explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1998: GDPR

2018-07-23T06:41:40Z

Tynstar: "out of the goodness of our hearts" - making fun of companies

{{comic
| number = 1998
| date = May 25, 2018
| title = GDPR
| image = gdpr.png
| titletext = By clicking anywhere, scrolling, or closing this notification, you agree to be legally bound by the witch Sycorax within a cloven pine.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic was released on the date on which the {{w|General Data Protection Regulation|General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)}} law went into effect. Most people will have already seen a large number of updated privacy policies in the week or two leading up to this law going active. And while [[xkcd]] would likely be outside of the jurisdiction that the law can enforce, it technically does fall within the scope of the law (as certainly EU citizens visit xkcd). This ''extra-territorial applicability'' is one of the major keys in this regulation and can be seen in more detail at the ''[https://www.eugdpr.org/key-changes.html EU GDPR Information Portal]''.

There are several references made to this law, but also several jokes are included about the way people treat privacy policies specifically, and user agreements in general.

The comic is a joke privacy policy, with terms that no one would agree to under normal circumstances. In most cases, website users will use websites without reading the policies, potentially "agreeing" to something unexpected.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:left;"
! Text
! Notes
|-
|colspan="2"|'''Privacy policy'''
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|We've updated our privacy policy. This is purely out of the goodness of our hearts, and has nothing to do with any hypothetical unions on any particular continents.
|style="vertical-align: top"|"purely out of the goodness of our hearts" is a phrase never expected to be found ever anywhere in any privacy policy. "and has nothing to do with ..." is a blatantly transparent lie - if this were a real privacy policy. Randall likely makes fun of companies announcing changes to their privacy policy without mentioning the GDPR being the reason, which tries to create the impression that the companies just wanted to improve it without being forced to do so.
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|Please read every part of this policy carefully, and don't just skip ahead looking for sex scenes.
|style="vertical-align: top"|
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|This policy governs your interactions with this website, herein referred to as "The Service", "The Website", "The Internet", or "Facebook", and with all other websites and organizations of any kind.
|style="vertical-align: top"|This starts out as a plausibly valid statement including "the service" and "the website". But then balloons outward to include the entire Internet and Facebook. As this presumably is a privacy policy only for xkcd, this policy should not attempt to claim that it also represents Facebook or the entire Internet. The extension to Facebook may be a reference to reports that [https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/facebook-is-the-internet-for-many-people-in-south-east-asia-20180322-p4z5nu.html "for many people ... Facebook is the Internet."]
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|The enumeration in this policy, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the users. By using this service, you opt in to quartering troops in your home.
|style="vertical-align: top"|The language that the privacy policy will not "deny or disparage" any preexisting rights mirrors that of the {{w|Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution}}, substituting "this policy" for "the Constitution" and "users" for "people." The agreement claims that it does not "deny or disparage" any of the user's other rights, but then immediately denies the user the right not to quarter troops in their home, which is a constitutional right described by the {{w|Third Amendment to the United States Constitution}}. Refusing to quarter troops in one's home was previously referenced in [[496: Secretary: Part 3]]. Note that the Third Amendment only applies to Americans. However, less specific written laws guaranteeing the privacy of one's home also exist in nearly all European countries.
|-
|colspan="2"|'''Your personal information'''
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|Please don't send us your personal information. We do not want your personal information. We have a hard enough time keeping track of our ''own'' personal information, let alone yours.
|style="vertical-align: top"|"Please don't send us your personal information" is also a phrase never expected to be found ever in a privacy policy. A privacy policy, by default, is a contract users agree to BECAUSE personal information is being stored. This is likely a reference to the previous comic [[1997: Business Update]] or perhaps [[1506: xkcloud]].
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|If you tell us your name, or any identifying information, we will forget it immediately. The next time we see you, we'll struggle to remember who you are, and try desperately to get through the conversation so we can go online and hopefully figure it out.
|style="vertical-align: top"|This is presumably something that Randall does in real life and is not part of a privacy policy.
|-
|colspan="2"|'''Tracking pixels, cookies, and beacons'''
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|This website places pixels on your screen in order to form text and images, some of which may remain in your memory after you close the page.
|style="vertical-align: top"|"This website places pixels" is something websites are designed to do and has nothing to do with privacy policies. Websites are more often employing "{{w|Web_beacon|tracking pixels}}" from companies such as Facebook and Twitter, which is an image file that is hosted on an external server that allows cross-platform and cross-session tracking for targeted advertisements. This is a controversial topic, as many people are against this kind of targeted advertising.
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|We use cookies to enhance your performance.
|style="vertical-align: top"|This apparently says that Randall is giving out actual cookies that can be eaten. Privacy policies normally deal with electronic cookies that track user activity and store personal information.
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|Our website may use local storage on your device if we run low on space on our end.
|style="vertical-align: top"|"may use local storage" is threatening to turn the user's device into cloud storage should Randall run out of space on his drive.
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|We may use beacons to call Rohan for aid.
|style="vertical-align: top"|Beacons in privacy policies usually refer to {{w|web beacons}}. This privacy policy refers to the [http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Warning_beacons_of_Gondor Warning beacons of Gondor], a system to call for aid used by {{w|Gondor}} in ''{{w|The Lord of the Rings}}''. They were used before the [http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Siege_of_Gondor Battle of the Pelennor Fields] to request the aid of the Rohirrim, the inhabitants of {{w|Rohan (Middle-earth)|Rohan}}. The use of the Beacons has previously been mentioned in [[921: Delivery Notification]].
|-
|colspan="2"|'''3rd party extension'''
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|This service may utilize 3rd party extensions in order to play the song '''''Can U Feel It''''' from their debut album '''''Alive'''''.
|style="vertical-align: top"|{{w|3rd Party}} was a three-member dance-pop group that released one album in 1997, "Alive". In software, "third-party extensions" are small programs that plug into a larger program to modify its behavior, and are created neither by the maker of the larger program nor the user.
|-
|colspan="2"|'''Permission'''
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|For users who are citizens of the European Union, we will now be requesting permission before initiating organ harvesting.
|style="vertical-align: top"|This part can be construed in several frightening ways. 1. We will ask you after you die if you are willing to donate your organs. 2. We were not asking permission before, but now we have to ask. 3. We will ask you, but your answer doesn't actually matter. 4. We've switched from an organ donation program (legal) to an organ harvesting program (wildly illegal). 5. Anyone ''not'' in the EU will have (or, possibly, ''continue'' to have) their organs harvested without permission. Besides these frightening scenarios, there is also the question of how a website (and not a doctor) is going to perform the harvesting.
|-
|colspan="2"|'''Scope and limitations'''
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|This policy supersedes any application federal, state, and local laws, regulations and ordinances, international treaties, and legal agreements that would otherwise apply.
|style="vertical-align: top"|This is an apparently valid statement. Its inclusiveness is quite extreme, but appears to be a technically valid statement. However, many laws and constitutional rights cannot be superseded by an ordinary privacy policy.
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|If any provision of this policy is found by a court to be unenforceable, it nevertheless remains in force.
|style="vertical-align: top"|This part claims to have higher jurisdiction than any court and can somehow maintain legality even if a court disagrees. A typical policy would read that an unenforceable provision would not invalidate the rest of the policy.
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|This organization is not liable and this agreement shall not be construed.
|style="vertical-align: top"|"not liable" and "shall not be construed" are blanket statements that are supposed to have limiters. For example, a restaurant could have a policy stating "not liable for burns received from our hot coffee." A statement made to a court could say "The defendant's statement of giving the prostitute money shall not be construed as an admission of committing a crime." This makes little sense when claiming the website “is not liable” for anything, and “shall not be construed” to have any meaning whatsoever.
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This website is intended to treat, cure and prevent any disease.
|style="vertical-align: top"|The {{w|Food and Drug Administration}} has nothing to do with privacy policies, but anything that promotes itself as being intended to prevent, cure or treat disease requires FDA approval. To circumvent the need for FDA approval (which requires very expensive statistically significant double blind clinical trials), the labels on unapproved herbal remedies state they are “not intended to prevent, cure or treat any disease.” In some cases, this statement appears to be false, although not as patently absurd as the claim that xkcd will treat, cure and prevent any disease, which, if taken literally and not as a joke, would require the site to be FDA approved.
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|If you know anyone in Europe, please tell them we're cool.
|style="vertical-align: top"|
|}

The title text is a reference to Shakespeare's "{{w|The Tempest}}", in which the witch {{w|Sycorax}} imprisoned the sprite Ariel in a cloven pine prior to Ariel's rescue by Prospero. As this clause cannot be escaped by anything short of restarting your computer, it may also reflect on how hard it often proves to be to opt out of privacy policy agreements and other forms to be filled on website, for all that they may appear optional. The fact that it appears as a title-text akin to a footnote, which a careless reader of the Privacy Policy may not notice at first glance, may also continue the joke of small but unexpected clauses hidden amidst a long-winded block of legalese, agreed to by users who haven't read them.

==Transcript==
:[The picture shows a long text:]
:'''Privacy policy'''
:We've updated our privacy policy. This is purely out of the goodness of our hearts, and has nothing to do with any hypothetical unions on any particular continents. Please read every part of this policy carefully, and don't just skip ahead looking for sex scenes.
:This policy governs your interactions with this website, herein referred to as "The Service", "The Website", "The Internet", or "Facebook", and with all other websites and organizations of any kind. The enumeration in this policy, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the users. By using this service, you opt in to quartering troops in your home.

:'''Your personal information'''
:Please don't send us your personal information. We do not want your personal information. We have a hard enough time keeping track of our ''own'' personal information, let alone yours.
:If you tell us your name, or any identifying information, we will forget it immediately. The next time we see you, we'll struggle to remember who you are, and try desperately to get through the conversation so we can go online and hopefully figure it out.

:'''Tracking pixels, cookies, and beacons'''
:This website places pixels on your screen in order to form text and images, some of which may remain in your memory after you close the page. We use cookies to enhance your performance. Our website may use local storage on your device if we run low on space on our end. We may use beacons to call Rohan for aid.

:'''3rd party extension'''
:This service may utilize 3rd party extensions in order to play the song '''''Can U Feel It''''' from their debut album '''''Alive'''''.

:'''Permission'''
:For users who are citizens of the European Union, we will now be requesting permission before initiating organ harvesting.

:'''Scope and limitations'''
:This policy supersedes any application federal, state, and local laws, regulations and ordinances, international treaties, and legal agreements that would otherwise apply. If any provision of this policy is found by a court to be unenforceable, it nevertheless remains in force.
:This organization is not liable and this agreement shall not be construed. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This website is intended to treat, cure and prevent any disease.
:If you know anyone in Europe, please tell them we're cool.

{{comic discussion}}

1998: GDPR

2018-07-23T06:40:28Z

Tynstar: Listing the comic text side-by-side with corresponding notes so readers don't have to jump back and forth

{{comic
| number = 1998
| date = May 25, 2018
| title = GDPR
| image = gdpr.png
| titletext = By clicking anywhere, scrolling, or closing this notification, you agree to be legally bound by the witch Sycorax within a cloven pine.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic was released on the date on which the {{w|General Data Protection Regulation|General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)}} law went into effect. Most people will have already seen a large number of updated privacy policies in the week or two leading up to this law going active. And while [[xkcd]] would likely be outside of the jurisdiction that the law can enforce, it technically does fall within the scope of the law (as certainly EU citizens visit xkcd). This ''extra-territorial applicability'' is one of the major keys in this regulation and can be seen in more detail at the ''[https://www.eugdpr.org/key-changes.html EU GDPR Information Portal]''.

There are several references made to this law, but also several jokes are included about the way people treat privacy policies specifically, and user agreements in general.

The comic is a joke privacy policy, with terms that no one would agree to under normal circumstances. In most cases, website users will use websites without reading the policies, potentially "agreeing" to something unexpected.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:left;"
! Text
! Notes
|-
|colspan="2"|'''Privacy policy'''
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|We've updated our privacy policy. This is purely out of the goodness of our hearts, and has nothing to do with any hypothetical unions on any particular continents.
|style="vertical-align: top"|"purely out of the goodness of our hearts" is a phrase never expected to be found ever anywhere in any privacy policy. "and has nothing to do with ..." is a blatantly transparent lie - if this were a real privacy policy.
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|Please read every part of this policy carefully, and don't just skip ahead looking for sex scenes.
|style="vertical-align: top"|
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|This policy governs your interactions with this website, herein referred to as "The Service", "The Website", "The Internet", or "Facebook", and with all other websites and organizations of any kind.
|style="vertical-align: top"|This starts out as a plausibly valid statement including "the service" and "the website". But then balloons outward to include the entire Internet and Facebook. As this presumably is a privacy policy only for xkcd, this policy should not attempt to claim that it also represents Facebook or the entire Internet. The extension to Facebook may be a reference to reports that [https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/facebook-is-the-internet-for-many-people-in-south-east-asia-20180322-p4z5nu.html "for many people ... Facebook is the Internet."]
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|The enumeration in this policy, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the users. By using this service, you opt in to quartering troops in your home.
|style="vertical-align: top"|The language that the privacy policy will not "deny or disparage" any preexisting rights mirrors that of the {{w|Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution}}, substituting "this policy" for "the Constitution" and "users" for "people." The agreement claims that it does not "deny or disparage" any of the user's other rights, but then immediately denies the user the right not to quarter troops in their home, which is a constitutional right described by the {{w|Third Amendment to the United States Constitution}}. Refusing to quarter troops in one's home was previously referenced in [[496: Secretary: Part 3]]. Note that the Third Amendment only applies to Americans. However, less specific written laws guaranteeing the privacy of one's home also exist in nearly all European countries.
|-
|colspan="2"|'''Your personal information'''
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|Please don't send us your personal information. We do not want your personal information. We have a hard enough time keeping track of our ''own'' personal information, let alone yours.
|style="vertical-align: top"|"Please don't send us your personal information" is also a phrase never expected to be found ever in a privacy policy. A privacy policy, by default, is a contract users agree to BECAUSE personal information is being stored. This is likely a reference to the previous comic [[1997: Business Update]] or perhaps [[1506: xkcloud]].
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|If you tell us your name, or any identifying information, we will forget it immediately. The next time we see you, we'll struggle to remember who you are, and try desperately to get through the conversation so we can go online and hopefully figure it out.
|style="vertical-align: top"|This is presumably something that Randall does in real life and is not part of a privacy policy.
|-
|colspan="2"|'''Tracking pixels, cookies, and beacons'''
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|This website places pixels on your screen in order to form text and images, some of which may remain in your memory after you close the page.
|style="vertical-align: top"|"This website places pixels" is something websites are designed to do and has nothing to do with privacy policies. Websites are more often employing "{{w|Web_beacon|tracking pixels}}" from companies such as Facebook and Twitter, which is an image file that is hosted on an external server that allows cross-platform and cross-session tracking for targeted advertisements. This is a controversial topic, as many people are against this kind of targeted advertising.
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|We use cookies to enhance your performance.
|style="vertical-align: top"|This apparently says that Randall is giving out actual cookies that can be eaten. Privacy policies normally deal with electronic cookies that track user activity and store personal information.
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|Our website may use local storage on your device if we run low on space on our end.
|style="vertical-align: top"|"may use local storage" is threatening to turn the user's device into cloud storage should Randall run out of space on his drive.
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|We may use beacons to call Rohan for aid.
|style="vertical-align: top"|Beacons in privacy policies usually refer to {{w|web beacons}}. This privacy policy refers to the [http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Warning_beacons_of_Gondor Warning beacons of Gondor], a system to call for aid used by {{w|Gondor}} in ''{{w|The Lord of the Rings}}''. They were used before the [http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Siege_of_Gondor Battle of the Pelennor Fields] to request the aid of the Rohirrim, the inhabitants of {{w|Rohan (Middle-earth)|Rohan}}. The use of the Beacons has previously been mentioned in [[921: Delivery Notification]].
|-
|colspan="2"|'''3rd party extension'''
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|This service may utilize 3rd party extensions in order to play the song '''''Can U Feel It''''' from their debut album '''''Alive'''''.
|style="vertical-align: top"|{{w|3rd Party}} was a three-member dance-pop group that released one album in 1997, "Alive". In software, "third-party extensions" are small programs that plug into a larger program to modify its behavior, and are created neither by the maker of the larger program nor the user.
|-
|colspan="2"|'''Permission'''
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|For users who are citizens of the European Union, we will now be requesting permission before initiating organ harvesting.
|style="vertical-align: top"|This part can be construed in several frightening ways. 1. We will ask you after you die if you are willing to donate your organs. 2. We were not asking permission before, but now we have to ask. 3. We will ask you, but your answer doesn't actually matter. 4. We've switched from an organ donation program (legal) to an organ harvesting program (wildly illegal). 5. Anyone ''not'' in the EU will have (or, possibly, ''continue'' to have) their organs harvested without permission. Besides these frightening scenarios, there is also the question of how a website (and not a doctor) is going to perform the harvesting.
|-
|colspan="2"|'''Scope and limitations'''
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|This policy supersedes any application federal, state, and local laws, regulations and ordinances, international treaties, and legal agreements that would otherwise apply.
|style="vertical-align: top"|This is an apparently valid statement. Its inclusiveness is quite extreme, but appears to be a technically valid statement. However, many laws and constitutional rights cannot be superseded by an ordinary privacy policy.
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|If any provision of this policy is found by a court to be unenforceable, it nevertheless remains in force.
|style="vertical-align: top"|This part claims to have higher jurisdiction than any court and can somehow maintain legality even if a court disagrees. A typical policy would read that an unenforceable provision would not invalidate the rest of the policy.
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|This organization is not liable and this agreement shall not be construed.
|style="vertical-align: top"|"not liable" and "shall not be construed" are blanket statements that are supposed to have limiters. For example, a restaurant could have a policy stating "not liable for burns received from our hot coffee." A statement made to a court could say "The defendant's statement of giving the prostitute money shall not be construed as an admission of committing a crime." This makes little sense when claiming the website “is not liable” for anything, and “shall not be construed” to have any meaning whatsoever.
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This website is intended to treat, cure and prevent any disease.
|style="vertical-align: top"|The {{w|Food and Drug Administration}} has nothing to do with privacy policies, but anything that promotes itself as being intended to prevent, cure or treat disease requires FDA approval. To circumvent the need for FDA approval (which requires very expensive statistically significant double blind clinical trials), the labels on unapproved herbal remedies state they are “not intended to prevent, cure or treat any disease.” In some cases, this statement appears to be false, although not as patently absurd as the claim that xkcd will treat, cure and prevent any disease, which, if taken literally and not as a joke, would require the site to be FDA approved.
|-
|style="vertical-align: top"|If you know anyone in Europe, please tell them we're cool.
|style="vertical-align: top"|
|}

The title text is a reference to Shakespeare's "{{w|The Tempest}}", in which the witch {{w|Sycorax}} imprisoned the sprite Ariel in a cloven pine prior to Ariel's rescue by Prospero. As this clause cannot be escaped by anything short of restarting your computer, it may also reflect on how hard it often proves to be to opt out of privacy policy agreements and other forms to be filled on website, for all that they may appear optional. The fact that it appears as a title-text akin to a footnote, which a careless reader of the Privacy Policy may not notice at first glance, may also continue the joke of small but unexpected clauses hidden amidst a long-winded block of legalese, agreed to by users who haven't read them.

==Transcript==
:[The picture shows a long text:]
:'''Privacy policy'''
:We've updated our privacy policy. This is purely out of the goodness of our hearts, and has nothing to do with any hypothetical unions on any particular continents. Please read every part of this policy carefully, and don't just skip ahead looking for sex scenes.
:This policy governs your interactions with this website, herein referred to as "The Service", "The Website", "The Internet", or "Facebook", and with all other websites and organizations of any kind. The enumeration in this policy, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the users. By using this service, you opt in to quartering troops in your home.

:'''Your personal information'''
:Please don't send us your personal information. We do not want your personal information. We have a hard enough time keeping track of our ''own'' personal information, let alone yours.
:If you tell us your name, or any identifying information, we will forget it immediately. The next time we see you, we'll struggle to remember who you are, and try desperately to get through the conversation so we can go online and hopefully figure it out.

:'''Tracking pixels, cookies, and beacons'''
:This website places pixels on your screen in order to form text and images, some of which may remain in your memory after you close the page. We use cookies to enhance your performance. Our website may use local storage on your device if we run low on space on our end. We may use beacons to call Rohan for aid.

:'''3rd party extension'''
:This service may utilize 3rd party extensions in order to play the song '''''Can U Feel It''''' from their debut album '''''Alive'''''.

:'''Permission'''
:For users who are citizens of the European Union, we will now be requesting permission before initiating organ harvesting.

:'''Scope and limitations'''
:This policy supersedes any application federal, state, and local laws, regulations and ordinances, international treaties, and legal agreements that would otherwise apply. If any provision of this policy is found by a court to be unenforceable, it nevertheless remains in force.
:This organization is not liable and this agreement shall not be construed. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This website is intended to treat, cure and prevent any disease.
:If you know anyone in Europe, please tell them we're cool.

{{comic discussion}}

2003: Presidential Succession

2018-06-06T15:41:58Z

Tynstar: added info to entry 18 (British line of succession), fixed a typo in the title text explanation

{{comic
| number = 2003
| date = June 6, 2018
| title = Presidential Succession
| image = presidential_succession.png
| titletext = Ties are broken by whoever was closest to the surface of Europa when they were born.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a DESIGNATED SURVIVOR - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The {{w|United States presidential line of succession}} is the order of people who serve as president if the current incumbent president is incapacitated, dies, resigns, or is removed from office.

The {{w|Presidential_Succession_Act#Presidential_Succession_Act_of_1947|Presidential Succession Act of 1947}} was an act by the U.S. Congress that revised the presidential order of succession to its current order. This act, though never challenged in the courts, may not be constitutional for two reasons. First, it is unclear whether members of Congress can be designated in the line of succession. Secondly, the act allows for a cabinet officer to be "replaced" as acting President by a new Speaker of the House or a new President Pro Tempore of the Senate.

An additional concern regarding the Act is that after the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, the line of succession list the members of the Cabinet in the order that their department was established with the oldest departments first, irrespective of the Secretary's personal fitness or appropriateness of the office. The Department of Homeland Security is in charge of the security and protection of the United States and its citizens and would probably already be privy to sensitive intelligence and briefings related to national security, but because it is the latest of the Departments to have been established (in 2003) the Secretary of Homeland Security is all the way at the bottom of the current Presidential line of succession at 18th, behind other Secretaries such as that of Agriculture (9th) and Education (16th).

The full text of the Second Report of the Continuity of Government Commission can be found here: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_continuity_of_government.pdf

The first 6 members of Randall's list are included in the current line of succession. After the top 6, his list ranges from politicians, to actors who have played Presidents, to athletes.

Randall's list omits the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, as well as many other cabinet positions. Perhaps he does not find those people qualified to become President of the United States, or is concerned about the constitutionality of lawmakers becoming President. However, he does not seem to be concerned about constitutionality, because he included the entire line of succession to the British throne, most of whom are do not meet the requirement to be a natural-born citizen of the United States.{{Citation needed}}

Randall's list includes several other people who also might not be eligible to become President either because they are not natural-born U.S. citizens (e.g., as of the time of the comic's publishing, {{w|Serena Williams}} had withdrawn from her last match in the {{w|French Open}} to {{w|Maria Sharapova}}, who is Russian) or they are under 35 years of age ({{w|Russell Westbrook}}, the reigning NBA Most Valuable Player at the time of the comic's publishing, was only 29 years old). These would mainly be athletes due to the relatively global reach of the four major professional sports leagues in North America and the fact that 35 is quite old for a professional athlete, let alone one who is good enough to win the league MVP. Presumably, those who wouldn't qualify for the office of President would be skipped over like in real life -- at comic's publishing, {{w|Elaine Chao}} was the Secretary of Transportation and would normally be 14th in line, but because she is a naturalized citizen of the US (she was born in Taiwan) she would not qualify for the office if the line came to her.

This is another comic in the continuing line of comics about American politics, especially after the election of Donald Trump as President in 2016.

==Order of succession==
{| class="wikitable sortable"
!#
!Randall's order
!Current order by the 1947 Act
!Notes
|-
|1
|President
|President
|Not generally considered part of the line of succession, as incumbents cannot "succeed" to their own post.
|-
|2
|Vice president
|Vice president
|No change
|-
|3
|Secretary of State
|Speaker of the House of Representatives
|Moved up from 5th position. This is likely a serious suggestion. Existing rules of succession hand Executive power to the leaders of the Legislative branch if the President and Vice-President are both killed or removed from power. This is troubling for a number of reasons. One is that the Executive and Legislative branches are supposed to act as independent checks on one another's power, and so are supposed to be kept separate. Another issue is that the Executive and Legislative branches are frequently controlled by political rivals from different political parties. In such a case, assassins could effectively reverse the results of Presidential elections if they managed to kill the President and Vice-President in a short period of time. Additionally, leaders of the House and Senate aren't as deeply connected to the military and diplomatic missions of the country, and so would have a hard time maintaining continuity, particularly if an attack or disaster killed multiple national leaders at once. These problems could all be addressed by keeping the initial Line of Succession confined to the Executive branch of government.
|-
|4
|Secretary of Defense
|President pro tempore of the Senate
|Moved up from 7th position
|-
|5
|Secretary of Homeland Security
|Secretary of State
|Moved up from 19th position, possibly to highlight the Attorney General's place in the current order
|-
|6
|Attorney General
|Secretary of the Treasury
|Moved up from 8th position
|-
|7
|Five people who do not live in Washington DC, nominated at the start of the President's term and confirmed by the Senate
|Secretary of Defense
|{{w|Washington, D.C.}} is the capital of the United States, and is where the {{w|White House}}, the President's residence, is located. Presumably this provision covers the case where much of the government, including positions 1–6 here, are killed by a natural disaster or attack in Washington, D.C.

It's unclear whether this suggestion is serious, as it establishes no qualifications for these people, but the fact that they'd need to be confirmed by the Senate suggests that they would be chosen to be competent for the role. It is also unclear if an order is determined among these 5 or if they take up a joint presidency.
|-
|8
|{{w|Tom Hanks}}
|Attorney General
|Academy Award-winning American actor. This is the first unambiguously unserious suggestion. Tom Hanks is very popular and considered exceptionally likeable by many Americans, but has never served in public office or displayed any particular affinity for politics. The implication is that Mr. Hanks would be easily accepted as a leader, based solely on his personal charm.
|-
|9
|State Governors, in descending order of state population at last census
|Secretary of the Interior
|At the time of publishing, the last {{w|United States Census}} was the 2010 Census. {{w|2010_United_States_Census#State_rankings|Link}} to state populations.
|-
|10
|Anyone who won an Oscar for playing a governor
|Secretary of Agriculture
|Oscars, or {{w|Academy Awards}}, are annual film awards awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. At the time of publishing, the only Oscar awarded for playing a governor was {{w|Broderick Crawford}}'s 1949 Best Actor award for the fictional Willie Stark in ''{{w|All the King's Men (1949 film)|All the King's Men}}'' (a character based on {{w|Huey Long}}). However, Crawford died in 1986, so would be unable to serve as President.

May be a reference to the {{w|Political career of Arnold Schwarzenegger}}: a highly-lauded actor who became governor of California, but did not win an Oscar or play a governor before being elected.
|-
|11
|Anyone who won a Governor's award for playing someone named Oscar
|Secretary of Commerce
|The {{w|Governors Awards}} are an annual award ceremony hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to present lifetime achievement awards within the film industry. As this award is a lifetime achievement award, it does not seem possible that an actor could win this award for simply playing someone named Oscar. Obviously, the joke is that changing the order of the words from the previous proposal produces something that actually exists.
|-
|12
|{{w|Kate McKinnon}}, if available
|Secretary of Labor
|Comedic actress famous for being a cast member on {{w|Saturday Night Live}}. She is known for her character work and celebrity impressions. She has recently done impersonations of members of the Trump administration including Spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
|-
|13
|Billboard Year-End Hot 100 Singles artists #1 through #10 (for groups, whoever is credited first in name, liner notes, etc)
|Secretary of Health and Human Services
|The {{w|Billboard Hot 100}} is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for singles, published weekly by Billboard magazine.
|-
|14
|The top 5 US astronauts in descending order of total spaceflight time
|Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
|Astronauts are highly respected and rigorously selected. The top 5 US astronauts with the most space time are: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Kelly_(astronaut) Scott Kelly] (879 total days), [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggy_Whitson Peggy Whitson] (665), [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_L%C3%B3pez-Alegr%C3%ADa Michael López-Alegría] (215)
|-
|15
|{{w|Serena Williams}} (or, if she lost her most recent match, whoever beat her)
|Secretary of Transportation
|As of the time of publishing, Serena Williams was the top female tennis player (though not the world #1 ranking, because she took time off for pregnancy). She is arguably the greatest female tennis player of all-time, winning 39 {{w|Grand Slam (tennis)|Grand Slam}} titles, including 23 women's singles titles. At the time of publication Serena Williams did win her most recent match (third round French Open 2018 on June 2nd), although she withdrew from her next match against Maria Sharapova.

If her most recent defeat was to a non-US player, it is unclear whether that person would still qualify for President (the current succession list skips over anyone who would not normally qualify for not being a natural-born US citizen).
|-
|16
|The most recent season NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL MVPs
|Secretary of Energy
|MVP stands for {{w|Most Valuable Player}}. The 4 listed leagues are the major sports leagues in the United States, the {{w|National Basketball Association}} (NBA), the {{w|National Football League}} (NFL), {{w|Major League Baseball}} (MLB), and the {{w|National Hockey League}} (NHL).

As of the time of publishing, the most recent MVPs for the listed sports are {{w|Russell Westbrook}} (NBA), {{w|Tom Brady}} (NFL), {{w|José Altuve}} and {{w|Giancarlo Stanton}} (MLB has two, one for the American League and one for the National League), and {{w|Connor McDavid}} (NHL). Of these, only Brady would qualify for the list - Altuve and McDavid are not US citizens (the former is from Venezuela and the latter from Canada), and Westbrook (29) and Stanton (28) are too young.
|-
|17
|{{w|Bill Pullman}} and his descendants by absolute primogeniture
|Secretary of Education
|American actor, known for playing President Thomas J. Whitmore in the 1996 film ''{{w|Independence Day (1996 film)|Independence Day}}''.

Absolute primogeniture is a form of succession where the oldest direct descendant regardless of gender receives the title. This is contrasted to {{w|Male-preference primogeniture}}, in which males come before females in the order of the throne, whether the males were born first or not. This may be a reference to the British law {{w|Succession to the Crown Act 2013}}, which changed the order of the throne from male-preference primogeniture to absolute primogeniture. This act allows {{w|Princess Charlotte of Cambridge|Princess Charlotte}} to retain her place in line before {{w|Prince Louis of Cambridge|Prince Louis}}.

As of the present, Pullman's immediate descendants consist of three children, with Maesa Pullman being the oldest at age 29 and hence ineligible for the presidency.

|-
|18
|The entire line of succession to the British throne
|Secretary of Veterans Affairs
|According to the Constitution, only a natural-born citizen of the United States can become President, which means that at least most of the line of succession to the British throne is ineligible. However, it is possible that someone in the line of succession to the British throne either is a dual citizen (especially one who is a U.S. citizen based on place of birth and a British citizen based on having a parent who was a British citizen descended from Sofia of Hanover) or is not British (a person from outside of Britain can become King; for example, some, including George the First, were from what is now Germany).

The first 57 names on the list are {{w|Succession_to_the_British_throne#Current_line_of_succession|here}}, as of the time of publishing. [https://lineofsuccession.co.uk/?date=2018-06-06 British Line of Succession on 6 June 2018] shows the list as it was at the comic's publication. In theory this entry includes several thousand people, although most or all are ineligible due to not being natural born citizens of the United States.

The humor here derives from the fact that the United States was established by declaring independence from the United Kingdom, with rejection of the British monarchy being a basic founding principle, and a core principle of US governance. To appoint the British monarchy to the American presidency would contradict the basic goals of American independence.

This entry may be a reference to the the comedy movie [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102216/reference King Ralph], which revolves around an American ascending the British throne after the entire royal family dies.
|-
|19
|The current champion of the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contest
|Secretary of Homeland Security
|The {{w|Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest}} is an annual American hot dog competitive eating competition sponsored by {{w|Nathan's Famous}} held on July 4th. As of the time of publishing, the most recent men's winner is {{w|Joey Chestnut}} and the women's winner is {{w|Miki Sudo}}.
|-
|20
|All other US citizens, chosen by a 29-round single-elimination Jousting tournament
|''None''
|Effective for a population up to 536,870,912 individuals (2^29) which would be enough to cover the entire US population (estimated at around 325 million at time of publication), although additional rounds can be added should the population grow further.

This is probably a reference to {{w|The Sword in the Stone (film)}}, where, after being unable to determine the successor to the throne of England for years, it is decided that the winner of a jousting tournament shall be crowned.
|}

The title text mentions whoever was closest to the surface of {{w|Europa}} when they were born. Europa is a moon of Jupiter, so most people would be very far from its surface when they were born. However, depending on the relative positions of Earth and Jupiter when you were born, you could easily have been tens of millions of kilometers closer. Alternatively, Randall could be playing on how Europa sounds like Europe.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
: A proposal for a new presidential line of succession
: Current politics aside, most experts agree the existing process is flawed. The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 is probably unconstitutional on several counts, and there are many practical issues with the system as well.
: <span style="color:gray">(For more, see the surprisingly gripping ''Second Report of the Continuity of Government Commission'', June 2009.)</span>
: Proposed line of succession:
:# President
:# Vice president
:# Secretary of State
:# Secretary of Defense
:# Secretary of Homeland Security
:# Attorney General
:# Five people who do not live in Washington DC, nominated at the start of the president's term and confirmed by the Senate
:# Tom Hanks
:# State Governors, in descending order of state population at last census
:# Anyone who won an Oscar for playing a governor
:# Anyone who won a Governor's award for playing someone named Oscar
:# Kate McKinnon, if available
:# Billboard year-end hot 100 singles artists #1 through #10 (for groups, whoever is credited first in name, liner notes, etc)
:# The top 5 US astronauts in descending order of total spaceflight time
:# Serena Williams (or, if she lost her most recent match, whoever beat her)
:# The most recent season NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL MVPs
:# Bull Pullman and his descendants by absolute primogeniture
:# The entire line of succession to the British throne
:# The current champion of the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contest
:# All other US citizens, chosen by a 29-round single-elimination Jousting tournament

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Politics]]