Comment by dang

I like Sam, but "$celebrity says $thing about $common-topic" is almost never a good basis for a frontpage thread on HN.

It's vital to HN that user flags and/or software like the flamewar detector clear most such submissions off the front page. They tend to attract a lot of upvotes because that's what sensational (and especially indignant-sensational) stories do. Without countervailing mechanisms, HN would be completely taken over by those stories.