geekosystem

In an embarrassing turn of events, an Australian politician was injured during a run-in with a kangaroo. While the kangaroo that attacked Canberra politician Shane Rattenbury was reportedly just spooked by its unexpected encounter with a human, we can't help but wonder if the menacing marsupial didn't have loftier political goals in mind.

If you live in North Carolina and want to buy an electric car from Tesla motors, here's hoping you already did that, because doing so stands to get a lot more difficult in short order. A bill moving through the state legislature there would make it illegal for Tesla -- or any other car manufacturer -- to sell cars directly to consumers in the state.

New Hampshire State Representative Peter Hansen feels strongly about a law in his state allowing homeowners to use deadly force remaining unchanged. He feels so passionately about not changing the law, in fact, that in an email rebuttal to a colleague's speech on the matter encouraging retreat, he made a statement that's been getting some attention, saying "What could possibly be missing from those factual tales of successful retreat in VT, Germany, and the bowels of Amsterdam? Why children and vagina’s of course." I don't know what about this story is more offensive --  referring to women as "vagina's," or putting an apostrophe in the wrong place while you're doing it.

I grew up near Chicago, and thus have an abiding respect for dirty, low-down, mudslinging politics. Every once in a while, though, the rest of the world proves that they can still teach the City of Broad Shoulders a thing or two about really ugly politics This week, it's Florida, where North Miami mayoral candidate Anna Pierre thinks that one of her opponents -- or their supporters -- is using voodoo rituals to try and sink her campaign.

Look, no one expects being the chairman of any major government agency to be a walk in the park, but Julius Genachowski has had a notably turbulent run during his nearly five year long run as chairman of the FCC. Considering the time he's had, during which he's managed the impressive feat of earning the ire of both public interest groups and industry CEOs, it's not a surprise to see the often embattled chairman announce that he will step down in the coming weeks. The real question now is who will succeed him in what promises to be a thankless job.

The results are in! Merriam-Webster, after having looked at their aggregate word research data, have announced that the most looked-up words on their website for 2012 are "socialism" and "capitalism." Going by the knowledge that we're living in a tenuous economy that can go down the proverbial toilet at any given time, and the fact that they're the two most common buzzwords used by those fear-mongering talking heads on the nightly news, is it really a surprise that socialism and capitalism are the words of the year? Maybe not, but Merriam-Webster editor-at-large Peter Sokolowski has a pretty good hypothesis as to why people were eager to learn the meaning behind these feuding ideologies.

It's just about over, folks. You're one day away from not having to see another political ad for nearly 24 months. Now that you've made your voice heard -- you did vote, didn't you? -- for the candidates of your choice, take a moment to sit back and reminisce about some of the Presidents that the world of geekdom has given us. After all, participating in a democracy is tiring work, and you've earned a break today of all days. If you're not done telling people how you think things should be done, though, by all means, let us know what Commanders-in-Chief you think should or shouldn't be on this list, either in the comments or on our Facebook page. It may not be your civic duty or anything, but we always want to hear what you think.

It's no secret that Will Ferrell is a Democrat, so the fact that he's starring in a political ad that's supportive of President Barack Obama isn't that surprising. What is genuinely surprising, however, is the fact that the majority of the video is actually focused on getting folks to vote in general. Mr. Ron Burgundy himself promises to do anything to get you to vote, like giving you a tattoo or dancing for your pleasure. Granted, he probably actually won't do these things, but a little comedy never hurt.

Even in an election season, most politicians can agree on one thing: partisan gridlock is tearing this country apart. Of course, what most of them mean by this is "I'm right and everyone who doesn't agree with me should shut the mouth and get in line," but still -- it's a start. Now, researchers from the University of Illinois may have a way to kickstart more moderate views...but at a grave cost. It turns out people with strong political beliefs are less likely to hold onto their biases when they are forced to read about matters in a hard to read font, meaning all you would really have to do to make everyone agree on middle of the road decisions is print everything in papyrus.

In case you didn't already know, people were "completely wrong" about presidential candidate Mitt Romney's relatively recent 47% gaffe. This is the mantra that Romney's campaign pushed after the secret recording made headlines and stirred the political pundits on both sides into a frenzy [Romney's apology for the debacle uses the phrase to suggest that he, perhaps, was out of line]. Unfortunately, it appears that this has also had an unintended side effect. Using Google Image Search for the phrase "completely wrong" mostly brings up photos of Mitt Romney.

If performer-politicians like former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and senator Al Franken have shown us anything, it's that having a certain amount of public notoriety doesn't hurt when you're running for public office. It's curious, then, to see that Kerri Hoskins Branson, a candidate running for a seat on the board in Kane county, Illinois, doesn't seem to be publicizing her fifteen minutes of fame. You may not recognize the name, but you may remember Ms. Branson for her roles as a cheerleader in the original NBA Jam and, more importantly, the motion capture/likeness for Sonya Blade in Mortal Kombat 3.

It was honestly inevitable that someone, somewhere, would accidentally tweet something horrible about the presidential debate from their company's official Twitter account. KitchenAid, however, was so far down that list that their sudden faux pas was most unexpected. Obviously thinking that they were on their personal Twitter handle, a member of KitchenAid's Twitter team joked that Obama's grandma, Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham, died just before he took office because she knew how terrible it'd be. Stay classy, people.

The next time you're casually watching Hell on Wheels or whatever your character-driven drama of choice is, and a political ad breaks up all the deep drama, don't worry, it won't harsh on your drama high. A recent study found that political ads of candidates people disagree with don't really have much overall effect. Instead of become enraged, the study found people simply become dismissive and essentially ignore the ad.

Dear old Stubbs just celebrated his 15th year as mayor recently, and he wants you to know he's standing on the shoulders of giants. He has many fellow mayor animals to thank for his incredibly high approval ratings, but he can't stay long because he's due for his afternoon catnip water.

Ah Democracy! Isn't it grand that we live in a nation where you can vote with your gum? You can even vote from orbit! But now, Washington State is moving toward the next great innovation in the way we elect our leaders: Allowing voters to register on Facebook. The application is scheduled to launch as early as next week.