2009-12-20
Explanation
This comic is told in reverse chronological order across three panels, starting with Friday and working back to Wednesday. On Wednesday, the Journal of Epidemiology publishes a headline announcing that all disease in elected officials has been cured. On Thursday, a newspaper headline reads "Senate Revokes All Funding for Medical Research." On Friday, a scientist addresses a panel of senators, revealing that the Wednesday report was fake -- it was a test of the senators' true feelings, and the scientists are unsurprised by the results.
The joke satirizes the self-serving nature of politicians. The scientists deliberately told the senators that all diseases affecting elected officials had been cured, knowing that once the senators believed they personally no longer needed medical research, they would immediately cut its funding. The comic suggests that politicians only support science funding to the extent that it benefits them personally, rather than out of concern for public welfare.
The votey panel extends the joke to another domain, showing a newspaper headline reading "World Peace Achieved; Physics Funds Cancelled." This implies that military and defense applications are the primary reason politicians fund physics research, and once world peace removes that motivation, the funding disappears -- another cynical commentary on the instrumental way governments treat scientific research.