I rarely mix weed and alcohol—otherwise, I become more silent than a hermit crab floating in space.

But the high that results from combining the two drugs—known as a "crossfade"—isn't uncommon. Researchers, however, are still delving into the science behind this blissed-out state of mind—and why so many people seek it out.

Let's start with what you probably already know: Alcohol is a depressant, but in low doses it causes emotional release and lowers inhibitions. Marijuana is also known for its relaxing qualities, but can produce very different results depending on how much and what strain of it you smoke. So what happens when you mix them together?

The first thing to know: "Not everyone responds to alcohol and marijuana the same [way]," says Scott Lukas, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. Lukas would know: He's now done two studies in which he got people high and observed their reactions.

Read more on Tonic

On Wednesday, the scientists over at NASA are expected to make a major announcement about exoplanets—planets outside our solar system that orbit their own stars—at an afternoon press conference.

It's not clear what findings the agency is planning to announce, but earlier this week, NASA said they would be regarding a "discovery beyond our solar system." The findings will be released simultaneously in the journal Nature at 1 PM EST, around the time of the press conference.

Like the recent discovery of Proxima b, the exoplanet that's the closest to our solar system, researchers have been on the hunt for these Earth-like celestial bodies that could potentially have water or carry habitable life. Scientists believe Proxima b could have liquid water, due to its temperature, so there's no telling what else they've found on other exoplanets floating around out there.

You can watch the press conference via NASA's livestream below at 1PM EST. You can also tweet what questions you have about the discovery to NASA using #askNASA.

When some drones flew over the French presidential palace in Paris back in 2015, the country's military realized it had to come up with a plan to defend against small unmanned aircrafts that may be carrying bombs or spy cameras. That's when it hatched the most badass plan ever: train eagles to rip drones out of the sky, mid-flight.

In 2016, the French Air Force started a two-year pilot program where it began training four golden eagles—named Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D'Artagnan, after the protagonists from the Three Musketeers—to destroy all drones in their paths.

The training began at birth, when the eagles hatched on the wreckage of old drones and then lived on top of them during their early feeding period. This gave the eagles a natural propensity to hunt drones as if they were a food source, according to the Agence France-Presse.

Falconer Gerald Machoukow, who worked with the drone-fighting eagles, then had them chase drones in horizontal flights. Each time they caught one, they were rewarded with a hunk of meat.

The training apparently worked—at a recent demonstration at an air force base in Mont-de-Marsan in southwestern France, a drone flew up into the air and D'Artagnan was released from a control tower 200 yards away. He intercepted and pinned the drone to the ground in 20 seconds.

"The results are encouraging. The eagles are making good progress," a representative of the French military told the press. Another brood of eagles, hatched in the same way, has been ordered for the program.

Golden eagles are an especially good species for this military work. They have a wingspan of about seven feet, can spot a target from almost a mile away, and swoop down at about 50 miles per hour when attacking a target. Birds of prey also seem to naturally think drones are their enemies. In 2015, an Australian eagle was captured knocking a drone out of the sky in seconds without any training at all.

A tiny star just 39 light years away, a mere stone's throw in cosmic terms, hosts seven Earth-sized planets, according to new research published in Nature. At least six of them appear to be rocky and temperate. Some could potentially have liquid water at the surface, and by extension, the right ingredients for life.

"This is the first time that so many planets of this kind are found around the same star," said lead author Michaël Gillon, astronomer at the Université de Liège, who spoke to reporters in advance of the public announcement on Tuesday. "Looking for life elsewhere, this system is probably our best bet as of today," said co-author Brice-Olivier Demory, at the University of Bern, in a release that accompanied the news.

The newly discovered solar system has some significant differences to our own. Its host star, TRAPPIST-1, is what's called an "ultracool" red dwarf. It's only about eight percent of the mass of our Sun, and 11 percent of its radius. The seven planets orbit very snugly around this star: all are found within the distance of Mercury's orbit.

Most are tidally locked, so that one side always faces the star, while the other has a perpetual nighttime. (The researchers compared it to the Galilean moons of Jupiter, which are also tidally locked with their host planet.)

Read more on Motherboard

A federal appeals court upheld Maryland's ban on 45 kinds of assault rifles Tuesday, ruling that the Second Amendment does not cover "weapons of war," NBC News reports.

The 10–4 decision upheld a 2013 state law that was passed in response to the Newtown elementary school shooting, in which the shooter killed 20 children with an assault rifle. The law puts a ten-round limit on gun magazines and bans the sale and ownership of multiple military-style weapons, including the popular AR-15, of which the NRA estimates there are between 5 and 10 million in circulation in the US.

"Put simply, we have no power to extend Second Amendment protections to weapons of war," Judge Robert King wrote. Citing Aurora, San Bernardino, and Orlando, he added, "Both before and after Newtown, similar military-style rifles and detachable magazines have been used to perpetrate mass shootings in places whose names have become synonymous with the slaughters that occurred there."

King also pointed out that the 2008 Supreme Court decision District of Columbia v. Heller, which protects an individual's right to lawfully own a firearm, explicitly excludes the coverage of assault rifles. NRA spokeswoman Jennifer Baker disagreed with that argument.

"It is absurd to hold that the most popular rifle in America is not a protected 'arm' under the Second Amendment," she told NBC. "[The opinion] clearly ignores the Supreme Court's guidance from District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects arms that are 'in common use at the time for lawful purposes like self-defense.'"

Advocates for gun control, however, lauded the decision, and have called for the sweeping measure to be implemented in more states across the country.

"Maryland's law needs to become a national model of evidence-based policies that will reduce gun violence," Elizabeth Banach, executive director of Marylanders to Prevent Gun Violence, said of the decision. "[It's] overwhelming proof that reasonable measures to prevent gun violence are constitutional."

Point: 'Arrival' Is Poindextery Jibber-Jabber

The new science-fiction movie Arrival is about a linguist played by Amy Adams, learning to communicate with the UFO people who have just shown up on Earth without explanation. How much you'll enjoy it depends entirely on how much patience you have for movies that act like they're going to be about Serious Adult Stuff at the start, but in the end, deliver a half-baked Reddit post.

Arrival announces itself as a procedural, at least somewhat rooted in the real world, and it even walks you through its specific trade tools in a somewhat hokey but basically plausible way—by which I mean, Amy Adams literally gives a speech about pronouns. Then it tosses all that in the garbage, and takes a sharp left into pure mumbo-jumbo.

In short: The movie starts off as a particularly poindextery episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and then, with the Enterprise crew still not saved, it flips the channel to Qui-Gon Jinn jabbering about midichlorians in Star Wars: Episode I.

It's a shame Arrival is too cynical about the audience's intellect to ask us to really grapple with the movie's alien language. It's just a little bit of sci-fi 101 stuff about four-dimensional beings—the kind of thing Rick and Morty viewers can digest in 22 minutes, while also laughing.

—Mike Pearl

Counterpoint: 'Arrival' Is Optimistic Cinema in a Dark Time

Denis Villeneuve has often thrived on brutal discomfort, using his lens to show the audience unflinching and grotesque imagery that's hard to look away from and harder to forget. In 2009's Polytechnique, which vividly recounted the events of the 1989 mass shooting at Montreal's École Polytechnique, it was a pile of dead female bodies in the corner of a classroom. Prisoners gave us, in 2013, a lingering and utterly horrifying shot of Paul Dano's swollen, severely disfigured face. More recently, there was the grisly sight of decapitated corpses hung from an overpass in last year's Sicario, and the hissing tarantulas and disturbing doppelgänger mayhem of 2014's absolute mindfuck Enemy.

Arrival, the 49-year-old French Canadian filmmaker's latest, possesses an element of shock in its own right: optimism. The Amy Adams–starring alien-invasion drama is, unquestionably, the type of utopian sci-fi that represents a hard left turn, tonally, since Villeneuve broke big into larger North American markets with the effective, utterly adult sturm und drang of Prisoners. That Arrival successfully explores lofty themes—the immutability of grief, the glorious struggles of communication, and the culture of fear triggered by interacting with the "other"—in what could conceivably be called a genre film is only the latest indicator of Villeneuve's versatility as a filmmaker able to capably walk the line between mass-market Hollywood fare and serious artifice. (It also bodes well for his next project: Blade Runner 2047, a sequel to Ridley Scott's visionary cult classic set for release next year.)

Beyond the stunning photography and ability to draw commanding performances from today's top actors (as linguistics professor Louise Banks, Adams's turn is one of the year's most impressive by far), Arrival finds Villeneuve following a thematic thread that's run through his previous work even as he breaks from his usual approach: the struggles that women face when it comes to being heard—and, in the case of Polytechnique, achieving basic survival—when surrounded by men. Adams's character bears conceivable spiritual relation to Emily Blunt's steely FBI agent Kate Macer in Sicario: Both are valued for their raw talent and thrust into an unfamiliar and masculine work environment, where the fight for basic respect from their colleagues is nearly as tough as solving the problems they were enlisted to resolve.

Where Banks lands in her quests—both personal and gravely cosmic—is better left for viewers to see for themselves. (Arrival paints in broad emotional strokes, but its third act features the type of curveball that demands repeated viewings along with serious contemplation.) As trite as it feels to even type, though, it's also necessary to note that Arrival could prove a temporary salve for the pain, anxiety, and paranoia currently washing over vast swathes of the United States. Far from devolving into the type of loud, violent clash plaguing so many other alien-invasion films, Arrival instead uses its own visitors from outer space to train a mirror on the world at-large—exposing not only its irreconcilable differences within the myriad nations that comprise it, but daring to suggest that achieving a sort of global unity isn't wholly impossible. Sure, these days such utopian notions toward humanity immediately register as escapism in its purest, most naïve form—but isn't that why we go to the movies to begin with?

—Larry Fitzmaurice

Follow Mike Pearl and Larry Fitzmaurice on Twitter.

At around noon on January 9, Michael Feinstein was in a routine office meeting when the phone rang and someone told a receptionist a bomb was about to go off. The caller sounded like an older woman, though Feinstein, CEO of the Bender Jewish Community Center (JCC) of Greater Washington, DC, now suspects they were using voice-altering technology.

More than 300 people were quickly evacuated from Feinstein's Rockville, Maryland, facility, waiting around in nearby buildings as police swept the place for explosive devices. "We had to get people packed up and out as quickly as possible," he recalled.

Nothing was found, and about two hours later, the JCC was back in business, preschool classes, exercise routines, and all. Denizens did what they could to brush the scare off, but they weren't the only ones singled out for intimidation that day.

Since last month, at least 67 bomb threats have been phoned in to 52 Jewish centers across the country, according to the JCC Association of North America. The latest wave came on Monday, when 11 centers were targeted. That same day, police officers in a St. Louis suburb discovered that nearly 200 headstones at a Jewish cemetery had been ransacked in what appeared to be a targeted attack.

No suspects have been arrested for any of the bomb threats, nor that act of vandalism, though the FBI is investigating at least some of the incidents. And it's not exactly unprecedented for minority groups to experience violent intimidation in the United States; Muslim Americans have reported everything from verbal attacks to physical assault in recent weeks. Still, it's safe to say the volume of anti-Semitic incidents has rattled large swaths of America's Jewish community, especially given that we'reonly a few weeks into a new administration that has been criticized for its ties to white supremacists. Now the fear is that the climate for Jewish Americans, like that for other minorities, may get worse before it gets any better.

The bomb threats, according to some advocates like Feinstein, are "part of what we're seeing around the country, in terms of anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant types of language that we're seeing bubble up and really be expressed in ways we haven't seen in a long time."

This kind of environment is easier to deal with when you feel like the government is on your side. But twice during press conferences last week, reporters asked President Trump about the rise in anti-Semitism. And twice, he demurred, the first time by ranting about his Electoral College victory, the second time by berating the Jewish reporter who dared to inquire about it. A third reporter who asked a follow-up question was told by the president that some of the attacks were essentially a false-flag operation by opponents.

A White House statement issued following the latest round of JCC bomb threats on Monday did little to address the fears of Jewish Americans, condemning "hate-motivated violence" but failing to use the word "Jewish." For some critics, this recalled how the administration's Holocaust Remembrance Day statement did not mention Jews, the principal target of Nazi Germany's genocidal agenda.

Finally, on Tuesday, President Trump told MSNBC that "anti-Semitism is horrible, and it's going to stop and it has to stop." He also told reporters, "The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers are horrible and are painful and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil."

The president's delayed response has perplexed many Americans, especially because he likes to tout the fact that he has a Jewish daughter and son-in-law, and has been politically aligned with the Israeli right. But at the same time, Trump has advanced "anti-Semitic ideas, rhetoric, and personnel, and [is] opening a white nationalist space that has been important to his electoral and political strategy," according to Tarso Ramos, executive director of the Political Research Associates, a group that researches right-wing movements in America.

It's not exactly a secret anymore that Steve Bannon, perhaps the most powerful man in the White House as Trump's chief strategist, has been accused of harboring anti-Semitic sentiments, both in his private life and as the mogul behind far-right media outlet Breitbart News. And his campaign rhetoric—including that notorious anti-Clinton tweet with a Star of David on a pile of cash—didn't exactly quell concerns about latent anti-Semitism.

Of course, some Jewish advocates will take what they can get and appreciate Trump coming out against anti-Semitism, even if it took a while. "I'm glad it's finally on his radar, and he actually made a comment about it and spoke out against anti-Semitism and the bomb threats and bigotry in general," said Feinstein, of the Greater Washington JCC.

But Stosh Cotler, CEO of the Jewish social justice group Bend the Arc, finds the statement inadequate—and she's not exactly alone. Cotler told me that Trump and his administration are complicit in spreading anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and anti-immigrant sentiment, adding that it was the job of activists to "connect [the] dots" between different forms of bigotry. Specifically, Cotler cites the president's attacks on Muslims and immigrants, as well as some of his more outrageous tweets and retweets during the campaign, the Star of David incident among them.

Anti-Semitism has always existed on the fringes of American political life. But since World War II, Jewish Americans whose ancestors came from Europe have achieved a degree of mainstream cultural acceptance. (Jews of color have continued to face more overt prejudice.) But Jewish activists and their allies say that the rise of Trump is amplifying anti-Jewish sentiment to an unusual extent—even if, unlike Muslims, Jews are not being explicitly targeted by the administration's policies.

Watch the VICE News Tonight segment on how Israeli's settlement plans complicate the peace process.

More than 1,000 "bias-related incidents" were reported just in the first month after the presidential election, according to one now well-known count by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Immigrants were the most frequently targeted group, but the center cataloged 108 incidents involving swastikas and 33 that specifically targeted Jews. In a separate report, the SPLC said the number of hate groups had increased for the second year in a row.

"Over the last two years, we've seen a campaign that has blown horrific dog whistles to various ideologies across the radical right, and the effect of that has been to provide a feeling of legitimation to racists and extremists who normally, in any other environment, would be in the shadows," said Ryan Lenz, a senior writer for the SPLC's Intelligence Project, which publishes reports on hate groups in the US. "This has slowly percolated under the surface, and a singular political event has turned a key in their heads to make them think that [targeting minorities] is now permissible."

In response to the rise in anti-Semitism, the Anti-Defamation League—which reportedly experienced a bomb threat of its own on Wednesday—is calling on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to dedicate more resources to investigate the threats and crimes against Jews.

For her part, Cotler, of Bend the Arc, is planning on taking a more grassroots approach: Her group will continue to partner with and protest alongside other minorities under attack and was heartened, Cotler said, by the response of Muslim Americans like Linda Sarsour, an activist who raised more than $80,000 to restore the vandalized Jewish cemetery in Missouri.

"If we're concerned about having an America that aspires to democracy, inclusion, and human dignity, then we must rise up and see this president and his administration for who they are," Cotler said. "And we must hold accountable all of his enablers, all of the people who remain silent, who say that this is not their fight."

Follow Alex Kane on Twitter.

With tensions running high, the growing crowd of colonists, led by a black man named Crispus Attucks, surrounded the British troops, pelting them with snow and ice. Then one of the soldiers opened fire, killing three men outright and mortally wounding two others, including Attucks. Attucks, a fugitive slave, would be one of first casualties of the Revolutionary War.

The story of Crispus Attucks wasn't available to me when I was enrolled in the New York City public school system. I had never encountered his story in books and it was never taught to me in the classroom. It wasn't until later, after I dropped out of high school, that I first encountered him. I've always been curious about how black people have been portrayed or made invisible in history, and I wondered about other stories like his.

Last May, I took our VICE Labs film crew to Maple Grove Cemetery in Queens to check out a group of black historical reenactors called the Sable Soldiers of the American Revolution. The group meets semi-regularly to recreate historical events and "portray and interpret the Africans who fought in the American Revolutionary War." Over the course of the day, I was immersed in American Revolutionary war history as these men, mostly educators, saw it. Their reenactment was a powerful vision of black heroes and patriots alongside white ones, an unwhitewashed reframing of a history that's been mostly denied to us.

Maple Grove Cemetery is well kept, the neatly manicured grass strewn with flowers left behind for loved ones. There is no path, so I walked straight through a cluster of graves and into a makeshift colonial military encampment, where I encountered a smattering of canvas tents, antique lanterns, planks of wood, and cannons.

Ludger K. Balan, one of the lead organizers, was busy setting out folding tables in the "information section" planned for visitors. Balan, a dreadlocked man uniformed in a period-appropriate navy cotton jacket and beige knickers, told me he was dressed to represent the Marbleheaders, also known as the 14th Continental Regiment. I asked how black men went from ex-slaves to freedom fighters in the early stages of the war, and Balan explained that working on the docks, one of the few available positions to freedmen, lent them a skill set that was instrumental in wartime. "They knew how to work as a team because they were fishermen," he said.

The 30-something Balan has been on the historical reenactment circuit since 2011, switching out between colonial and Civil War-era garb. He sails authentic model colonial ships and spends time perfecting his technique firing cannons and muskets.

"It's the 240th anniversary of the Battle of Long Island," he said, invoking the day's significance. "We are the Sable Soldiers of the American Revolution and we represent African heritage [in] the American War of Independence."

Balan led me to a cottage so I could change into my historical garb: tan knickers, a puffy, Seinfeld-esque white shirt, and long socks that signified that I was with the 1st Rhode Island Regiment of Foot. The "black regiment," as it was called, was the only segregated unit of the Revolutionary War.

"One of my main desires is kids experiencing history in a different way," Crenshaw explained.

Photo by Andrew Maso

Similarly, Donavin White, a 54-year-old social studies teacher, grew impassioned speaking on the subject of his students. "When I dress in period clothing for the students," he said, "not only do they visualize it, but they see it."

All of this touched me. I'm a dropout, but I still know that public schools typically offer a whitewashed, Eurocentric version of history. Any other narrative becomes an optional lesson. I've gleaned more black history from the pages of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States and from going to Worker's World Party meetings than I ever did in school. Learning black history is like an extracurricular activity.

"I love education," continued White, who teaches junior high. "They're actually forcing black teachers out of public education, that is my belief." A scant 4 percent of US public school teachers are men of color, a statistic that correlates with White's paranoia. Overall, teachers of color make up about only 17 percent of the entire teaching workforce.

The 70-something Leon Vaughn was the oldest of our quartet. He gave an example of the miseducation he received growing up in Virginia. "There's a cemetery in downtown Norfolk called Elmwood Cemetery, and [in it] a statue of a black Civil War soldier," he said. "When he was a young child, his family moved to Massachusetts and this man became a part of 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment. After the Battle of Fort Wagner, he became one of the first black men to win the Medal of Honor. My high school was just eight blocks from that cemetery. I had to [become a reenactor] to find this out."

Photo by Andrew Maso

Throughout the day at Maple Grove, I received tutorials on the colonial way of life from my fellow black reenactors. The symbolic experience of older black men teaching the younger generation how to clean and load a musket resonated with me. In fact, I became so comfortable with the nearly four-foot-long weapon that I wasn't worried when I came across a trio of police officers underneath a small pop-up tent, who paid me no mind. For that day, the present state of hostile policing relented to allow us to discuss how black Revolutionary soldiers fought for America's freedom so many years ago.

During the lunch break, I ate out of a wooden bowl, enjoying a meat stew with onions, carrots, and beef. I built a kinship with fellow reenactors from different units, and the thrill of black people seizing our narrative took the place of preparing for real combat. I helped with heavy artillery, passing off a blank cannonball to be fired by a team of men. Our directions were first given in English and then in Spanish, in honor of the Spanish Colonel Bernardo de Galvez, who led one of the most diverse military forces in history, consisting of recruits from Mexico, free blacks, and experienced Spanish soldiers.

Photo by Andrew Maso

The day culminated in a military march to a 225-year-old red oak tree in the cemetery, commemorating the 240th anniversary of the Battle of Long Island. Immediately after the American Revolution, many of the black soldiers who were promised freedom in exchange for their service were instead violently recaptured and sent back to their masters. In short order, George Washington passed the Militia Act of 1792, disallowing all but "abled bodied white male citizens" in the military. It wasn't until the Korean War that integrated units were formally included as part of the United States Armed Forces. However, during revolutionary times, these units were commonplace.

Throughout the 241 years of this country's existence, black people have struggled to establish their humanity in the eyes of white America. Taking back our history has been a task unto itself, one performed over and over in any number of milieus, from making Martin Luther King Jr. Day a federal holiday to putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill to war reenactments, like this one.

"[As] a black man, seeing the faces of black people light up when they are taught their history, that's a joy. Old and young," said our elder statesman Vaughn, a gleam in his eye. "This is a hobby, but a rewarding hobby."

Photo by Andrew Maso

Messiah Rhodes is an associate producer at VICELAND and is currently host of Black Trademarked Photo Editing Software History. Follow him on Twitter.

It's no secret that the flames of racism and bigotry have been burning wild in recent months, particularly in the US. Donald Trump's presidential campaign felt rooted in prejudice and was followed by an election that has left a nation completely divided, and like many, I've had my own preconceptions about the residents of red states. As an Iranian woman, such preconceptions were rooted in fear. It's hard not to feel like the days of passive-aggressive racism are gone and replaced by a more aggressive sense of validated ignorance and violence.  

Prior to the election myself and two peers from Mexico decided to shoot a documentary of our experience visiting the South together. We wanted to showcase humanity, and to challenge our own perceptions and ideas established on media portrayals. After Trump's travel ban, stories poured out about families forced apart, people being detained and sent away at airports, and even Canadian citizens were having their phones searched by border officials. Despite my dual Canadian-Iranian citizenship, I no longer felt comfortable traveling to the US. We put the idea aside, and decided to wait and see exactly where the world was headed before putting ourselves into a potentially precarious situation.

Connor Sheets, a reporter from Alabama published our story on a state news site, AL.com. We had an engaging conversation about the intentions of the film, bigotry in America, and the devastating consequences of Trump's travel ban. Within minutes of the article being posted, hundreds of commenters were calling me a "snowflake" and telling me to keep my "Muslim ass" in Canada, despite the article clearly stating that I wasn't Muslim. Some went as far as saying I lied about not being Muslim because I saw Americans as "infidels," and my personal favourite, that the story was "fake news." I can't say I didn't see it coming, but that's what bothered me most. It's the predictability of the hatred that makes it hard to not feel defeated by it. Even though we only wanted to spread compassion, it didn't look like we'd receive much back. 

Canadian filmmaker Shadi Bozorg. Photo via the author

Seeing hateful comment after comment, putting the project aside suddenly seemed like the sensible choice. I realize that comment sections aren't always indicative of society's finest, but it still gave validation to the generalizations I was rooting against. We weren't looking to interact with extreme Trump devotees, or to expose racism and Nazi culture in America; we've already seen plenty of that on social media these days, and even within the White House cabinet. We were hoping for  the opposite outcome: thoughtful dialogue. I logged off, wondering if we would have even been successful in finding any Southern hospitality. 

Without expecting any good to come from it, I checked my messages later that night, and saw, to my surprise, over 35 messages from people in Alabama who had seen the article and had decided to reach out to me personally. Through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn I was assured by men and women of various ages that we would be welcomed, if not by everyone, then certainly by them. We were invited to meet with them, to discuss life and politics, to have dinner with their families, and almost everyone said they would help out in some way if it meant that we would reconsider shelving the project. 

Among the messages, Ellen Sullivan, a filmmaker, writer, publisher and lawyer expressed her sadness that the project had been put on the backburner. "If there was a quintessential time for you to make your documentary, reaching out to the people of the southern US—reaching beyond stereotypes, beyond the packaged characterizations of the news, beyond the attempts of the current political regime here to divide us—wouldn't that time be now?" 

Ellen was right. I realized that I had given into a fear-based idea because of internet trolls and Donald Trump's administration. Despite the countless hostile comments from people hiding behind  anonymous avatars, I'd received something that out shined all of that; the good of humanity spoke louder (and more eloquently) than the people who did nothing but spew hate. It has dawned on me over the past month that people will show up when it counts, but sometimes it needs to get ugly first. 

Right now, more than ever, is the time to fight against the things that tear us apart, and to find unity amongst each other. Despite this setback, I was proven wrong by people who openly reached out to me, wanting to prove that they didn't believe the misconceptions about us, and that they hoped we could do the same for them.

In the face of alarming, disillusioning, and at times even disgusting rhetoric of an administration fueled by bigotry, people have found the courage to stand up and speak up. It's essential that we find common ground with one another so the world can move past this, hopefully stronger than we once were. My short stint trending on a news site from Alabama demonstrated this to me. At the end of the day the trolls are just trolls; they are ultimately weak, and they will crumble when the compassionate people of the world come together to find understanding within each other.  

Lead photo by Dennis Van Tine/ABACAPRESS.COM

Follow Shadi Bozorg on Twitter.

Per-Erik Muskos, a small-town Swedish politician, proposed this week to allow all workers in the country a one-hour paid break during the day to go home and have sex, according to Swedish paper the Local.

"It's about having better relationships," Muskos reportedly told the AFP. "There are studies that show sex is healthy."

He's not wrong there. Sex has been proven to lower blood pressure, improve sleep, prevent colds, and even cure hiccups. But Muskos seems to think the designated breaks could also be a major mental health benefit and improve the connection between couples, as well as those who are still single.

Of course, Muskos is just one councilor in Övertorneå—a 2,000-person town in northern Sweden—so it's not like this is going to become national policy overnight. He was quick to point out that the plan isn't exactly foolproof, either.

"You can't guarantee that a worker doesn't go out for a walk instead," he said, but added that he "saw no reason" the motion couldn't pass.

For Americans who work so hard that they get balsamic vinaigrette all over their keyboards eating salads at their desks, this seems like the ultimate luxury, but it wouldn't be that out of the ordinary in Sweden, where workers already enjoy a pretty good quality of life. For starters, the Swedes work less than people in many countries, clocking just 1,612 hours on average in 2015, compared to America's 1,790 hours. Workers also enjoy 480 days of paid paternal leave, which can be divided between two parents. And even with the multiple fika breaks Swedes take during a day for coffee or snacks, the country has toyed with the idea of a six-hour work day.

For a country that managed to set up a hotline for the entire nation, state-sponsored afternoon delight doesn't seem too far-fetched.

Pettiness exists in all of us—even the most restrained and conservative of people have some part of their soul that screams, "Tell that barista to fuck themselves for giving you two percent instead of one percent milk." But today, ladies and gentlemen, we have a video that may top them all: and it comes from the centre of the world, Toronto.

In a clip posted to YouTube (and now widely shared on social media), an unidentified woman is shown sitting on an unidentified man's feet inside a Toronto subway car. The reason? Because the man, in violation of the Toronto Transit Commission's (TTC) own regulations on foot-resting, refused to move his feet when the woman asked to sit down.

Of course, aside from the fact that sitting your weight on somebody is literally never the appropriate response to being mildly upset about something, the real kicker here is that the video appears to show all of this happening on a relatively-empty subway car—with both the seats beside and in front of the foot-rest bandit being vacant.

But wait, there's more: the real icing on the cake is when the woman even says to him that she purposely left her seat to teach him "social rules." (Yes, this is the biggest, "Let me speak to your manager" moment in Canadian history.) This is where the real argument begins.

"Can you get off me please?" the man asks, only beginning to shake with the slightest bit of anger and disbelief.

"No, I can't," the woman replies—calm, collected, and ready to teach this random person who she'll never see again an important lesson.

This is where things get heated: the man tells the woman to "get her fat-self" off of him, and she fires back that, based on her own perception of the man's weight, he is fat, too. He agrees and jiggles his body, and she slyly delivers another jab.

"Well, I guess we're equal then," she says with a chilling tone.

After some argument about who "owns the subway" (no one person, obviously, but this video isn't relying on common sense anyway), and after the man asks if there's "a rule that says I can't put my foot on the seat" (again, there is), the man loses his temper and pushes the woman off of him with his legs. Stunned, the woman, begins to back away, and the video rolls on.

"Wow," the woman gasps, almost leading the audience to believe they're in for a moment of silence before the man angrily goes on a full tirade.

"I shouldn't have to touch a woman, but you put yourself on me, I have [every] right to push you off me!"

The woman then says that she was "just trying to explain" some social etiquette to the youngster, which then causes the man to yell, "Shut up," a number of times before clap-yelling, like a real-life Twitter argument, "I. DON'T. FUCKING. CARE."

At this point, if you're still watching the video, your anxiety is probably through the roof (how the cameraperson kept this vertically-shot video so steady is beyond me). Online, people have been starkly divided: some pointed out that the man was clearly in violation of TTC rules and deserved to be taught a lesson, while others argued that the woman crossed the line by physically putting herself on him.

To be fair, the TTC is prone to driving people bonkers.

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Look, I'm a simple man.

Born and raised in the outskirts of a small(ish) Alberta town and new to Toronto, there are few things in this big city that bring me any semblance of joy. Luckily, for sad people like me, there is the internet.

That's where I found the man they call Larry Enticer who, like a mulleted Perseus, takes his steed, an old-ass snowmobile, to the air. The videos of him doing so hit pretty much every pleasure centre in my redneck brain.

Yeah, that's the stuff right there.

Clad head to toe in denim with a mullet proudly blowing in the wind, Enticer is starting to gain fans in the Great White North—with some videos getting a couple million views. This came as a little bit of a surprise to the hero himself as the videos, at first, were just of him and his friends fucking around.

"I don't know the reason it's so popular," Enticer told VICE. "I guess, people have been doing this forever but just never taken it this far."

"I'm into it, though."

Look at this fucking beauty. Photo via Facebook

The Pegasus to Larry's Perseus is a 340 Yamaha Enticer from '79 that he's had for five years or so. He grew up on an acreage in the outskirts of Toronto, jumping both old-ass snowmobiles and motocross. Now, the 21-year-old is a mechanic for off-road play things and spends his free time in the winter building jumps to take to the sky.

"I've had the mullet for as long as I can remember," he said. "All through school growing up I've had this mullet and I've just never cut it."

The man in denim laughs in the face of danger and spits in the face of gravity—he and that sled of his are going to the moon.

When asked if, like Icarus, he is ever worried about flying too close to the sun and crashing down onto the unforgiving ground, he responds simply with "nah man, it's just snow."  Perseverance is in his blood, later today, the man in blue jeans is hitting his "world record jump attempt" again to make sure he can stick the fucker.

Ride on you glorious bastard, ride on. Photo via Facebook

Talking to Enticer it's pretty easy to see that this isn't an act—this is him—and that's probably why so many people, including me, take to the videos. They're not Tarkovsky but, for me, they're home. They're, in one short clip, everything that's good about the dumb, daring, and fun-loving nature of rural Canada.

"People just like the hair, me launching that thing as far as it can go and seeing what happens on the landing," Enticer said with a laugh.

"This is me, this is what I've been doing forever."

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Nootropics (a.k.a. "smart drugs" or cognitive enhancers) are basically the opposite of recreational drugs. You take recreational drugs to have more and better fun. You take smart drugs to do more and better work. In a culture already obsessed with productivity, you don't need me to point out that higher productivity through chemistry is, perhaps, not only unnecessary, it's profoundly un-fun.

Which is exactly how I felt about nootropics every time they popped up in my newsfeed. Like they were another stupid scam aimed at making stressed out stockbrokers more productive—or just another bogus nutritional supplement that none of us need.

But then I wondered: And what if they don't just work for stockbrokers? What if they can make people like me—creative types who write and do yoga and make art—more focused and productive? What if they could help people who are dedicated to evolving human consciousness evolve faster? My mind began to fill with visions of Bernie Sanders and Noam Chomsky amplified.

So I decided to try them.

Read more on Tonic

Check out Benny Montero's Instagram and Facebook.

On Sunday, we will witness one of the most politically charged Academy Awards in the ceremony's illustrious and complicated history. Not only has the Trump administration angered a large portion of the population, but, for better or worse, the films and actors themselves have polarized Hollywood. Race, women's rights, diverse LGBTQ representation, and the industry's willingness to sublimate sexual assault are all in the foreground this year.

With our current political climate, it's practically guaranteed that actors, directors, and other industry figureheads will take the stage to make impassioned statements—hopefully before getting played off stage. If we learned anything from Meryl Streep's Golden Globes speech, these statements won't just lead to countless thinkpieces and op-eds—they could possibly stand to be commented on by our own president on Twitter.

But politics have always found their way onto the Oscars stage, and in that spirit, we've rounded up a timeline of some of the most controversial moments in Oscars history.

1972: When Jane Fonda won Best Actress for Klute, she tersely accepted her award, saying there was too much to discuss with little time. Backstage, she expressed to the press her strong opposition toward the Vietnam War, as well as why she didn't talk about it on the stage: "While we're all sitting there giving out awards, which are very important awards, there are murders being committed in our name in Indochina. And I think everyone out there is aware of it as I am, and I think that everyone out there wants it to end as much as I do. And I didn't think I needed to say it. I think we have had it. I really do. I think everyone feels that way."

1973: Marlon Brando sent a young Apache activist, Sacheen Littlefeather, to refuse his award for Best Actor, which he received for The Godfather. She provided a summary of Brando's letter of explanation, which was later published by the New York Times and beyond. "He very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award," Littlefinger told the confused crowd. "The reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry and on television in movie reruns, and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee." The Academy immediately banned acceptance speeches by proxy except for rare cases of a winner's death.

1974: On a much more bizarre note, just one year later, gay rights activist and artist Robert Opel streaked on the stage while throwing up a peace sign during David Niven's speech. In good spirits, Nivens addressed the audience with a hilariously savage clapback: "Ladies and gentlemen, that was almost bound to happen. But isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?"

1978: Because of actress Vanessa Redgrave's open support of Palestinian Liberation Organization, the Jewish Defense League protested her presence at the award show, forcing her to be escorted to the Oscars in an ambulance. When she won Best Supporting Actress for Julia, Redgrave threw around some strong fighting words, which were met with boos and hisses. Mid-speech, she called protesters "a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums" and described their behavior as an "insult to the stature of Jews all over the world, and to their great and heroic record of struggle against fascism and oppression."

1990: Not all political statements occur on the stage, or are even vocalized: During McCarthy's attack on the entertainment industry, known as the Hollywood Blacklist, Elia Kazan infamously outed fellow directors and actors for having Communist ties. This swiftly made the iconic filmmaker a pariah in the community. Although years have gone by since the damages of McCarthyism, when Kazan took the stage to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award, he was met with mixed reactions. While some stood and applauded as per tradition, many sternly sat with their arms crossed. Others, like Steven Spielberg, halfheartedly applauded from his seat. It was one of the most uncomfortable moments in Oscars history, to say the least. It seems that Hollywood never forgets and rarely forgives.

2000: After Cider House Rules won Best Screenplay, writer John Irving thanked the Academy for honoring a film that tackles abortion—which, obviously, is still one of the most heated topics in politics today. Irving also thanked Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Rights League. "I want to thank the Academy for this honor to this film on the abortion subject, and Miramax for having the courage to make this movie in the first place," he said.

And just this week, John Irving wrote an op-ed for the Hollywood Reporter, urging Hollywood to get political with its speeches this year.

2002: Halle Berry was the first black woman to win Best Actress in a Leading Role for Monster's Ball. Because of this landmark moment, the teary-eyed actress naturally spoke about those who were historically rejected because of their race.

"This moment is so much bigger than me," she emotionally proclaimed, dedicating her award to actresses who, before her, failed to get the award, and "every nameless, faceless woman of color that now has a chance, because this door tonight has been opened."

Most famously, when her speech ran on, she (rightfully) stated that this moment was 74 years in the making, and she was allowed to take her time.

2003: Michael Moore has never been one to stay silent about his opinions. When he took an Oscar for his documentary Bowling for Columbine, the controversial filmmaker lambasted George Bush and the war in Iraq. However, he wasn't alone. Moore brought the other documentary nominees onto the stage, speaking on their collective behalf.

"We like nonfiction, and we live in fictitious times," he said to a heated crowd. "We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons, whether it's the fiction of duct tape or the fiction of orange alerts. We are against this war, Mr. Bush! Shame on you, Mr. Bush! Shame on you!"

2004: Following in Michael Moore's footsteps, Errol Morris made his own statement about the war when The Fog of War won Best Documentary.

"Forty years ago this country went down a rabbit hole in Vietnam and millions died," the iconic documentary filmmaker said. "I fear we're going down a rabbit hole once again. And if people can stop and think and reflect on some of the ideas and issues in this movie, perhaps I've done some damn good here."

2007: Politician Al Gore's important documentary about climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, won Best Documentary a few years later. It was inevitable that the subject—which, despite hard scientific evidence, is still denied or downplayed by conservatives—would arise.

"It's not a political issue, it's a moral issue," Gore said. "We have everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will to act. That's a renewable resource. Let's renew it."

2009: This year, LGBTQ rights was the hot topic. After winning Best Actor for Milk, Sean Penn, who played the openly gay politician Harvey Milk, discussed same-sex marriage—that at the time was still not legal—and California's Proposition 8, which reinstated the state's ban on gay marriage.

"I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren's eyes if they continue that way of support," he said. "We've got to have equal rights for everyone."

The film's openly gay director, Dustin Lance Black, also made an impassioned speech, telling "all of the gay and lesbian kids out there" that "very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights, federally, across this great nation of ours."

He was right. The United States legalized gay marriage in 2015.

2010: When The Cove won for Best Documentary, activist Ric O'Barry, one of the experts used in the film, held up a sign that read "Text Dolphin to 44144."

The Academy immediately cut them off by blasting music to force them off the stage before director Louie Psihoyos could finish his acceptance speech. However, it all worked out in the long run, because the brutal and unapologetic documentary inspired many people globally to take into account the horrors that occur to dolphins.

2011: In line with other Best Documentary Feature winners, when Inside Job director accepted his award, Charles Ferguson got heated about the movie's subject, proclaiming it was wrong that those responsible for the financial crisis were never held accountable.

"Three years after a horrific financial crisis caused by massive fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that's wrong," he pointed out right away.

2015: During the budding height Black Lives Matter movement and protests featuring "hands up, don't shoot"—which is just as crucial today—it was obvious from the start that if Selma would win, the subsequent speeches would get very political. So it came as no surprise that when accepting their award for Original Song for Selma's "Glory" (which lyrics even address Ferguson), John Legend and Common spoke out about what afflicts the black community today, including poverty, racism, and America's flawed prison system.

"We live in the most incarcerated country in the world," Legend controversially proclaimed. "There are more black men under correctional control today than were under slavery in 1850."

In addition, Boyhood's Patricia Arquette also went on to talk about wage inequality and the glass ceiling. As you'd expect, it drew controversy after she said, "We have fought for everybody else's equal rights. It's our time to have wage equality once and for all and women's right for everyone in America."

2016: As you probably know, 2016 was the year of #OscarsSoWhite, so it was already steeped in controversy. Even host Chris Rock addressed it at every chance he could. However, that wasn't the only political topic brought up that year.

For instance, when Leonardo DiCaprio finally won Best Actor, he dedicated his precious time to discuss climate change, proclaiming that we should not take our planet for granted. "Climate change is real. It is happening right now," DiCaprio, who is famously an environmental advocate, said. "We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters or the big corporations, but who speak for all of humanity."

In addition, The Big Short's screenwriter Charles Randolph ranted about big business in politics, saying, "If you don't want big money to control government, don't vote for candidates that take money from big banks, oil, or weirdo billionaires: Stop!"

Most eerily relevant today, The Revenant director Alejandro G. Iñárritu gave a speech about xenophobia: "I'm very lucky to be here tonight," he said as the exit music blared behind him. "But unfortunately many others haven't had the same luck."

He then quoted the film, which tragically deals with issues of racism, talking about how people to this day are judged by the color of their skin: "What a great opportunity to our generation to really liberate ourselves from all prejudice and tribe of thinking, and to make sure for once and forever, that the color of the skin become as irrelevant as the length of our hair."

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In recent months, migrants from Central America, Haiti, and even African nations have piled up at the US southern border, waiting weeks in makeshift shelters for immigration agents to take their asylum requests, since agents say they're overloaded with cases.

"There definitely is a crisis on the border just with the current backlog of asylum seekers… Parts of Tijuana, Mexico, look like Port-au-Prince," said San Diego–based immigration attorney Andrew Nietor. "Now people wait there about three or four weeks, and Tijuana is not of the economy or infrastructure to handle this. It's really at the breaking point."

But now the US Department of Homeland Security plans to totally overwhelm its southern neighbor with migrants—by deporting people who have entered the States immediately to Mexico, where they must undergo remote immigration proceedings. The new policy was announced by DHS in a memo Tuesday detailing how the agency will enforce President Donald Trump's strict immigration policies. Planned measures include targeting a wider swath of undocumented immigrants, expanding the Border Patrol, publicly criticizing "sanctuary cities," and prosecuting parents who send their unaccompanied kids across the border. But the most startling change might be the practice of deporting migrants to Mexico without a hearing, after which it might take years to complete their cases.

"They're going to be particularly vulnerable because these are going to be individuals not from Mexico, so they'll spend years in tent cities throughout the border region in a country that has not accepted them," Nietor told me. "They'll be unable to support themselves and easily victimized." Under current US practice, individuals remain in the States throughout their proceedings, often receiving support from relatives already in the country.

Watch this VICE News report on asylum seekers being turned away illegally at the US border:

Most of the individuals held at the border will likely be Central Americans who have fled Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador en masse in the past several years to escape record gang violence and to seek asylum in the US. But the Central American gangs and criminal networks extend throughout Mexico, putting deported migrants at high risk as they wait for their cases to progress—potentially, they might even hire smugglers to transport them back across the border.

"I'm sure the groups of human-trafficking organizations will be able to benefit from this because they can go to these areas and entice desperate people to find ways into the United States," Nietor continued.

Meanwhile, tensions would heat up in Mexican border towns, as unprepared as Tijuana is to handle the swell of temporary residents.

"This runs the risk of placing a strain on communities in Mexico and on the people themselves. If they wanted to seek asylum in the US, it forces them to spend four to five years in a country they didn't ever intend to go to," Faye Hipsman, a policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, told me. "Asylum seekers in general have already been subject to persecution, and there is doubt about whether Mexico can protect them."

Under the policy, migrants must undergo immigration proceedings via video teleconference with judges in the US. Hipsman and other immigration advocates told me that this will make it virtually impossible for them to present their cases.

"How will someone access an attorney or understand what's happening to them or the legal process they're in?" asked Katharina Obser, a senior program officer for migrant justice at the Women Refugee Commission. "These are really basic questions with no answer. We're already so concerned about how individuals are treated and screened at the border, and that people who express fear aren't referred to proper channels. Turning those individuals back to processing in Mexico augments those concerns."

Some details of the DHS's new preemptive deportation policy are yet to emerge. The agency has not specified whether it would pay Mexico to detain the migrants in waiting, or whether it would let them fend for themselves as they do now in Tijuana. The agency only explained in a Q & A Tuesday that it would deport people "to the extent appropriate and reasonably practicable" and would "work with the countries involved to ensure proper coordination on the safe and humane return of their nationals."

But the plan would in large part require Mexico's cooperation—and Mexican officials already have called the policy "hostile" and "unacceptable."

"I want to say clearly and emphatically that the government of Mexico and the Mexican people do not have to accept provisions that one government unilaterally wants to impose on the other," Mexican foreign minister Luis Videgaray told Reuters Wednesday morning as he prepared for a tense meeting with Trump.

"We will not accept it, because there's no reason why we should, and because it is not in the interests of Mexico," Videgaray said of the deportations to Mexico.

Christopher Wilson, deputy director of the Wilson Center's Mexico Institute, said the US could legally return migrants to the contiguous country from which they arrived, but he could not imagine Mexico agreeing to be the "waiting room for the US immigration system."

"The US can ultimately take people to the border as allowed under US law and put them back on the bridge back to Mexico, but Mexico does not have to accept those who are deported who are not Mexican citizens," Wilson told me. "We certainly get to a difficult point at which neither country is really accepting those people, but I don't know if the US will is to that point," he said, predicting the US would back off.

But with Mexico's recent quiet efforts to aid the US in enforcement, the country could end up participating more than expected, warned Amy Fisher, policy director for Refugee and Immigration Center for Education and Legal Services. In the past few years, Mexico has accepted funds from the US government to deport hundreds of thousands of Central Americans before they arrive at the US border, and agents in Tijuana have accepted migrants returned from the US.

"We've already seen collusion between US Border Patrol and Mexican officials at the border, so we know that is happening—maybe not in an official capacity, but it's happening," Fisher told me.

Fisher was alarmed at the implications of the preemptive deportations.

"There's a huge piece missing that acknowledges the fact that the majority of people coming to the border are in fact asylum seekers seeking safety," she continued. "We also know how horrible the conditions are for detention centers already in the US—and if we set up additional detention centers outside the US, accountability and conditions, however bad they are now, would be even worse in Mexico."

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The South African town of Dundee is best known as a tourist hotspot for history enthusiasts keen to visit the 19th century battlefields that surround it, such as Isandlwana and Blood River—both sites of historic Zulu bloodshed.

But this town of 35,000 people in the eastern state of KwaZulu-Natal is also home to the country's largest family-owned dairy, which participates in a pioneering scheme to use milk and other dairy products that might otherwise be wasted to address deep social challenges—including gender-based violence.

Established 90 years ago with a herd of just seven Jersey cows, today Orange Grove Dairy maintains five distribution centres across South Africa and competes nationally for market share with multinationals such as Parmalat and Nestle.

According to Jabulani Khanyile, a director at Orange Grove, while the company could sell dairy goods returned unsold by retailers in discount stores as its more famous competitors often do, it instead donates them to Dundee's local crisis centre, along with products that have not reached specifications to make them eligible for sale but remain consumable.

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While your cat might be trying to cockblock you, or possibly out to kill you, he's probably not to blame for causing any mental health issues, according to a new British study.

Some researchers at the University College London wanted to look into some recent findings that claimed to find a link between T. gondii—a common parasite spread by cats—and the development of various psychotic symptoms like OCD, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. According to CNN, the British researchers studied nearly 5,000 people who either grew up with cats or were in utero when their mother owned a cat in the 90s, and then developed psychotic symptoms in their teens.

The study concluded that owning a cat wasn't solely to blame for the development of these mental health issues, but rather more of a factor of living with too many people in the house or a lower socioeconomic status.

"The message for cat owners is clear: there is no evidence that cats pose a risk to children's mental health," Francesca Solmi, the lead author of the study, said in a press release. "Once we controlled for factors such as household overcrowding and socioeconomic status, the data showed that cats were not to blame. Previous studies reporting links between cat ownership and psychosis simply failed to adequately control for other possible explanations."

While T. gondii can still be dangerous for pregnant women and people with compromised immune systems, the study found no reason to believe healthy people would develop mental illnesses based on the parasite alone. In fact, nearly 60 million Americans are currently living with the parasite, according to the CDC.

Society has an interesting love-hate relationship with crooks and cheats. Obviously, nobody wants to fall victim to a con. We're wary of even answering our phones these days for fear of getting tricked. And yet we idolize the con artist, sometimes enough to let them go viral on the internet, as is the case with Joanne the Scammer, or that guy who scammed free Starbucks for a year. And sometimes we like them enough to elect them leader of the free world.

Inevitably, at some point in each of our lives, our generosity, greed, or genitals will get the better of us, and we too will fall victim to someone's scheme. All we can do is try to learn from the experience and hope the damage isn't too substantial.

We asked people for their most embarrassing anecdote of falling for a cunning ruse, so you can avoid making the same dumb mistakes they did.

My group of elementary school BFFs decided to switch our Neopet passwords as the ultimate sign of trust and friendship. One of the girls was so greedy about being the richest and best. All her Neopets were treated with baby paintbrushes and fairy paintbrushes (100K Neopoints per brush), and all her Neopets had really expensive Petpets.

One day, she took all my Codestones (valuable for leveling up Neopet stats for battle) by putting them on sale for really cheap on my shop and then going into her own account and buying them immediately for the cheap price. I knew it was her because a few of my valuable items suddenly went on sale at her shop for market price. I was devastated because, though I couldn't prove she did it, I knew she took a lot of valuable merch from me.

Then, months later in a forum, I remember this guy posting online about how he was going on vacation and needed a "babysitter" for his Neopets. I went to his shop and saw he had some Codestones. I got greedy and thought I'd swindle someone how my friend had swindled me. I agreed to babysit for him, but, in order for him to "trust" me, I had to give him my own account password too. For some reason, it never crossed my mind that someone could be trying to scam me, too. I gave him my password, and, within seconds, it had been changed. All my Neopoints were gone. All my valuable items were gone. He even took my Neopets' Petpets for himself.

I spent the next month writing angry messages to him and to Neopets corporate about what happened to me to no avail.

- Erica, Orange, California

Got conned out of £30 ($38) once, because a woman said she was stranded and needed a train ticket home. She told me a full life story and seemed so genuine. She had her backstory studied as fuck. Even had a fake nurse's badge.

I could almost taste the good karma, but the next day, I saw the same woman tell the exact same story to another person. She didn't remember who I was and actually began to tell me the same story about needing train money when I approached her. I lost my shit at her in a busy street.

- Andrew, Leeds, UK

A guy pulled up next to me and told me he could fix the dents in the door of my Jeep. All it would cost me is $100. I don't know why, but I agreed, and he immediately pulled out this wax compound and began smearing it all over the dented areas. He said it was "to protect the paint from cracks." After that he took this little shim device and slid it into the door's panel and started pushing it against the dents. To his credit, he was actually able to un-dent them a little bit, but it was clear that once I washed off the wax, which was just there to gloss over the angles of the dents and smooth them out, the car would look basically the same as before.

Once he finished his "work," I protested paying and told him that I knew he hadn't actually fixed it and smudged some of the wax off to prove my point. But then I realized I was alone in the middle of nowhere with two guys (his friend had come out of the passenger seat to watch) holding tire irons. So I handed them the money and got out of there. I tried to rationalize my cowardice by telling myself it was the holidays and I was choosing to give them a donation in the spirit of Christmas.

- Rory, Park City, Utah

My brother and I were on vacation in Paris and swinging by the Moulin Rouge. Right on the front sidewalk, we saw a large gathering of roughly 15 people, betting on an interesting coin game. A variation on the shell game you might be familiar with where you have to pick which coin has the white symbol from the three available after the set of them get shuffled around a bit.

People seemed to be making some money here and there, and I was following the white mark and guessing correctly each time, so I considered placing a bet of my own. The guy beside me asked me if I wanted to go in halvesies with him, to reduce the risk. I declined, as he seemed a bit too shady, and I figured I'd be safer betting alone. I placed a $100 bet that I immediately lost after a heretofore unseen flurry of coin movement.

I was 16 years old, in a foreign country, and blew my entire wad of spending money in just ten seconds. Only later did I realize that all 15 of them were in on the world's oldest and most obvious scam.

- Clarence, St. Louis

My girlfriend and I were getting ready to leave for dinner when our doorbell rang. At the door was a young guy, early 20s, with a lanyard around his neck with his picture on it. We get a lot of house renewal (windows and door) solicitors stopping by, so I was ready to tell him I can't afford $15,000 for new windows and decline his offer of a free in-home estimate.

Instead, the guy told me he was a convict who was hired by a company that hires convicts and gives them a second chance by selling magazines door to door. Yes, pretty much the same as in Office Space. He also told me up front that the magazines were crazy expensive due to the nature of running a business that solely employed convicts. The list of available magazines was printed on sheets of paper, rife with spelling errors.

Since I was a longtime Maxim subscriber, I figured I could help the guy out. I bought a $60 subscription to Maxim. I paid by check. He told me the processing time would be about two months before I received the first issue and left.

I never got the magazines. To this day, I squirm during the scene in Office Space. I have never renewed my subscription to Maxim. I'm still on the fence as to whether or not this guy actually did me a favor in the long run.

- Bill, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

My friend Sean and I were visiting New Orleans for the first time, and, on our last night there, we decided to do the touristy Bourbon Street stuff. We started with the "Hand Grenade" grain alcohol cocktails that come in a big plastic cups. These get you incredibly drunk while simultaneously branding the words "easy target" on your forehead.

After a few blocks of walking around, sipping our drinks, I hear a guy whisper "Gs for 15." I was fiending for some pot, so I took him up on the offer and gave him a $20. He gave me back a nug wrapped in brown paper with no change.

Soon after that, a big guy came right up to me and said "I bet you I can tell you what city and state you got your shoes in." As I'd purchased my shoes online, I figured this was an easy bet and took him up on it. He informed me that I "got" my shoes right there in New Orleans, Louisiana.

I didn't have any cash on hand, but the guy said he could take me to an ATM to get some to pay him for the bet I'd lost. He and his friend escorted me and my friend to a bar with a machine inside. The bartender immediately asked if the guys were hustling us. When we affirmed that they were, he had a bouncer come from the back with a broom to shoo the guys away. We hid out in that bar for a while, having a few more drinks, before heading next door to another for a change of scenery once the coast was clear.

The only other people in the bar were two girls. Sean struck up a convo with them, and they agreed to have drinks with us. The bar was cash only, so I went to the ATM in the back to get some cash. One of the girls came over to me and put her arm around me while I withdrew funds, and she fiddled with the jukebox next to us. What I didn't realize at the time was that while she was asking what song she should put on, she was also taking note of my PIN as I entered it.

We had some shots, and then they suggested we go to a more local spot to party further. They'd drive. I offered some of my weed for the journey, and one of the girls immediately took note of the packaging and said, "Oh, honey, no. Don't smoke that. That's dirt." I unfolded the packet to find clumps of grass and sod.

We all decided to spring for some harder drugs instead, and the girls drove us to a convenience store where Sean got cash from an ATM for coke. We picked up from a dealer the girls knew, and they started giving us fingernail bumps on the way to the "local spot." For everything else that had been going and was about to go wrong, the bright spot was that it ended up being actual cocaine.

Once at the destination, the girls dropped us off by the front door and told us to wait in line while they parked the car around back. As we shut the car doors and they sped off, we quickly realized they'd ditched us. Soon after that, we figured out they'd taken our debit cards, phones, and even Sean's passport (he's an Irish citizen). It would be a massive understatement to say that flying home the next day was a bit tricky.

- Brad, Pittsburgh