum
There’s something to this one, although I wouldn’t say statistics are merely a tiny fraction better than gambling and pure chance (but don’t ask me the size of the real fraction):
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More statistical jokes here. More serious stuff about statistics is here.
