The unimportant news thread

Karl Henning · July 16, 2015, 07:12:00 AM

"Your call is important to us."

Hang-ups exploded from last year, when the IRS disconnected 544,000 callers.

ibanezmonster · July 16, 2015, 07:17:50 PM

Lol...
So, somehow I know the sheriff of Waller County, Texas a bit too well by now. A few years ago, when my favorite anime reviewer on youtube went on a mass murder, killing his family, I saw the Waller County Sheriff (see 2 minutes in, or just the thumbnail).

https://www.youtube.com/v/0YfZ4xYMzGs

Just now I see some random facebook news and there he is. Glenn Smith. Totally different story.

http://mic.com/articles/122418/r-glenn-smith-sandra-bland-death

ibanezmonster · July 17, 2015, 06:35:00 AM

Confederate flags don't kill people. People kill people. Oh wait, never mind.

http://dailycurrant.com/2015/06/26/confederate-flag-kills-7-at-alabama-shopping-mall/

Dancing Divertimentian · July 19, 2015, 08:04:19 AM

Those dastardly psychology professors

Karl Henning · July 21, 2015, 06:35:37 AM

U.S. data hack may be 4 times larger than the government originally said

jochanaan · July 21, 2015, 07:56:59 AM

Quote from: karlhenning on July 21, 2015, 06:35:37 AM
U.S. data hack may be 4 times larger than the government originally said

Why doesn't this surprise me?

Karl Henning · July 21, 2015, 08:16:51 AM

Indeed, mon cher, indeed.

Karl Henning · July 21, 2015, 09:41:42 AM

Bigots 'Я' Us opens in the Sunshine State

Todd · July 23, 2015, 05:22:05 PM

This recalls this line from the Kazakh national anthem in Borat: "Kazakhstan, prostitutes cleanest in the region, except of course for Turkmenistan's".

(Okay, it's a brutal dictatorship that routinely ends up low on human rights organizations' ratings, year after year, but smoking is just so bad.)

Todd · July 31, 2015, 05:49:25 PM

Well, fuck me.

(It's been a tough week for pro wrestling.)

ibanezmonster · August 01, 2015, 08:43:25 AM

http://www.theonion.com/article/eminem-terrified-as-daughter-begins-dating-man-rai-32989

Karl Henning · August 03, 2015, 06:50:42 AM

Quote from: Peter Grier"Independent" voters often aren't.

[...] About one-third of US voters are Democrats and one-third are Republicans, points out Jennifer N. Victor, an assistant professor of political science at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. One-third identify as independents.

But many of those self-described "independents" are independent in name only. About one-third of them are secret Republicans, and one-third secret Democrats. Push them and you'll find that they actually vote like declared partisans.

The remaining one-third of the one-third is indeed composed of independents. "These independents amount to 10 to 12 percent of the voting population, which is much smaller than most people think," writes Ms. Victor in a post on the "Mischiefs of Faction" political blog.

Wait, there's more. About half of the actual independents don't make it to the polls. That's right – they don't vote, according to research conducted by other political scientists. The portion that does vote generally splits its ballots between Democrats and Republicans.

And these final true swing voters tend to be the least-informed adults in the US electorate. That makes sense if you think about it – they're the folks who don't follow political news and thus haven't formed opinions about candidates and issues they don't know exist.