For the first episode of Connected, we follow Montreal producer, singer and model Ryan Playground through her creative process and inspiration. We also whip around the city to meet her crew of friends, collaborators and colleagues that are helping make it the cultural capital of Canada.
Presented by The Chevrolet Spark
You can imagine the story of Donald Trump's election going back to the idea behind America, that idea being that white people could come here and take the land and even other people and do whatever they wanted. We got rid of slavery, and replaced it with Jim Crow, then replaced that with subtler forms of racism, structural inequalities that kept black people from buying homes or getting good jobs. Or we just kept them in prisons. Political parties stopped being overtly racist and started speaking in code—a candidate can say "law and order," and everyone knows what he means. Mitt Romney says 47 percent of Americans feel "entitled" to government benefits and "will vote for the president no matter what," and we know what color that percent is.
So Trump was saying the same things that other Republicans were saying. In 2009, Glenn Beck said that Barack Obama has "hatred for white people." In 2011, Trump appeared on FOX News to say that Obama wasn't born in the US. You could say nonsense claims like this, lies, and no one would contradict you, at least not on places like FOX.
So when Trump talked about Mexican immigrants being rapists and criminals, when he talked about how his supporters should go to "certain areas" because the election was going to be "rigged" against him, when he said that Muslims should be banned from entering the US, he wasn't saying anything that hadn't been said before. He was just saying it louder and stronger, and people liked it. Well, white people liked it. They were tired of hiding their pride at being white, tired of feeling guilty about their Confederate flags. Trump would give their country back to them, he would make it great again.
The exit polls bear this out—Trump did not win young voters or poor voters; the only group he really won was white voters.
That's one story about Trump, but there are others.
Most Republicans just promised tax cuts, because that's what they did, always, but Trump promised to limit free trade, roll back globalization, resurrect those jobs.
One story is that he came around at just the right time. Globalization—sped along by trade deals like NAFTA, endorsed by fancy East Coast people in both parties—had destroyed manufacturing. Environmental concerns and cheaper, cleaner energy alternatives had led to the decline of the coal industry. Working-class people, a lot of them white, had lost good jobs and those fancy people didn't seem too eager to help them. Maybe you yourself weren't in dire straits, but you felt pinched, you felt like the fancy people were telling you your way of life was bad. You wanted to hear something new.
Most Republicans just promised tax cuts, because that's what they did, always, but Trump promised to limit free trade, roll back globalization, resurrect those jobs. Fancy people said no, that wouldn't work, it would just make things worse—but they didn't seem to have an alternative. Bernie Sanders, in the Democratic primary, said the same sort of thing and tapped into that same populist electricity.
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, just looked like another fancy person. She was one of those Democrats from the era when the party moved away from economic populism, when they started caring less about unions and more about Wall Street.
Another story isn't actually about Trump, but about Clinton. It's about how she kept getting into these situations that were hard to explain. She used an email server to hide her communications and the FBI had to investigate whether classified information had been mishandled. Her family's foundation was complicated, and there were questions about conflicts of interest and donations given by foreign countries with histories of oppression. The FBI director, James Comey, called her "extremely careless" when he decided not to charge her with a crime over the email thing, then, later, announced that the FBI had found more emails and wasn't done investigating. There is a whole story about Comey, the FBI, and how leaks made Clinton look bad and maybe influenced the election. There is a whole other story about how Clinton kept handling these scandals poorly and letting them play out over the course of weeks—but we are trying to tell the story of Trump.
One story about Trump is that Facebook, which is now one of the major ways people get their news, is hopeless when it comes to figuring out what is real and what is fake. There is partisan disinformation out there, and actual misinformation designed to deceive you, and a lot of people believe things that simply aren't so. It happens on cable news, too, on shows that are actually not news but people arguing about the news—you get a couple from either side, split-screen 'em, and there's your half-hour.
In that climate, who's to say what's real and what's spin? A woman says Trump grabbed her. Trump says he didn't. He says that another woman was lying, that they're all liars, and who's to say? You show proof that he lied about giving to charity, or supporting the Iraq War, and he shrugs it off. What's proof? He says he's going to grow the economy by 4 percent the same way some con men used to promise they'd make the rains come. No one bats an eye.
A simple story about Trump is that he didn't win the popular vote but still controlled the Electoral College.
A more complicated story about Trump goes back to the Republican primaries, when no one was taking him seriously. He was one candidate among many back then, and he actually wasn't earning the majority of votes in states, but thanks to some recent rule changes, he was still picking up huge chunks of delegates because he kept coming in first.
This story is really about many Republicans being chickenshit, of not being able to properly fight back against a man many of them obviously hated.
The other Republicans might have been able to come together and stop him, form some sort of back room alliance, but they didn't. They just watched as one after another dropped out, humiliated by Trump at debates. The media watched too, and didn't investigate all of Trump's many scandals until the primaries were already over. By then, Republicans were panicking about Trump as the nominee, but it was too late.
This story is really about many Republicans being chickenshit, of not being able to properly fight back against a man many of them obviously hated. Ted Cruz declined to endorse Trump even at the convention, then changed his mind later. John McCain endorsed Trump even though Trump had insulted his war record.
Another story, a smaller one, is that Glenn Beck, who said Obama hated white people and stirred so much anger up, now supports Black Lives Matter and thinks Americans need to listen to one another more. He didn't want Trump to be president, but not enough to actually vote for Clinton.
There is a messy story about a lot of people not wanting Trump to be president but finding excuses not to vote for Clinton.
There is a messy story about the polls—almost all of which said Clinton would win—being very, very wrong and no one seems to know why yet. That's all wrapped up in the story of how Clinton had a campaign with all the money and data in the world and still lost. It's a story about how a lot of people who were supposed to be smart didn't know what was going to happen.
Another sad story: Trump said one time that it would be OK to torture people.
Then there's the story about how Trump refused to properly denounce actual hate groups even as they buzzed around him like flies to rotten meat. In this story, white nationalists, those cowards and frauds who hide behind computer screens, are happy, and that should make everyone else sad.
Another sad story: Trump said one time that it would be OK to torture people. He bragged about being so famous he could just kiss women and grab them "by the pussy" whenever he wanted. He said that he would put Clinton in jail if he won, though he didn't say for what. He said many things like that, pointless, stupid, hateful things, and still won.
Then there's the Bernie Sanders story, about how he said things many people wanted to hear, about how the Democratic National Committee was biased against him in ways that made his supporters angry, about how some of them are still saying he would have beat Trump.
We tell all these stories for various reasons, to make each other feel better or to reassure ourselves that we were right all along. The Electoral College cost Clinton the election can be reassuring. America is racist can confirm what a lot of people already know.
Most of all, though, I think this is a story about how the people in charge of the country failed, the kind of failure that takes years and even decades to be fully known.
These people were Democrats and Republicans, they were elected to office and they held quieter posts in government and business. Some of them watched wages stagnate and the income gap grow without doing anything; others invaded Iraq without a plan; still others who shut down the government multiple times as a negotiating tactic, or allowed the prison at Guantánamo Bay to remain open, or had no solutions for the loss of manufacturing jobs or for the opioid addiction crisis. Trump won because he had a story on his side: He could point to their failures, that DC paralysis, as proof that the country itself was falling apart, that it needed someone like him to fix it.
How will he fix things? According to Politico, he'll fill his cabinet with oil and finance executives and a batch of retrograde Republican leaders from the 90s. And that is an old story.
Follow Harry Cheadle on Twitter.
A place called Meat Cove in Cape Breton. Photo via Flickr
Overnight, hundreds of Americans who want to move to Canada contacted Rob Calabrese, the creator of a site that encouraged Americans to flee to Cape Breton if Trump were to win.
What started as a lighthearted pitch to bring attention to the Atlantic island's out-migration plight, and how "attractive" Cape Breton really is, has taken on a life of its own.
To date, about 6,000 Americans have contacted the Nova Scotian radio host to ask how they can move there. They're asking him about the immigration process, jobs, real estate and cost of living. He's taking them seriously and is pointing them toward sources of information to help them.
But Calabrese warns them that immigrating to Canada from America "is one of the most difficult paths a person can take."
"People don't realize that," he told VICE News. "One person came from Arizona on a visitor's visa, but she had to leave because it had expired. She's a retired person, and she has no family here, so she has no path, really, to immigrate."
READ MORE: Could Americans Claim Refugee Status in Canada Due to the Trump Presidency?
Calabrese has obsessively followed the election, and like virtually everyone, didn't expect Trump to win.
He stayed up until 2:30 am until he "conked out in front of the TV," then woke up to the news of the shocking victory.
He was relieved to hear Trump's speech replayed in the morning, and actually liked it.
"It was a departure from what we saw during the campaign, anyone can see that. He said that he's going to represent all, and he said he will try to extend an arm to those who were on the other side during this long, hard campaign. So that's a little bit of solace there."
"I was happy to hear that. A Donald Trump speech—it could have gone either way."
The radio host insists he's not too worried about what Trump will do south of the border, although he's a bit concerned about his trade policies, given the US is Canada's biggest trade partner.
Through Calabrese's odd campaign, he's brought attention to an island most Americans had never heard of.
All of rural Atlantic Canada is rapidly losing people as they either die of old age or migrate to cities. But his site has encouraged interest in Cape Breton from not only Americans but businesses off-island, some of which had never heard of Cape Breton and have now done site tours. He calls the site "valuable" and sees no reason for it to end now.
"I put as much time and thought into that website as someone would into making a lasagna, and now that Donald Trump has won, this website is becoming a part of the family. It's just something that has been there for the last nine months, and now there are no indicators that it's going to leave," he said.
Follow Hilary Beaumont on Twitter.
Illustration by Adam Waito
Hahahahahahahahaha, OK, uh, alright, sure. America did it. America actually elected Donald Trump. He will be the president.
Everyone remain calm. Worst case scenario, he will appoint one-to-three shitty Supreme Court justices who will warp the American justice system for a generation. That's as bad as it can get! I mean, reproductive rights, LGBT rights, and minority rights will be halted and rolled back, but Capitol Hill will surely protect us from the graver abuses.
Oh, shit. OK, so, the Republicans retained both Congress and the Senate. That's fine. The American system was designed for this, to thwart the possible moment when the people would elect a tyrant as president. It'll be fine. It'll be fine. This is what the Constitution is for, I'm pretty sure.
Sure, climate change will accelerate beyond the point of no return and they'll probably set up concentration camps for refugees and the barest tendrils of healthcare for the poor will be uprooted from the earth and burned on top of a big pile of tires, but...
Man, look, I dunno. This is some pretty dark shit. I didn't really expect this to happen. I don't think many people expected this to happen. And maybe that was the problem—the same problem as Brexit, the same problem as everything. The media, the intellectuals, the political establishment, everyone was so dramatically out of touch with how deep (white) American alienation ran, how wide the gulf was between the obnoxious celebrity Clinton stumping and the issues that actually mattered to real, flesh-and-blood people.
Nobody knows shit. The next thinkpiece from a liberal hack telling you about how Trump was actually inevitable because America is stupid, dropkick that fucker into the sun. The average American voter, despite what Jon Oliver or the Canadian media apparatus will insist, is not stupid. Taking everyone who disagrees with the liberal consensus for a mouth-breathing troglodyte is most of how we got in this mess. They were not duped; they knew what they wanted. How the system failed them to the point that putting an alleged serial sexual predator and open demagogue and defiant racist into the White House seemed like a better idea than electing an unloveable fixture of the D.C. war machine is anybody's guess.
It's absolutely part sexism. But it's also absolutely because Hillary Clinton was a fucking terrible candidate enabled by a Democratic party establishment full of awful sycophants.
This is all fun armchair speculation for me, a white dude from another country. But real lives are at stake in America. Again, I reiterate: this is some pretty dark shit.
As to what it means for Canada—well, beyond our immigration website crashing as the polls turned on election night, it really depends. Aside from the fact that our collective national smugness is going to be through the fucking roof, it's hard to say definitively what the future holds.
Assuming President Trump (fuck) is actually serious about keeping America out of foreign entanglements like intervention in Syria or, uh, NATO, it will likely leave Canada in a lurch to pick up the slack—or adjust to a new, surreal US-Russian detente in global affairs. If we're really lucky, we'll get some killer new punk music. Think of what we got out of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher! Donald Trump is probably good for a Dead Kennedys reunion, at least.
But more than this, it leaves Canada, improbably, as the western world's liberal champion. Given Britain's exit from the European Union, America's election of Donald Trump, the upcoming French election where Marine Le Pen is poised to make a run for the presidency, the surging of the anti-immigrant, anti-globalist right in continental Europe—this is it. Liberalism really has moved north.
Not that this is a perfect arrangement. If the Trans-Pacific Partnership isn't dead in the water, and if there is still a European Union for Canada to trade with, it's still not clear how much any of this will benefit most Canadian families—doubly so if the overheated Canadian housing market really is headed for its terminal crisis, or if the North American markets implode under the weight of Donald Trump's inauguration.
The real danger is that Trumpism finally takes root in Canada. The American experience is not an isolated phenomenon—the disenfranchised, young and old, are clearly willing to throw themselves behind any political movement that promises to drain the proverbial swamp. Bernie Sanders tapped into this and it's not impossible to imagine that an NDP that gets its shit together and takes its working-class roots seriously might do the same in this country.
But on the flipside, it's not inconceivable that the Conservatives might take a page from the anti-establishment playbook too. Consider how well Islamophobia played in the last election. Consider how many leadership hopefuls have made that same dogwhistle a fixture of their campaign. Consider how deeply alienated the western half of the country is from a Liberal government stacked with Easterners begging for federal handouts. Consider how racist this country is and consider how it's open season on that shit now. Consider that nothing makes sense any more and making any predictions or speculations about politics is utterly meaningless. Consider that the seed of populist political nihilism is already inside you, feeding off the despair you feel right now thinking about this election and reading this piece and wondering where to go from here.
Again, though, the main impact this will have on Canada is that we'll be suckered into an even more obnoxious narrative of maple-washing all of Justin Trudeau's flaws. "He's not perfect, but he's ours, and he's not Donald Trump." That will probably come back bite us in the ass too.
I don't know, man. I expected to be writing some glib piece about how relieved we are by Clinton's overwhelming victory. We're all so full of shit. You should probably just do whatever you've always wanted to do and let yourself burn out in a great debaucherous flame because nothing matters anymore.
That, or get ready for the fight of your political life.
There is no punchline. Welcome to the future.
Follow Drew on Twitter.
Photo by Gage Skidmore / Creative Commons.
David McNaughton, Canada's Ambassador to the United States, says the Trudeau administration is open to renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, which US president-elect Donald Trump called a "disaster" during his campaign and threatened to scrap.
As fall-out from Trump's extraordinary win continues, Mexico President Peña Nieto also came out to say that he would work with Trump's administration, tweeting that "Mexico and the United States are friends, partners and allies and we should keep collaborating for the competitiveness and development of North America."
But Canada took it a step further and agreed that aspects of the deal could be re-written.
"I think any agreement can be improved," said McNaughton in a conference call with reporters, although he wouldn't go into details on Canada's position. "The worst thing we could do right now is negotiate in public."
Trump would need to convince two-thirds of the Senate to go along with his plan in order to launch new rounds of negotiations, something that may prove difficult, even in a Republican-majority Senate — but not impossible.
An overhaul, however, has been lambasted by analysts. Jorge Mariscal, an analyst with investment giant UBS Wealth Management, said re-opening the deal "would be a disaster."
"In the 23 years since the creation of NAFTA there has been a remarkable process of rational economic integration among member countries, allowing them to benefit from their relative comparative advantages and resource endowments," Mariscal wrote in a CNBC op-ed in August. "A sudden breakup of such symbiotic relationship would inflict pain on all countries involved."
McNaughton did say the issue of softwood lumber, which has been a strain on US-Canada relations for years and was not part of the original agreement, would be a priority.
Round-after-round of lawsuits have dragged the softwood lumber dispute through NAFTA's trade tribunal.
McNaughton said the government has been in negotiations on the softwood lumber issue for months, and hopes to have a deal finalized by the time the Obama administration leaves power.
"The only people that will benefit from litigation on this file are lawyers, and frankly I'd rather have our people who work in the forests and work in the mills, both sides of the border, benefit—not lawyers," he said. "I'm hoping within the next month or so, we can come to sort of sensible agreement with the ... current administration that could be supported by the industry and by congress."
During his campaign, Trump said he would renegotiate the agreement—or, failing that, rip it up. It was established in 1994 between Canada, the United States, and Mexico, and eliminated most tariffs on trade flowing across the continent. Trump has promised to re-implement many of those tariffs to, for example, prevent car companies from building products in Canada or Mexico that are meant for American consumption.
Trump said in a campaign speech that if Canada and Mexico didn't agree to renegotiate, he'd submit notice that the US intends to withdraw from the deal.
He reiterated this statement on Twitter on election day, writing, "After visiting the rust belt the last week I have seen the terrible side effects of NAFTA. We must renegotiate our failed trade deals!"
NAFTA replaced the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement, which had been in place since 1987. This is the agreement that could come back into effect if a satisfactory deal isn't reached and the US invokes a clause to get out of it.
"We'll go into any discussions on NAFTA with an open mind, but at the end of the day, I can't imagine them wanting to re-open the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement," said McNaughto.
Follow Tamara Khandaker on Twitter.
Trump looking v pleased with himself as per usual. Photo via CP/Lev Radin/Everett Collection
Last night, the Canadian immigration website crashed due to an influx of traffic as the reality of Donald Trump being the next American president revealed itself. As an American living in Canada, throughout this election cycle a number of friends from the US have joked with me about fleeing the Trumpocalypse. When I woke up this morning and realized the world we unfortunately happen to be living in, I fielded more questions and concerns in my DMs than ever before about Canadian immigration. Unfortunately, those messages have now turned completely serious.
Wondering if any of my fellow Americans could come to Canada as refugees or by other means, I reached out to Canadian immigration lawyer Raj Sharma to find out.
VICE: Could we see certain groups of people in the US claim refugee status in Canada due to the Trump presidency? Last year we saw a case where a black American man said he was fleeing police brutality in the United States, which was ultimately denied.
Raj Sharma: I suppose so. We saw some refugee claims from Iraq War military deserters. There was the Jeremy Hinzman case a few years ago, and Randy Quaid. I used to be a refugee protection officer, and I know what's an acceptable refugee claim by an American. The problem is this for a refugee claim: You need a personalized risk. It's got to be persecution, which is a significant interference with a core human right. Disagreement with Trump or being the victim of police brutality or profiling, that really comes more under the lines of discrimination and harassment, which is not covered by refugee definitions.
There's two other hurdles. One would be internal flight alternative—if there's a problem in one part of the country, could you be safe in another part? That problem has to be everywhere in that country. If you can happens in the future, I don't have access to this service." That would be by way of the humanitarian application then. A denial of a medical procedure may not constitute a risk to life, which is what the refugee claim process is for. It's shitty, but it's not a refugee claim.
What about the state of the Canadian border? I am wondering now as an American living in Canada if it will be harder for me to travel between the two countries.
I don't know, maybe Trump will build a wall and call us snow Mexicans. Maybe we will build one. It's quite remarkable with Brexit, this anti-globalist and nativist sentiment... Trump's base is the non-college-educated white man and those that have been left behind for internationalism. What happens is people think there might be less business for immigration lawyers, but it's actually the converse because the more rules you have, then you need lawyers even more. Before it was relatively easy—there was NAFTA... If you fit under Chapter 16 and were a professional, you could show up to the border with a letter of employment and get a visa. I think there's going to be very significant impact to Canadian, Mexican, and American relations. He's going to negotiate NAFTA, and that is going to be very significant... It will impact Canada in multifaceted ways.
Obviously many Americans have been considering relocating to Canada as we have seen the Canadian immigration site overloaded, but do you think that is actually going to translate into more immigration cases?
Yes. The US is like Jupiter. The only reason there is life on Earth is because of Jupiter—it has this massive gravitational pull. It pulls in all these asteroids and meteors that would be brought into our solar system and bombard Earth. Instead, they get wrapped up into Jupiter's orbit. Even if there were immigrants or illegal immigrants, they didn't want to come to Canada. At our peak, we might have 30,000 illegal immigrants in Canada. The US has millions.... A change in policy, and that gravitational pull gets weaker or starts propelling people away. The US is great because of immigrants... I think people will simply say, "If I can't go to the US, I'll go to Canada." Canada should not be a consolation prize, but we are. We should accept that. We should revel in it.
I'm very proud to be Canadian. I think there's actually opportunity here, and if Canada opened up its immigration—particularly to people like Americans—we could be a superpower in ten years.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Follow Allison Tierney on Twitter.
(Photo: Jake Lewis)
This article was originally published in VICE UK.
Lads! Beer! A bit of sadism as everyone celebrates one of you being eternally bound to a woman in the eyes of the Lord! The stag do: where your closest pals come together to essentially fuck over one pal for having the temerity to get married! What a laugh!
Only, according to science, #NotAllMen enjoy stag parties. When researchers from Salford and Madrid University followed some stag-dos around recently (for research!) they found that men felt pressured by the group mentality into behaving in ways they actually weren't comfortable with at all.
To get to the bottom of this, I asked some men about the moment on their stag when shit escalated – and whether or not that was actually fun, or just, y'know, terrible.
It was three days in Amsterdam, about 15 of us. It was clear from the planning in the WhatsApp group this wasn't gonna be a cultured European city break. It started at Stansted, dressing the stag up as Vicky Pollard from Little Britain, and he had to wear the outfit for the whole first day and night.
Booze was flowing from 10AM at the airport. We then had a typical touristy booze cruise through Amsterdam at about 3PM.
I'd say it started getting weird in the booze cruise. I don't remember getting off the boat, or how the group got split. We later caught up the others by chance. By this point I'd sampled some of the local Es and was on a very friendly vibe. I got talking to a bald Dutch guy in a bar about rubbish and put my hand on his head, as you do when talking to bald people.
Next thing, his mate lifted his T-shirt, revealing a gun in his waistband and talking angrily in Dutch. We tried to talk it out but couldn't because I had obviously crossed some weird line. We discovered they were Ajax Ultras and likely were supplying the drugs and protection for that bar or part of town. We managed to leave before it got too violent, though.
Looking back, there's some of the group that maybe didn't like some of that stuff as much as the others – they didn't want to get comatose in coffee shops, maybe. I think, as a Brit, it's regretful and cringey to go to other places and adhere to our terrible stereotypes, which we semi did. I still stand by touching bald men's heads though.
There were 15 of us going to Hamburg for three days. We started at 6.15AM, meeting at Gatwick Airport's Spoons for "before-security pints". Then, when everyone was there, we headed through security to the other Spoons, for "departure lounge pints". We went through to the plane and the best man immediately ordered everyone a beer. Beers were drunk and the next man ordered a round before the air hostess had even finished handing out the last ones.
The rest of the day played out pretty standardly. Except, at one point, the gentle giant of the group, Ted, thought his wallet had been nicked, and stormed out looking for it. Then he went missing for the whole night.
We'd all forgotten about him and our phones died. We got up at 10AM the next day for our first drink, and in stepped Ted with a bloodstained T-shirt and a black eye, looking fucked. As he stormed off looking for this thief he bumped into a policeman and was pissed as fuck, so pushed the copper out the way, then turned and smashed his face into the cop van, hence the bloody nose and eye. He crumpled to the floor, got cuffed and spent the night in a cell.
I've always had a troubled view of stags. You're basically trapped on a trip with men that you might not like – it's a risk. You can tell when someone's faking having fun, because they actually try too hard. I've seen men drag each other into strip clubs when neither of them wanted to but felt like they had to.
Just a lad relieving himself in the middle of a quiet stag-do (Photo by Kirk Bravender via)
So there were nine of us altogether. The plan was to go tour Portsmouth, Southampton and the Isle of Wight. We were on a boat trip and started drinking at 6AM, when we were making our way to Portsmouth. We weren't pissed beyond vision, just enjoying a steady stream of alcohol. But because it's a constant stream you don't realise how much you've drunk.
We were all pretty fucked but woke up the next day on a boat. Our mate needed to poo, but the boat hit a ridge and he got wedged in between his bed and a table, and shit himself. He tried to go to the toilet but it was too late, so when he got out the toilet he fell over naked and did more shit in his bed and a mate's bed. He tried to wash it out with the shower but filled the boat with shit water. Then we all noticed the smell of shit as we were on top of the boat, looked in, and he's butt naked, bent over with a big red arsehole, pooing. Then we had to clean the entire boat. Magical.
That did not make any of us reassess stag-dos at all. Well, maybe – we haven't done a boat trip since.
We were ten men. The plan was to convene at a flat in Brighton, spend the first night in the pub, then head back to the flat for some more boozing. We started drinking at about 6PM, upon arrival at the flat. We finally got out of there at about 10.30PM. Things probably escalated around the time we got kicked out the pub and made a plan to get some bags full of beer and whisky and head down to the beach. Just for a quick drink. We couldn't really trust ourselves to stay in the house and not shout.
So we got to the beach and it was freezing – proper exposed, middle of the night Brighton temperatures. Not entirely pleasant. One member of our group, Eustace, before the first beer had been cracked, was fully naked and running across the pebbles towards the sea. I caved and got in. Then things get blurry but I ended up naked in bed with Eustace. Stags are always a lot of fun, but then my mates are quality rather than total idiots, so I can understand how some can come back scarred from them.
(Photo by Andy Wright via)
There were about 18 of us, on what's probably the best-stag do I've been on to date, where we'd rented a massive house in Cornwall. We spoke with the stag's boss and asked if it would be OK to storm his office in jumpsuits and kidnap the stag, so we chucked him in the boot of the car while playing Rammstein, with tights over our heads. We eventually let him out and went to this amazing house and got completely ended on beer and drugs.
We had arranged for a sports day the next morning, and we were all in fancy dress on the lawn of this amazing house we'd rented. The stag ended up having his wrists taped to his ankles, with spandex leggings pulled down, while we all did a relay race against him, chucking eggs and spanking his arse.
Later that night we convinced the groom to shelf . He said, "If anyone is going to shelf me, it will be myself" and popped the pill up his bum. He then took it out as it was burning, washed it off and swallowed it the conventional way. It was pretty fucked up.
More on VICE:
Booze and Blow-Up Cocks: Blackpool Stag and Hen Nights in Pictures
Meet the Dwarf Who Gets Handcuffed to British Pissheads on Stag and Hen Parties
Going Nuts with Strippers for 16 Hours Straight in Spain's New 'Stag Do Disneyland'
A screen shot of the Devon and Cornwall Police eBay listing for NOS canisters
Everyone sells tat they've got laying around on eBay, and Devon and Cornwall Police are no different. Only thing is, instead of old history text books and Tommy T-shirts marked up three-fold, they use their eBay account to flog seized assets and unclaimed found items.
Have a look around the feedback section and nothing immediately seems out of the ordinary; with an almost perfect positive rating, it looks the south-west boys in blue are making a nice little profit selling everything from the Duracell batteries to Armani watches they've found or confiscated. But keep scrolling and you'll see that, "during past month" the force sold a 24-pack of NOS canisters through the auction site.
As UK weed activist group Feed the Birds first noticed, posting a link to Facebook, the police-run eBay account sold nitrous oxide – a substance included in the Psychoactive Substances Act – to a buyer who left feedback praising the police: "Excellent ebayer, quick delivery and great product."
While this seems strange and potentially illegal under the anti-legal highs bill, which was introduced in May of this year, it's technically above board. You're not allowed to sell laughing gas for recreational use, but you're fine if it's intended for its traditional industrial uses, i.e. in dentistry or to whip up cream for cakes. Which is why lots of NOS deliverymen no longer carry balloons with them; because if they're pulled over and found to be carrying hundreds of canisters but nothing else, there's no proof that they were planning to do anything illegal.
So the police were perfectly within the law. Thing is, the item's description states that it "was seized by the Police as evidence & now has to be sold", before reminding the potential buyer of the Psychoactive Substances Act. Which – to me, at least – sounds a lot like the police nabbed the canisters off someone they suspected of selling laughing gas for recreational use, before selling it on themselves via the very same loophole that laughing gas dealers tend to use.
That's mere speculation, of course, but one thing is a little more certain. As per the Psychoactive Substances Act, as repeated in the item's description, "It is a criminal offence to supply a psychoactive substance to another person if you are aware, or you are reckless as to whether the substance is likely to be consumed by the person to whom it is supplied (or by some other person) for its psychoactive affects."
How could the police know if they were selling to some innocent nan looking to make a pavlova, or to a kid who's going to nail a bunch of balloons to help him come down off half a gram of MD? They couldn't.
We reached out to the Devon and Cornwall Police press team to confirm that this was their eBay account and to ask why they were selling NOS.
They said: "It has come to our attention that some members of the public have raised concerns on social media about the sale of a box of nitrous oxide (NOS) chargers, which are used as propellant for cream dispensers. Some concerns have been received based on the public conjecture that NOS can be used for illegal, i.e. narcotic, purposes. A suitable warning around misuse of the item was included along with the sale details.
"We would like to make clear that the sale of NOS chargers is not prohibited in the UK, and that such items are widely and legally available both online and in retail outlets. On reflection, we regret placing these items for sale. Our Force Policy has been revised to ensure these items are destroyed and not sold. All similar items have been withdrawn from sale."
So there you have it: you can't buy NOS off the police any more, but you can buy it in any decent cookery shop. British drug policy in action.
The third episode of 'High Society', our documentary series about drugs in the UK, premieres in early December and is about the criminalisation of nitrous oxide.
More on VICE:
Understanding the New Urban British Teenager
Will Anyone Actually Bother Enforcing the Laughing Gas Ban?
What This Year's Global Drugs Survey Tells Us About Drug Use In the UK
Illustration by Marta Parszeniew
Rosie knew her Instagram obsession was getting bad when she started to forget where she was. She uses it all the time for her job as a buyer at a department store in London. Celebrity endorsement for a product, even if it's marked with the hashtag #ad or #spon, can make it a bestseller. Sending freebies to Instagram celebrities is just part of the job.
But when she's stressed, Instagram changes from a work tool to an alternative reality in which to escape. Some days, Rosie spends her entire commute scrolling through the lives of the Kardashians and their model friends. There have been times when she's got so engrossed in the minutiae of their lives, bodies and clothes that she almost misses her stop. When she gets home, she can easily spend another hour searching for pictures of people she can't bring herself to actually follow, sometimes sitting in silence next to her boyfriend. "When I roll over I can't sleep because I have these images in my mind," she says.
Rosie's not alone. Facebook says people spend, on average, 50 minutes a day across its products, which includes Instagram. Advertising came to Instagram with sponsored posts in 2014. Now it's teaming up with brands and retailers to make it easier for us to spend money – by tagging items we can then buy with one click. It's a change researchers say could get people like Rosie into debt as they try to keep up.
I bought an ASOS dress I saw one of my fashion friends wearing on Instagram. I would never have bought if I hadn't seen it on there.
Instagram's appeal lies in the illusion of intimacy and control. This is a dream world for brands and retailers, desperate to strike up a relationship with you in an environment where you, the customer, think you get to call the shots.
In this world, brands speak to us through people whose images we admire. Attractive people with great clothes and seemingly perfect lives become "influencers". People like Pandora Sykes, fashion features editor for the Sunday Times, who has 115,000 followers. "I will never lie about when I've been paid to create content, because that would imply shame and I'm really not ashamed to admit that I'm paid to work," she says. But that doesn't stop brands frequently trying to dictate the terms of their content to her so it doesn't look sponsored. It's a catch-22 of lying to look authentic.
"I follow bloggers and my fashion journalist friends," says India, who writes for a women's lifestyle website. "I actually bought this long ASOS vintage-style dress I saw one of them wearing on Instagram. I would never have bought it if I hadn't seen it on there, but it looked great on my friend and I messaged her and asked her where it came from."
Influencers report lower levels of engagement for posts marked #spon or #ad because they destroy that sense of being spoken to by someone the user trusts. Would India have bought the dress if she'd seen it in a sponsored post? "Probably not. It would have put me off."
That's why brands are trying to get influencers to leave out #sponsored and #ad hashtags. But it's only when these tags are included that users can choose how to respond to the brand that is really doing the talking.
That's vital, says Dr Tara Swart, a neuroscientist and lecturer at MIT, because otherwise your brain has no "second thoughts" before it compares you to the person, which can make you feel bad. "Your brain is looking for a threat," Tara says. "So it will look at the image and think: 'Is this as good as me, better than me or less good than me?'"
A quarter of young women say they are in debt all the time.
Rosie says she obsesses over Bella Hadid, whose perfect stomach makes her feel terrible about her own body. "I don't want to see it on my feed," she says, "but when I just need a little hit of something I will seek these people out."
Dr Swart says the "hit" Rosie describes is likely to be a tiny bit of the hormone dopamine. Dopamine is a feedback signal the brain uses for predicting rewards. At the same time as your brain is ranking you against Instagram celebrities, it is pointing out things that might make you more attractive, like a flat stomach, a beauty product or some clothes. If you buy a similar product, you get a little dopamine. If you ever got your hands on the actual product, you'd get a surge of dopamine as a special thank you from your brain.
If users don't know when they're being sold something, whether that's the surgery behind a flat stomach or the sweater worn by a stylist, they can't choose how to react to it, and the pressure to keep up can become destructive.
Dr Alice Ashby, a consultant liaison psychiatrist in London, says that while perfect, photoshopped bodies and aspirational lifestyles used to be the preserve of supermodels in glossy magazines, now anyone can present an unrealistic image of themselves online. While you think you're competing with people just like you, the image could have been enhanced and its content paid for. "Young people are under a huge amount of pressure about what they're meant to look like," says Dr Ashby. "They might feel they have to have their hair done in a certain way and wear right labels, which can put pressure on finances."
A quarter of young women say they are in debt all the time. Some 39 percent say it is a struggle to make their cash last until the end of the month, compared to 27 percent of young men, according to a survey of over 4,000 18 to 30-year-olds by the Young Women's Trust. "People project the version of themselves they want to show to the world through spending," says Katie Evans, head of research and policy at the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute.
Instagram says it has no obligation to identify sponsored content, and plenty of people will be into buying a celebrity-endorsed dress or a blogger's new Converse straight from an Instagram post. But in the last two years, the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) in the UK has received increasing numbers of complaints about unlabelled advertising. It sometimes takes "informal" action to advise Instagram influencers on the difference between #ad – where the brand pays for editorial control over the post – and #spon, where editorial control is left to the content creator.
Transparency about advertising is even more important as Instagram moves from look-book to marketplace. The ASA could force brands and their influencers to declare paid-for content with a hashtag. Browsers could allow people to turn off targeted ads.
Until then, people like Rosie are trying to help themselves. "I try and leave my phone on my windowsill at night," she says. "I know it's just going to make me feel worse. You get so involved with other people's lives you forget to concentrate on your own."
More from VICE:
Your Mental Health Is Making You Poor
Can Sacking Off the City and Moving to the Countryside Actually Make You Happier?
Last night, around 100 people gathered outside London's US Embassy to protest the election of Donald Trump to president. The vibe was much as you'd expect: sadness that a man who has demonstrably increased incidents of racism among America's children will soon be leading the country. Anti-racism demonstrators gave speeches and chanted, and waved signs reading "No to Racism, No to Trump".
Then, bizarrely, three supporters of the EDL – the far-right street team idiots who were kind of big in 2013 – turned up to protest against the UK taking in refugees. You can see the link (Donald Trump is afraid of immigrants, British racists are afraid of immigrants), but what they thought turning up at this protest would achieve is unclear. Maybe they were trolling? Or maybe they truly are as thick as they seem?
Oh yeah! Judging by what they were saying, seems like it's the second option! They chanted, "We don't want refugees!" And when asked why, replied, "Because they come here and rape our kids."
It was a small demonstration, but did provide some kind of hope: the people who represent everything that's right about Britain far out-ranked those who want to see it turned into a one-race hellscape of hate, mundanity and fear. Let's just hope, in this climate of worsening xenophobia and short-sighted idiocy, more of the former starts to organise and mobilise against the latter.
Everything you need to know about the world this morning, curated by VICE.
Thousands of anti-Donald Trump protesters shut down 5th Avenue in front of Trump Tower as New Yorkers. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Anti-Trump Protests Erupt Nationwide
Protests erupted in cities across the US on Wednesday as people took to the streets to express their displeasure at Donald Trump becoming president-elect. Thousands gathered outside Trump Tower in Chicago chanting, "Not my president." In Manhattan, "Black Lives Matter" and "NYC against Trump" were projected across Trump Tower.—CBS News
Trump to Get Classified Intel Briefings from Agencies He's Slammed
Donald Trump may get his first detailed intelligence briefing today, part of a series of meetings designed to get the president-elect up to speed with secret CIA operations and world leaders' communications. An anonymous official has suggested intelligence staffers who fear working under a Trump administration could quit.—The Washington Post
Muslim Ban Idea Removed from Trump Website
Perhaps Donald Trump's most controversial proposal, a call for a "total and complete shutdown" of Muslims entering the US, had disappeared from his campaign website by Wednesday. The page that once contained the statement now redirects to the site's homepage.—ABC News
US Pays Millions for Dysfunctional Afghan Schools, Report Says
A new report from the independent watchdog for US reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan has revealed problems with both teacher and student absenteeism in schools. Despite spending $868 million on education, US officials observed only 23 percent of reported student numbers at schools in Herat province.—NBC News
Iraqi Forces Accused of Killing Villagers
Iraqi forces have been accused of killing and torturing civilians in an area south of Mosul by Amnesty International. The rights group gathered evidence that men wearing federal police uniforms killed up to six people "in cold blood" in the Shura and Qayyara areas after villagers were detained on suspicion of being connected to ISIS.—Reuters
India's Banks Begin Replacing Defunct Notes
There were huge lines outside banks across India on Thursday as people waited to swap 500 and 1,000 rupee notes removed from circulation, part of a government effort to purge shady cash from the system. Critics say the move hurts low-income workers who work with cash. —BBC News
'Green-Eyed Girl' Welcomed Home by Afghan President
Sharbat Gula, known as the green-eyed "Afghan girl" from a famous 1985 National Geographic photo, has returned to Afghanistan after being deported by Pakistan. Gula was arrested in the latter country last month for living there illegally.—The Guardian
Egypt Gets $2 Billion Before IMF Bailout Call
Egypt has secured $2 billion in funding for sovereign bonds from international banks ahead of an International Monetary Fund board meeting. The IMF is meeting to decide if it should approve a $12 billion loan to Egypt.—AP
'South Park' Rewrites Election Episode After Trump Win
The cartoon offered the a swift fictional take on Donald Trump's election win after creators rewrote and renamed Wednesday's episode "Oh, Jeez." It featured the line, "We've learned that women can be anything. Except for president."—Esquire
Run the Jewels Release Protest Song
Run the Jewels have dropped new track "2100" in response to Trump's shocking election win. Killer Mike and EL-P said they were releasing the politically charged song early "for everyone who is hurting or scared right now."—Rolling Stone
Apple Launches Refurbished iPhones Sale Program
Apple has launched a new online store where you can buy old, refurbished iPhones. Recycled Macs and iPods were already available at Apple Certified Refurbished.—TIME
Martin Shkreli Shares Wu-Tang Material Online
Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli seems to be following through at least in part on a promise to share his unreleased Wu-Tang album if Donald Trump became president. Shkreli was airing parts of Once Upon a Time in Sholin on various livestreams.—Noisey
Peter Thiel Congratulates Trump, Says 'All Hands on Deck'
The PayPal co-founder and Silicon Valley's most prominent Trump supporter has congratulated the president-elect and said it's time for the US "to face up to our country's problems." Thiel added: "We're going to need all hands on deck."—Motherboard
Don't Come to Canada, Says Don Cherry
Canadian hockey broadcaster Don Cherry has issued a warning to "left-wing" Americans considering a move north of the border after Trump's win. "Please, we have enough of these type here now," he tweeted.—VICE Sports
When I woke up after only a few hours of sleep on Wednesday, still struggling to process the fact that Donald Trump had been elected president of the United States, news of demonstrations was piling up in my inbox and social media feeds. I set out in the middle of the afternoon, arriving to a rapidly growing contingent in Manhattan's Columbus Circle at about 3:30 PM. Suffice to say, the crowd was already bustling, a testament to the anger and sadness coursing through America's largest city and plenty of urban centers across the nation.
When I reached Union Square in the evening, a march was arriving, and the park was absolutely crammed. The eruption of applause and chants were electrifying. The crowd meandered north, sometimes breaking into two, but careful to reunite a few blocks later. The goal was to reach Trump Tower. We were blocked at our first attempt—the NYPD had set up concrete barriers around the place, rendering it something of a fortress. But eventually the crowd maneuvered itself in front of the building, filling the street from side to side for many blocks in each direction. There was less speaking at this point and mostly just chanting, an attempted flag burning, and a lot of pot smoking.
It's easy to dismiss this kind of protest—which followed dozens in the past few years over police brutality—as a cheap act of catharsis. But New Yorkers, who voted overwhelmingly against their Native Son, seemed to feel uniquely responsible for this political freak show. Police reportedly arrested 15 people as traffic was slowed and protesters raged.
Here's what I saw as the reality of Trump's America began to set in for New York.
A marijuana blunt is passed from one friend to another Wednesday, November 9, 2016, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
On Tuesday night, even as Democrats recoiled in horror at the election of Donald Trump, American voters in several states loudly rejected marijuana prohibition. California, Massachusetts, Nevada, and Maine all passed referenda legalizing recreational use. And Florida, North Dakota Arkansas and Montana passed medical use laws. Twenty-eight states are now set to allow medical weed, and some 75 million people will soon live in states where recreational use is legal—nearly a quarter of the US population.
But even though President Obama recently told Bill Maher the broader trend toward legal bud means ongoing federal marijuana enforcement may no longer be "tenable," Trump's ascent makes progress far from certain. Sure, the ballot initiatives are great news for drug policy reformers at the state level, who suffered only one significant loss, in Arizona. But the national picture is a murky one as Trump—not necessarily a traditional drug warrior but very much a law-and-order type—makes his way to the White House.
Trump said during the campaign that he's OK with medical marijuana and will leave recreational use decisions to the states. But true to form, the man has made some contradictory statements about the subject, both supporting legalization but also saying Colorado's approach is "bad" and that the state has "got a lot of problems" because of legal weed.
To make matters a bit more alarming, some of Trump's closest advisors like Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie—both reportedly in the running for the attorney general gig—have long histories of favoring tough drug policy. This suggests the famously insular Trump might be swayed to reverse the current laissez-faire approach taken by federal enforcement agencies. If that happens, the prospects for state recreational marijuana businesses—and for a quick move to national legalization—would be dim.
Still, even in the face of all the uncertainty looming around a Trump presidency, based on America's lengthy drug war history and the effects of recent legal changes, a few developments seem virtually certain.
First, legalizing recreational marijuana use is unlikely to result in disaster or in a massive increase in marijuana-related harm. No such effects have been convincingly demonstrated in Colorado, Washington, Oregon, DC, or Alaska. In Colorado, for example, use by young people has remained consistent with the national level since legalization. The top public health official in the state, in fact, told the Boston Globe that no major problems have yet emerged. That seems to be the (initial) consensus among most other states as well, even if there have been some mildly alarming trends like an increase in people accused of driving stoned and (some) more calls to poison control centers (though no deaths).
Indeed, in the country as a whole, despite the rising accessibility of both medical and recreational marijuana and increased rates of use in the past month by adults, cannabis use disorder doesn't seem to be spiraling out of control. Though the data only runs up until 2014, which is just one years after the first recreational laws went into effect, a study conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that marijuana addiction rates were steady, not rising.
Moreover, no state or country that has liberalized marijuana laws either through decriminalization or outright legalization has experienced anything like the nightmare scenarios predicted by prohibitionists. You know, like massive rises in teen drug use and addiction (including to harder drugs through a "gateway" effect), declines in productivity and intelligence, increases in mental illness or deadly car crashes. Both Holland, which "tolerates" illegal sales in regulated coffee shops and Portugal, which decriminalizes possession of all drugs—but didn't legalize sales of any—report generally positive or unremarkable results from policies that have been in place for years now.
While doctors may fear that hidden, harmful effects of marijuana will emerge under legalization, the US government has already spent millions of dollars over decades searching for them—to no avail. There could be hidden harms from "dabbing" by smoking concentrated THC, but it is impossible to overdose by smoking ordinary weed, and even heavy marijuana smoking isn't generally associated with lung cancer and marijuana use rates are not convincingly associated with schizophrenia rates.
Check out our Weediquette segment on kids with diseases who use weed.
In fact, increasing data shows that marijuana is linked with reduced rates of opioid overdose death and reduced rates of opioid use for pain—both of which could be critical benefits of increasing access to both medical and recreational marijuana. If even just a few people switch entirely from opioids to marijuana or reduce opioid use by substituting marijuana, lives could potentially be saved and addictions avoided or rendered less dangerous.
If Hillary Clinton had won the electoral college as polls suggested she would, chances are that the end game for marijuana prohibition was in the offing. After all, her supporters appear to have heavily favored legalization, and continuing to spend billions of dollars a year to incarcerate people in some states for what they can legally do in others is not exactly a fiscally responsible use of taxpayer dollars. Reversing marijuana prohibition alone could mean eliminating 28 percent of state and federal spending on drug law enforcement—nearly $14 billion annually. And doing that would likely put pressure on the entire apparatus of the drug war, given that it is hard to understand why it is sensible to lock people up for possession of some addictive drugs but not others.
What Trump will do in light of his repeated calls for "law and order" and cracking down on crime is much harder to say. But if the man has an eye on winning a second term in 2020, he may not want to make weed his law enforcement priority. In most states where medical or recreational marijuana was on the ballot—including California (56%), Florida (71%), Massachusetts (54%), Nevada (54%) and Maine (50%)—the initiatives got a significantly larger percentage of the vote than he did.
Follow Maia Szalavitz on Twitter.
A Mark IV nuclear bomb, the same bomb that a BC diver may have found. Photo via Wikipedia
When Sean Smyrichinsky first saw the object, he thought it was a UFO.
He was scooting around on a diver propulsion vehicle 30 feet deep in the water of the north Pacific Ocean looking his damndest for some sea cucumbers. He was having bum luck finding his bounty when the object appeared out of the murk.
"After a few minutes of flying around under the water, out of the haze, I saw what looked like a large disk come out of the ground," said Smyrichinsky. "I, at first, thought it was a weird rock formation but as it became closer I knew right away it was man-made."
The object was "perfectly round" on the bottom and the top was flat and the centre of it had a circular hole cut out, surrounding the centre circle were concave bowls moulded into the top of it. It didn't look like anything you would ever find underwater naturally.
"This thing couldn't float, it's too big and it doesn't displace enough water to float. I can't imagine it floating on the surface and sinking. And it's so large and surrounded by such reefs and such rough terrain that I couldn't imagine that a boat big enough to haul the thing could get in there."
"So I was like, 'What the hell is this thing, and how did it get here?' But then I was like, 'UFO! It's a UFO! I found a UFO!'"
While the find is most likely not a UFO, it very well may be a part of be a nuclear bomb lost in 1950 when an American bomber went down.
The plane was flying a simulated nuclear strike against the Soviet Union and was on its way from Alaska to Texas when, off the coast of BC, three of its engines caught fire. The crew at first jettisoned things, which is apparently when the bomb went out, and eventually had to abandon the plane into the icy cold of the north Pacific Ocean, five of the 17 were killed.
While the actual wreckage of the plane was located in 1997, its payload never was. Smyrichinsky's find is about 50 miles away from where the wreckage was found.
Smyrichinsky with, presumably, an alien from the UFO he found. Photo via Facebook
At the time, Smyrichinsky, a professional diver with U.B. Diving, was out on a three-week fishing expedition with some buds. After finding the object he raced back to the boat to let his fellow fisherman know about his discovery. They thought he was crazy.
So Smyrichinsky drew the object on the only thing he could find at that moment, a napkin.
In fact, it wasn't until Smyrichinsky and co. made their way to a packer—a big ship all fishers in the area would drop their catches off at—and met with some grizzled fishermen who had fished the area forever that Smyrichinsky learned of the possible origins of his find.
"These are the guys that know everything and they say to me 'Hey, maybe you found the ol' A-bomb they lost in the 50s,'" said Smyrichinsky.
Smyrichinsky believes that it was because he was on the DPV flying around surveying the land that he found the object in the well fished area.
"I was a little deeper and had an aerial vantage point that they would never see," he said. "Other guys might of walked past this thing and never ever seen it a thousand times, but they were doing a different thing"
A few days after finding it, when they finally had WiFi, Smyrichinsky googled the story of the bomb and googled a Mark IV and compared a portion of it to the drawing on the napkin.
"One of the images that came up was a schematic and right away one of the pieces in the middle looked just like the thing I found," said Smyrichinsky. I turned to my friend and said, 'Look, here's the napkin. I've never seen a Mark IV in my life. Look at this napkin and look at this piece!'"
Spurred on by an Air Force friend, Smyrichinsky contacted the Canadian Navy and they got back to him "very quickly." Since then, they have sent a ship on its way to the west coast to investigate the area where Smyrichinsky found the object.
They don't believe that if the object Smyrichinsky found was indeed the bomb that it would still be active. Major Steve Neta of the Canadian Armed Forces told the CBC it, more likely, it would be a "dummy capsule."
"Nonetheless, we do want to be sure and we do want to investigate it further," Neta told the CBC.
If Smyrichinsky's object is proven to be a nuclear bomb, well, that's one hell of a haul for a man who was simply out looking for sea cucumbers.
But, in the meantime, Smyrichinsky said he's still holding out hope that it's a UFO.
Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.
Illustration by George Yarnton
This post originally appeared on VICE UK.
You're on vacation, staring at a menu, and slip into an existential abyss. Fries or sweet potato fries? Which do you like more? And ultimately, what does it even matter? Both are starchy bits of sustenance that only cost $3.50. But actually, shouldn't you care more about money? What if you're too splash-happy to ever provide for children? And, at 26, you're past the prime of your fertility anyway, right? You've seen a line chart, and it's not looking good. So you'll probably have to adopt, and that's if you're even a kids sort of person (who are you?), so if that's going to be happening soon, shouldn't you break up with your boyfriend and spend the next four years having sex with everyone you can?
Then you tell your boyfriend that you'll have the normal fries. And they turn up cold.
It's the first day back at work after your vacation and you feel strange, and then you realize that strange feeling is "actually just feeling chill." Nafisa asks how your trip was and you say it was fun, and then James asks and you say it was great—a world outside productivity and feeling like a disenfranchised, underpaid, disposable cog in the machine, with 2,000-plus emails to answer at all times. Then you go to the bathroom and start googling MA degrees.
Intense self-doubt, feeling trapped in a job or a relationship, and feeling disillusioned about what "real life" is? Fairly sure you're having a mid-20s crisis.
Dr. Oliver Robinson is a man who had his own mid-20s crisis, left various parts of his life behind, and began a career as an academic studying the mid-20s crisis as a phenomenon. "A quarter-life crisis is a double-edged sword," he told me on the phone. "It's a time of instability and stress, but also a time of intense development and potential for growth."
These crises have never been more prevalent among young people, because alongside the world currently being a terrifying place to live, what we traditionally did in our 20s has been pushed back a decade: People are getting married and having kids later into their 30s. "The good side of that is that it gives people a chance to have fun experiences before they settle down into a routine, but the other side is that it makes a quarter-life crisis more likely because there is more instability and stress around that age range," says Robinson.
He adds that there are two types of mid-20s crises: the locked-in crisis and the locked-out crisis. "In the locked-out crisis, the young person feels that no matter what their efforts, they're unable to get into adult society," he explains. "In the locked-in crisis, a young person finds themselves on a path they don't want to be on and will make big decisions about what they want to do, which can be a long and painful process."
Of course, it doesn't have to be this way; if you're lucky, you could be experiencing an exciting mix of the two!
Because you don't want to be told to start meditating or make a mood board (my mom's idea) as a way out of confusion-paralysis, here are some other ideas from life coaches, psychologists, and people who have experience crawling their way through a mid-20s crisis of their own, as to what you should do to make things a little more manageable.
Some young men on mopeds. Photo by Chris Bethell
According to Karin Peeters, life coach and psychologist, a mid-20s crisis is essentially being held in the grips of prolonged decision-making stress. "Some people respond by freezing and being unable to take action; others respond with flight, a.k.a. just leaving the job, leaving the partner, or the city," she says. "And the third response is fight, or 'I'm going to work harder, and go to the gym, and do everything I can to achieve something, anything.'"
Recognize your response. Mine is somewhere between a) pinned-to-the-wall paralysis, unable to make a simple decision about what I'm going to eat for lunch, and b) irrationally sprinting away from a set of circumstances. Wouldn't recommend either, but if you want to analyze your behavior and work with those impulses rather than blindly making snap decisions, trying to be more self-aware is helpful.
Let's take a painfully cliched mid-20s crisis dilemma: "Should I stay in my mediocre job when, actually, I want to travel at some point and am currently just inching closer and more surely toward death rather than planning an off-the-beaten track route through Central America?"
This anxiety is heightened by the fact you're thinking in the immediate and on a very short timescale. Should I do these things now, now, now? Life coach Natalie Dee suggests expanding your idea of time: "Plan longer-term," she says. "Think: In my 20s, at some point, I'd like to travel for a bit. That's a big grand plan, but it gives you more time to achieve it. In my 30s, I really want to be on the ladder of a career that I like. In my 40s, I'd like to really establish myself. You can say, in those ten years, if I want a family, I'm open to the possibility of meeting somebody."
In other words: Quit worrying about immediately spending three months in Thailand and realize that you're already half a decade older than everyone else at the full-moon parties, so a couple more years won't hurt. Bonus: You can apply this type of less neurotic planning to every other aspect of your life.
"I don't know why I've fixated on this age, but I think it's really cool to be 37 and single," says Bertie Brandes, co-creator of the magazine Mushpit, which just released its "Crisis Issue"—which is basically all about having a mid-20s crisis. "I think you have to reevaluate the whole idea of marriage being the focal point of your early-ish adult life, which then continues on until you die, and start realizing that every single year of your life is a precious year. It's a pressure we've put on ourselves. I have single male friends who are older, and although they're not fucking thrilled about it, they realize they're not a pathetic disaster and they're fine."
The extension of this invisible timeline is having kids. This affects people with wombs more than men, which is why—Peeters believes—so many more female clients come to her in their mid-20s, while men generally want help later in life. You can't argue with biology, but equally there's only so much pressure you can put on yourself. Besides, if it's the marriage bit you're worried about, as an ex-colleague once reassured me, when things don't work out by the age of 40, you'll be hot, aloof, and readily picking up the first round of divorcees. So there's that.
If you have the money, why not. If you desperately want to retrain and change careers, go for it. But throwing yourself back into a degree in order to sustain adolescence, which will just get you into more debt than you're already in, is a terrible idea. You're not Van Wilder, and God knows, you don't want to be. Press on with adulthood; don't take out a loan to do an MA in Creative Entrepreneurship.
If you break up with someone in the midst of a frantic mid-20s crisis, it's hard not to wonder if you're simply doing it because of the whole crisis thing—if you'll look back in a couple of years and realize you made a terrible mistake. "They're not an accidental symptom," says Brandes. "You get to a point in your life where you realize a person is fit, but actually they're an asshole and I'm done with it. It's a very selfish age, and you just have to obsess about yourself for a bit."
By being selfish, you're learning about yourself and what you need from another half, so you don't end up with a boring dickhead.
This is scientific, so don't question it. A patch of not sleeping with anyone is often a golden era of productivity and self-development, but also you can find yourself becoming so fussy and separatist that it's almost like you're testing yourself for how long you can not have sex for. If it's been six months, what's another three years?
No. "Try to have sex at least once every four months, at least," advises Brandes. "Otherwise you become terrified of intimacy and you become really obsessed about your career, or your non-career, or what you look like in pictures, and you stalk your own Instagram even more than you stalk your ex's exes. You forget what it's like to interact with other people in that way."
"If you make your room like a weird shrine where nothing can be out of place, you'll start to think that you can never share your space or bed with another person," says Brandes. "You make a second womb."
Photo by Bruno Bayley
We went to school, we went to college, we got a job—we followed the route prescribed to us unquestioningly, so it's no wonder that much of many people's mid-20s crises are fueled by the fact we're suddenly left to pasture, looking around at the dispersing herd.
Life coach Natalie reckons now is the time to seriously divide what you want from what you feel you should have. "A 'need' is something that's put on you, possibly by society, your friends, your colleagues. That's got a different energy to it than desire," she says. "It's almost like a must, and it puts a lot of pressure on you. Desire is a move toward something—you're the one pushing for it."
It's easy to start thinking if you had a decent job you'd be a whole different person and everything else would just slide into focus. "I fixate on the idea that I can't be single any more, but it's nothing to do with the fact I need or want a relationship; it's more because I'm confused about what I'm doing with the rest of my life," says Brandes. "Which is dangerous, because if you fixate on your job as the one thing that's making you unhappy and it's not, and then you quit and realize, you'll be in trouble."
See also: Stop defining yourself by your job.
It's taken me 25 years to not feel incredibly guilty about "not being productive enough" if I decide to sit in bed and watch Netflix all weekend when I'm emotionally or physically exhausted. I'd think of months or years "wasted" to mental illness, during which I wasn't performing to capacity. But if you feel like having periods of downtime, don't punish yourself for it.
"I went through a phase last year of feeling depressed, and just sat in bed obsessing over YouTube vlogs; I couldn't go without watching them," says Brandes. "I felt like I was wasting my fucking life, and three months later, I wrote this one piece about it that drew on everything I'd been feeling, and it made sense. Every single experience you have, even if it's five days in bed, is going to be useful to you in some way. It just doesn't feel it at the time. We're so conditioned to think we should be performing all the time that we've completely lost respect for time-wasting. Time-wasting is when so many good things happen, or stupid ideas that turn into amazing ideas. Rest is useful. If you're in bed, your body is resting, even if your mind is going crazy."
This culture of constantly having to be "on" and fully living in every single area of our lives all the time has the same origin as mid-life crises. As Robinson tells me, you're more likely to make the right decision from a place of calm anyway than you are from a place of stress, so allow yourself downtime wherever you can.
Photo: Jake Lewis
"Many young adults worry that others will view their 'crisis' as whining or complaining," says Robinson. "And some people—particularly older people, or those who never had this period of self-doubt—may do just that. Remember that whatever you are feeling is valid, even if others don't seem to think so."
So the next time someone reminds you that your 20s are the best time of your life, tell them that an expert in the field of generational crises said: "The amount of huge decisions you have to make creates arguably the most difficult part of the life span in terms of stress and mental health."
Take solace in the fact that no matter how much you fuck up your immediate life, it probably won't be that bad in the long run. Just do it. Or don't, and sit here with this bookmarked on your work computer, ordering cold fries and dating someone you're lukewarm about.
Follow Hannah Ewens on Twitter.
Honestly who doesn't love Anthony Bourdain? The celebrity chef and TV host is one of the most honest, intelligent, and raw food personalities in the world. Through shows like Parts Unknown, No Reservations, and The Layover he's introduced audiences not just to new and innovative chefs but to exotic, homecooked cuisine that most North Americans would never be exposed to let alone dare to try. His new cookbook takes a much more approachable look at dining though, focusing on simple, manageable comfort food. He was in Toronto for a speech last week so I whipped him up some mac and cheese and sat down with him to talk about hangover food and Donald Trump.
VICE: So, I actually made something from your book yesterday for you to try.
Anthony Bourdain: Alright, what did you make?
It's the mac and cheese.
Oh, awesome. I could go for some of that. Thank you so much.
I hope you enjoy.
Let's see. Good stuff.
You like it?
Mmhmm.
Thank God.
Spicy.
It is spicy. It is too spicy? I think I put in too much cayenne pepper.
No, it's good! You made this yesterday?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's actually... A good argument could be made it being better the next day. Good stuff. I'm gonna finish this.
Please do. I made it for you. So, I made it a little bit hungover, but I do think that the book is amazing for hangovers.
Thank you. That's kind of an area of expertise.
What's your go-to favourite kind of hangover food?
In a perfect situation, I wake up with a savage hangover. Already that's not perfect but assuming I have a hangover, couple aspirin, Coke-Coca Cola, nice and cold. Smoke a joint, as soon as the nausea abates and munchies ensue, some mapo tofu would be really good. Some spicy Szechuan food, something greasy and super spicy. Perfect. In a pinch some cold fried rice, pork fried rice from the night before, also good. Leftover Chinese tends to work for me. But I want some heat, I want some spice.
One thing I really liked about the book—because I'm not a great cook—is that it makes it really simple. What're your tips for the cooking averse?
Well, have reasonable expectations of yourself. If you're cooking for others, don't cook something you've never made before. You know, experiment a little on your own before you serve an omelette to someone else, you know? Make ten omelets at home one day. You know, it's a learnable skill, cooking. Don't be afraid to fail. Understand that professionals learn through repetition. They don't, you know, they're not smarter than you. Try to be organized, you know? I mean write lists, have all of your shit together. Have all of your ingredients laid out in a comprehensive, easy to reach fashion. If you're cooking for people, prep whatever you can ahead of time, ahead of time. Don't be so hard on yourself. And don't try to dazzle people and be too ambitious. That could work out badly.
Yeah, that's a good tip. Most people would think that macaroni and cheese is too boring or easy, but it's not.
Who doesn't like macaroni and cheese? Enemies of America.
Exactly. Exactly.
Enemies of freedom.
What prompted the book?
I think a perverse desire to... I dunno. To do something different... It's an honest reflection on why I do cooking, who I've been cooking for for the last eight years or so, since my daughter was born. It was these dishes that make me happy. It's a reflection of who I am I mean, I'm away for 152 days of the year. When I'm home I'm this sort of, smothering, you know, home cook who tries to, however incompetently, express my love through food. You know, I'm like the overbearing Jewish mother, passive-aggressively chasing you around the house: "Why didn't you finish your food? Don't you love me?" That's who I am now.
Has fatherhood changed what you cook?
Yes, of course. That's the customer. She decides what we eat. If she doesn't like it, what's the point? She decides—she makes all the major decisions in my life when I'm home, honestly. On vacation or when I'm home, it's all about her. Cooking, making her school lunch, breakfast, dinner. We'll cook together sometimes. It's, you know, that's what's great about being a dad. You're not the centre of the world anymore, it's about somebody else. Always.
Given all the different food you've tried, your palette is so wide-ranging. Are you giving her octopus?
She loves octopus, but I would've never offered it to her. That's not gonna work. You offer a four-year-old girl an octopus tentacle, and say, "It's good, try it," she's never trying it again. I would eat octopus in front of her, as one does, and she would look over and say, "Cool!" and ask to try some. At which point I would reward her with praise, but I would never. I just found that this was just not the way to go. She, like any other little girl, wants her little mac and cheese or pasta with butter, grilled cheese sandwich every day. But then, you know, one day she looks over and her mom and dad are eating oysters, well oysters so she says, "Ohh, they're shiny, they're pretty, I want the shell too." She starts eating oysters. We look at each other like... That's pretty cool.
Why do you hate brunch?
Back in the bad of days of my life (there were many in my long and undistinguished career) no matter how badly things went I could always get a brunch gig. So, those times that I did cook brunch, for extended periods of time, always, you know, those smells. Those... the smell of just lots of eggs, eggs cooking on the stovetop, homefries, bacon, and sticky French toast batter. These are the smells that I associate very deeply with the lowest, most painful, humiliating, shameful, desperate moments of life. So I really, I just, I have instinctive existential hatred of everything about brunch. Until I became a dad... Cooking breakfast for my daughter and her friends after sleepover, well actually that's pretty... That makes me really happy. I do fuss over them and I wanna be the world's best dad so I don't just do pancakes, I do a pancake bar with your choice of blueberry, chocolate chip, banana, or teddy bear. I wanna be that dad. Whose dad is best? Ariane's daddy, bitches.
You obviously travel a lot, but when you're here in Canada, what do you seek out food-wise?
Comfort. You know? I'm looking for old familiar places. I'm gonna go see chef friends. Eat what I know they're really good at. I like the smoked beef. I like, you know, poutine, it's kinda perfect stoner food, late night. Those are happy-making.
Is there anything that you think is distinctly Canadian? We really struggle, I think, with an identity when it comes to food.
In Montreal, there's a truly dangerous level of hospitality that has left many chefs from the States just, you know, limping across the border. You know, pantless and filled with shame. But well-fed. Look, I don't mean this in a—there is a needless insecurity in Toronto in particular that I don't really fully understand. It's a city with a lot going for it. A lot going for it. Uniquely going for it. There seems to be this need for validation that I don't really understand.
Yeah, it is very Canadian to sort of want recognition.
Yeah, you've got the ingredients: you got the chefs; you have the diversity; the ethnic, national diversity. Particularly in a places like Toronto, Vancouver. It's looking pretty good.
Speaking of Canadian insecurity, we've been watching this election with a mix of curiosity and horror. What's it like to be there?
It's a look... We're having a national conversation in the open, in public, unapologetically, that I never in my life thought I would see. And yeah, it's dismay and horrifying. It's such a... moronic inferno.
That's a good term. I mean, you've been to so many places that are post-political storm. You've been to Iran recently, which is huge. Are there any parallels for you in what is happening there?
Well, I mean, I think if you look at, you know, Mussolini a la Italy, Berlusconi a la Italy. Very much, very similar. Boris Johnson. The rise of Boris Johnson. You know, white nationalism is something we're seeing all across Europe. And this sort of last gasp of frightened, angry white people is something. And religious conservatives who feel like they're being pushed out of the way, the glory days. We're seeing that in a lot of countries. You see it in Russia to a great extent, that same sort of yearning for a man on a horse to make all our problems go away. Turkey. Yeah, some worrisome times.
I know that you've said you wouldn't cook for Trump, but if there's a recipe in the book for both them, could you recommend...?
I just... I can't even kind of... I find him so personally objectionable that it's not like... I've sat down with Ted Nugent; we're on very friendly terms. We talk all the time and just... with everything that comes out of his month. Everything he says is wildly offensive and deeply offensive. But I get along with Ted. I just can't... I mean we know this guy too well. I mean, you know, I'm a New Yorker, and he's a New Yorker and just... I just can't. I just can't.
Follow Amil Niazi on Twitter.
Eating all this is like dropping a bomb inside your body. Photo via Wikimedia Commons
Human beings are supposed to eat reasonably. It's a product of both biology and ecology. Early on, the lack of resources on the average neolithic homestead meant it was pretty careless to devour a day's worth of food in one sitting, unless you really wanted to put added systematic pressure on the rest of your community. Our anatomies are designed to ration out food, because it's the responsible thing to do. And also because the Great Famines throughout history have taught us that disaster is lurking around the corner, and you better be used to taking only what you need.
Of course, now in the 21st century, you can order a gigantic feast from practically every restaurant in a 20 mile radius with a few clicks on your smartphone. A Jack in the Box munchie meal comes with a burger, fries, Coke, and two tacos. It's $6. That's about 1,600 calories without including the soft drink, and it's advertised for one person as a late-night snack.
Back in less abundant times, nobody knew what happened when you ate three times your caloric allotment for the day in one sitting, because it just wasn't very likely. There simply wasn't enough food. We're living with a brand-new historical privilege, and sometimes we're using it to destroy ourselves.
If you sit down and eat a bunch of sugar-y, carb-loaded snacks, you're filling your body with with a huge number of calories at once. You probably know the basics—an excess of energy turns into storable fat cells, which causes you to put on weight, but the ramifications of a carbohydrate assault can be far more devious.
"Your body responds with an increase in your blood glucose level with an increase of insulin," says Leah Caruso, a registered dietitian and professor at the University of Buffalo who's been studying dietetics for the past 20 years. "That happens more with simple sugars. Your blood sugar spikes, and your body releases insulin to take that sugar and bring it into cells."
Everyone's body is unique in how it manages its blood sugar, and Caruso says some people might get a heavy spike after eating carbohydrate-rich foods like bread, while others might be affected more by ice cream or soda. But the end result is always the same; a wave of glucose enters your bloodstream, your liver quakes out insulin, and potential ramifications follow. Adding fat to the sugar ups the already-negative stakes.
"You're eating lots of sugar and lots of fat in one meal, your body then makes triglycerides," she says. "Triglycerides make your blood look really opaque, white, and fatty. So you're having all those things travel through your blood for a longer period of time. That can cause a lot inflammation in your arteries, and that can lead to chronic disease."
Wahida Karmally is the director of Nutrition at Columbia University's Irving Center for Clinical Research, and says binging on meals that are high in fat and sugar can cause a condition called "postprandial lipemia," which essentially means an abnormal amount of fatty lipids in your blood. Hyperlipidemia, the blanket term for the ailment, can be naturally occurring in genetics, but the "postprandial" variant means an increase specifically tied to overeating, and, she says, is "an important independent risk factor for atherosclerosis."
Binging on junk doesn't only have negative physical ramifications. Caruso says that filling your body with trash food can lead to negative emotional patterns, too. Have you ever felt tired or depressed after a giant meal? That's not just because you're feeling guilty. It's a sugar rush and subsequent insulin dump in your bloodstream.
Add to that the fact that foods loaded with fat and sugar can be highly addictive, and it's easy to see why some have trouble breaking the cycle of binging once it's become habit. Binge eating can lead to Binge Eating Disorder (or BED), characterized by "excessive overeating that feels out of control and becomes a regular occurrence." BED has become the "most prevalent eating disorder," according to this review of the literature Karnally refers me to in the Primary Care Companion for CNS Disorders, and is brought about by people using food as comfort through anxiety or stress. Treatment for the disorder usually consists of identifying the root of those overarching psychological issues. Unfortunately, according to the review cited by Karmally, people suffering from the disorder often go undiagnosed.
"Primary care physicians may find diagnosing and treating BED challenging because of insufficient knowledge of its new diagnostic criteria and available treatment options," it reads. "Furthermore, individuals with BED may be reluctant to seek treatment because of shame, embarrassment, and a lack of awareness of the disorder."
Fast-food companies often take advantage of the science of food addiction. McDonald's Hot & Spicy Chicken, for instance, contains an insane 22 grams of sugar, making it far more noxious and habit-forming than it should be. But again, these are pretty modern problems. For centuries, most people were malnourished and reliant on narrow, compromised biospheres. We are fortunate to live in a time where food is plentiful, but it's important to remember how easily it can be abused.
It's something we're not reminding ourselves of nearly enough, apparently. In the best selling book Thinner This Year, co-author Jen Sacheck writes that so-called Bad Stuff—fatty red meats, fried foods, overly processed grains like white bread and pasta, fast food, ice cream, candy—represents "about 50 percent of the average American diet" and that "a whopping 35 percent of the total average daily calorie intake comes from added sugars and solid fats." Sacheck is a PhD associate professor of nutrition in the John Hancock Research Center on Physical Activity, and in Thinner, she breaks down exactly what happens to your body when you fill it full of garbage.
As Sacheck writes, scarfing down a bunch of sugar and fat at once "is absolutely dreadful for you. Your body goes a little nuts, and both the fat and sugar try desperately to find some place to go" and "cause damage" along the way. This, of course, done enough, will cause fat around belly, "an area right next to vital organs where it can do the most harm."
You probably know some of the physical and mental ramifications of a solid binge, which can range from diarrhea to gastrointestinal carnage, or a general, mental fogginess. Some people report a weird, non-alcoholic hangover, caused by the massive amounts of sugar laying dormant in your veins.
We are putting our bodies in uncharted territory. The amount of food at our disposal is a gift, but it's also a responsibility. You don't necessarily have to think about how your eating may affect your community anymore, but you're wise to think about what it's doing to your own body.
Follow Luke Winkie on Twitter.
Barack Obama speaks in the Rose Garden on November 9. Photo by Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images
On Wednesday morning, after slamming Donald Trump over and over again during the campaign as a demagogue blowhard who had no business in politics, President Barack Obama had to congratulate the president-elect. But even as Obama urged Americans to get behind the new leader of the United States, he also addressed the elephant in the room—or, in this case, the elephant in the Rose Garden.
"It is no secret the president-elect and I have some significant differences," the president said. But Obama, who frequently derided George W. Bush during his 2008 campaign, wasn't exactly best buds with the outgoing incumbent, either. Still, Obama reminded America, Bush and company "could not have been more professional or more gracious" on the way out.
The peaceful transition of power is a time-honored tradition in American politics, one many observers anticipating a Trump defeat weren't sure he would respect if he lost. But "peaceful" doesn't necessarily mean "friendly"—President Obama still has some time left as the most powerful person on the planet. And given the massive policy differences between him and Trump on almost every issue, one can't help but ask whether he has a shot at making some modest changes or installing some safeguards before handing over the keys to the Oval Office.
For some perspective on what, exactly, Obama can do between now and January 20 to make life trickier for Trump, I called up Mark Tushnet. He's a professor at Harvard Law School who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and specializes, among other things, in constitutional law and legal history. Here's what he had to say about what to expect over the next few weeks.
VICE: So Obama is still living at the White House for a couple more months. Has he totally exhausted his ability to take action on key issues like immigration, climate change, and gun control, where he and Trump differ wildly? He can't pass anything through a Republican Congress, but could he take some executive actions?
Professor Mark Tushnet: As a formal matter, no, he hasn't exhausted his authority until noon on January 20 next year. As a practical political matter, of course, it's very unlikely he'll be able to do anything substantial during that period because he could do it, and President Trump on the 21st could revoke all that he had done. As a technical matter, though, he still has all the power that a president has.
Right, but can Obama do anything to impose limits on Trump or create obstacles for him when he takes office?
There are ways that savvy bureaucrats know to make changing decisions that have already been taken difficult. They can adopt emergency regulations, for example—which they can do more quickly than they would otherwise be able to. Or they can issue various directives to their subordinates that may be difficult to undo. These are all things that savvy managers of any bureaucracy know how to use. But, again, as a practical matter, it's unlikely that the president would want to do anything because it's more or less pointless: It makes life hard for his successor and would damage his reputation, which is something , which means the adoption of rules in December and early January of the end of a presidency. It happens some—it doesn't happen as often as people think it does. The rules have to be fairly well along in order to make them effective because there's a process they have to go through. That process takes a long time—you can't rush it in the next eight weeks. But if there are things that are nearing completion, they can be put through.
I should say there's a statute on the books that sets up an expedited procedure in Congress to revoke midnight rules, basically. It's been used only once, actually, but we have a statute—so the House and Senate both have to pass it and president has to sign it—but if we have that in January, then any midnight regulation could be repealed using this special statute.
How about appointees? Aren't some of the key players in federal agencies like the Department of Justice likely to stay on? And can't Obama appoint a bunch of people who will holdover in a new administration, like George W. Bush did?
Yes, there is a phenomenon that is known inside the Beltway as burrowing, which involves transferring political appointees into the civil service. Political appointees can be removed at will, but civil appointees can be removed only after going through a fairly elaborate process. Burrowing does sometimes occur. There are informal norms against doing it, but it could happen. What happens is you get personnel in place who presumably disagree with the new administration, but once they're in place they can slow down what the administration wants to do. But, in the end, they really can't prevent it from happening.
What about launching new civil rights probes at the Justice Department or other executive processes like that?
Investigations of various sorts can get started, and because those are conducted on the ground level—in the civil service—they will continue to occur more or less at a regular pace.
And if nothing else, they can be tricky for a new president to be rid of, especially if they involve sensitive issues like, say, hate crimes or Islamophobia, right?
That's exactly the way to put it—it would be tricky to get rid of it. A decent recent example is at the end of the second George W. Bush administration and before President Obama took office, the voting rights section of the Justice Department began an investigation of a Black Panther incident in Philadelphia. And the Obama administration Justice Department terminated that investigation. But it received a not-insignificant amount of political criticism for doing that.
So the president on the way out can impose minor and short-term obstacles for the incoming president.
Finally, how is the pardon situation likely to play out here, given talk of Obama preemptively bailing out everyone from Hillary Clinton to her aide Huma Abedin and Trump's insinuations during the campaign of jailing Clinton?
So I want to distinguish two things. President Obama has been exercising his pardon and commutation power quite extensively compared to recent history in connection with what he regards as over-incarceration of minor drug offenders. So just last week, I think, he commuted . Again, I think it's extremely unlikely—just because of the political controversy that would occur.
Follow Matt Taylor on Twitter.
Illustration by Deshi Deng
Spencer Williams is a 25-year-old music aficionado and occasional radio broadcaster with the University of British Columbia's campus radio station. He also has a physical disorder called cerebral palsy.
I've always thought of my wheelchair as a gigantic cockblock. It's difficult for me to put myself out there and take a chance on someone, because I'm always afraid they will form an opinion about me based on my chair before getting to know me as a person. Online dating has been helpful because it gives me time to process my thoughts and craft considered responses, but I still have little confidence and am always worried that I might say the wrong thing.
I first tried Tinder about a year and a half ago after hearing about it from some friends. I was blown away by how many matches they got—especially the women—and decided to dive in. Like a lot of users, I wasn't looking for anything too serious. I just wanted to meet some new people and maybe have a bit of fun.
I quickly learned that the more I swiped the more nervous I became. Getting a match is like winning a round of sexy roulette, and when it happened I would freeze up, palms sweaty with anxiety. I had no idea what to say. When I did start conversations, they never went as far as I would have liked. Mostly we talked about my broadcasting work with CiTR, a radio station here in Vancouver. Other times it was obvious my match was a bot.
Discouraged but still hopeful, I decided to slow things down. I realized that maybe a shallow hook-up wasn't what I was looking for. I began reading profiles carefully instead of swiping on every face that I found vaguely attractive. I hoped that if I was more selective I might have a better shot at meeting someone who would want to go beyond surface-level conversations. That hasn't happened yet, but I'm still trying.
In the meantime, I'm not putting all of my eggs in the Tinder basket. I'm also using OK Cupid, which seems like a better option for someone like myself. The platform encourages getting to know people on a deeper level than Tinder, and I think it's better for those looking for long-term relationships, like myself. When I began filling out my profile, however, my old worries about being judged and soon after rejected came flooding back. I was scared of putting myself out there, but at the same time I realized that that's exactly what I needed to do.
Today, getting to know someone as a person and bonding with them over shared interests and activities are the things that get me the most excited.
I know that it's important to be upfront about my disability. Running the risk of ruining something good by not being honest in the beginning far outweighs the benefit of receiving a few more responses in the short term. But while I have pictures with my chair in my profile, I still refrain from writing about it in my bio. It's hard to know when the best time to talk about it with someone will be. It's not really a sexy topic, and my conversations so far haven't gotten to a point where it needed to be discussed, but it is something that I will eventually have to address with the right person. When that happens, we will figure out the logistics together.
Disabilities shouldn't affect whether or not you get involved with a person, but I have to admit it took me some time to learn that myself. I used to think I wanted a girlfriend who was able-bodied. I was so fixated on the idea of having sex that I didn't really think about all the other great things about being in a relationship. Today, getting to know someone as a person and bonding with them over shared interests and activities are the things that get me the most excited.
One experience in particular helped me realize the importance of getting to know people for who they are, and how little a person's physical limitations matter in the grand scheme of things. A few years ago I went to a Green Day show in the UK while on a family vacation. I ended up sitting beside a cute British woman who happened to be a fellow wheelchair user with a spinal cord injury. She was very upfront and asked if I wanted to sneak into the bathroom for a quick fuck. I was shocked and unsure about how to react. I thought about it, but ultimately declined. Losing my virginity in a soccer stadium bathroom was never a dream of mine. Still, we had a great conversation and exchanged contact info. The next day she sent me a message apologizing for coming on so strong and said she wanted to get to know me a bit better. We talked almost every day for weeks afterward, having long conversations about anything and everything, and she even came to visit me once in Vancouver.
After her trip to Vancouver we decided that the long-distance thing was too difficult, but I'm not so sure anymore. My relationship with her has made me realize that I don't need someone who is able-bodied to be happy. Online dating is a double-edged sword: it can make connecting with people easier, but it can also keep you from seeing the person who is right next to you, maybe at a Green Day concert. Nothing can replace human connection, and next spring I'm planning to visit her in the UK.
I still believe that sites like Tinder and OK Cupid have value. They can be important tools when trying to find love, especially among disabled people who might have trouble approaching people in real life. I still use the sites, and although I haven't had much luck with them so far, I'll keep trying. I'm currently in the process of revamping my profiles. We live in a time dominated by technology, and so long as we can keep our perspective on what's really important, we might as well use it to our advantage. Nobody said dating would be easy, and there's no one correct way to do it. If you're like me and have a fear of rejection, I'd say put yourself out there. If you're honest and upfront about who you are and what you want, who knows what will happen?
If you've got questions or would like advice about dating and sex in the disabled community drop us a line and Spencer will try to address it in a future column.
The eternal babyface of Jason Kenney. Photo via Facebook
Well, it seems everyone's favourite bouncing baby boy, Jason Kenney, may be joining Kellie Leitch in bringing "Trump-style politics" to Canada.
While Leitch is doing her damndest to infect the national core, Kenney is allegedly doing it in the heart of Canadian conservatism—Alberta. Although, he probably didn't have to work to hard to rally the base, Albertans seem to have a knack for this kind of thing.
The PC leadership race is currently underway in Alberta and former Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, who left national politics in an attempt to unite the right, is considered the top candidate. The party just held it's annual general meeting in Red Deer and, it seems, shit got a little out of hand there.
When the dust settled the only two female politicians running, Sandra Jansen and Donna Kennedy-Glans, had dropped out. Jansen cited intense harassment both online and at the meeting as her reason for leaving the race.
"My social media has been filled with filth, my domain name purchased to direct people to smear pieces on me and finally, this past weekend in Red Deer, the final straw. Insults were scrawled on my nomination forms," she wrote in a statement.
"Volunteers from another campaign chased me up and down the hall, attacking me for protecting women's reproductive rights and my team was jeered for supporting children's right to a safe school environment."
She also wrote Kenney had brought "Trump-style politics" to the conservative heartland and the "socially regressive element" of the party has been mobilized.
Yay!
Sandra Jansen was chased out of the Alberta PC leadership race. Photo via Twitter
The usual suspects are attempting to normalize the situation. The sentient jar of expired mayonnaise that is Lorne Gunter wrote a column for Sun newspapers questioning if Jansen was exaggerating.
"OMG, say it ain't so!" he wrote. "Politicians harassed by their opponent's supporters!? Gasp! Politics polarized!? Oh no!"
Gunter goes on to suggest that while Jansen may have been harassed she may be exaggerating "in an effort to damage Kenney."
Kenney, for his part, has tweeted out that he "profoundly opposed to Donald Trump's candidacy."
While the only candidate endorsed by Harper has condemned the harassment, he won't directly acknowledged it came from people in his camp. However, Warren Mitchell, a Kenney supporter, both spoke to the media and posted some strong words on social media in regards to this.
"I'm a Jason Kenney supporter and she's not making shit up in her statement to save face," he wrote. "That I have seen that accusation on display from Kenney's supporters and official campaign staff is disgusting. It is a well known fact that Sandra has for months been a lightning rod for angry alt-right assholes."
Kennedy-Glans, while not citing the same abuse as Jansen said she is dropping out because she doesn't believe there is "room for centrist voices" anymore. Alberta PC party president Katherine O'Neill told the CBC they will be probing the allegations and "will get to the bottom of this."
Jansen has mulled over dropping out of party as a whole and vowed to fight this type of harassment from "behind the scenes."
Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter
