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Electronic Frontier Foundation rips ComputerCOP risk; Omaha Police have handed out at least 5,000 copies of the 'Internet Safety' spyware

EFF: In investigating ComputerCOP, we also discovered misleading marketing material, including a letter
of endorsement purportedly from the U.S. Department of Treasury, which has now issued a fraud alert
over the document. ComputerCOP further claims an apparently nonexistent endorsement by the American
Civil Liberties Union and an expired endorsement from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Since January, 2009, the Omaha Police Department has promoted and given away at least 5,000 copies of a spyware program which sells for $40 and which purports to keep children safe from Internet predators, porn and gang outreach by allowing parents to monitor kids' Internet usage (including all those wildly popular MySpace pages!)
     OPD got the money from Gang Resistance Education and Training (G.R.E.A.T.) and the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice.
     Sounds wonderful, right? (It certainly did to KPTM's Fox 42 reporter.)
     Well, it turns out that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the largest digital privacy/rights advocacy group in America, is considerably less than charmed by this product.

     As official as it looks, ComputerCOP is actually just spyware, generally bought in bulk from a New York company that appears to do nothing but market this software to local government agencies.
     The way ComputerCOP works is neither safe nor secure. It isn’t particularly effective either, except for generating positive PR for the law enforcement agencies distributing it. As security software goes, we observed a product with a keystroke-capturing function, also called a “keylogger,” that could place a family’s personal information at extreme risk by transmitting what a user types over the Internet to third-party servers without encryption. That means many versions of ComputerCOP leave children (and their parents, guests, friends, and anyone using the affected computer) exposed to the same predators, identity thieves, and bullies that police claim the software protects against.
     Furthermore, by providing a free keylogging program—especially one that operates without even the most basic security safeguards—law enforcement agencies are passing around what amounts to a spying tool that could easily be abused by people who want to snoop on spouses, roommates, or co-workers.

     Yesterday the San Diego District Attorney's office issued an alert demonstrating how to address security concerns about the product. ComputerCOP is used elsewhere in Nebraska.

Ditzy bride in political ad Time called 2014's most sexist says 'Yes' to five male GOP governor candidates — and still wears white!

The College Republican National Committee has produced at least five versions of the ad, which is supposed to convince women to elect Rick Scott in Florida, Tom Corbett in Pennsylvania, Bruce Rauner in Illinois, Bob Beauprez in Colorado and Asa Hutchinson in Arkansas — even though said female voters are depicted as idiots.
     Nice work, future GOP movers and shakers.
     The ad (Rick Scott version) is below the composite photo.

Poland's newest gay activist: wildly popular straight boxer Dariusz Machalczewski

Dariusz Michalczeski back in the day

Dariusz Michalczewski, aka "Tiger," dominated the World Boxing Organization as a light heavyweight champion for 10 years. Now he's in the face of homophobic, right-wing Polish politicians, arguing for LGBT rights in one of Europe's most anti-gay Catholic countries.

     Mr. Michalczewski is both a surprising advocate for gay rights and the perfect choice for the role: He is white, heterosexual, Catholic, rich, professionally successful and widely popular, and thus more likely to persuade conservatives than a liberal intellectual or politician. A typical young man from an economically depressed town that doesn’t have a single movie theater but has five churches might not get a chance to read a progressive manifesto. The opinions of a legendary boxer who grew up under similar circumstances, meanwhile, might prove thought-provoking.
     ...The key to Mr. Michalczewski’s persuasiveness lies in feelings, not in arguments, or biography. “You know what I like about him?” a friend asked me after watching an interview with the boxer. “His natural understanding of human relationships is really impressive. He is not an intellectual, but he’s able to argue very effectively because he’s honest and empathetic.”
     In this fight, it is empathy that leads Mr. Michalczewski forward, and draws people to him. It is what brought the boxer to the L.G.B.T. movement in the first place: He has long emphasized the role of those who helped him escape poverty and his sinister surroundings by engaging him in sports.

Poland's best-known gay activist (left) isn't gay and
who put this picture on AKSARBENT? Oh, is that
another empty Chianti bottle we see? Never mind.

Right-wing politicians in Poland are advised to handle Michalczeski with kid gloves:

     ...After the nationalist owner of the beer company Ciechan made a series of crude comments about Mr. Michalczewski’s mother, he found his beer boycotted across the country.

Compare and contrast: two versions of the Beatles' You've Got To Hide Your Love Away

The first is the better known album rendition; the second — with a wonderfully different vocal take by the song's writer, John Lennon — lacks the flute bridge and the tambourine played by Ringo in that quintessential enhancement of all smart 1960's living rooms, the "conversation pit."

How the U.S. government redefined 'collection' to justify mass surveillance

Much has been written recently about the intelligence community's extraordinarily deviant definitions of ordinary words whose meanings have been plain for hundreds of years, in order to hide the extent of mass surveillance on citizens not accused of any crime.
     You can add the word "collection" to the twisted, self-serving, and dishonestly repurposed vocabulary employed by the CIA, NSA, Homeland Security and various Pentagon agencies (including Army and Navy intelligence) which now spy on civilians, here or abroad
      The deception started with Executive Order 12333, issued by Ronald Reagan in 1981, and subsequently revised and expanded to allow ever greater latitude to surveillance of law-abiding Americans.
     Below, EO 12333 was revisited and deconstructed below by Techdirt.

we see the first public instance of the government's redefinition of the word "collection."

Procedure 2 introduces the reader of DoD 5240.1-R to his or her first entry into the "maze" of the regulation. To begin the journey, it is necessary to stop first and adjust your vocabulary. The terms and words used in DoD 5240.1-R have very specific meanings, and it is often the case that one can be led astray by relying on the generic or commonly understood definition of a particular word.

For example, "collection of information" is defined in the Dictionary of the United States Army Terms (AR 31011 25) as: The process of gathering information for all available sources and agencies. But, for the purposes of DoD 5240.1-R, information is "collected" -... only when it has been received for use by an employee of a DoD intelligence component in the course of his official duties ... (and) an employee takes some affirmative action that demonstrates an intent to use or retain the information.

"Collection" is now defined as "collection plus action," rather than the way it's been defined for hundreds of years. "Information held" is not a "collection," according to this document. It still isn't collected, even if its been gathered, packaged and sent to a "supervisory authority." No collection happens until examination. It's Schroedinger's data, neither collected nor uncollected until the "box" has been opened. This leads to the question of aging off collected data/communications: if certain (non) collections haven't been examined at the end of the 5-year storage limit, are they allowed to be retained simply because they haven't officially been collected yet? Does the timer start when the "box" is opened or when the "box" is filled?

Intelligence community takes anonymous potshots at Obama and other critics of its monumental ISIS failure

No one has put the abject failure of the NSA, CIA and 15 other government "intelligence" agencies into a more disheartening, sickening and accurate perspective than Tom Englehardt, in his piece in TomDispatch, which AKSARBENT first saw at BillMoyers.com:

...you take credit for breaking up all sorts of terror plans and plots aimed at this country, including an amazing 54 of them reportedly foiled using the phone and email “metadata” of Americans gathered by the NSA. As it happens, a distinguished panel appointed by President Obama, with security clearances that allowed them to examine these spectacular claims in detail, found that not a single one had merit.Whatever the case, while taxpayer dollars flowed into your coffers, no one considered it a problem that the country lacked 17 overlapping outfits bent on preventing approximately 400,000 deaths by firearms in the same years; nor 17 interlocked agencies dedicated to safety on our roads, where more than 450,000 Americans have died since 9/11. (An American, it has been calculated, is 1,904 times more likely to die in a car accident than in a terrorist attack.)
     ...If the IC’s post-9/11 effectiveness were being assessed on a corporate model, it’s hard not to believe that at least 15 of the agencies and outfits in its “community” would simply be axed and the other two downsized. (If the Republicans in Congress came across this kind of institutional tangle and record of failure in domestic civilian agencies, they would go after it with a meat cleaver.)
     ...Perhaps it’s worth thinking of those overlapping agencies as a fiendishly clever Rube Goldberg-style machine organized around the principle that failure is the greatest success of all. After all, in the system as it presently exists, every failure of intelligence is just another indication that more security, more secrecy, more surveillance, more spies, more drones are needed; only when you fail, that is, do you get more money for further expansion.

Photog says newest NFL thug is Commissioner Roger Goodell's driver, who knocked him off his bike with SUV, ran over his foot, then punched and choked him

Above: NYPD offers tell photographer to stop photographing them; photographer JB Nicholas is at
extreme right in handcuffs. man identified as NFL head of security, Thomas Crowe, who is alleged to
have attacked Nichols, is in blue shirt at left of traffic light pole

Gothamist reports that freelance photographer JB Nicholas was following Thomas Crowe, NFL's head of security — and Commissioner Roger Goodell's driver — in New York on September 17th when Crowe knocked him off his bike twice and ran over his foot with a 2014 Cadillac Escalade, then exited the SUV, tackled him while he was sitting down, punched him in the face, jammed his forearm into his neck and choked him — and allegedly falsely identified himself as a cop, presumably so Nicholas would not fight back.

     "I saw the driver get out of his car very aggressively, grab the photographer, and shout 'You're under arrest, I'm a policeman!'" says Joshua Holland, who witnessed the encounter while he was walking his dog.
     "The driver pulled the photographer off his bike, wrestled him to the ground in the median, and punched him in the face once. Then he was on top of him holding him down with an arm bar, a forearm jammed into his neck," Holland says...Holland, the witness, says he saw the driver exit the vehicle. "The driver was just in a crazy rage; a lot of people stopped in the street and were shouting 'get off that guy!' "
     The police arrived and charged Nicholas with second degree assault, a felony, and third degree assault and criminal mischief, both misdemeanors. According to the criminal complaint, Nicholas punched the SUV driver in the face enough to cause swelling and redness, threw his bike at the driver and hit his knee, requiring treatment at a hospital, and keyed the SUV, causing more than $250 in damages.
     Nicholas says the police on the scene ignored at least two eyewitnesses, who told them that Nicholas was not the aggressor.
     "Crowe and [the commanding officer] greeted each other with a handshake and put their arms on each other's shoulders," Nicholas says. "Then Crowe gets into his car and drives away."
     ...At New York Presbyterian Hospital, Nicholas says he was given some Advil and told that nothing was broken. At the 17th Precinct, he gave a written statement to detectives, and returned from a bathroom break to see a detective tearing up his statement and throwing it in the trash.
     ...The Daily News retained [attorney Jeffrey] Emdin to represent Nicholas. Emdin says that the name of Nicholas's complainant was removed from the complaint report, so technically he does not know who is pressing charges against his client.
     An NFL spokesman referred a request for comment to the NYPD and the DA.

Conan: Is your iPhone bent and flaccid? Try our ramrod straight alternative!

Although bending of the biggest iPhone 6 has received massive attention, the biggest problem with Apple's new phones may be their frequent inability to take pictures with accurate color.

Lewis Hilsenteger bend tests the smaller iphone 6 — and a Moto X, Nokia, and an HTC 1 M8

The biggest problem with the iPhone 6 may be its serious camera flaws...

Forget bending: iPhone 6's biggest problem may be its serious camera flaws

RELATED: Moto X, Nokia, HTC One M8 and smaller iPhone 6 get the bend test too...

Tom's Guide, the sister publication of the venerable website, Tom's Hardware, says the iPhone 6 has a serious camera problem — and the cause may not be the phone or camera hardware.
     Testers repeatedly found white balance problems on three different iPhone 6s involving chromatic aberration revealing a purple cast around edges of the picture as well as the same purple cast in some light-colored objects such as Caucasian hands.

Apple iPhone 6 (left) vs. Samsung Galaxy S5

     Lest you think you can escape the problem by purchasing an iPhone 5, read this:

     We saw similar problems in photos and videos from an iPhone 5 and 5s that were running the new iOS 8 operating system. But we did not see the color issues with an iPhone 5 and 5s running iOS 7, which leads us to believe that Apple may be able to fix the color problem by issuing an update to iOS 8. 

The publication found Apple's speculation about the problem less than persuasive:

     In reviewing some of our test photos, Apple representatives said that the colors may have shifted as the result of changing content in different photos. But that's not how white balance works. It takes account of the color of light falling on the subjects, not on the assortment of subjects in a photo. Regardless of what else is happening in the shot, red peppers should never look purple, and white hands shouldn't turn pink.

Advice for the savvy consumer: don't bid on a Yamaha C3 on line unless you know whether you're getting a grand piano or a scooter

The C3 at the top has terrible acceleration and tuning it is both time consuming and expensive. On the other hand,the C3 at the bottom has a shorter wheelbase and performance drastically suffers with two people are using it.

After arraignment, all 3 Philly gaybashing suspects' vehicles violate stop sign outside courthouse

AKSARBENT supposes that some people don't learn respect for the law after their arraignment — only after their conviction.

Perp walks 9-25-14 from @yanoshaknews on Vimeo.
(Via Towleroad)

Surprise! Abington, PA police say Kathryn Knott's tweets revealing Bucks Co. cop misconduct aren't true!

NOTE: the headline for this post was edited after a reader pointed out that Abington, PA is in Montgomery, not Bucks, county.
Guess Bucks County [and/or Montgomery County — Ed.] police officers are between a rock and a hard place explaining tweets of suspected gay-basher Kathryn Knott, daughter of Chalmont's Chalfont's police chief: either she's a social media liar or her tweets revealed police misconduct.

     Knott's father, Karl, was hired as the police chief of Chalfont in January. In 2012, when he was on Abington's police force, his daughter's tweets were investigated as they seemed to indicate misconduct on the part of her father. Abington Police Chief William Kelly says nothing indicated the tweets were true.

The tweets that drew the attention of Abington police are both from 2012:
      Dec. 18, 2012: @garlicknott dad just let me kick down a door on a raid #epic
      In an interview Thursday, Kelly said Kathryn Knott did accompany her father on a “ride-along” and during that shift police officers were dispatched to a “well-being check.”...Kelly stressed that she never got out of the car and would have never been allowed to “kick in” a door.
      ...In the second tweet, from March 21, 2012, Kathryn Knott posted: A guy ran me off the road, called my dad ran his license, and got him ticket #sorrynotsorry #lovemydad
      Kelly said police investigated the allegation that Karl Knott had looked up the license plate and issued a ticket on his daughter’s behalf, but found nothing to indicate there is any truth to what she posted on social media.

Gay PA State Rep. Brian Sims gets adorably mad about state's lack of LGBT hate crimes law; thumps lectern

A recent beatdown by a well-heeled group of alumni from Archbishop Wood High School of two gay men in Sims' Philly district prompted his ire, so he thumped his podium lecturn, but harder than Sen. Diane Feinstein slapped her Senate lectern when she found out the the nation's spook community was spying on Senate Intelligence Committee staff computers not just merely surveilling the telephone habits (But it was only metada!) of hundreds of millions of Americans.



Three suspects have now been arrested in the beating, including the daughter of a Pennsylvania police chief who has been suspended for the way she alleged gets her nocturnal kicks as well as for being suspected of violating HIPPA regulations by tweeting confidential patient information.
     Her tweets also reveal a pronounced distaste for even those gays she chooses not to allegedly pummel with high heeled footwear.
     Her attorney describers her as a "kind and gentle person" who "couldn't bust a grape" and who "completely denies having touched anyone," an interesting denial which presumably would not preclude flailing with a shoe at someone who ended up in a two-foot pool of blood on a City of Brotherly Love sidewalk..

Busted: 5 lies told about LGBT rights laws by groups like the Nebraska Family Alliance

Below Carlos Mana of MediaMatters4America debunks the playbook of antigay groups like the Nebraska Family Alliance and its supporters.



To illustrate how predictable, coordinated and phony these ideological attacks are, check out the antigay smearstestimony below during 2013's hearing for Lincoln's LGBT fairness ordinance.
     The antigay testimony was largely orchestrated by the Nebraska Family Alliance, then known as the Nebraska Family Council. For example, the woman at 8:43 is actually the sister of Hannah Buell, a Nebraska Family Alliance operative, who falsified the Crystal Dixon case in order to portray anti-LGBT activists as victims.
     The LGBT nondiscrimination additions were subsequently passed 5-0 by the Lincoln City Council, but then rescinded after Catholic and Evangelical Protestant churches (and the Nebraska Family Council) collected thousands of repeal signatures.
     Note: because of an uploading glitch, the video is black and silent between about 34:32 and 40:52.)
     A favorite ploy of homophobes (#5 on the above list) is the spectre of transgender pedophiles/rapists, or pedophiles/rapists claiming to be transgender invading women's bathrooms. You see that ruse employed over and over again below.
     Left unsaid, of course, is the fact that anyone can walk into an unlocked public restroom for either gender with or without LGBT antidiscrimination legislation.

African dictator vows revenge on Uganda's gays after Texas hotels refused his reservations; Dallas Voice publicized his thuggish homophobia

Ugandan President Museveni, displaying
the back of his hand

Uganda's president (for nearly 30 years and counting), Yoweni Museveni, happily signed a draconian anti-LGBT bill last year, saying it was necessary because "arrogant and careless Western groups" had tried to "recruit" Ugandan children into homosexuality.
     The law made it illegal to fail to report gay people to authorities, criminalized "promotion" of homosexuality, imposed penalties of 14 years in jail on first-time homosexual "offenders" and life for acts of "aggravated homosexuality."
     After the popular LGBT publication Dallas Voice exposed Museveni in Texas for what he is, area hotels refused him and his party reservations. Last Sunday, at a private ranch near Allen, he made clear his intent to exact revenge on his country's LGBT citizens as some sort of twisted payback for the impudence of Texans who dared to slight him in their own state.

     One Ugandan...said Museveni threatened to take revenge on his country’s LGBT citizens for his treatment in Dallas.
     “I was told that Dallas is full of homosexuals and lesbians,” he reportedly told the people gathered to meet with him. “I didn’t know they were so powerful.”
     He mentioned being refused reservations at area hotels after Dallas Voice reported on his plans.
     Then came the threats.
     “I wish I knew what to do with them,” Museveni said.
     And the dictator intent on LGBT genocide said he’d show us what happens to homosexuals when he gets home.
     We know Museveni was given a visa to enter the U.S. to attend a U.N. conference this week, but such visas to the U.N. are often restricted to New York City. Our question is, why is a head of state allowed to travel around the U.S. and make veiled threats of murder?

Ken Jennings, Jeopardy champ and Dan Savage bud, sends out a revoltingly insulting tweet

John Oliver doesn't just scorch the Miss America Pageant, he burns it down

Everyone scorches the cosmetic ad vehicle, but Oliver torches it, along the way busting the organization's deceptive claim that it "provides" $45 million in scholarships. Oliver's staff found out that "provdes" is defined differently by the organization than "awards."
     Sadly, he did not touch on this year's Miss Nebraska underwear exposé

Identified: Catholic High School coach who 'resigned' after epithet-filled group beat-down of Philadelphia gay couple by upscale white partiers

Above: security camera footage of former Assistant
Basketball coach Fran McGlinn just before beatdown of gay
couple in downtown Philly. The Archdiocese says he resigned.

Archbishop Charles Chaput insisted that his Catholic high school forms students “to respect the dignity of every human person whether we agree with them or not" and that his school doesn't "condone the violent and hateful behavior" exhibited by the drunk group of Wood alumni who beat down a gay couple in the street in downtown Philly after partying at an upscale restaurant.
     The antigay Christer group Repent America got Pennsylvania's 2002 hate crime law thrown out on a technicality in 2008.
     There is already a twitter group running interference for McGlinn, but they don't seem to be very good at persuading other twitter users:

Ellen introduces kids to old technology

Photos: Ebay user Jane2333

Television eats people up and spits them out, especially when the talent is up against the rigors of filling up an hour a day.
     For years Ellen DeGeneres' singular brilliance has been watered down by the medium in a show AKSARBENT almost never watches, as it is an endless parade of pablum, take-off-your-shirt titillation, and above all, salesmanship.
     But the other day, Degeneres put a healthy flash of comedic genius on display in this kid segment.
     This is what the very best comedy looks like: organic, clever, spontaneous yet perfectly timed, totally original — and very, very funny. Degeneres still has it. (AKSARBENT would love to see Degeneres hand a kid an "old" dial Ericofon, like the one pictured on the right.)
(Via Towleroad)

NFL gets social media black eye among women

UPDATE: reader Bose has thoughtfully passed along a more specific link to the referenced article than was provided in the tweet below.

HOLY SHIT! MUST READ! Rice case: purposeful misdirection, scant investigation http://t.co/Z4fMdKMzok #GoddellMustGo pic.twitter.com/XnP9BmuIjG
— glick23 (@23Glick) September 19, 2014

Budweiser, the $46 billion adoptee of Belgian-Brazilian beer behemoth, InBev, makes an anti-drunk driving ad with a cute doggie

We now eagerly await ads by carmakers sincerely* warning about the forthcoming misuse of all those internet / music consoles on new autos which are poised to contribute to thousands of crashes by drivers easily amused by attractive nuisances.
   On the plus side, said crashes will also require replacement vehicle purchases by those lucky enough to escape death or serious maiming. We say "plus side" because as we all know, what's good for GM is good for America.
___________________
* "sincerely" in the sense of a Casino greeter wishing an entering sucker "Good Luck."

You can't handle the truth! Omaha World-Herald story about Neil deGrasse Tyson addressing atheists doesn't mention "A" word until paragraph 14

Cosmos sexpot Neil deGrass Tyson

The Omaha World-Herald, your Christian newspaper, did a pretty good imitation of a fan-dancing stripper with something to hide in its story on Cosmos host Neil deGrasse Tyson, in town to address Atheists at Apostacon
     The newspaper waited until the second-to-last of  15 paragraphs in its story to mention the "A" word.
     Here are a couple of the evasive teases:

 ...But more than 1,000 people rose and cheered for Neil deGrasse Tyson on Friday night in Omaha — and that was even before he started speaking ...Tyson hit some serious topics during his talk, such as the importance of the scientific method. But he drew laughs and applause throughout the evening as he riffed on things...

World-Herald headline

     Finally, Nebraska's biggest newspaper steeled itself and its god-fearing readers for the Big Reveal in paragraphs 15 and 16:

     He was opening night speaker at Apostacon, a conference for atheists and other nonbelievers.
     The conference continues today through Sunday at the downtown Doubletree Hotel Omaha.

Human Rights Campaign to open permanently-staffed office in Nebraska

Via KETV: HRC opens a permanently-staffed Nebraska office
(H/T: @OmahaNightHawk)

Some gay activists regard the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the biggest, richest gay advocacy organization in the U.S., as carpet­baggers who often lag Lambda Legal, the ACLU and various marriage equality organizations in fighting for LGBT equal rights.
     HRC often is likened to a huge donation vacuum which swoops in like hungry buzzards (mixed metaphor!) after other groups have done the heavy lifting. In fact, just today HuffPost Gay Voices published this paint-peeling blast at HRC from a Tennessee man:

     ...We reached out to your organization for support for the work we were doing, but no one so much as returned a phone call until we had national media for an event.
     Welcome to the South, but this is not a new frontier. Take some time to get to know the local communities who have been building bridges, winning and losing campaigns, and making a difference for generations. Enter these communities with humility and a beginner's mind. And please, please don't erase the rich history and culture of the queer South just because you finally started paying attention.

     For AKSARBENT's part, we're all for any additional, effective and local pushback to the execrable Nebraska Family Alliance, the homophobic machinations of the Catholic and Evangelical churches, and the cynical anti-LGBT exploitation of GOP politicians who love to play political football with the lives of gay Nebraskans.
   AKSARBENT readers may recall HRC's support (see AKSARBENT video below) last Fall at Brad Ashford's hearing on the impact of SCOTUS' DOMA ruling. The group also paid for an important survey on discrimination against LGBT Nebraskans, and the group's Corporate Equality Index revealed that the biggest corporation HQ'd in Nebraska, Berkshire Hathaway, has an abysmal record on LGBT equality.
     Welcome to the Cornhusker State, HRC and have at it. We look forward to your continued and increased support.

Guardian: mainstream media too cheap to pay for exit polls of Scottish Independence vote so one guy is polling Grindr, a gay hookup app

UPDATE: Scottish election returns, with 31 of 32 constituencies declared, indicated that separatists won 45% of the vote and the Better Together faction, 55%. A poll of Grindr users in Edinburgh (a link is in the last paragraph of this post) predicted a 54-46 split favoring unionists — practically a dead-on-the-money forecast.

From The Guardian:

     Anyone who’s sat up watching the TV on election night knows there’s a pattern to how things go: before the polls close, early in the evening, broadcasters assiduously say as little as possible to avoid breaking election broadcasting rules.
     Then comes 10pm, and the polls close. Moments later, the anchor behind the desk (almost always a Dimbleby of some description) gives the results of the exit poll – often the only bit of red meat to talk about for the next several hours.
     Except, as the polls close in the Scottish referendum, this won’t happen – as neither the BBC nor any other media outlet has bothered to pay to get one done.
     Exit polls are the best form of voting-related data we can ever get our hands on. They’re collected by large numbers of researchers standing outside polling stations and asking tens of thousands of people how they voted – as well as collecting a little demographic information, such as age, gender, race or social class.
     The most visible outlet for the results of this (quite expensive) work is in the first hours after polls close: it gives a snapshot of the result while the laborious work of actually counting the votes is done.
As we won’t start to see the referendum results start to trickle in until at least 2am, without an exit poll broadcasters will have to fill the first four hours of their coverage with … what, exactly? This “poll” of Grindr users might be as good as anything else we’ve got...

     The Guardian reference is to Tumbler blogger MachoTrouts, who polled 655 Edinburg Grindr users about their opinion on Scottish Independence. Go here for the results. At left are some of the more entertaining screenshots.

Montana: no elk left behind

The entire herd, as well as cars on both sides of the highway, waited for the last animal (who was probably pretty stressed out) to clear the fence. This happened last March but we missed it.

John Oliver explains Scotland's referendum on Independence

TV's rebellious poseur, Craig Ferguson, is too chickenshit to say whether he supports Scottish independence

Gerard Butler, also Scottish, was asked about the upcoming
referendum on Scottish Independence at the premiere of
How To Train Your Dragon 2. Neither Ferguson nor Butler
would comment.

IBNLive posed the question during an interview with two of Hollywood's most famous Scots, Gerard Butler and Craig Ferguson, who were promoting How to Train Your Dragon 2 (which, incidentally, has been favorably reviewed by most critics.) We suspect Ferguson, for all his anti-English mockery, isn't really voting for Scottish independence, but would be happy to be proved wrong.

Q: What are your thoughts on Scotland's proposed independence from the United Kingdom ahead of September's referendum?
Butler: That's a tough one. We have our views, but you know - (looking at Ferguson) he's just shutting off at this. We'll be casting our vote.

Bloomberg: Warren Buffett subsidiary can't find weed dealers so it's marketing to Colorado pot dispensaries

INDIRECT MARKETING
     Cubic Designs is one of many companies owned by Breaking Bad fanboy Warren Buffet's megaconglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway.
     It makes shop floor mezzanines that can help pot growers mitigate, um, mushrooming rents, but it's having trouble finding its target market, as they're still kind of secretive, so it's sending brochures to dispensaries, hoping they'll pass the literature on.