Creepy

Researchers Gregory Martin of Emory University and Ali Yurukoglu of Stanford University have been examining the effect of cable news on voting patterns.  It's not news that this effect exists, but it turns out to be even more insidious and arbitrary than might be imagined.

Follow the reasoning, and try not to weep: popular channels are usually older channels, and so have lower numbers.  People flip around on commercial breaks, but don't stray far.  This is the only reason most people would be watching Fox or MSNBC anyway.  They catch a few minutes of news while waiting for their show about cakes to come back on, and this is enough to inform their political opinion.  Which news channel has the lower number in a given area is apparently random, but political preferences generally follow the channel guide.

Four more minutes of Fox per week will make you 0.9% more likely to vote Republican, and four more minutes of MSNBC will make you 0.7% more likely to vote Democrat.  It's just that simple.

This is horrible.

This kind of zombie public, too apathetic to do more than repeat things they've heard from the television, pretty much spells the end of the world.  Fortunately, Ted Turner prepared for such an eventuality during his time at CNN, preparing a creepy video to be played at the end of the End of Days.  There's a note on it to hold for release until the end of the world is confirmed.  This video is now available for viewing.  We're on the other side of time.