VICE publishes a lot of work on the state of criminal justice in America. In addition to exploring the systemic problems that have led to the incarceration of 2.2 million peopleperhaps the highest rate of imprisonment in the worldwe have given a platform to the people most affected by those problems by posting many articles from current and former inmates.

For much of this year, it felt as though America was riding a wave of public frustration at policing in this country and was on the verge of seriously addressing the issue. Protests and stories of excessive forceoften aimed at minoritiestook over headlines across the country. People were fed up and screaming for reform.

And then came the start of the election cycle and, with it, Donald Trump.

Criminal justice is still a huge story, but as we slip into months of endless election coverage, it's important that the media and the American people continue to shout in order to insure that the country's most marginalized do not slip back into the shadows. Now, in advance of the premiere of VICE on HBO's special Fixing the System on September 27, we've decided to leverage the entire VICE ecosystemvideo, editorial, ten websites, mobile, and printto focus on the subject of American jails and prisons and how so many people end up in them.

On October 5, VICE magazine will launch its prisons special, and over the next few weeks this page will be the hub of our "America Incarcerated" series, including work from every sitefrom VICE News to Motherboard, Munchies, and more.

Thanks for reading,

VICE

"When I first began dancing, Shoreditch felt a lot freer and more openminded," says stripper and activist Edie Lamort. "Social media didn't exist. Now it's easy to quickly whip up moral panic. People seem to be much more conservative."

Lamort is part of the East London Strippers Collective (ELSC), a group of dancers who've joined forces to fight against the stigma and poor working conditions that plague their industry. It's to this end that the group is putting on a ten-day stripping festival in October, the first of its kind in the UK.

Based in Red Gallery on Rivington Street, the Art of Stripping will involve an exhibition, academic symposium, workshops, talks, film screenings, pole dancer life drawing classes, and a program of performances. There will be a stripper-wear sale, stripping classes and, on the final night, a Tarantino-themed From Dusk 'Til Dawn Halloween party, featuring performances by members of the ELSC. The group is crowd-funding the event.

The festival will be a chance for dancers to take back some control over the way they're represented. As with other forms of sex work, people outside the industry are intrigued by stripping and are likely to have opinions. A popular format is this: journalist trots along to a strip club for an hour or two and reports back on their important and enlightening feelings, failing to give dancers themselves space for more than a cursory quote.

Few other industries are subjected to such regular fact-free outpourings, and the ELSC are sick of it.

"Stigma is increased by all the incredibly damaging media representations of our world, which do us absolutely no favors and make our work-lives even harder," says the collective's Stacey Clare. "I hope people go away from our festival realizing that strippers are humans, with creativity and agency."

ELSC member Sassy agrees. "I'd like people to realize the joy in stripping," she says. "I'd also like people to realize that the industry is full of smart, empowered women who just happen to use their sexuality to pay the rent."

READ ON NOISEY: The Beatking Guide to Strip Clubs

The festival will show stripping in a positive light; these particular dancers love what they do and will argue convincingly that stripping is an art form. Work by ELSC membersChiqui Love's bizarre, beautiful costumes; Millie Robson and Vera Rodriguez's photography; Bronwen Parker-Rhodes's elegant filmswill attest to this. However, no one's pretending that all is sweetness and light within the industry, that every stripper is or should be an art school graduate or that everyone in the industry skips to work each day with joy in their heart. A ten-day exercise in respectability politics is not the aim.

As with the media, so with the entire legislative framework in which strip clubs exist: dancers' opinions come second.

"Somehow, basic human rights and employment protections never made it as far as the strip club industry," says Stacey. "Dancers continue to submit to highly questionable business practices: club owners who bully and threaten us, sack us without notice, give us no contract of services at all, no job security. We have no recourse to take legal action against strip club owners and bosses because our current legal definition is 'self-employed,' despite the fact we are treated as employees in almost every respect."

Strippers also have to contend with increasingly punitive decisions by local authorities. In Hackney, where the festival will take place, the council has imposed a nil limit policymuch the same as its policy on night clubsmeaning no new sexual entertainment venues will be granted licenses and existing ones may be turned down when they apply for renewal. This, despite the fact that more than two-thirds of local residents were against the plan.

A spokesperson for Hackney Council told VICE that the stripping festival has been allowed to go ahead as it's an "art event" and because it will only take place for ten days.

"It's an artistic event, so there wouldn't be any reason for us to stop that," the spokesperson said. "They wouldn't be able carry it out on a regular basis, but legislation does allow for limited number of strip tease events under these circumstances."

The ELSC question the council's stance.

"The nil policy pushes strip clubs further to the edges of social acceptability, leaving us more vulnerable and marginalized than before," Stacey says. "I'd like the council to realize that and engage in genuine dialogue with us about how licensing could be improved to protect us, rather than creating a situation where strip clubs are a perceived hazard which the rest of society must be protected from."

Related: Watch VICE's film about the superstar strippers of ATL in 'Atlanta: Strip City'

Like bars and clubs, strip clubs are being targeted on the grounds of causing noise and anti-social behavior, although studies suggest that takeaways are more frequently seen as a source of nuisance. If there is a moral agenda at work, the ELSC hope that their festival will chip away at it. Lamort sees the clamp-down on strip clubs as a part of wider intolerance.

"There's value in subcultures and a need for creative space," she says. "The East End strip pubs were unique in the fact that the emphasis was on stage shows and the focus was on performance and costume. This fed massively into the neo-burlesque and burgeoning pole scene at the beginning of the millennium. It's vital for subcultures to exist, to nurture the next thing in art, dance, music, and fashion."

The Art of Stripping exhibition will open with a private viewing on Thursday, October 22, and will remain open to the public until Saturday, October 31. You can help support the event here.

Follow Frankie Mullin on Twitter.

Now, how are you gonna punch a sweet little thing like this? Photo via Flickr user Tambako the Jaguar

Read: The Strange Case of the Oklahoma Woman Who Dismembered a Corpse at a Funeral

A badass Vancouver Island dad socked a cougar right in the face after it pounced out of the bushes and tried to run off with his two-year-old daughter in its jaws yesterday.

Travis Nielsen said he was relaxing in his Vancouver Island backyard with his family when the cougar burst from the shrubs and bit into his daughter Bree, which prompted the no-bullshit dad to hop into action.

"It came up behind her, jumped on her back and had her head in its mouth," he said. "All I remember is seeing its eyes and not really comprehending what it was that grabbed her."

"I grabbed her with one hand by the shirt and I struck," he said.

Travis' wife Andrea said they originally thought the feral cat was a dog before realizing that it was indeed a cougar.

According to Nielsen, the catwhich dropped the kid and ran off after taking the punchleft some small flesh wounds on the child, but no serious injuries.

"She was crying but she's OK," said Nielsen. "She's got some small puncture wounds just above her right ear, one on her back and then a couple on her chest."

The dad, reportedly fired up from his encounter with the island beast, chased the cougar into the forest after telling it to "get out of here" and didn't stop his onslaught until the cat was long gone.

Following the incident, conservation officials on the island sent out a team armed with traps and a pack of bloodhounds to track down the animal, which was eventually caught and put down.

They also apparently searched the area for other "big cats," according to the Vancouver Sun.

The family says that they are shaken after "an intense day." No word on whether the dad will go on to fight other large animals in the future.

Follow Jake Kivanc on Twitter.

All photos by the author.

Every year the New York Art Book Fair stuffs itself inside of Queens' MoMA PS1, and every year I go and give it all my money. This year was no exception. PS1 is a museum that was once a school, and the NYABF is a big craft fair full of ridiculous objects both beautiful and stupid. I went to the preview on Thursday, and again for its final day on Sunday. Here's my account of how that went.

The most interesting and least overwhelming part of the book fair is always the zine tent near the entrance to the museum.

Here is Anne Ishii who helps run Massive, a company that releases books, comics, clothing, and Fleshlights depicting the Japanese bear pinup and porn drawn by Gengoroh Tagame. She is presenting a manko sticker from a new publication of hers called What Is Obscenity by Rokudenashiko, the Japanese artist who made the vagina kayak and tries to de-stigmatize vagina imagery in Japan, a place where there is a yearly penis festival parade.

This is Jean Paul's table. Good spread of things.

As with last year, all the gay-interest zinesters were relegated to one aisle of the zine tent. In some ways, it seems like ghettoization, but I've also been told it's positive since the zinesters all get to know each other better and build stronger bonds.

Hank Wood and the Hammerheads shared a table with photographer Alexis Gross and had some real good stuff.

Heather Benjamin always has the goods. She pushes the celebration of how gross and beautiful women can be all at once. She also does regular illustrations for VICE.

Killer Acid is one of the many people redrawing familiar children's cartoons but recontextualizing them to be about drugs and stuff, but he's the only one who's actually any good at it. Everyone else is just making bad bootleg merchandise in small quantities.

And then the Thursday night press preview ended, and everyone was ushered out of the school-y museum.

I returned on Sunday to get a better look at the NYABF and saw that this year they've stationed Porta-Potties outside the museum. If I had known, I would have brought a little folding table and set up a table of my goods in one. Next year.

This is Julie Ok, the proud and organizational magazine and bookstore matron who carefully maintains and controls PS1's regularly sold books and magazines. She is very quietly playing a major role in the world of art publications, a very major and quiet role.

At this point, the NYABF becomes like an overwhelming choose-your-own-adventure book. You can either go into the big igloo, the giant building behind it, or the couple of nooks in the concrete wall to the right.

I elected to venture into the igloo, which had a small Paper Rad retrospective going on. Ben Jones didn't show up though.

I asked all the tablets to hold up their best thing. Here are some people holding up a hardcover collection of the Paper Rad zines.

The Ditto Press table was all photo books of amateur nudes and metalhead trash and stuff. Same old stuff.

The Hamburger Eyes table was pretty strong for photo books and zines. They had a Sandy Kim thing that was too expensive and other great shit. There's something about the way Hamburger Eyes does stuff that feels less voyeuristic than other photo scum zines.

This isn't a zine-makerthis is famous drug-taker, Hamilton "Hambone" Morris. Hamilton is a longtime VICE pal. We talked about drugs and zines.

Deadbeat Club had a lot of really good photo zines, but this is maybe the most covetous book I saw at the whole fair. Everyone saw this and wanted it if they knew what it was. I bought a $10 Ed Templeton zine instead of this one.

These guys rejected the whole table thing and set up a charming campsite. I can't tell what's genuinely cute or cloying anymore. I didn't feel like bending down to pick up books though.

I exited the giant zine igloo and got one of three lunch items for sale at M. Wells, the stellar eatery inside PS1. The pt de campagne turned out to be a pork pt, a javelin of bread, a pile of teeny pickles, and a little pitcher's mound of mustard. My deconstructed sandwich was amazing.

On the Creators Project: How Anonymous Tinder Nudes Became This Artist's Muses

Finally, inside the giant brick building that is the most of PS1, I wandered around with my sister until we lost each other. There was a Marcel Dzama four-minute short film playing on loop.

Kayrock Printing has been doing a great series of $40 art prints. Look there's one from me, Nick Gazin.

This is Harper Levine holding up his favorite book he was displaying. He runs Harper's Books in East Hampton and had some real fancy shit on display,

Harper had the basics of fancy art-book ownership. I always think that painting a Mickey Mouse on your face is a cool move.

I feel like every expensive book dealer has at least one old book about skinhead culture, and they are usually boring.

VICE is looking inside America's prison system in the week leading up to our Special Report with President Obama for HBO. Tune in Sunday, September 27 at 9 PM EST to see his historic first-ever presidential visit to a federal prison.

On August 11,1987, I stepped out of the elevator and began walking toward my condo on KeyBiscayne. I saw three unfamiliar men loitering near the front door. They woredark blue jackets and baseball caps, their eyes boring into me as I approached.

"What's yourname?" one of the men barked; he spoke like someone who got answers to his questions.

"I'm MichaelSantos."

On cue, the three men pulled handguns and pointed them at my head. "You're under arrest! Handsup. Face the wall." One of the guys quickly stepped behind me to lock my wristsin cuffs and frisk me.

I knew my timehad come. I was 23 years old, and for the past two years I'd been leading ascheme to distribute cocaine. I co-opted friends from high school in Seattle.They flew to Miami to retrieve multiple-kilogram quantities that I'd purchased.In rented cars, they drove the cocaine back to Seattle and distributed it toclients at my direction. Foolishly, I deluded myself into believing that aslong as I didn't handle the cocaine directly, I'd never be caught.

I was wrong.

"You know we'lllet you out and go home if you cooperate with us, introduce us to yoursupplier," one DEA agent told me.

I sat silently,ignoring the agents' efforts to flip me. It wasn't that I considered myself a hardenedcriminal. I was simply foolish, not understanding the magnitude of problemsthat I was confronting.

"You've beenindicted for leading a continuing criminal enterprise."

I'd never beenincarcerated before. When we drove off the island paradise of Key Biscayne andinto the seedier parts of downtown Miami, I wondered what was coming my way.Trying to remain stoic, I waited to see how the process would unfold.

"You're facing lifein prison, without parole. Think you can handle it?"

The threatdidn't make sense to me. Everyone involved in my case was a consenting adultand no one had used weapons or violence. As the agents spoke, I looked out thewindow, convincing myself that they were simply trying to frighten me. At thetime, all I cared about was being released. The criminal defense lawyer I hadhired several months previously advised that if authorities should ever arrestme, I should keep silent. I hoped he could get me out, but inside I knew I wasin deep trouble.

Turns out I madereally bad decisions after my arrest. Instead of accepting responsibility andpleading guilty, I put the government to the test, forcing prosecutors to convictme after a jury trial. During the trial, I took the witness stand in my defense.A court official presented a Bible and instructed me to place my hand on it.Then, after she said, "Do you swear to tell the truth so help you God?" I lied.Essentially, I asked the jurors to ignore evidence from scores of people whotestified against me. Instead, I wanted them to believe me and set me free. Thejurors saw through my ruse. They agreed unanimously with the prosecutor,convicting me on every count.

In the chains thathad become familiar to me, I returned to the Pierce County Jail. The gates openedand swallowed me inside and I retreated to my assigned cell, thoughts weighingheavily and anchoring my spirit. The mandatory-minimum sentence was ten years.Yet as a consequence of the perjured testimony I gave under oath, there wasn'tany way my judge would sentence me to the minimum. Life without the possibilityof parole seemed surreal, but I braced myself for the possibility. Once Irealized that I could potentially spend the rest of my life in prison, thegravity of my predicament became clear.

While waitingfor my judge to impose sentence, I prayed. They weren't prayers to get me outthatship had sailed. Instead, I prayed for strength, for guidance to cross throughthe labyrinth that separated me from freedom. Those prayers led me to a philosophy anthology where I found the story of Socrates, the philosopher who lived morethan 2,500 years ago. He'd been sentenced to death and was waiting in his cell forhis execution date when he received a visitorwho revealed an escape plot. Since I wanted freedom more than anything, Iexpected Socrates wanted the same. Surely he would seize the moment and escape.But he didn't. When asked why he declined the offer to escape and spare himselffrom execution, Socrates revealed his reasons. That story led to mytransformation inside the Pierce County Jail. In a democracy, Socrates said, hehad the right to work toward changing laws that didn't sit right with him. Hedidn't have the right to break laws.

Decades havepassed since that day, but I still can feel the weight of that book on my chestas I stared at the concrete ceiling of my cell and the graffiti on the wall. Iclasped my hands behind my head and began to project years into the future.Although I didn't know what sentence my judge would impose, I knew that Iwanted to serve the sentence with my dignity intact. I needed to create anadjustment plan that would help me emerge successfullywhenever my term wouldend.

But what could Ido?

The Pierce County Jail in Tacoma, Washington. Photo via Flickr user Scott Hingst

The jail didn'tprovide any guidance. Guards told people in prison they didn't have "nothin'comin'!" Other prisoners advised that the best way to serve time was to forgetabout the world outside and focus on the prison culture. But I tried to tune this out and started to project into the future. Regardless of whatsentence my judge imposed, I anticipated being released someday. I believed that a timewould come when I'd return to society.

That hope led tothoughts about what citizens would expect from a man who sold cocaine during hisearly 20s. Could he accomplish anything that would influence others to see himas something different from a coke dealer?

Those thoughtsled to my three-pronged plan. If I were to focus on 1) educating myself, 2)contributing to society, and 3) building a support network, others would judgeme differently. Rather than rejecting me because of the serious felony crimes Icommitted as a young man, I would influence them to accept me because ofprogress I made while locked away.

That adjustmentstrategy carried me through 26 years in federal prisons of every securitylevel. While inside I earned a bachelor's and a master's degree. Then, Icontributed to society by publishing several books to help others understandprisons, the people they hold, and strategies to overcome struggle. Throughthose efforts, I built a massive support system, including finding the love ofmy life and marrying her inside of a prison visiting room.

I concluded myobligation to the Bureau of Prisons in August of 2013. Despite the 9,500 daysthat I served, my return to society passed much more seamlessly than anyonewould've expected. In fact, 17 days after finishing my term, I became anadjunct professor at San Francisco State University. During my first two yearsof liberty, I've been building a career around my journey, working to resolveone of the greatest social injustices of our times: Our nation's commitment tomass incarceration. It's a wretched system that perpetuates intergenerationalcycles of recidivism. In the series of essays that follow this one, I'll introduce you toothers who served time in prison. Those individuals will describe challengesthey faced upon their return to society after losing years to America's failurefactories.

As it turns out,the longer we expose someone to "corrections," the more obstacles we create forindividuals who want to function in society as law-abiding, contributingAmericans.

Follow Michael Santos on Twitter and check out his website here.

All photos by the author

Johnsonville, Connecticut is a weird place. Nestled in the town of East Haddam, the village was a prosperous mill town until the mid-20th century, when it was converted into the personal Victorian playground of an offbeat, mega-wealthy entrepreneur. It's now completely abandoned, and nobody quite knows what to do with it.

If you feel like you've seen Johnsonville before, that's because you might have. It was featured in the music video for Billy Joel's 1993 hit "The River of Dreams," as well as parts of the 2014 movieFreedom,starring Cuba Gooding Jr., were filmed there as well. In the 2014 horror movieDeep In the Darkness, Johnsonville is featured as a creepy small town whose locals harbor a dark secret.

In real life, the village is completely deserted. From the 60s until the late 1990s, it was owned by Raymond Schmitt, a rich aerospace manufacturer. When Schmitt died in 1998, his large collection of period-specific items were auctioned off, and though Johnsonville was eventually sold to a hotel conglomerate, it's been unpopulated for nearly 20 years.

The buildings are still there. Inside Gilead Chapel, skeletal remains of animals who fell through the roof and died trying to claw out of the building remain scattered on the floor. From across the green, rows of wooden desks sit empty in a schoolhouse. Overgrown vines crawl up the side of the homestead across the road, which once belonged to Emory Johnson, the owner of the now-defunct mill. A lone chair sits on the front porch. The fence around it reads, "village closed to the public."

At this point, the people who live around Johnsonville seem sick of outsiders. "It's nonstop. A lot of weird ass people. These ghost gangs. It's just all different people," said Mike Dirgo, the Johnsonville caretaker, who shows me around.

A friendly guy with a mustache, Dirgo has been tending the grounds for about 12 years. There are rumors that the village's buildings are haunted, Dirgo said, but people might just be seeing him. "You get people that are stopped out on the road taking pictures and I'll be inside looking out and scare the shit out of them," he told me.

The uptick in trespassers started when the property went to auction in 2014, sparking interest in the odd little ghost town. The problem got so bad, Dirgo said, that his employer, Meyer Jabarathe hotel conglomerate that currently owns the Johnsonvillewas forced to hire a security guard to move on to the property about six months ago.

Dirgo was reluctant to give me a tour. "I honestly don't like talking to people. They motherfuck me up and down," he explained. People around town bug him about why Johnsonville isn't in better condition, he added, but said that it's not his responsibility, and anyway, the money is not in Meyer Jabara's budget.

With its mill abutting a pond and cascading waterfall, Johnsonville calls to mind the opening sequence of Twin Peaks. Surrounding the pond is a rash of woods, where there's a covered bridge overgrown with moss. Victorian-style street lamps dot the property. In the Schmitt days, a restaurant used to be here, but in place of customers there's just a sun-blasted can of Budweiser that looks like it's been there since the 90s.

According to Luke Boyd, a Johnsonville obsessive who runs a website called Greetings from Johnsonville, Schmitt was a "self-made man of the modern age, and he yearned for a simpler time." When he bought the property in 1965, the original mill was still functioning. Schmitt and his wife moved on to the property, which at its peak fanned out to 100 acres (Johnsonville now covers about 62 acres).

When the mill was struck by lightning and burned down in 1972, Schmitt decided to restore Johnsonville to its former gloryor its former glory as Schmitt himself perceived it. He brought in structures from around the East Coast, including a clapboard "general store" from Massachusetts, a clock and toy store, a school, and the chapel.

Schmitt then began living out a rich man-child's dream. At one point he even bought a steamboat from New York and docked it at Johnsonville Pond. Although it was never a formal tourist attraction, Schmitt would occasionally open up Johnsonville to the public, or rent it out for weddings and events.

Things started to go south in the early 1990s, when Schmitt got into a dispute with the town of East Haddam. The New York Times reported at the time that the eccentric Schmitt was upset the town had asked him to apply for a permit to put in a large pond. Schmitt eventually tried (and failed) to sell Johnsonville in 1994. (The Times story notes that Schmitt may have been in need of some quick cash.)

Schmitt died just a few years after shuttering Johnsonville. Many of his sleighs, trolley cars, and furniture were sold off, and the property started to fall into disarray. In 2001, Meyer Jabara bought the land, with plans to build a senior housing community.

But that project eventually fell through, thanks in part to the economic downturn, as well as to problems with the development plans. A local newspaper reported in 2006 that the project was delayed due to sewage issues, noting that "the closest sewer plant is more than three miles south, and town officials say there's not enough land to build on-site septic systems for the size and number of houses provided." Penny Parker, a real estate agent who was responsible for the Johnsonville listing in 2012 and 2013, said the project was eventually deemed unfeasible because of "water problems."

"We saw a lot of opportunity there," Justin Jabara, Meyer Jabara's operations manager, told me over the phone. "Unfortunately to us the timing was not right, the economy soon changed. We chose at that point to really stick to our core business."

Parker, though, says the company is at least partly to blame for Johnsonville's deterioration. "To me, it's one of the most tragic things. It ended up in the wrong hands," she said, describing Jabara as "a man who has zero sensitivity to anything that is old or historical. He's a hotel operator."

Parker added that she believes Jabara's current $2.4 million asking price for Johnsonville is too high. The firm "should give it away to the right person," she said." It has to be someone with an entrepreneurial spirit, with a good vision, a good imagination."

After years of trying to find a buyer for Johnsonville, Meyer Jabara put the property up for auction in October 2014. At the last minute, a mysterious bidder bought Johnsonville for $1.9 million, but the deal fell through this past April. A bunch of people on Twitter have also banded together to try and buy the land. But at this point, Jabara still hasn't found buyer.

The property gets almost an inquiry a day, Jabara said, with potential buyers looking to put everything from vineyards and horse farms, to rehab centers and housing complexes on the property. "Right now we've got a handful of people at the table, which I can't disclose," he said. "They are serious buyers."

Until something happens, though, Johnsonville will remain a blank space on the Connecticut landscape. The place is like someone else's memory of a certain time and place: Raymond Schmitt's ideal projection of a past that never really existed.

Follow Justin on Twitter.

Okay maybe don't look THAT happy you got away with saying a slur, man. Photo via Facebook

Just wanted to let you know it means a lot that you apologized for using "Newfie" as a synonym for "stupid" in a parliamentary pissing contest with a pquiste 20 years ago. No, really. It was nice.

I'll level with you. I'm not going to pretend I wasn't miffed when I first heard about it. I mean I always sort of assumed politicians upalong thought we were stupid, but it's another thing to see it written out all formal in Hansard like that. Chalk it up to me being another Newf naif, I suppose.

I know our peoples have had their differences. We know you guys are still a little raw that the English pigdogs in London gave us Labrador back in '27, and we're still a little raw about that whole Upper Churchill thing back in '69. Quel frigging dommage, the lot of it. But dwelling on the past is a kind of living death and I'm willing to put all this behind me if you are.

I understand that you probably didn't see the harm. Newfies have been billed as Confederation's comic relief since day one and, although I personally don't care for the word, I can't begrudge a man for wanting to get in on the fun.

Despite what you might hear from some people, it's not equivalent to that other N-word. Lots of people wear it as a point of pride. I'm sure if you went into any two-bit tourist trap in St. John's or out along the TCH you'd notice that we ourselves are kings of the Newfie joke. Buddy of mine got a great one for his carit's this little plastic provincial flag you hang on your rearview and when you flip it over it's a mirror that says, "Newfie I.D.: Yes b'y, dat's me!"

Funny, hey? Laugh and a fucking half. That's just how we are, though: fun. Goofy. Jovial, even. Jolly and generous and simple, salt-of-the-earth people who love fee 'n chee and Pineapple Crush and welfare cheques and alcoholism.

Haha jokes! Always jokes. I'm just fooling around with ya Tom b'y. Can't have nothing with a Newfie, let me tell you.

But, seriously. No hard feelings. Let he who has not said some dumb shit in decades past cast the first stone, and all that. And it was a little cheap for the Liberals to dig this piece of Quebec-baiting up in the first place. The Liberals! It was never caught on tape, but I can guarantee you young Justin and his father shared uglier thoughts about us around the dinner table at 24 Sussex. And then there's Stephen Harper. Gentle Jesus. Motherfucker could care less about us and our "culture of defeatism." I don't doubt he's of like mind with Margaret Wente's quip that we're home to the world's "most scenic welfare ghetto."

So, look: As far as Mainland politicians shitting all over us go, you could do a lot worse. And if you've still got Ryan "the fighting Newfoundlander" Cleary on side with you even after Newfiegate, then your apology is sincere enough for me. I don't really care what you say as much as I care what you do, to be honest. So if your apology is genuine, just promise me that when you do eventually fuck usand you will, because all federal governments throw us under the bus whenever the interests of our seven seats run up against any of the other 331just be a little less gleeful about it than the current crowd.

I don't think that's too much to ask. I mean, we're not idiots. We're Newfoundlanders.

Follow Drew Brown on Twitter.

"Shhh, quiet. I can hear one my candidates calling Israel an apartheid state. I have to go." Photo via Flickr user Joe Cressy

It stands for "New Democratic Party," implicitly referring to democratic socialism, but today's NDP would hardly be recognizable to the staunch socialists who founded the party in the mid-20th century. The party has been quietly moving to the centre for years, and now even further right, shedding its former doctrines in favour of political viability. Some foolish idealists might ask Why bother running under the banner of a party whose founding principles you disagree with, but a little problem like that isn't going to stop the modern NDP!

Anyone who thinks the party's rightward shift began after Mulcair took the helm of the party, and not while the much-more-beloved Jack Layton was around, wasn't paying close enough attention. Layton, after all, supported the push to remove all mention of socialism from the NDP's constitution, a huge symbolic blow to the party's leftist bona fides. But Mulcair has shown a zeal for the project of strip-mining Canada's rich socialist tradition that Layton never did (he may have felt it, but he hid it better).

One of the most frustrating aspects about this craven rightward shift is that this is the first time in my life when politicians carving out real space on the left are seeing electoral success and widespread support. Common wisdom on the left for the last 20-odd yearsbut certainly not foreverhas held that it may be fine and well to advocate for left-wing policies and social change as a fringe political party or candidate, but any serious contender has to be willing to leave that kind of childish idealism behind. Reagan and Thatcher really did a number on the Western world, and Clinton (, Bill) and Tony Blair were only too happy to cement that impact on the left.

However, the past several years have seen a resurgence in leftwing politics few expected, even given the 2008 financial crisis and the decidedly anti-people, pro-corporation response of most major governments. Arguably beginning with Occupy's protest of the global financial order, bolstered by Wikileaks, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden's exposure of the state of mass surveillance in which we all currently live, and even deeper entrenched with the Black Lives Matter movement for racial equality, both longtime lefties and more apolitical people alike have agreed the system is thoroughly fucked from all sides and needs a serious rethinking.

Actual, old school, real-deal leftist Jeremy Corbyn just won the leadership of the UK's Labour Party in a landslide, even over the objections of much of the party's leadership. The Scottish National Party nearly swept Scotland in the UK general election this spring. The US election machine already having kicked into full gear, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is enjoying more popularity and viability than anyone ever expected. Earlier, Syriza won election in Greece and while we're all probably thinking of the party's spectacular implosion earlier this summer, that was because the party failed to stick to its anti-austerity promises, not because the Greek people didn't have the stomach for them.

The NDP was elected in Alberta, for Christ's sake! You can argue, justifiably, that the Alberta NDP is no collection of Marxists and Trotskyites hell-bent on nationalizing everything they touch, or that their election was more a response to the Progressive Conservatives' decades of shitty reign than about the NDP itself, but the fact remains. The political winds are blowing as far left as they have any time in the last few decades, and instead of seizing on that fact and using it to his advantage, Mulcair is acting like it's 2004.

It's been during the current election cycle, when Mulcair and the NDP as a whole can practically smell the PMO (it smells like musty old white men and long-congealed whisky farts), that the behind-the-scenes centre-right shift has come to the fore. Electoral polls across the board show a tight race with the Liberals, Conservatives, and NDP all with a nearly equal chance of forming government after Oct. 19.

To ensure that happens, Mulcair has boldly promised to immediately balance the budget. Even in the best of times, leftist economics calls for a generous social safety net and the deficit spending that sometimes accompanies that. But we aren't in the best of times, we're in a recession, and even centrists and some conservatives don't think balancing the budget is a good idea when the economy is shitty. Mulcair's ongoing effort to purge the party of pro-Palestinian voices has clearly been an effort to pull voters from the right, especially considering the import the Conservative Party has placed on aggressively supporting Israel. He's promised, in a time of almost unprecedented scrutiny of policing and how it impacts vulnerable citizens, to spend more money on "boots on the ground" to fight crime, rather than devote it to fighting poverty and the racial issues so intertwined therewith; the NDP has even taken to criticizing the Tories for cutting the defence budget.

The party has committed to a bump in the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, which sounds progressive until you realize that the federal minimum wage will impact only federal employees, most of whom already make more than $15 per hour. The retail and service-industry workers who make up a stunningly large proportion of minimum-wage earners (and of workers) would be left out of this increase, as they are the provinces' domain.

The socialist caucus of the NDP is finally angry enough about Mulcair's anything-to-get-elected approach to politics that they're letting it be known, as evidenced by a recent Globe and Mail piece about their discontent. What that piece fails to mention, because the socialist caucus itself is unwilling to say it, is if there is any alternative. The Liberal Party is doing its best to campaign to the left of the NDP on issues like finances and electoral reform, although it's hard to say whether that's a genuine shift or an attempt to grab up voters disappointed by the NDP.

As disillusioned as the leftist MPs of the NDP may be, they apparently still think asking for our votes and urging change behind the scenes is a better course of action than, I don't know, breaking off to form their own party? Offering to join the Liberal Party if Justin Trudeau promises to stay on his current leftward track? Publicly calling Mulcair out for abandoning real leftism in favour of getting the NDP elected? Demanding the reinstatement of the party's founding principles? Obviously any of those options would be messy, but mess is part of the fun of leftist politics. Call-outs! Playing out disputes publicly in the name of transparency and democracy! Splinter sects devoted to specific causes who later join together again for a greater cause after asserting their independence! These are all important and fascinating aspects of left-wing politics, and this is a perfect opportunity for the socialist caucus to stretch its protest muscles. The only problem is they're clearly cowed, and after a quiet sob of dissent they'll fall back in line. Perhaps this will all play out after Oct. 19 if the NDP is elected (although it seems unlikely).

Given the global shift in support for real left-wing politics, from economic, policing, and immigration policies to a groundswell push for social justice, now is the best time in recent memory for a social democratic party to return to its roots and proudly carry the banner of progressivism. Instead, the NDP is running on a tired third way theory of electoral politics. It's a disappointment to Canadian voters looking for a legitimate progressive option.

Follow Tannara Yelland on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE Spain

I arrived at Hungary's border with Serbia in early September. The area surrounding the village of Rszke, where I stayed for a few days, had recently become a hotspot in a migration route that starts in Greece and leads to Central Europe. Thousands of people pass through Rszke every day andjudging by the interviews I conducted theremost of them come from Syria.

Walking down the railroad tracks next to some of them, it struck me that I could tell the stories of these refugees without showing their faces. Instead, I thought, photographing all the things they left behind could illustrate all that they're giving up in their journey for refuge.

As a photojournalist, I've spent the past decade covering routes of migration into Europe, but mostly those starting in Africa. What struck me in this case were the actual objects I found scattered between Hungary and Serbia: plush toys, medicine, boat tickets, sanitary products, food, and clothingall things you'd never find abandoned on the side of the street in poor countries like Mauritania, Mali, Senegal, or Morocco.

While a vocal opposition are keen to portray refugees as a faceless mass of economic migrants invading Europe to snatch up all the jobs, perhaps these photos help to demonstrate that many are the exact oppositethat they're people with purchasing power simply looking for protection.

Kalief Browder on a good day in February, 2015, at Paul Prestia's law firm in downtown Manhattan

VICE is looking inside America's prison system in the week leading up to our Special Report with President Obama for HBO. Tune in Sunday, September 27 at 9 PM EST to see his historic first-ever presidential visit to a federal prison.

On June 6, 2015, Kalief Browder hung himself in his Bronx home less than two weeks after his 22nd birthday.

It was the shocking end to a tale that haunted New York City and the country: As a sophomore in high school, Browder was sucked into the criminal justice system for three years without trial, sequestered on Rikers Islanda jail now synonymous with bloodshedfor allegedly stealing a backpack. He spent much of that time in solitary confinement. Suicide attempts, starvation, and violence followed, all later captured in a stunning profile by Jennifer Gonnerman in the New Yorker. Browder served as the city's eyes and ears for what was going on just off of Queens, as well as a jaded product of it.

That's what made Browder's death about two years after his release so heartbreaking: many of us watched the groundwork get laid. We were tied to everything that happened to him, whether we liked it or not.

But for Paul Prestia, the story of Kalief Browder did not end when the New Yorker profile was published. As his lawyer, Prestia watched the young man maneuver through the sudden glow of media attention, the permanent aftershock of Rikers, and the additional hardships of being a black male in a rough neighborhood. This was no ordinary client-attorney relationshipjust as Browder was friends with Prestia's officemates in downtown Manhattan, Prestia was visiting him in psych wards after subsequent suicide attempts and bouts of hyper-paranoia.

Prestia brought Browder to Brooklyn Nets basketball games, introduced him to his children, and invited him to office partiesall simply because he felt he needed to: He was worried about the kid's future. He had become Browder's attorney, his close friend, his older brother, and his counselor, all wrapped into one.

Speaking with Prestia in his office earlier this month wasn't exactly easy. He would pause while telling stories about his late client, waiting to regain himself. "Yeah, but, you know, he was such a good kid." It was as if Prestia still couldn't believe what happened, and sometimes I was at a loss for words, too. We would delve into Browder's aspirations, the potential he had, and once it got too emotional, too real, too close, we'd both retreat and start from a different angle.

"On that Saturday, my kids had a birthday party they had to go to. And I was like, 'Daddy can't go. Kalief went to Heaven,'" Prestia said. "Then I went up to the Bronx. And a week later, I'm giving a eulogy at his funeral and the kid's in a casket.

"They don't prepare you for that in law school," he adds. "To me, this entire thing was preventable and unjustifiable. It completely shouldn't have happened."

In a wide-ranging interview with VICE, Paul Prestia explained what it meant to be Kalief Browder's lawyera case he said changed his view of justice entirely (the Browder family recently filed a $20 million wrongful death suit against the city)and how the struggle of this one young black man has impacted the country.

Paul Prestia. Photos by Jason Bergman unless otherwise noted

VICE: There are so many intertwined issues with Kalief's storywhat's wrong with the system, how it impacts young men of color, and what it can drive someone to do. But I'm wondering first: How did you meet him?
Paul Prestia: One of his relatives that I previously represented told me about Kalief, that he was accused of a robbery, and he was in jail for three years. That was really the extent of it. Kalief had just gotten out. And I was like, that just seems impossible. So I said, "Well, have him come see me. Put me in touch with him." I don't think Kalief even had a cell phone at that point. And so Kalief and I met within a month of him being home, toward the end of June of 2013.

Was he a media figure at that point?
At first, it was just Kalief and I. He came in, and he started telling me some of the stuff that he started going through. Not that much, but enough to pique my interest. Like, holy shit.

But I could tell he was jadedthe resentment, the anger. What he had been through... it was just palpable on him. You could feel it. So I remember he came in, and he told me some of it, some of what he had gone through, some of the solitary confinement stuff. But he wasn't really talkative. We just met, so he wasn't about to open up to me. We filed a notice of claim with the city, which I drafted. Then he came down for a 50-h hearing, probably within a month or so. And that's the municipal hearing that the city requires once you file a notice of claim. The attorney asked him questions, and, reluctantly, he started speaking more about what he went throughbecause the questions were something he had to go through. And by that point, I had spoken to him a little bit more prior to the hearing Bloomberg. The mayor has done a couple of good things; he appointed a new Commissioner, which was needed. But the mayor comes out and says, "We send our condolences to his family. And we need more mental health workers." Like, really? Are you fucking kidding me? Why are you conveniently changing the topic? It's not about mental health workers. Reprimand whoever's responsible for what happened. Stand up and be a leader.

I think it's definitely shedding light on people in jail, though. Because most people assume people in jail did something wrong. Now people have some awareness, like, shit, 85 percent of these people are innocent, and just accused of a crime. They just have discretion to treat them like that. It doesn't make sense.

With this criminal justice conversation going on, and it seems like we're ready to have itit's been leading up to it for decades, honestlywhat do you think we have learned as a city from Kalief's death? Or, better yet, about the system that put him in this situation?
I think most would admit it's problematic, to say the least. People are almost always in agreement that there are too many people in jail. Absolutely. But jail isn't always the solution; there are other alternatives out there. I think people appreciate that concept more. People make mistakes, but they don't need to be in the system for that long. Especially for nonviolent crimes. People just have a better awareness of thingsit's not all about police brutality, law enforcement, and issues like that. It's the entire system. Just go up to the Bronx Criminal Court. Every day, all of these people have to go to court, sit on that line. They're not in jail, but they're going to court every month for a long time. It's a lot. For what? What kind of cases are they?

Kalief made it much more human for me. It put a face on it for me. It's just like, you still gotta pick up the pieces. Even after he took his life, we spoke about it for a week in the news, and then it was gone. I was talking to my friends and was like, "What the fuck? That's it. It's over?" We need to get out there about reforms. You need to pick up the pieces, and make sure people don't forget about it. It's at the forefront right now. Everything's almost led up to this. And his death is like the climax.

Follow John Surico on Twitter.

We tell ourselves that America is a deeplymoral nation, a nation on a hill. But in reality, we're global hypocrites whofail to live up to the image we hold out for ourselves. That's why, as a country, we can shame people who say racist, sexist, or homophobic things; and yet continue to cheeron Islamophobes.

Take Ben Carson's recent statements onSunday's episode of Meet the Press.The serious presidential candidateserious because of his polling, not becauseof his policiestold NBC host Chuck Todd that a Muslim was not fit to bePresident of the United States. How thisis not a statement that disqualifies himfrom presidential legitimacy in our supposed tolerant nation is beyond me. In fact, Carson's campaign has argued that these crazy comments have actually helped him in his quest for the presidency. According to his campaign, in the 24 hours following his appearance on Meet the Press, he's experienced an uptick in fundraising and more than 100,000 new Facebook followers.

But then again, why should we expect anything different? This is a country where a 14-year-old Muslim kid like Ahmed Mohamed can get arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school, because police perceive it as a "hoax bomb."

Since Ahmed's story has broken, a slew of public figures have gone out of their way to defend the police and their bigoted suspicions on the grounds that, as comedian Bill Maher said on last Friday, there are a lot of young Muslims out there "blowing shit up."

These kinds of responses are textbook stereotyping. The thinking goes: Since some members of Mohamed's demographic group have done something negative, it's reasonable to fear that Mohamed might also perform that same negative behavior. But this is wrong. Our country's fear of Muslim violence has overridden the increased acceptance we are showing around race, gender, and sexuality.

Unfortunately, most Americans who publicly make Islamophobic comments are not penalized in any significant way because somehow it's considered OK to be Islamophobic in this country. But why? Why is Islamophobia deemed reasonable by many Americans?

Islamophobia is a test of America's democratic soul.

At the basis of all of the isms is fear. Fear of others who you perceive as different. Fear of groups who seem to want tochange your world. The Islamophobia coursing through the modern American psycheis a direct result of the fear of terrorism from radical Islamists. 9/11 left a scar on the American mind, it changed all of us, it had to. Unfortunately, formany, 9/11 hasn't led us to start saying, How can we stop radical jihadists? Instead, we're asking, How can we stop Muslims? The difference between those two questions is massive.Radical jihadists are a tiny, fringe group of people who are currently actingto harm Americans and our allies. Like all serious criminals, they must bestopped. But many of these people aren't really seriousMuslimssome who havebeen stopped on the way to joining ISIS have been found to have purchased Islam for Dummies and The Koran for Dummies on Amazon.

But isms are powered by fear, not logic,and apparently there is enough fear to justify Islamophobia. Thereare the recent catastrophic incidents of violence that some Muslims haveperpetrated against us. There is the sense that Muslims are fundamentallydifferent than Judeo-Christians. There is the belief that Muslims areirrational and untrustworthy and monolithic and inferior and barbaric andsexist and strange. But all of this only works if you ignore people like MuhammadAli, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Malala Yousafzai, Casey Kasem, and Dr. Oz, and youjust allow radical Jihadists to stand as an avatar for all Muslims.

Watch the 'White Student Union':

There is also a sense that the Middle Eastis inherently violent and chaotic alphabet soup ofnations and terror groups. It's a region we just can't tame which makes it athreat to the American sense of global supremacy. If seeing America as theworld's toughest nation is critical to your sense of country and your sense ofself, then the Middle East must be quite frightening because it challenges thatnotion. Few geopolitical problems bring out the John Wayne/Rambo impulse morethan the Middle East. If only we just invaded more viciously, according toRepublican Middle Eastern policy, then everything would be fine. But even that cannot seem to quell the problem. (It was amazing to hearRand Paul say, at a Republican debate, that quite often interventionsbackfire.)

To me, our undercurrent of Islamophobia isoften a primal roar against a region that is aggressive toward us and yetunable to be tamed by American military force. The primal roar is: Just attack 'em all. Don't think, just bomb 'till they're all gone. But does that sound like abelief a moral nation would hold dear?

Islamophobia combines so much of what weused to get from a slew of other ismsit lets people feel superiority over brown,non-Christian foreigners. (It's like a new and improved ism with a built-injustificationif anyone tries to call you a bigot, just shout 9/11 in theirface!) But all of this is antithetical to who we are supposed to be as Americans. The concept of religious liberty wascritical to the founding of this nation. Article VI of the Constitution forbidsa religious test as a requirement for holding a governmental position, thusmaking Dr. Carson's assertions anti-Constitutional.

Islamophobia is a test of America'sdemocratic soul, it asks if we as a nation can hold in the mind two ideas thataren't really contradictoryone, we were attacked by and remain under attackfrom some people who are Muslim but, two, we are not at war with Islam andthere are millions of Muslim-Americans who are on our side.

If we cannot separate those concepts, thenwe have allowed the terrorists to change us into something more hateful than wewere before 9/11. The day we realize that Islamophobia is counterproductive and ignorantand racist, we'll be one step closer towards becoming that nation on a hill we're supposed to be.

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A widely shared photo of games critic Anita Sarkeesian, who isn't British, with a shitload of video games.

The day after the BBC premiered its woeful Grand Theft Auto drama The Gamechangers, its Horizon strand took a stab at addressing video gaming's (somewhat out-dated) public perception by asking: Are video games really that bad?

The answer, inevitably, and obviously to anyone who's played video games more than once since 1985, is no, categorically not. Games are great, and valuable to society in so many ways. But while the program was somewhat behind the "specialist" (i.e. that of the games media and associated communities) thinking on the subject, fair enough given its mainstream reach, it wasn't a bad documentary at all. And one of the stats the show served up, which might surprise those holding archaic opinions, was that video games are now enjoyed in relatively equal numbers by men and women alike, a fact previously highlighted by the Guardian, here on VICE, at Kotaku and on many other sites.

But you can't publish a piece that mentions this relative evenness without comments and social media feedback to the tune of: bullshit. Apparently there's a division between who can and can't be called a gamer, and weirdly that's dependent on what kind of game you play. So, you're playing a game, but you're not a gamer; and to some angry internet keyboard warriors, if you're playing mobile games, nah, you're not a gamer. And women, they just love Candy Crush and those freemium titles that stink up the App Store, don't they? Obviously. Not gamers.

We've all read words to that effect online, and when VICE ran a positive piece on how we're all gamers today, the amount of shit that the article's writer received on Twitter for daring to classify lovers of games that aren't Dark Souls or multiplayer competitive shooters as "gamers" was outright disgusting. Some people with way too much time on their hands and far too little perspective even made YouTube videos in a weird form of retaliation to the article. Really, guys? (And you are all guys.) Come on. Lighten up. Go outside. See a tree IRL. They don't all sway as madly as they do in your favorite epic fantasy RPG, honest. Some of them even smell nice.

I wanted to speak to some female gamers of Great Britain, who love the medium and commit countless hours enjoying it in its many and varied forms, about this nonsense attitude that "girls only play casual games," and more. So I did. And these are the women I spoke to, talking frankly about their experiences, in their own words.

Chelsea is in her early 20s and from Derbyshire

"I've been gaming for about 15 years, since I received Pokmon Red and a Game Boy Color for Christmas. I've been pretty much addicted since then, and have owned a very wide range of consoles up to my Xbox One and PC today. I was constantly introduced to new genres via my friends, and I love how video games take you to another worldand I think that's what keeps me addicted now. Right now I'm playing The Evil Within and I'm consistently playing World of Warcraft and Pokmon Alpha Sapphire. In terms of an all-time favorite, picking just one is very difficult. Through sheer amount of hours played I would have to choose World of Warcraft and Pokmon Crystal, but I also have a special place in my heart for Dragon Age: Inquisition.

I play online almost daily, and I do use voice chat quite regularly. I find that the voice chat community is not always welcoming of women, particularly on games like Call of Duty, which you would associate with the 'dude talk' type of players. I have been harassed in the past for being female on these games, and it does put me off going onto voice chat sometimes. I'm always surprised when I hear harassment these days as while it used to be extremely common when I was younger, I always assumed that the community would have grown up by now. I assumed wrongly. It can often be a lot easier to keep quiet if I want to just play the game.

I've found that the people who do act like that are quite young, or certainly less mature than other players. I also use voice chat in MMOs such as World of Warcraft, and I find that they are more welcoming, I've definitely had less people take notice of the fact that I'm female in thosethey are more interested in succeeding at the game.

A screenshot from the massively popular MMO 'World of Warcraft'

I think women generally have a harder time getting into games than men, and that attitude possibly comes from the way video games are advertised. It's quite unlikely to see a female-led game advertisement, particularly one that actually shows a female playing the game. It's certainly got better in recent years, but there is still a lot that could be done. I think it comes from old stereotypes too, like the idea that moms sit and play mobile games all day whereas men work all day and play video games to unwind at night. I would say I'm split on that opinion, though. I don't have many female friends who play 'hardcore' video games if you could call them that, but I also don't have many that play casual games either. I'd like to think that this is just coincidence and is down to my friendship group, though. My female friends who do play video games definitely play more 'hardcore' games as opposed to casual games.

My male friends around my age do not have that opinion, that women can't or don't play the bigger games; they're aware that women play all sorts of games. I find younger males do have that opinion, though I have four younger brothers and they definitely think like that, despite the fact that they see me playing many different games. Women around my age are definitely more interested in gaming than women in their 30s.

I think having more female characters to play as in video games could help younger girls get into gaming. I know that I was very happy when Pokmon introduced a female playable character. I think that a lot of the issues are attitude issues, with the idea that women just don't play games passed down to younger players who subsequently feel alienated. The way some males act on voice chat is obviously an issue too, but I think that's a much more difficult one to fix and there will always be people who act like that. I find that standing up for myself and calling them out on their immaturity can help, but this might be a dangerous thing to teach young girls and shouldn't be necessary. It could also help to have more female teams in online eSports tournaments, but I don't feel like it should be a quota situation. Perhaps more encouragement that it's a safe community is needed? Overall, I think both the games and the advertising of them need to change, but it's not a thing that can be fixed overnight."

Related, on Motherboard: Real-Life Sexism Follows Women into Virtual Worlds

Claire is in her mid-20s and lives in London

"Video games have been a massive part of my life for as long as I can rememberan interest in them was something my dad actively encouraged in my brother and me. My earliest memories come from the Amstrad and Mega Drive, and my dad letting me stay up late so I could play as Tails while my older brother completed Sonic 2 for the first time. I'm not going to pretend I was helpful at all; I probably spent most of my time telling him to slow down so I could catch up. After that, I got my own Commodore Amiga and played point-and-click games like The Secret of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle; the former of which continues to be one of my favorite games of all time and certainly one of the funniest.

I got my first PC for my ninth birthday and would do most of my gaming on there, either on PC games or with an emulator. I downloaded Pokmon Blue and was obsessed with the franchise instantlyI still have an embarrassingly encyclopedic knowledge of it to this day. Transport Tycoon consumed my life for a long time, too.

'Grand Theft Auto V' became the fastest-selling entertainment product of all time on release in 2013

I've always been a fan of massively immersive sandbox-style RPGs and adventure games, as well as simulation and strategy games. I took two days off work when Grand Theft Auto V was released. I restarted Fallout: New Vegas recently and have been playing that to gear me up for Fallout 4. My flatmate and I play Left 4 Dead and I also still go back on Skyrim every now and again, which feels like putting on a pair of comfy slippers by now. I've stacked up about 200 hours on there but I can still find things to do and discover.

Playing online was never really something I've become involved in heavily. I did play GTA Online though, and have dabbled in other multiplayer games on occasions. I tend to stay off the mic to save the effort of baiting 13-year-old boys then getting angry at themI get enough shit from men who think I got lost on my way to the kitchen at football grounds to hear it when I'm at home as well.

But I do think that it's so important for women not to be put off, and to keep doing it though, to keep challenging these stereotypes and fighting idiots who have archaic views on what genders should be interested in. There is a constant pressure for women to prove that they are allowed to exist in the gaming world, either by being great at these games or having an encyclopedic knowledge of them, or gaming in general.

That women play more 'casual' games than men is, of course, completely untrueI don't think that women like me are anomalies, we are more common than people think. But I also think people should like whatever the hell they want to like without fear of reproach. So what if some only play casual games? That doesn't nullify the other women who are hardcore gamers and it also shouldn't be something to be embarrassed abouttake it from someone who has played and completed seven different iterations of Harvest Moon, which was surely the main inspiration behind Farmville. It's such an elitist view to take. The gaming world should be far more inclusive and accepting but you can see parallels in any other hobby.

I think for some women trying to get into gaming it's just too difficult because you're constantly being pressured to prove yourselfsomething I also find in football."

Related: Watch VICE's documentary on competitive video gaming, eSports

Nicola is in her early 40s and lives in Yorkshire

"I've been playing video games since I can remember, as far back as maybe 10? I recall my friend having an Atari system and we'd spend hours playing those early games. Growing up, my dad built a Nascom and I've fond memories of buying computer magazines with games codes in them, coding line by line to create simple text adventure games. Later we got an Amstrad CPC 464 and I spent many hours completing levels in Manic Miner and Chuckie Egg.

As a teenager this enthusiasm waned a bit, as I was never allowed any of the fancy early console systemsI'm an only child by the way. But my friend who had a younger brother had them all, and we'd often go to her house, a group of us, and play Sonic, or her Game Boy.

I stopped gaming when I went to university and never thought much more about it, until I was on holiday with my then boyfriend in Sicily. I got badly burnt by the sun and had to spend a couple of days indoors. My boyfriend's brother had brought his PlayStation with him to the apartments we were staying in, with a copy of Tomb Raider. I completed it in those two days, and promptly bought my own PlayStation when I returned to the UK. I remember the guy in the store asking if I was buying it for a boyfriend or brother, and he seemed surprised and pleased when I said that it was for me.

After that I bought a PS2, and then an Xbox 360 after seeing my younger brother-in-laws playing Gears of War. I could not believe the jump in graphical presentation in that game, and I just had to have it, in the same way I had to have Tomb Raider. I got chatting with some guys at work who also had Gears, and the next minute I was buying an Xbox Live Gold account to play online. I've been hooked since.

'Gears of War' might be full of macho meatheads, but it's proved to be an eye-opening game for many players.

Nowadays I like RPGs, because they're like a really long novel to me. I definitely think there is more scope in that genre to have better represented male and female characters, compared to other game types. FemShep is my idol! I have a huge girl crush on my FemShep.

Have I had shit from guys for playing games? Oh yes. I've had all the standard 'fat, ugly, or slutty' stuff, 'How big are your boobs?' and so on. I've even had a picture of someone's penis sent to me. I've also experienced in-game harassment on Rainbow Six: Vegas, Call of Duty games, and Halo titles, been team killed repeatedly, received messages calling me a whore, and been told that I cheat. Though I take that as a sign that I'm pretty good at shooting stuff in the face online. Someone once asked me to 'clambag' them on Halo, next time I kill them.

I've also experienced scorn for playing games in my real life. My friends don't always get it, and seem to think I'm the butt of the joke sometimes. I don't think they realize how sophisticated games are these days.

I think the idea that women playing games is limited to 'casual' mobile stuff is ludicrous. In my experience, most of the women I know who play games, they play like me, in silence, or in party chat. It's not worth the hassle most of the time to engage in open game chat. And I play every day, for at least a couple of hours per day. My husband does not play games and cannot understand it at all. When the telly is in use, I used to move my Xbox to another TV; now I stream to my PC instead, or use PSTV.

I definitely think the current games culture is biased against women playing video games, but I don't think there are barriers for female gamers to get into it. To be honest, I'm of an age where I don't actually give a fuck what people think or say about me, so I'm not likely to be put off by any societal pressure on women and games."

Related: Science Says Sexism in Gaming Might Come from Crappiness at Gaming

Lucy is in her early 20s and lives in London

"My earliest gaming memory is getting a PlayStation One for Christmas when I was about four years old. It came with Wipeout 2097, and my brother got a copy of Tomb Raider. I was terrible, awful, but I loved it. Growing up I went through all the generic PS1 games everyone remembers, like Spyro and Crash Bandicoot, which utterly hooked me. On PlayStation 2, I completed the Tony Hawk games multiple times, same for Ratchet & Clank, Canis Canem Edit, and others. I swapped to Xbox 360 after playing Gears of War with my brother one Christmas and from there I think my teenage years were more dominated by gaming.

Nowadays, my gaming time is reduced a lot by university, but I'm still excited for Fallout 4, Mirror's Edge: Catalyst, and, of course, Dark Souls 3, especially if its world is like the first game's. I'm not as big an online fan, but I'm looking forward to trying out Rainbow Six: Siege and The Division at EGX this weekend.

A lot of action games may have one or two female characters that seem more token than anything else, and tend to have the same personality types or roles. RPGs tend to have a much bigger world and a larger variety of characters, both male and female.

In Bloodborne, my main character is female. The normal default for gaming tends to be a male protagonist, and given the choice most of the time I'd customize my character and make them female. The lack of choice is not something that will deter me from a game, nor would the ability to choose be a major selling point for me, but having the option is always nice. Even if it's a non-human, bizarre-looking character, having a female voice and a female avatar seems more immersive to me.

'Bloodborne' is a game that allows the player to create their own character, male or female.

I think that we're at a time where gaming is more accessible than ever to a general audience, especially with the wide array of indie games constantly being released. For bigger releases, though, a lot of those coming out soon are from a seriesFallout 4, Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, Black Ops III and so forthand for someone newly interested in gaming, they may not know where to begin, and are unwilling to jump in in the middle of a series. I've never really felt that big games aren't marketed towards women, but with a rise in female protagonists big games such as Mirror's Edge: Catalyst may be perceived as more appealing to a female audienceit's certainly refreshing.

I don't tend to play online much nowadays because the games I'm currently into tend to be single player, but in the past I've experienced a few negative things for being female. When Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 came out, I spent hours playing versus mode online, both with friends and alone. I was good at it, too, as you'd hope with the time I put in. My usernames are always just made-up words, gender neutral sounding, but for Left 4 Dead, I'd sometimes use the mic if I could hear the other players. It wasn't uncommon for me to hear 'Get back in the kitchen,' or similar remarks, or just to be kicked out of the game entirely. I realized that there was no point engaging with the verbal stuff when it happenedwhat can you do when your teammates have just voted you out of a game after hearing your voice? It used to anger me at the beginning, but after a while I learned to shrug it off.

In person, the most annoying thing is feeling like I need to defend my interests, or to 'prove' myself. Sometimes after finding out I'm into gaming, the immediate follow-up is asking what consoles, which games, how long for, did my boyfriend, brother, flatmates or someone else male get me into it, as if I need to pass a checklist to verify my hobby. A lot of the time it's someone genuinely being interested in some common ground, but sometimes you do get people who think you're doing it for attention, and I think this is a mindset that is certainly more prominent online. The anonymity that the internet offers over real life will probably help fuel any toxicity present, too, as well as the rise of streaming games, where people may feel that good-looking women are just doing it for the attention or for money. Granted, some may be, but that would only be a small percentage of the overall streaming population.

I've never really felt like my hobbies set me apart from other people and that I get more attention for it at all, and with gaming ever becoming a more popular pastime I think this mindset will probably fade."

Read on Noisey: Hey Festival Bookers, It Is Your Responsibility to Promote Diversity, Actually

Zo is in her mid-20s and lives in London

"The first game I remember playing was this ancient thing on an original Apple Macintosh, about angels, possibly. But the first I ever owned was Command & Conquer. I still remember the double-width CD jewel case it came in, it had a real heft to it. Right now I'm playing a lot of Metal Gear Solid V, but also Guild Wars 2, Dota and a bunch of real-time strategy games.

I think there is a lot of derision from inside the gaming community that considering it more than a hobby is dangerousthat you instantly become a basement dweller who turns into a vicious dog when a corporate brand they have loyalty to is criticized. In that respect, I don't think of myself as a 'gamer,' and Leigh Alexander was right when she said 'gamers'as in, the neat package of 16-24 year old males that we love to advertise toare dead. But I think it's really important we recognize how influential games are in our lives. So yeah, gaming is very much more than a hobby for me, but the debate might be semantic, since what I really want to draw out that its been more than just a pastime, I've made friends, improved my mental health, and its shaped the way I think, and I'm not sure that's encapsulated in the word 'hobby.'

The internet has taught me a lot of things, mainly that there are a lot of stupid white men on it. When it comes to the hardcore versus casual 'debate,' I say: there is no wrong way to play. Games like Monument Valley are way better than Call of Angry Men Duty, so even if the women/men, casual/hardcore dichotomy were true and totally not nonsense, it wouldn't be a good result.

Mobile puzzler 'Monument Valley' is, for many gamers, a more creative work than popular shooters.

There is a triple, read quadruple, read septuple threat to women getting into gaming. Access to technology is onea direct path can be drawn from why STEM fields are so male centric to why gaming is so male centric. Being smart is 'not for girls,' and while there is really noble pushing back on this, it's still pervasive. Advertising loves simple demographics, and girls like pink and inoffensive things, and the market research tells them that they are right because that is what our culture has told women to like for so long. Games campaigns are typically fronted with men and the male gaze in mind, and a lot people don't see anything wrong because being a white cis heterosexual male who is able is the default category. In short, the paradigm sustains itself and it can be really hard to break out of that.

I've received a lot of harassment when playing online, though I don't speak or talk about my womanhood with random Joes. I've taken the negative view that everyone on the internet is a massive shithead until proven otherwise. And I don't give them chances to prove me wrong most of the time.

I play in a competitive Dota 2 team, and it's taught me a whole lot about myself and it's one of the reasons I think that games can be so influential. Believe me, you think long and hard about teamwork and perception after 2,000 hours of Dota. I fucking love eSports, and not just to play. I still have a soft spot for StarCraft: Brood War, as it taught me so much about myself. How determined I was, how I practiced, the way I considered systems and other people.

'Dota 2' is a massively popular eSport game

It's great to watch eSports, too. The last TI (The International, the world's biggest Dota 2 tournament) was amazing. I cheered for the Korean teams, because underdogs, woo! Women in eSports have a long way to go, however, and it all ties into the same problems. Women in teams are considered trophies, never viable competitors, and that's because there isn't the support groups to help them grow. It's the same for the hosts: women are eye candy to tie the production together. They all do tremendous jobs, but you wonder why people like Sheever, who is perfectly capable, get less input in post-game analysis then their male counterparts.

Another shifty meme is that woman aren't competitive. Pull the other one. Women are rigorously told that being competitive isn't womanly. Look at the kickback towards the Beyonc-supported Ban Bossy campaign for example. Yes to more women, and fewer sausage fests, please!

I focused on games for my university dissertationI studied archaeology. I wanted to really explore if video games could be used to teach concepts in a non-didactic fashion, so I ended up with something comparing archaeological methods with game playing, comparing them as different types of process. Was constructing a Harris matrix akin to playing through a campaign of Rome: Total War? Some of the ideas didn't get properly developed, but it was good nonetheless, and an example of the influence that games can have. I grew up on Age of Empires and Total War, and I'm now trying to make a career in heritage, and my views of the past and the way things are structured will have been influenced undoubtedly by a game designer somewhere.

And as for Gamergate... It's been a harassment scheme for the worst of the worst the community has to offer, where the only people welcome are bigots of every flavor. If I meet anyone who likes TotalBiscuit for example, I know instantly that they're shit ducks, which saves me time I guess. In time, they might all face terrorism charges, which would be a blessing."

Thanks to all contributors for their time.

Follow Mike Diver on Twitter.

Photo via Flickr user Mike Licht

Read: Scientifically, Does Gaydar Actually Exist?

The world thought Kim Davis's long and arduous crusade was coming to an end after the whole jail thing, but the world thought wrongthe Rowan County Clerk isn't going down that easy, and she's taken to ABC News this week to discuss her ongoing holy mission in an exclusive interview.

Since getting out of the slammer and back on the job, Davis has been issuing modified marriage licenses that don't include her name or title, which is the same kind of shit kids pull when they say "you told me to go to bed you didn't tell me to go to sleep."

A couple has since sued Davis for defying court orders and issuing an invalid marriage license, and on Monday, ACLU attorneys filed a motion to US District Judge David L. Bunning to order her to use Kentucky's standard, unmodified form for issuing marriage licenses.

By going rogue and issuing altered state forms, the ACLU said, Davis is treating members of the LGBT community looking to get married as "second-class citizens."

Davis told ABC that she even refused to issue a same-sex marriage license to her friends, because apparently friendship with mere mortals pales in comparison to her friendship with the Lord. She also agrees with the lawsuits alleging that her new, modified forms are not valid.

"They're not valid in God's eyes, for one," Davis said.

Unfortunately, Davis failed to comment on that new, erotic novella someone just penned about her time in women's lock-up.

Photo by Ioannis Stefanidis

This article originally appeared on VICE Greece.

The lazy generation. Those that are less aware but always ask for more. The privileged and ungrateful who never had anything to fight for. The apolitical hipsters who only care about their smartphones. The narcissists with the selfie sticks. Ask any older person in Greece about millennials and he will regurgitate a bunch of stereotypes. But it's normalat least in this countryto attack anything or anyone you don't understand. When it comes to politics, young people in Greece are labeled rather viciouslyrabble-rousers who attack peace by protesting for their rights, those who don't appreciate democracy, the mismatched.

The truth is that if, around the turn of the century, you'd asked a 20-year-old for their views on current affairs, you probably would've got a trivial answer. Back then, Greece was doing well financially (or so we were told) and its people saw the 2004 Olympics as a chance to prove ourselves as the worthy successors of our ancestors. For the young people of Greece life at that point was relatively easy. We would study, enjoy great summers, travel abroad, get a job, and eventually have a big fat Greek wedding.

Then the economical meltdown reared its head and we started to realize that our future seemed kind of dark. That was when we started taking to the streets asking for more transparency, more justice, and more democracy. We actually wanted to make the system work. We had every right to take the streets because the crisis hit us harder than any one else. Our generation became steeped in politics and began studying Marx, Lenin, Bakunin, Foucaultsome even Goebbels, unfortunately. We argued over whether Greece should remain in the European Union. We took to public squares in droves and were beaten up and tear-gassed, until we finally packed our suitcases and went to live abroad.

And then everything collapsed. It was Greek millennials who brought the first radical left government of Europe to power, yet nothing really changed and we were called to the polls for the third time in a year. Unsurprisingly, young Greeks began to develop a seeming apathy. A startling number did not even vote in last Sunday's election, while those who did helped Vasilis Leventis (better known for his three-decade-old cult TV show than his political arguments) into power. What happened to the rebellious Greek youth? Have we turned our backs on politics or is this newfound apathy a strategy?

I met up with Panagiotis, a 22-year-old law student who has never votedinstead, he maintains, he engages with politics in other ways: "There are a lot of reasons why I didn't vote on Sunday, but the main reason is that I am opposed to the logic behind it. There is a widespread aversion to the political system and you can see it in the huge numbers of non-voters. When someone doesn't even bother getting up to votethat indicates they find the gesture meaningless. I believe that elections just recycle the people in power while our misery levels kind of stay the same. I see a structural weakness in the dominant political system and the Greek state. This weakness manifested itself in SYRIZA's rise to power. People really hoped they would bring on change, yet it took a few months for it all to collapse like a tower in the sand."

Watch our documentary, 'Migrants Stranded on Kos':

I talked to 24-year-old journalist Stergios, who's no longer interested in politics: "I've been voting ever since I turned 18. I voted in the referendum but this Sunday I decided to abstain," he said. I thought I'd already made a choice back in January, so I didn't see a reason to vote again. Also, there is no party I traditionally support. I will not be engaging for as long as the terms for Greece to stay in Europe remain unchanged. Our cards are already marked."

I asked him if he was disappointed or tired and if that was what made him change his attitude towards the elections. "Two years ago it was frustration, now it's this feeling of inability to change the world," he replied. "2013 was the last time I had the mental stamina to fight. I have no more fight left. I live my life feeling defiantly weak and irritatingly empty-handed."

Alexander Afouxenidis is a political sociology researcher at the Greek Centre for Social Research. I asked him about the political choices of this generation: Is this bout of political apathy sudden or gradual? His response was that "there are no specific characteristics that define the political makeup of this generation. This generation is not homogeneous enough to be treated as a single group of people. There are varying levels of indifference. The stratifications of 'political apathy' are extremely difficult to document. It is an insubstantial problem."

Photo by Ioannis Stefanidis

He went on: "Apathy is a theme that is used occasionally by political parties to throw the ball back into society's court and say, 'We are trying, but it's your fault for not engaging.' On a scientific level, and with such narrow methodological criteria, it's not possible to substantiate this generation's apathy. Those who say it is are just playing politics."

What about the fact that the rate of abstention was about 45 percent and estimates say that a large proportion of this percentage was made up of young people? "The high abstention rate isn't a Greek phenomenon, it is a global phenomenon. Also someone who doesn't vote doesn't necessarily abstain from political activity. They might just have distanced themselves from the traditional political system," Afouxenidis concluded.

Valina is 24 years old and lives in the Netherlands, where she is pursuing two master's degrees at the same time. She says she left Greece because she couldn't find a job that would allow here to support herself and build a future. "I am doomed to stay uninvolved in the elections because Greek expats cannot vote from the country they live in," she told me. "I have missed some major electoral moments in Greece's history in the past few years." Even though she would like to vote, she can only be registered as absent.

'No' protestors from a rally prior to July's referendum. Photo by Panagiotis Maidis.

Katerina, 30, found herself in a similar conundrum: "I couldn't afford to travel from Athens to Cretewhere I am registeredto vote for the third time in a year. It's too expensive."

In the end, should we even be talking about an apathetic generation? I wanted to find out so I got in touch with Communications and Politics analyst George Sefertzis: "We shouldn't be talking about apathy in the younger generation. I will emphasize the importance of the distinction between indifference and abstinence. Abstinence is not a form of political indifference. It is a form of political protest," he said.

"I could use the term 'apathy' if we were talking about the phenomena of abstinence that appeared in the 1980s and 90s, at a time when prosperity gave people the impression that they had solved most of the country's problems. We indeed had the phenomenon of an indifferent younger generation that didn't see any reason to participate back then. This is more a case of frustration and disdain with which the younger generation regards the political system," he said.

"They were let down by SYRIZA, who they elected because it promised to abolish the memorandum but instead signed a third bailout package. This has created a confusion of sorts which could manifest itself in two ways: One is not voting in order to avoid choosing a party. The other was voting for wildcards like the Center Union party of Vassilis Leventisparties who no one really takes seriously. Voting for Leventis was a calculated choice, an attempt to ridicule the political system."

But could this frustration lead to a period of real apathy? "No. This time, the problems which the new generation, and possibly the next generation face, won't allow for apathy," said Sefertzis.

Festival-goers try out Roger's version of DMT at Rainbow Serpent. Photo by Adam Taylor.

At the age of 21, Roger Essig smoked DMT and experiencedsomething he's been trying to replicate since. At first he used oil paintsand digital media to capture his vision, before turning to virtual reality about three years ago. Nowwith technology from Oculus Rift, Roger creates intense 3D digital worlds that he projects into VR headsets, and tours his work around music festivals. If you went toRainbow Serpent last year you might have seen this first hand.

We caught up with Roger at his studio in Sunshine to talk about drugs,psychedelic theory, and how new technology is affording an exploration of one without the other.

Roger in his office. Photo by the author

VICE: Hi Roger, let's go back to that first psychedelicexperience. What was it that so influential about that?
Roger Essig: Thatfirst time was a massive breakthrough dose. It only went for a few minutes, butI would say it was the most terrifying thing I've ever done and a lot like anightmare. It was like my whole reality was replaced by a demonic reality, likebeing trapped in a section of hell. But it still looked amazingly beautiful inits horror.

I don't know enough about it to comment on it scientifically,but it's just interesting that a lot of people see similar stuff on DMT. Still,I've never really seen artwork trying to replicate it, so I sort ofmade it a life's work to capture these different bardo realm states.

Sorry, bardo realmstates?
Yeah, experiments with LSD seem to parallel what wasdescribed in the Bardo Thodol, or as we call it in the West, The Tibetan Book of the Dead. In thebook it was claimed that when you die you enter into these bardo realms. Firstyou see demonic imagery that slowly progresses to sexual imagerygenitalia, sexorgans, people getting fucked, and that sort of thing. After this it progressesto peaceful visions, then more geometric sort of things. I've experienced thisprogression several times now, even from smoking ganja. Seeing it described inthis ancient text, it makes me think that maybe we're seeing an archetype that's built into ourinstincts.

Tell me how you share this sort of imagery with themasses.
Ialways tell people how easy it is to create content for Oculus Rift. I got into virtual reality as a non-coder, and non-game developer, but I can create interactive virtual experiences with my own art and animation. Then I can justtake my computer and virtual reality headset to festivals and events. I'destimate over 2,000 people have tried it so far.

How do people respond?
I've had people just absolutely gobsmacked. They had no ideawhat was going on but loving it. I've had people go from really aggressive tochilling right out. One guy was really just angry and pissed off. I put him in and he was just totally changed. He became just really amazed and happy.

Two thousand trippers sounds stressful.
No, I get offon it. I get off on the fact that I'm putting someone into my personal world andmy artwork.

A screenshot of Roger's Deep Dream VR experience

You're now experimenting creating virtual reality experiencesusing Google Deep Dream imagery? Tell me about that.
Well, Deep Dream is Google's image recognition software; arecursive program that overlays images it recognizes on images that you feedit. It then scans that new picture and overlays images it recognizes againrecursively. The classic one is the dog-slug-seal type of thing, but I tried toavoid that because everyone got over that. I looked for adata set that hadn't really been talked or used about much and found a Flickrdata set. So for all the hundreds of thousands of images on Flickr, someone hadgone through and categorized them and fed them into Deep Dream.

I started by feeding it a black image, so it just iterates itsown noise and then keeps doing it, repeating, until patterns and shapes emerge. I then captured that process as an animation.

Why did Deep Dream resonate with you?
Like the DMT experience, it was the actual impact of thevisualsthey were so hyper complex, but so focused and in so much detail. Itcaptured the emergence of those geometric shapes from chaos so well, and it wassomething I could never reproduce using animation. It's fascinating because itwould create these really iterative animations that progressively zoom. It's anew way to look at a fractal, constantly zooming, but in a much more organicway.

Some of Roger's paintings

What are you planning to do next?
I'll always just look for ways to communicate mypsychedelic experiences with art, and follow technologies that allow me to do that better. The technology is becoming more accessible so it's cool to know thatsoon anyone on earth can create experiences and worlds for anyone else toexperience through their own eyes. I think it's an important development in theway we create art and explore what's going on inside each other's heads.

Follow Samuel on Twitter.

As I'm sure you know by now, everyone on the internet got very mad at a man named Martin Shkreli after the New York Times reported that his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, was increasing the price of a drug from $13.50 to $750.

The drug in question, Daraprim, is a medication for people who have parasitic infections, especially toxoplasmosis; it's also prescribed to treat infections associated with AIDS. In other words, it's not the sort of thing one would generally call a luxury.

On VICE News: Pharmaceutical Company CEO Defends 5,000 Percent Price Hike of Drug on Twitter

Shkreli's price-gouging drew a lot of ire on social media, but its far from the only example of American pharmaceutical companies behaving like they're run by Lex Luthor. Despite the hate, the 32-year-old hedge fund has gone an PR offensive, appearing live on Bloomberg News on Monday to deadpan about how he and his company "feel this is an appropriate price."

When that didn't calm people down, he completely threw down on Twitter, and even quoted Eminem.

Hell yeah, buddy. Photo via Flickr user Mitch Barrie

Read: A BC Dad Punched a Cougar in the Face After It Attacked His Daughter

Alberta has shed many of its stereotypes as of late; it's home to the progressive Mayor Naheed Nenshi and recently elected the NDP to power.

But, proving the province is still occasionally worthy of its "Texas North" moniker, an Alberta Libertarian is offering donors the chance to win a semi-automatic rifle.

Cory Lystang, who is running in Yellowhead County, a rural area west of Edmonton, is giving away an AR-15 carbine to one lucky supporter.

Anyone who throws down $20 toward Lystang's campaign (and is legally allowed to own a firearm) is eligible to win.

Lystang told reporters he knows "not everyone's going to accept the fact that I'm giving away a firearm." But, in a nod to the sound rationale used by the National Rifle Association every time there's a mass shooting south of the border, he claimed the giveaway, "brings up a great opportunity to have the conversation that it's not the firearm that's hurting anyone, it's the wrong people that have them."

The AR-15, valued at $1,200, it is pretty much banned everywhere in Canada except for select gun ranges (the gun has a sporting exception.) The AR-15 comes in numerous designs and was the gun the US military converted into the M-16 in the Vietnam War.

Lystang has raised $2,000 so far, which he's using to "get some (election) signs out there."

He said he cleared the plan with Elections Canada, and was told it didn't break any rules, though they'd never before heard of a gun being raffled to voters.

Long live 'Berta.

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

Check out more from Julian Glander at his Twitter, Instagram, and blog.

Illustration by Stephen Maurice Graham

Rockstar Games created a monster when they decided people just wanna fuck around and be gangsters in a video game. Think of all the hours swallowed by the Grand Theft Auto serieseach a best seller, each a classic in its own rightand of all the pop-culture references shaped. Boring dads in band T-shirts and shitty jeans have Star Wars, we have Grand Theft Auto. I know which I would prefer.

Mafia fantasies, jackknife betrayals, and murdering people with a purple rubber dildo. Pimps, two-bit hustlers, and fast money of the most illicit means possible. Big guns, exploding cars, and soundtracks that became instantly iconic. Each GTA game blessed players with a huge, weird sandbox in which they can cause chaos and lose themselves entirely. Full of cultural references and cartoon mayhem, the series has mixed humor and a genuine love for the crime genre and created several games that have kept gamers glued to their controllers.

Here are just a handful of the series' greatest moments.

Being betrayed by Lance Vance 'Grand Theft Auto: Vice City'

I suppose we should've all seen it coming. In the chunky lines of pure gangster movie clich that we'd been chopped out thus far, we should've guessed that a double-cross was likely. But not like this. It caught me cold, like a gut puncheven though the name of the mission was a pretty huge clue. Regardless: Fuck you, Lance Vance, and fuck your Lance Vance Dance.

"You sold us out..." said Tommy Vercettistill (for me) in that stupid blue Hawaiian shirt; stuck in the wardrobe stasis that was the sixth generation of consoleson learning of his mate's siding with Sonny, Tommy's ex-boss and now enemy.

"No... I sold you out, Tommy," said Lance. "I sold you out." Then, with everyone in their place, Tommy starts shooting.

For a 13-year-old me, with the culmination of this many references I didn't fully understand, living my life by the thrilling chameleon hue of Tommy's HUD and the buzz of hairspray rock, this was pretty much the best way you can end a game: murdering a friend who betrayed you in a massive mansion in a hail of lead. It was amazing.

Unlocking a motherfucking jetpack 'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas'

Up until this point, San Andreas had seemed cartoonish, yes, but at least grounded in some sort of reality. It was a viscous, sweating gumbo of every low-rent rap narrative you could name, loosely tied together with lazy references to every movie from the early 1990s, but at least it made the vaguest bit of sense... And then came "The Black Project."

Forgetting the fact that San Andreas earlier became so bogged down in reality that it made you do a series of excruciating flight exams before it deemed you safe enough to fly, you now got the chance to use "jetpack" as a verb while you flew out of a military base named after a sex-act and let rip a clack-clack-clack-clack with your tiny Carbine rifle.

A mission set up by a cock-eyed hippie named The Truth, "The Black Project" wasfor lack of a better termfucking dumb. (And that's coming from a game in which someone hid a mini-game where you earned points for sexing your pixelated girlfriend real, real good.) But it was brilliant: you had to break into San Andreas state's version of Area 51here, called "Area 69" because this is a game for adultsand murder everyone as you descend a pretty terrifying spiral staircase full of lads dressed in camouflage and violence, steal a LITERAL JETPACK, and then jetpack it home. It was frankly quite pornographic.

New on Motherboard: Why Do First-Person Shooters Ignore World War I?

Three Leaf Clover 'Grand Theft Auto IV'

For all the things the Grand Theft Auto series does poorlyhand-to-hand combat, online stability, literally anything to do with womenthere are twice as many things it does brilliantly. And it doesn't do anything half as good as it does a heist.

Considering that GTA IV is easily the least loved game of the series, it adds a little bit of edge that it contains its best mission: the Heat-ripping, heart-pounding "Three Leaf Clover."

It starts with you, Niko, walking wherever you're walking, and getting a text from one of the McReary brothers, an in-fighting gang of Irish-American cokeheads that you've somehow fallen in with. Next thing you know, you're in a suit with a massive shooter and a bag of C4, about to take the Bank of Liberty for a cool $1 million. How did this happen? This was supposed to be the game of small-time crooks and grubby apartments.

"Three Leaf Clover" is a thrilling mission that requires you to shoot every person in your path, and every car with flashing lights that comes screaming into your view. Every single set-piece in the mission becomes an event: Michael's death, the hostage killed in retaliation, the first NOOSE chopper that comes into view, the getaway through Chinatown. It takes everything that's good about the series and pounds it deep into your brain, with a slick narrative and a sound mix that'll make you shit your pants.

Article continues after the video below

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Going 3D 'Grand Theft Auto III'

I think I said "Fuck" or maybe "Fucking hell." I was ten and sitting on my mate Tyler's bed and he'd put Grand Theft Auto III on and let it load. That loading time seemed to last 20 minutes. And then I saw it. "Fuck."

I was adamant, seeing this guy on the screen in an alley wearing a battered black leather jacket and army trousers, that nothing would ever top this game. My eyes stood on stalks, and nearly fell out of my head. This wasn't a video gamethis was a movie that I controlled. The dialogue was slick and sharp and funny, and the music was brilliant (I'll never forget driving around in a blacked-out Sentinel listening to Double Clef FM as long as I live), and the missions were hard, violent, and just a little bit crazy.

But for all its bells and whistles, the game had a mood. It felt nasty. It felt dangerous. Like, Resident Evil had a mood that suggested horror and pure evil and guts and gore, GTA III had a mood that dripped dirty needles and burned-out cars and taking baseball bats to those who crossed you. That game hit me like a bat when I played it. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. The moment I took control of this little shark-eyed thug with squeaky sneakers, I knew I loved this game.

Meeting Trevor 'Grand Theft Auto V'

You're way out in the weeds and Johnny, our beloved biker protagonist from GTA IV expansion The Lost and Damned, is chatting to some geezer, Trevor, clad in a vomit-y wife-beater vest and with a pretty severe look in his eye. See, Trevor just fucked Johnny's missus, and Johnny has taken exception to that...

Until now Grand Theft Auto V had been almost a little bit underwhelming. The scale was immense, the detail was extraordinary, but the story? Eh. It felt like maybe there was a little too much going on under the hood to make much of a show on the surface. And then Trevor came along.

Far from being the series' best characteror even this particular game'sTrevor was an absolute weapon. He was as close a manifestation of evil as you're ever likely to see from the series and he's on your screen and he's got his cock out and he's kicking a well-remembered character from a previous game's head into watermelon chunks in a hick half-a-town while screaming "Cunt! Cunt! Cunt!" like Sexy Beast's Don Logan. And yousitting there in your boxer shorts playing this game on a Saturday morninggot to control this fucking guy. He was a character that held a mirror up to the genre and showed us what real villainy looked like: bitter, spiteful, and cruel.

Kent Paul and Maccer 'Grand Theft Auto: Vice City' and 'San Andreas'

In possibly the most Essex moment of anyone's life, the moment Tommy Vercetti stumbled into that nightclub and met Kent Paul I stood bolt upright and shouted "DAD! QUICK! DANNY DYER!"

A national treasure whose wit and wisdom has now become stamped onto our collective psyches like the iron emblem of a decent lager tap, Danny Dyer's appearance in Grand Theft Auto remains one of the funniest and most surprising things I've ever seen. Twice.

In Vice City, he was a slang-spouting motormouth club promoter with a brain full of bugle and arms that swung about like wind chimes when he spoke, and in San Andreas, he was the beleaguered (and still heavily gakked) manager of Mancunian musician Maccer, played by fellow (somehow still-)living legend Shaun Ryder. The second appearance, in particular, is an absolute delight: lost in the Las Venturas desert with Maccer, they're pilling out of their box, trapped in a car with C.J., our main man, who hasn't got a clue what's going on. Bringing an entire game's worth of hilarity and cramming it into a couple of throwaway cutscenes, it's easily the best pair of cameos in the whole series.

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The introduction 'Grand Theft Auto II'

The second installment was my introduction to the whole franchise, as an idiot eight year old that somehow convinced his mom to ignore the 18 rating. I don't know what I was expecting. At the time, the only games I ever played were FIFA and anything with Tony Hawk's name plastered on it.

The introduction to II is, in retrospect, a shoddy compilation of clichs and Jack Branning from EastEnders running about New York with the kind of whip-bang-flash editing that came to define a lot of the late 90s (plus there's one weird moment where a woman sings "Yakuza..." with all of the enthusiasm of someone ordering some tiles from Wickes). At the time, of course, everyone thought this intro movie was the best thing anyone had ever seen. "Bloody hell!" we'd say, sweaty at the mere thought of it. All of our action dreams in one place, neatly packaged at the start of what proved to be a solid top-down fuckaround game with a touch of subtlety that was probably wasted on a gaggle of pre-pubescent children from east London who just wanted to mow down Hare Krishna processions.

Killing Vlad 'Grand Theft Auto IV'

It feels like you don't get a gun for ages in this game. You're just running errands and meeting people and you sort of forget that you're playing a game where you need a gun all the time... And then you get one. And then you use it. It's loud and scary and sounds like it shoots thunder and picks up echoes off the walls and sends blood flying out of people's heads. It feels and sounds like, well, a gun. It felt like you'd been given a responsibility and you had to exercise it with caution and respect (at least for a bit).

When you have to murder Vlad, the East-European crook with a dickhead complex who makes you run about doing his bidding and then screws you over, the gun feels heavy in your avatar's hand and it actually feels really, really shitty to be about to kill someone. It's crazy to think that a game can make you feel like that. You kidnap Vlad and take him out to the river. He's pleading for his life as you shoot him in the head and watch as he slumps, lifeless, bloody, into the river and sinks to the bed.

It genuinely felt quite shocking to do that to someone. The series never really came close to recreating this sense of intense guilt and shame and humanity again, but for one fleeting momentclick-click, bangthey nailed it.

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Kurt Vile. All photos by Marina Chavez/courtesy of Matador Records

For the past decade Kurt Vile has been at the forefront of the indie-rockscene. After beginning his career in 2005 with Adam Granduciel as blissed-out folk-rockers Waron Drugs, Vile has gone on to release five solo records. From his jangling, haze-filled debut Constant Hitmaker to 2013's gleefully ramblingWakin on a Pretty Daze, Vile has grown and developed as an artist,complicating his songs, and experimenting with structure. Kurt describes his latest studio album, B'lieve I'm Goin Down... (out Friday on Matador Records) as a more mature, compact presentation of everything he's done up to this point.

While incorporating the same intricate fingerpicking and soaring leads used in previous albums, in Goin Down... Vile gives an even deeper focus to his instrumentation and lyrics. The songs feel, more so than ever before, like they fit together as a cohesive whole. From the upbeat opener "Pretty Pimpin" to the piano-driven "Lost My Head There" to the low-key quasi-anthem closer of "Wild Imagination," the album moves naturally from song to song.

I spoke with Kurt over the phone from his practice space in hishometown of Philadelphia. The sound of bandmates could be heard in thebackground as Kurt and I covered everything from our mutual love of Philly toacting cocky and establishing a persona of "chill."

VICE: The newalbum feels equal parts departure fromand return tothe music you've done before.Was there a conscious effort to balance the two?
Kurt Vile: Yeah, I think it's a polished version ofwhat I started doing, just because I bounced around a lot before. I think it'sa more compact, or mature, mixture of folk and electric combined. Butyeah, I would say... you're right. like a lot of Courtney Barnett. I love thatsong "Depreston." I've been playing it over and overagain.

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B'lieve I'm Goin Down... comes out Friday, September 25 from Matador Records.