There exists a niche market of wealthy split-up couples with joint custody of a pet who fly their pets back and forth on private jets, alone. "One such former couple pays about $50,000 per trip to fly their dog from Los Angeles to New York every other month."

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, President Obama, along with daughters Sasha and Malia, stopped by Politics and Prose, an independent bookstore based in the nation's capital. The First Family purchased 17 books in total—ranging from Jacqueline Woodson's brave memoir in verse Brown Girl Dreaming to Katherine Rundell's magical Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms—and mostly stayed away from titles covering Obama's impact as Commander in Chief.

So, what did Obama himself pick up? Below, the president's holiday picks:

• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China by Evan Osnos
• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
• Nora Webster by Colm Toibin
• The Laughing Monsters by Dennis Johnson
• The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
• Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande

[Image via AP]

Tonight's TV is a good time all around: Christmas tunes, Patton Oswalt's goblin face, strange gross addictions and all the other things that make the holidays such a special time.

AT 8/7c.

• Don't turn on ABC unless you want to see the CMA Country Christmas two-hour event, which promises to include Carrie Underwood singing the Michael W. Smith song "All Is Well" with Michael W. Smith, who is still kicking, spooky LeAnn Rimes performing the second-spookiest of all Christmas songs (after "We Three Kings"), "Carol of the Bells," and Aerosmith's Steven Tyler puts all his charm at Brad Paisley's disposal on a threatening-sounding song called "Run, Run, Rudolph." Well-known country superstar and Lifetime Queen of Winter, Adele Dazeem, will also sing three songs, winter-related ones unless I miss my guess.
• Otherwise, PBS will be getting crunk with a new episode of Antiques Roadshow's "Junk in the Trunk" series, in which people bring in trunks full of junk to find out if they're bunk, and
• The Top Eight The Voices perform, in a two-hour The Voice.

AT 9/8c.

• Wrap your head around the CW's Greatest Holiday Commercials Countdown, which presumably will have breaks for commercials in it. Listen, this is very simple: Maria Bamford's Target commercials. End of list. Everything else is bullshit.
• TNT's Major Crimes is, I think, the one with President Roslin on it.
• There are no Battlestar alumnae on Vanderpump Rules, to my knowledge. Or really, alumni of any kind come to think of it.
• And of course it's the fall finale of Sleepy Hollow, in which perhaps something will happen. Something adorable? Definitely. Something involving Henry? For certain. Katrina existing for any real reason? Tune in and see!

AT 10/9c.

• When Castle's favorite action hero is murdered, the guys have to pull together an Expendables of action heroes—including Ted McGinley and my favorite, Krista Allen—to figure it out.
• On State of Affairs' "Half the Sky," Charlie balances her flashbacks to brutal interrogations past with taking down Boko Haram, proving once again that you can have it all, and President Alfre Woodard gets sneaky on China's president, out at Camp David.
• ID premieres My Strange Criminal Addiction, described thusly:

From a lewd subway commuter to a diaper-wearing man, or a urine drinker to a toe sucker, first-hand accounts of these true crime tales plunges viewers into a world where strange addictions took an illegal turn.... With the perpetrators telling their own stories of how they plunged so deep into darkness, some appear on screen or disguised to conceal their identity while others speak to us from their jail cells.

Sounds fun. I would like it more if they recreated the crimes though. Like, "The perpetrators tell their shocking stories while wearing diapers, drinking urine, jerking it on the subway, or from around a toe in their mouth."

• At 11/10c. Lisa Edelstein and Jax Taylor hit the couch onWatch What Happens: Live. I think Jax is the dark-haired one on Vanderpump Rules that lies all the time about everything and fucked everybody, but to be fair I could be thinking of: Literally anybody on Vanderpump Rules.
• A similar story of sex, incest, illiteracy and dreams deferred, The Heart, She Holler on Adult Swim, begins its third season at 12:30/11:30c. As usual, it will run each weeknight for the next two weeks and be of wildly variable quality.

Morning After is a home for television discussion and appreciation, brought to you by Gawker and criminally inspired by diapers, toes and pee. What are you watching this weekend? What are we missing out on? Recommendations and discussions down below.

Bill Cosby has stepped down from Temple University's board of trustees ahead of a rumored meeting to discuss his ties to school in light of the numerous sexual assault allegations against him.

Cosby, Temple's most famous alumnus, had been on the board since 1982 and helped raise millions for the university. An alumni-led change.org petition signed by 1,000 people urged the school to reconsider that profitable relationship, considering that 20 women have now come forward with claims that Cosby assaulted them.

Andrea Constand, former director of operations for Temple's women's basketball program, was the first woman to file suit against Cosby. In 2005, she alleged that he had drugged and raped her at his Philadelphia mansion. Her case, joined by 11 other Jane Does, was eventually settled out of court.

Patrick O'Connor, the attorney who defended Cosby in that civil suit, is the chairman of Temple's board. He "accepted Cosby's resignation and thanked him for his service" today.

"I have always been proud of my association with Temple University," said Cosby. "I have always wanted to do what would be in the best interests of the University and its students. As a result, I have tendered my resignation from temple University Board of Trustees."

Cosby's alma mater, UMass Amherst, cut ties with him last week. He had been acting as a co-chair of the school's $300 million capital campaign.

[h/t Gossip Cop, Photo: AP Images]

Jack Conte of the YouTube-famous band Pomplamoose caused a stir last week when he posted an account of his tour financials on Medium. "Being an independent artist is so difficult" was the thrust of his essay—true, no doubt—and tucked into the back half was a mention of an apparent way out: Patreon, a crowdfunding service that Conte cofounded last year.

Conte's post, which details a tour on which his band lost $11,819 despite having grossed $135,983, was widely panned by fellow musicians: "What is evidenced is not how hard it is these days to be a touring band, but what happens when a band is bad at managing their own expectations," wrote Santos Montano of the metal band Old Man Gloom on Pitchfork. That is to say, if you're pulling six figures and still losing money, maybe trade the $17,589 spent on "Best Western level hotels" for a few nights spent in the van.

But Conte does worse than making believe he's running a shoestring punk operation (His band was once heavily featured in a series of Hyundai commercials). "At the end of the day," he writes before endorsing Patreon, "Pomplamoose is just fine":

Our patrons give us $6,326 per video through our Patreon page. We sell about $5,000 of music per month through iTunes and Loudr. After all of our expenses (yes, making music videos professionally is expensive), Nataly and I each draw a salary of about $2500 per month from Pomplamoose. What's left gets reinvested in the band or saved so that we don't have to rack up $24,000 of credit card debt to book another tour.

But Conte doesn't just make $6,326 per video from Patreon—he's the CEO of the company, as Andrew Choi points out. It says so right there in his Twitter bio, but nowhere in the actual Medium post. It's a cynical bit of sponsored content that isn't marked as such, less a call to financially support hardworking DIY musicians than it is to put money in Jack Conte's pockets.

[h/t aux]

Finding the perfect gift for the beloved fan in your life can be a major challenge — but the first step to success is to know what kind of fan you're dealing with. What does this person truly love, above all else? Once you know that, you're set. Here's our complete guide to gifts for 10 different species of fans.

Gift Ideas For Star Trek Fans

Gift Ideas For Superhero Fans

Gift Ideas For Joss Whedon Fans

Gift Ideas For Doctor Who Fans

Gift Ideas For Star Wars Fans

Gift Ideas For Epic Fantasy Fans

Gift Ideas For Classic Monster Fans

Gifts For Fans Of Classic Movies

Gift Ideas For Fans Of Young Adult Heroes

Gift Ideas For Zombie Fans

It's a well-known fact that unsourced, unverifiable, anonymous Tumblr posts are an agent of social progress and meaningful change. So it's surprising that some prick used "Racists Getting Fired," an enormously popular new web attraction, to smear his ex.

The premise of RGF is simple, and a perfectly representative product of 2014 Internet: send screenshots of people saying racist shit on Facebook or Twitter to their employers, get them canned, and thus end American racism, or something. This is foolproof until someone uses the formula to frame someone who didn't actually say anything racist. Take Brianna Rivera, who apparently said some terrible things on Facebook:

But according to the operators of the RGF Tumblr, this turned out to in fact not be Brianna Rivera at all, but her ex-boyfriend, who changed his Facebook profile to resemble hers:

Before the site realized the trick and issued something resembling a correction, the Brianna smear racked up tens of thousands of reblogs and notes and prompted readers to bombard the real Brianna's workplace with phone calls and tweets. Probably because RGF provided instructions on doing this exactly. AMC Theaters provided a statement defending Brianna, but how many rabid Tumblr detectives read this?

Who cares! Let's get some racists fired, or at least bulk-dox people who appear to be maybe racist based on this screenshot I found on Tumblr posted by a pseudonymous stranger with an anime avatar.

[h/t Willy Staley]

On Monday, a Los Angeles man named Noe Iniguez became the first person ever to receive a sentence for violating California's new revenge porn law. Iniguez got one year in jail and 36 months probation for three criminal counts, one of which was revenge porn-related.

Revenge porn is awful. That's why California made it illegal. And Iniguez's case was particulary bad. The Los Angeles City Attorney wrote in a press release:

In December 2013, Iniguez, using an alias, allegedly began posting derogatory comments about his ex-girlfriend on her employer's Facebook page. In March, 2014 Iniguez allegedly posted a topless photograph of the victim on her employer's Facebook page which was accompanied by a message that called the victim a "drunk" and a "slut" and encouraged her firing from the company.

Now, Iniguez is going to jail for something awful he posted on the internet.

That someone would eventually receive a sentence like this was inevitable. California passed its revenge porn law last October, after the trend had hit a tipping point of sorts. Multiple websites—namely, Is Anyone Up—to host revenge porn had attracted national press attention. Is Anyone Up eventually shut down and reportedly faced an FBI investigation. Victims even banded together in a desperate attempt to seek justice for what was then a totally destructive yet totally legal attack. (Revenge porn remains legal in many states.)

The timing of the 36-year-old's sentencing is especially curious since it arrived on the same day the Supreme Court heard its first-ever case about free speech and social media. That case is more broadly about harassment and threats online, but revenge porn could be implicated in the ruling. We won't know for sure until sometime next year. [LA City Attorney via Ars Technica]

Image via Flickr

"The thing is, hate crimes need to be, 'I can't stand the fact that you are gay so I am going to drag you behind a truck. I don't know you, I don't care.'" - The Guardian examines the October murder of 22-year-old Dionte Greene, who was black and gay.

Princeton, an insane asylum for sickly, translucent-skinned WASPs camouflaged as an Ivy League university, has scandals, too. Not urgent, talk-of-the-town scandals that have bearing on reality, like at the University of Virginia, but scandals that make headlines in the New York Times, because they have to do with "Eating Clubs," which is where the insane asylum patients are breast-fed by well-trained macaques before being sent out to work in the financial sector. It's really quite a sight.

Recently there were some controversial emails sent around by two members of the storied Eating Club the Tiger Inn. The emailers, Adam Krop and Andrew Hoffenberg, seem particularly chafed by the fact that their club had to go co-ed in 1994 (it makes the monkey breast-feeding awkward), and as such the emails contained some choice insults and photo of a naked woman performing a sex act:

The first email, dated Oct. 12, showed a woman engaged in a sex act with a man in one of the public spaces of the club, Tiger Inn. It was sent out by Adam Krop, the club's vice president, to all the names on a club-wide mailing list, and it was accompanied by a crude joke and a reference to the woman as an "Asian chick."

Later that night Andrew Hoffenberg, the treasurer, sent an email to the same list regarding a lecture by the Princeton alumna whose lawsuit forced eating clubs to admit women. "Ever wonder who we have to thank (blame) for gender equality," the email began. "Looking for someone to blame for the influx of girls? Come tomorrow and help boo Sally Frank."

"Come tomorrow and help boo Sally Frank?" Is that code for a sex act I don't know about? Otherwise this is a terrible John O'Hara novel about sex crimes in the modern age.

The Times generously gives some additional useful background on the Tiger Inn:

Many of the club's parties have themes that seem designed to be provocative, like "Fifteenth Century A.D. Ottoman Aristocrats and Sluts." Regarding another recent party, the club's social chairman wrote an email to members pointing out that one of the words in that theme's name doubles as a slang term — for female genitalia. "But given our recent stint in the press," the email said, "I'd rather not see that sort out on the dance floor tonight."

Oh my. Surely America could make better use of these mens' prodigious talents, by having them clean the sides of highways or similar.

According to the Daily Princetonian, both Krop and Hoffenberg remain students at the university, despite distributing a picture of a person performing a sex act, which could qualify as a third-degree crime under New Jersey law, and calling for their fellow Tigers to boo Sally Frank, an alum who was instrumental in breaking down the gender wall that existed at Eating Clubs.

Just another semester at the insane asylum!

[Image via Wikimedia Commons]

Much of downtown Detroit is without electricity following a "major cable failure" at one of the city's power grids. Roughly 100 buildings, including schools, museums, fire stations, court houses, and sports arenas, were still without power as of noon.

"We have isolated the issue and are working to restore power as soon as possible," the Public Lighting Department said in a statement, according to NBC News.

At one point, at least 87 of 97 Detroit city public schools were without power. Outages were also reported at the Detroit Institute of Arts, Joe Louis Arena, the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, several Wayne State University buildings, and Detroit Medical Center, which is operating on a backup power system and has transported emergency trauma patients to different hospitals as a precaution.

#BREAKING: 100 people stuck inside #Detroit city/county building needing DFD escorts down stairs, all people in elevators are out.

— Shawn Ley (@ShawnLeyLive) December 2, 2014

City Hall scene ... pic.twitter.com/1yjbYf5sVY

— ChristineFerretti_DN (@cferretti_dn) December 2, 2014

This is what evacuating 900 student visitors looks like! #DetroitPowerOutage pic.twitter.com/tCjhh7FV8c

— Detroit Inst of Arts (@DIADetroit) December 2, 2014

Detroit power outage hits class during infrastructure discussion - prof keeps teaching in the dark. @waynestate pic.twitter.com/6c4ZuqMd1Q

— kristin shaw (@k5haw) December 2, 2014

Huge power outages in Detroit right now, including fire stations, courthouses, Joe Louis Arena http://t.co/fzpxjrVCRR pic.twitter.com/i1bvGaGHtj

— Austin Hunt (@AustinHunt) December 2, 2014

Power out at Frank Murphy. Building evacuated @WWJ950 @CBSDetroit pic.twitter.com/Zv6Ibmh5Xs

— marie osborne (@marieosbornewwj) December 2, 2014

[Image via Moktaderp]

If you want to vaguely unsettle everyone on your Facebook feed posting baby announcements this month, Amy Sedaris has your back with this moment from the premiere of Adult Swim's The Heart, She Holler.

The series centers on a racist, incestuous, fundamentalist and did I mention racist community in a surreally gothic Appalachia, presided over by Patton Oswalt's Hurlan Heartshe. If you haven't seen it before you probably aren't even aware of its ultra-rare genre: Grotesque Horror-Comedy. Try finding that aisle at Blockbuster! You can't, all the Blockbusters are closed and being stripped of valuable peg board.

Now in it's third season, THSH wastes no time catching up first-time viewers on who it's characters are or why they're alternately humping and stabbing each other, but I'd argue trying to comprehend this surrealist fever dream as a narrative misses the point. It's more of a tone poem hitting the darkest, most hidden, most awful notes of American culture using weirdly familiar imagery borrowed from our collective consciousness, like a Mike Kelley video filmed on the set of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.

Yes, THSH is basically fifteen minutes of film art PBS wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole, starring bonafide comic geniuses wearing the goofiest of wigs, conveniently beamed into your house to disturb and provoke you in ways that don't feel safe or happy or completely approved. You're welcome. Also it's full of great clips if you want to troll the shit out of your facebook feed, and what else are the holidays for.

[Video via Adult Swim]

Morning After is a new home for television discussion online, brought to you by Gawker. Follow @GawkerMA and read more about it here.

Today is hashtag #GivingTuesday, a day when the act of charity transforms into an act of #viral #marketing for #brands. Reject it!

Do not reject giving. Giving is good. Give this Tuesday, give next Tuesday, give every Tuesday. There is nothing at all wrong with giving to charity. Likewise, there is nothing wrong with encouraging others to give to charity. You want to start a campaign to encourage people to give a lot of money to charity on a certain day? Great! Go for it. We already have these on #Thanksgiving and #Christmas, but a few more can't hurt.

The problem with #GivingTuesday is neither the giving, nor the encouragement to give. It is the cynical process of turning charity into a direct PR-for-dollars scheme. Just for example...

Help us support #StJudeGiveThanks. For every RT of this tweet we’ll donate $1 to @StJude up to $25K until 12/31! http://t.co/tZR9BeRIy0

— CVS in the Community (@CVSinAction) November 24, 2014

Do good today! Each tweet w/ #MacysBelieve earns @MakeAWish $1, up to $100K! #GivingTuesday http://t.co/vCcL4X2eN6 pic.twitter.com/znPX7fEl5n

— Macy's (@Macys) December 2, 2014

Happy #GivingTuesday! Tweet how you give back w/ #GivingIsMyStyle & we’ll donate $1 to charity on your behalf. https://t.co/h3FJnqARCe

— Paul Mitchell (@PaulMitchellUS) December 2, 2014

RT our hashtag! RT our brand name! Give us that valuable social media viral advertising that we so crave, and we shall deign to donate a token sum to a charity on this day! Gaze in admiration at our skill for leveraging an ostensibly good cause for our own corporate ends!

Not to come off as "too radical," but here is a wacky idea: If you want to give money to charity, just give money to charity. Give money to charity because it is a good thing to give money to charity. Do not make the amount of your charity donation dependent upon the number of RTs you get. Do not make your charity donation purely with the motive of bringing fame to your brand name, and consequently driving sales, putting money into your own pocket. Charity is not a business investment in your marketing budget. Charity is charity. Corporate America's #GivingTuesday programs are tantamount to saying: "We love to support sick kids—to the extent that we are directly rewarded with advertising value for every dollar we give. If we don't get much attention, though, the sick kids can go ahead and die. We're not giving much." Corporate America is sick.

Matthew 6: "Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them... So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men."

If you would like to give to charity today, you can find well-vetted lists of effective charities here and here.

PLEASE RT.

[Pic via The Life You Can Save]

Seinfeld worked as well as it did largely because Jerry played the ultimate straight man at the center of a cast of weirdos. His character isn't funny without the George Costanzas of the world constantly freaking out around him, and they get funnier the more he futilely tries to reason with them. That's why a solo Jerry Seinfeld really needs Miranda Sings.

Miranda, the alter ego of comedian Colleen Ballinger, is Seinfeld's first Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee guest from the Internet. She hosts what he calls "a hugely popular YouTube channel, show, whatever the hell it is" (Jerry is totes hip) with more than 2 million subscribers.

She's an arrogant YouTube "singer" who covers songs and gives lessons, completely oblivious to how bad she is. Her "haters" are just jealous and need to "back off." And she's in character for this entire episode, which means all Seinfeld has to do is play it straight.

The chemistry between these two is that there is no chemistry, just a very thin pretense of trying to be nice to one another.

The Comedians in Cars episode came out on YouTube Monday, and Seinfeld and Miranda continued their double act on the Tonight Show that night, where they were forced to work together in a game of Pictionary:

The game didn't go very well, obviously. Which means the bit went extremely well.

If he keeps letting Miranda help him with his career, this Seinfeld lad could really go places someday.

[h/t Tonight Show]

How much do Gawker readers trust meteorologists? What do they think of The Weather Channel? We asked, and you answered. Thousands of readers clicked through to take our survey aimed at studying your habits and opinions when it comes to the weather. Let's take a look at the results.

Statistics

An incredible 4,873 readers clicked through to the survey, bringing a response rate of around 60% (4,873 submissions divided by ~8,000 hits on the post). Almost all of the responses came from readers in the United States, with about 200 folks chiming in from 21 other countries around the world.

The top six states from which submissions were recorded (NY, CA, IL, PA, MA, TX) meshed pretty darn well with the six states that send the most traffic come to The Vane (NY, CA, IL, TX, PA, MA). We received submissions from all 50 states, including one from someone who lives in the U.S. Virgin Islands. If you're the person who submitted from the U.S.V.I. and need a roommate, let me know! I clean and cook and tell jokes on demand.

Anyway...

188 of the 190 folks who live abroad elected to tell us which country they're from: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The most international responses came from Canada (145), with the United Kingdom placing second (11) and Australia, France, and Japan tying for a distant third place with three responses each.

Forecast Frequency

A supermajority of readers (75%) check their local weather forecast (home, work, or school) at least once per day. 21% of readers check the forecast several times or at least once per week, while 3% indicate that they rarely ever check their upcoming weather. If you're in the 1% who chose "never," you were sent on down the survey and not allowed to answer any other questions pertaining to forecasts. Sorry!

As expected, just over half of the people who responded to the survey and check their weather forecasts use apps on their smartphones or tablets. Another 39% usually use websites (like weather.gov or weather.com) to get weather information. 5% still rely on television broadcasts to see what the weather is going to be like, which was surprising—I expected that number to be a little bit higher, even in the smartphone era.

The results are even more interesting when you compare the frequency of forecast checking by those who use apps versus those who watch television. Even though the sample sizes are wildly different (2,429 for apps, 229 for television), the same percentage of people check the forecast at least once per day—75%. It meshes perfectly with the overall percentage. As expected, folks who usually use apps check the weather more frequently throughout the day than those who get their information from the airwaves.

Media Outlets

No real surprises on the media front—a small plurality of people get their weather forecasts from The Weather Channel or its website, with runners-up in Weather Underground, the National Weather Service, and AccuWeather. If you take into account the fact that The Weather Company (TWC's parent company) actually owns Weather Underground (note: the forecasts for the latter are not produced by the former), you're looking at 48% of our readers getting their information from The Blue Behemoth down there in Atlanta.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. I've always been forceful in pointing out that The Weather Channel is excellent at the weather when it wants to talk about it, and The Vane hosted a study back in April (headed by former Deadspin data guru Reuben Fischer-Baum) that showed that TWC's forecasts are the best of the bunch.

The most surprising result is that even though The Weather Channel placed so highly overall, they only lead their competitors in smartphone app users. People who predominately use websites for weather information prefer the National Weather Service by a few points over weather dot com, while the 230 or so television users overwhelmingly tune in to local news stations.

When asked what other outlets people use aside from the ones listed above, the most common answers included iPhone's default weather app (which is powered by TWC or Yahoo!, depending on which iOS you have), the Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang, the Dark Sky app, and a flurry of other local sites like Minnesota Public Radio's Updraft blog.

Trust in Forecasts

Whom do you trust? That was one of the biggest questions I wanted to answer with this survey, and you guys came through pretty darn well. Overall, respondents rank weather forecasts in general with a trust rating of 7.0 on a scale from 1 (no trust) to 10 (complete trust). That counts as solid B in my book, which means that the old "you can be wrong half the time and still get paid" meme is quickly dying off, at least with our readers. (Thanks!)

The National Weather Service is far and away the most trustworthy source for weather information according to readers who took the survey, clocking in with an average trust rating of 8.0. Weather Underground comes in second with an average rating of 7.1, with AccuWeather and local news tied for third at an almost-evil average of 6.6, and The Weather Channel close behind in fourth place with an average trust rating of 6.3.

However, the vast majority of users answered "Don't Know/No Answer" when asked about almost all of the outlets, as the respondent had either never heard of the company or didn't know enough about the outlet to form an opinion. The largest number of "DK/NA" answers was for WeatherNation, at 3,336 (74%), followed by Intellicast at 3,239 (72%).

Speaking of media outlets...

Winter Storm Names

The Weather Channel embarked on its third winter of naming winter storms this year, much to the chagrin of much of social media (but mostly me). The network's winter weather expert Tom Niziol even chimed in via the comments to "educate me on the facts."

I wanted to see if I was all alone out here, so I asked you to share your opinion on winter storm names. Out of 4,653 people who answered the question, 65% disagree with the network's decision to assign names to winter storms. Nearly a quarter of respondents considered themselves "neutral," 7% agreed with the naming scheme, and another 4% chose the out ("don't know/no answer").

I broke down the results even further and found that regular Weather Channel viewers are a little more sympathetic and apathetic to the names than those who indicated that they don't usually use The Weather Channel for weather information. Among TWC viewers, only 55% disagreed or strongly disagreed with the network's campaign, while 68% of non-TWC viewers disagreed with it. Nearly twice as many respondents who watch TWC (11%) agreed with the decision versus non-watchers (6%). The results also indicate that people who regularly watch the network are slightly more neutral about the decision than those who obtain their information elsewhere.

Agree or Disagree?

We got some pretty interesting results on the other opinion questions asked on the survey. A huge majority of respondents—87%—agree that the media loves to hype them up some weather, but nearly three-quarters of survey-takers also agree that not all severe weather coverage is hype. This fits well with the general tone we see after an inch of snow in D.C. versus a tornado outbreak in the south, for instance. The media is blasted for sending reporters to grind their boots on dry pavement, but they're praised for their fine reporting during an actual emergency.

When asked about the reliability of weather information on social media, readers were a little less in lock-step about the ordeal. A plurality of respondents say that social media is not reliable for weather information, while one-third disagree with the sentiment. The question does require a little bit of nuance that would be hard to gauge in a multiple-choice test (which is why they require essay questions in school, kids). If you're getting your weather information from James Spann or Brad Panovich via Facebook or Twitter, of course that information is reliable! If you're getting it from some twerp...not so much.

Last but not least, it's satisfying to see that nearly three-quarters of respondents disagree with the sentiment that meteorologists are usually wrong. Forecasts have gotten much better over the past couple of decades, so much so that our three-day forecasts today are as good as a one-day forecast was back in the 1980s.

Snowstorms

The survey asked several questions about winter storms, but the one that was the most interesting had to do with your perception of safely driving during winter weather. The question asked how much snow had to accumulate on local roadways before you felt it was unsafe to drive. The purpose of this question was to see the differences between different regions, and the exercise produced some great results.

As one would expect, residents in the Upper Midwest (in this case, centered near/around the Great Lakes) are basically snow cowboys, with half willing to drive in at least four inches of snow, and a quarter willing to venture out when there's at least half a foot of snow on the ground.

Respondents from the Northeast are a little less adventurous when it comes to the white stuff, with just over half indicating that two to four inches of snow on the roads is the limit to what they'll drive in. The results also reflect something we've seen time and time again: southerners are neither physically nor skillfully equipped to drive in the snow. More than half of people who live in the south said that if there's more than an inch or two of snow on the roads, nothing doing, they're not going anywhere.

Tornadoes

No weather survey is complete without questions about tornadoes, especially here on The Vane, which basically turns into The Tornado from March to August. The three biggest questions on the survey regarding tornadoes had to do with what you do when a tornado warning is issued for your location and how (mainly rural) residents deal with tornado sirens.

Most respondents check Doppler weather radar or turn on the news when a tornado warning is issued for their location. Most meteorologists would tell you to "seek shelter immediately" when a tornado warning is issued, but to be honest, even weather nerds like myself check the radar before doing anything. If you're in the polygon, you have to act—if not, you're okay for now.

35% of respondents indicated that they have tornado sirens where they live; if you answered "yes," you were taken to another page to answer some questions about the repurposed air raid sirens. Of the thousand-and-a-half people who answered the question, 17% said that they always rely on tornado sirens for warning of impending danger, while 37% said that they "sometimes" rely on them.

I don't mean to lecture you, but for the love of Beyoncé, please don't rely on tornado sirens for tornado warnings. They are unreliable! They are meant as outdoor warning systems to alert people working in the fields that it's time to get underground. You are not meant to hear them indoors, and most municipalities use their sirens irresponsibly (or not at all) when residents need them the most. Use a smartphone app, NOAA weather radio, or watch the news for warnings instead of relying on the sirens. It's a hard habit to break, but your life and the lives of your family members could depend on it one day.

Hurricanes

The questions about hurricanes were simple and geared towards the respondent's opinion of evacuations. This system used a filter to ask if the respondent lived within 50 miles of the Atlantic Ocean or on Hawaii—about 1,200 said yes, and their responses are above.

60% of respondents indicated that they will evacuate their home and go elsewhere if told to do so by authorities ahead of a tropical system making landfall. 18% said no, and nearly a quarter indicated that they didn't know—presumably, that kind of decision would be on a case-by-case basis.

The next question asked how strong a storm would have to be for the respondent to consider evacuating. 65% of those who answered said that the storm would have to be a category three or higher on the Saffir-Simpson Scale—in other words, a solid majority wouldn't leave unless it was a major hurricane. 10% said that they wouldn't go anywhere unless the storm is a top-of-the-scale category five.

What is surprising is the amount of people who said that they wouldn't consider evacuating until a hurricane reached category three status or higher. 65% of New Yorkers (210 out of 347) who indicated they live within 50 miles of the coast said that it would take a major hurricane to get them to leave, while 75% of Floridians (94 out of 126) answered the same. The results play into the stereotype that Floridians would conduct business as usual in 100 MPH winds, but I expected a much lower grade of hurricane to prompt New Yorkers to leave given the damage and lingering mental impact left behind by Hurricane Sandy.

Kinja/Gawker Media

I would be remiss if I conducted a survey on Gawker and failed to ask a couple of meta questions for our readers to tear into. The survey only appeared on Gawker's front page—no other verticals shared it to their sites, unfortunately—so nearly 90% of the respondents in this survey are Gawker readers. Deadspin and Jalopnik ranked highly, and my running theory is that it's a result of a link to the survey appearing on the sidebar ("Written by Dennis Mersereau") of a couple of The Vane's posts being shared over to each respective site during the week the survey was open.

When asked which site they read most often, 46% of respondents said that Gawker is their main squeeze; Deadspin and Jezebel also came in above 10% as reader favorites.

Out of pure curiosity, I threw in a question asking if the respondent had ever heard of The Vane. It gives us a good idea of how skewed the results could be—if respondents read my stuff regularly, they could be biased in favor of criticizing The Weather Channel, for instance. Surprisingly, 27% of respondents indicated that this survey was the first time they had ever clicked into the site. Welcome! Come around more often. It's fun. And ranty.

One of the more popular questions with the readers was about Kinja. Many people indicated in the survey or privately that they have no idea what Kinja is. You're on it right now! Kinja is the blogging platform through which all of Gawker Media's websites are run, and it's the platform on which you comment on those posts. Given the loud criticism often leveled against Kinja by many commenters, I figured that such a question would yield a definitive result.

Nope! You guys basically served up a big ol' ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ in multiple-choice form. The question resulted in equal parts approve and disapprove, with around 65% of respondents staying neutral or choosing the out.

However, I included two open-ended questions at the end of the survey. The first asked the respondent what they would like to see the higher-ups do to improve Kinja, while the second asked what they would like to see more of on any Gawker Media site. The questions resulted in a huge turnout—1,850 answers in all—which turns into 78 pages spread out over two PDF files.

If you'd like to peruse all of the open-ended answers, here they are for your reading pleasure. Each PDF is unedited except for one asterisking (is that a word? Chrome says it's a word.) of a gentleman's email address.

PDF #1: Answers to "In your opinion, what can the higher-ups do to improve Kinja?" (1,002 responses, 43 pages)

PDF #2: Answers to "What topics would you like to see covered more often on any of the Gawker Media sites (core and sub-blogs)?" (848 responses, 35 pages)

There are some pretty good suggestions in both of those PDFs, both critical and additive.

Demographics

No survey is complete without demographics, but before I get into it, I freely admit that I botched the gender question. The question asked "male" and "female" with a box for "other" where non-binary folks could freely identify themselves if they chose to do so, and I do apologize for that. After it was brought to my attention, I had a productive exchange with Gawker Media's resident LGBT expert Kat Callahan about what I could do in the future to better ask a question like this and more accurately (and sensitively) represent future audiences.

With regard to the gender question, 2,754 respondents selected "male" while 2,044 chose "female." 22 respondents filled in the "other" box, for a total of 4,820 responses. The age and education results sync up pretty well with what Quantcast tells us about the audiences for both The Vane and Gawker itself. The only "surprise" result is that the survey had quite a few more female respondents (43%) than what The Vane usually sees according to Quantcast (32%).

Closing

The "Great Gawker Weather Survey of 2014," as I cheesily titled it, was a great success. The survey garnered so many responses that it comes pretty close to giving us a representative view of Gawker's readership as a whole.

I'm blown away by how engaged our readers are—the fact that nearly 5,000 people clicked into a sub-blog and took a lengthy survey about the weather of all things—and all the way to the last question!—really speaks to the dedication and loyalty of our readers. I'm especially impressed with the quantity and quality of the open-ended questions at the end of the survey.

Once again, thank you for your outstanding participation.

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to ask in the comments or shoot me an email. If you would like to see the full results of the survey in its original form on Google Docs, here is a link to the spreadsheet that hosts all 4,873 survey submissions.

You can follow the author on Twitter or send him an email.

Following a 12-hour manhunt, the body of West Virginia shooter Jody Lee Hunt was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a pickup truck in the woods. Hunt, the owner of a towing company, shot and killed four people in a rampage Monday: his ex-girlfriend, two men she had allegedly been involved with, and the proprietor of a competing towing business.

The Associated Press reports Hunt, 39, first shot and killed Doug Brady, the owner of Doug's Towing, whom Hunt claimed was illegally obtaining towing jobs. Monongalia County commissioner Tom Bloom told the AP that Hunt then went to a home and killed his ex-girlfriend Sharon Kay Berkshire, 39, and Michael David Frum, 28. Hunt then apparently travelled to a third location and shot and killed Jody Taylor.

Police claim Hunt was upset over Berkshire's alleged affairs, supposedly posting to his Facebook the day of the shooting, "I did not chose to have the love of my life to go behind my back and sleep with several guys as she came home to lay her head on my shoulder to say goodnight I love you."

According to WBOY, Hunt posted another status update to his Facebook Monday evening after the shootings:

I hope that everyone takes the words I love you seriously. Be honest with the one you are with. No need for a game. You either want them or u don't. Just tell them no need to lead there heart on. I'm so sorry for my actions today and the lives I've effected. I'm so tired of the wrong doers getting by with all of it. No need for games. Life is short. Love the one you are with

WDTV reports that Hunt had a criminal history: He was found guilty of kidnapping and abduction in Virginia in 1999 and was sentenced to five years in prison in 2001 after being found guilty of wanton endangerment with a firearm. Berkshire had filed two restraining orders against Hunt.

[Image courtesy West Virginia State Police]

Lisa Edelstein is the star of Bravo's first scripted show, Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce, airing 10/9c. Tuesdays beginning tonight.

Logline: A bestselling marriage and self-help guru shocks the world when she reveals her impending divorce. Plus what is a lady supposed to do? Girlfriend, who knows!

Bottom Line: Based on the novels by Vicki Iovine, producing along with showrunner Marti Noxon (Buffy's Parking Ticket Lady and latter-season EP, who also led some of the best seasons of Glee, Mad Men, and Private Practice), the full producers list has quite a pedigree: Meryl Poster (a host of Miramax films including Bounce, Chocolat and Chicago; then reality TV, including latter seasons of Project Runway), Robert Duncan McNeill (666 Park Avenue and the last season of Chuck, which was pretty good; also arguably the hottest Star Trek crewman in history), and the team of Liz Kruger and Craig Shapiro (critically liked Necessary Roughness and our much-missed Pan Am).

Iovine herself divorced Interscope's Jimmy in 2009, so there's that. She's a lawyer and former model and bestselling author and now she has an hour-long TV show. Guess those are the breaks.

Lisa Edelstein (House, Good Wife, West Wing, Ally McBeal) headlines, and Paul Adelstein (Private Practice, Scandal) stars as her estranged ex. They are both marvelous. Janeane Garofalo is there too, but more importantly: This is Bravo's first run at a slate of scripted series—if you don't count all of their other series—which alone makes this one of the more curious curiosities of 2014.

Watch This Show! If you trust Bravo's brand to keep it good for at least season, if you think you are Liz Lemon, or if you are tired from not having it all yet and/or playing as hard as you work. Do it because Adelstein and Edelstein are wonderful actors to watch, because guest-starring the likes of Bernadette Peters and Laverne Cox is a subtle sign that this show is meant for you, and because every day represents your option to give Janeane Garofalo another chance.

Absolutely Do Not Watch This Show! If you are comfortable within your paradigm, if you've already heard every sex-at-forty joke that there is to tell, if you found it in yourself to bitch earnestly about Eat, Pray, Love despite also being a middle-class white person, or if you are scared you might see commercials for other Bravo programming if your reflexes aren't fast enough.

Parents Television Council says: Nothing, because they probably do not know what Bravo is, or do not get Bravo on their traditional definition of televisions. However we can infer from their previous statements, on Mysteries of Laura which we have already discussed, and on We Are Men, which we never will:

By giving viewers a lead character who is sobbing about her divorce one minute, gunning down perps the next, and engaging in wacky sitcom hijinks a minute later, The Mysteries of Laura is completely unfocused. The result is similar to what one would get if one dumped Hawaiian pizza, jalapeño peppers, pickled herring, and tutti-frutti ice cream in a blender...

Edelstein better pick a fuckin' lane, according to the PTC.

A 'comedy' glorifiying [sic] of [sic] divorce, promiscuity, and adolescent behavior by adult men.

I don't... know what that means.

Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce airs (and, possibly, glorifies of divorce) Tuesdays on Bravo at 10, starting tonight.

STAY TUNED for more Should I Watch This, here at Morning After.

In a new interview with Wired, Stephen Hawking, subject of the new film The Theory of Everything, shared his own silver screen dream: playing the villain in a James Bond movie.

In the interview, as seen in the Telegraph, Hawking says his computerized voice would lend him a Bond villain appeal:

"My ideal role would be a baddie in a James Bond film. I think the wheelchair and the computer voice would fit the part."

I think so, too. Hollywood: Please hire Stephen Hawking for the role of baddie in your next James Bond feature. It would be foolish not to.

"But what about Christoph Waltz, who is rumored to already be in line for Bond villain?" you ask, Hollywood? Well. What about him?

#StephenHawking4Baddie!

[image via Getty]

The series, which still lacks a title and release date, has been in development for over four years. Boardwalk Empire's Terence Winter will write and produce. A drama set in the record industry of 1970's New York, the show will detail the invention of drugs, sex, punk, disco, hip-hop music, and the A&R robbery that has all but destroyed our once-great musical economy. Top-line stars include:

• Favorites Bobby Cannavale and Olivia Wilde as protagonist Richie, a cokehead label exec, and his wonderful, beautiful, amazing wife, who frankly could do better.
• Mick Jagger's dreamboat son James Jagger will play the lead singer of punk band Nasty Bits, which would be a good name for the show in my opinion.
• Martin Scorsese's Nasty Bits.
• Ray Romano will play somebody sketchy. A real fast-talker.
• Juno Temple will be there, like she always is, slowly gaining my grudging respect. Do not trust this character, she's in it for her own tiny purposes.
• The former Racetrack Higgins, Max Casella—whom you may dimly remember as Doogie Howser's friend—will be on the show a lot.
• Andrew Dice Clay will recur as: A giant butt, who cares.
• Birgitte Sørensen—from the best television show ever made, Denmark's Borgen (and recently glimpsed in the trailer for Pitch Perfect 2, on an otherwise ho-hum day)—will be like the Edie Sedgwick. I hope nothing terrible happens to her all the time!
• The show will also likely feature: Anybody else that was ever on Boardwalk Empire, in some capacity or another.

Today marks our first update since this tweet by Mick Jagger's face, from a place where he didn't know where it was, over the summer:

On the set of the HBO pilot directed by Marty Scorsese - somewhere in long island! Mick pic.twitter.com/iqcQPr6z7T

— Mick Jagger (@MickJagger) July 25, 2014

[h/t Deadline, image via Getty]

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