Image obtained via an Access to Information Request

Instead, they got heavy gay overtones. And that just wouldn't do.

This is all according to internal documents from the Canadian Forces, obtained by VICE through an Access to Information request.

Working with the Montreal wing of the Ogilvy advertising firm, the military was looking to run an ad campaign that would "increase the number of women from 16.2% in 2014 to 25.1% in 2017," reads the August 2014 documents from the "women's campaign," prepared by Ogilvy.

"Women are generally less inclined to consider the Canadian Armed Forces as a viable career," the ad agency notes.

The resulting online and print campaign showed female fighter pilots climbing into fighter jets, ship captains checking ship things, and doctors treating children.

"More adventures. More friendship. More fulfilment," reads the tagline.

But the Forces thought maybe there was a bit too much friendship in the proposed ad campaign.

They took issue with one ad, featuring two female service members hugging each other and smiling.

"There was a concern that the photo implied a romantic relationship," reads the document. "It was suggested that a group shot would be more appropriate, but we felt that this would have less 'poster power,'" the ad agency writes. "Our recommendation is to stay with a photograph of two women, but have them pose in a way that clearly suggests nothing more than friendship."

Obviously, the Canadian Forces shouldn't be shying away from looking inclusive for non-straight personnel, especially given the fact that many openly gay service-members fought for years, and won, the right to have their sexual identity respected by the Forces.

Also, the Forces don't exactly have the best record with judging who or what is-and-isn't gay. They spent decades interrogating allegedly gay members of the military, hooking them up to the "fruit machine"—an actual thing—to try and divine which team they played for.

Non-straight members of the military were considered targets for Soviet blackmail and were bullied and fired from the Forces.

Things have improved significantly since then. Openly gay members of the military—and their families—are welcome into the Forces and while straight bravado culture still may remain, the military generally has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to homophobia.

So it's pretty unclear as to why the top brass had a problem with Sue and Peggy holding each other close.

The macho culture also means frustration for women in the Forces, however. A report from 2015 looking into sexual assault and harassment in the military decried a "sexualized" culture that can be hostile to women.

The direction of the female recruitment campaign were not exactly confidence-inspiring.

Amongst the feedback that Ogilvy got from the Forces was that the ads use a "brighter, more feminine tone to be more attractive to women."

The Ogilvy report ended up including that, for some TV spots: "in general, we like the idea of showing the woman preparing for the interview (putting on make up, etc.), as it adds a feminine touch."

The eventual video produced an ad with such selling points as "you'll have a help striking a healthy work-life balance"—because you really can have it all—and "more self-esteem," although that line was cut during editing.

And, out of fear that it may spook the weak sex, the ad agency decided "we will avoid showing weapons and will slow down certain shots." There will, however, be shots of "women being active, on duty, laughing as a group. Intense gazes into the distance."

If I know women—and I don't—they love laughing as a group and gazing intensely into the distance.

The eventual ad campaign, posted on the Forces website, appeared to get a bit beefed up from the storyboards presented by Oligvy. At one point, a woman opens fire with a semi-automatic rifle on the side of a warship, filling the ocean full of holes like a goddamn badass.

It's not clear if the lesbian-y ad ever made it to print.

Even if there are a few dumb ads, Canada is in the minority of countries worldwide that maintain no formal barriers for women who want to service in the military. So we're still better than England.

Follow Justin Ling on Twitter.

Socialable! Photo courtesy Chris Reynolds

Ever wanted to taste beer that's been floating around in the ocean for more than a century?

Me neither, but apparently it's a big deal to beer aficionados in Halifax who this week got the chance to do just that with a 140-year-old bottle of Alexander Keith's.

Local scuba diver Jon Crouse found the historic booze while on a dive in a part of Halifax Harbour called the Northwest Arm in late November. He told the media he planned to have the old-as-balls brew evaporated so he could preserve the bottle as a keepsake.

When Chris Reynolds, co-owner of Stillwell Bar, heard about that plan he told VICE he more or less freaked out.

"I was like 'Oh shit, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that. It's probably beer that's in there and if it is, it should definitely be analyzed in lab cause it's super, super old and of a lot of interest to beer historians, brewers, beer freaks in general."

Reynolds got in touch with Crouse and hatched a plan to have Dalhousie University test the substance inside the bottle, which in fact, turned out to be beer.

Yesterday Reynolds and a Dal researcher tested a few millilitres of the Keith's after extracting it with a syringe. The reviews were positive, all things considered.

"We poured it into two test tubes and gave it a good smell and then drank it. It was awesome," he said. "It smelled like what we were hoping it would smell like—like really old beer."

As for the taste itself, there were hints of sulphur, oak, cherry, and a "meaty funk."

"One person was like, 'yo, this smells like canned ham'," Reynolds noted.

Reynolds said he didn't think pathogens would've been able to survive in the century-old brew, rendering it harmless, but to be safe he didn't actually swallow it.

"We did swish and spit."

Crouse, on Facebook, said he was "really happy it's beer and not pee."

A sample of the beer is being sent to a lab in Scotland and a thorough report will follow, Reynolds said. The idea is gather a "the most complete picture we've had yet of what the drink was like of the day."

The beer is believed to have been bottled between the early 1870s and 1890.

While a lot of beer companies, Keith's included, claim to use old timey brewing methods, Reynolds said that's mostly guesswork and "marketing bullshit."

The fate of the bottle remains uncertain, though Reynolds said there is talk of it being donated to Alexander Keith's.

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

Photo via Flickr user brh_images

An Edmonton construction worker has pleaded guilty to several charges after admitting that he drunkenly kidnapped his boss and took him to a strip club. According to Corey Eugene Galandy, who was given a three-year sentence today, his boss collectively owed him and other coworkers thousands of dollars, prompting the encounter. Apparently in Alberta, when your employer owes you cash, you don't take it to the labour board, you abduct him at a gas station, force him to take money out of an ATM, and then immediately go out for a night of titties and gallivanting.

On December 11, 2012, the two men met up at a 7-Eleven, where Galandy was given $50 that his boss Daniel Gillespie owed him. Following this, the two drove to a coworker's place where Galandy's girlfriend and infant child were waiting, and then Galandy proceeded to punch his boss in the head—four times. As if this confrontation could not get any more hoser-ish, Galandy then forced Gillespie to carry tools out of his truck and headbutted him a couple of times in the process, punching him a few more times when he tried to get away.

After taking his boss to an ATM to get $400 out to pay back the debt, Galandy apparently told Gillespie, "You're not such a bad guy." Gillespie bought some whisky and cigarettes, and in true Alberta fashion, the two made their way to a strip club, where they were denied at the door for not having ID. Refusing to give up, they made their way to another strip club—of which there is no shortage of in Texas North—where they got extremely fucking wasted.

The night ended around 12:45 AM when both men were kicked out of the strip club and Galandy backed his truck into a vehicle in the club's parking lot. When Galandy was arrested, Gillespie decided to tell the cops responding to the scene that he'd been kidnapped.

According to defence lawyer Laurie Wood, however, Gillespie had multiple chances to bounce: "Mr. Gillespie was left on his own numerous times while Mr. Galandy gallivanted about the strip club," she told the provincial court.

During his sentencing, Galandy apparently didn't have much to add when he addressed the court, saying only, "I think everything that was said was pretty straightforward." Right.

Follow Allison Elkin on Twitter.

Bandidos logo via WikiCommons

On Wednesday, after almost two years of investigation, the FBI arrested three men they say are top members of the notorious Bandidos Motorcycle Club for allegedly waging a violent war against a rival gang and racketeering, the Associated Press reports.

Last May, the gang made national news when their feud with the rival Cossacks biker club apparently helped cause the wild, bloody biker shootout in Waco, Texas.

The affair left nine dead and roughly 20 wounded, and police had 170 bikers and hundreds of weapons in custody once the smoke cleared. A local cop who helped oversee the aftermath called it "the most violent crime scene" he'd ever worked on.

The feds' indictment charges the three arrested members—National President Jeffrey Fay Pike, Nation Vice President John Xavier Portillo, and National Sergeant at Arms Justin Cole Forster—with racketeering, assault, and drug distribution, among other offenses. Portillo, they say, used club dues to pay legal fees for those arrested after the showdown in Waco.

The trio face up to life in prison if convicted.

Illustration by Joe Frontel

On Wednesday, North Korea claimed to have successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. As with many of the Hermit Kingdom's claims, plenty of people came forward to say that this boast was overblown.

At the time of the blast, United States Geological Survey measured seismic waves equivalent to a 5.1 magnitude earthquake, which is consistent with a nuclear explosion, but more likely indicative of an atomic bomb than the much more powerful hydrogen bomb. Pyongyang also said it was capable of miniaturizing its nuclear weapons and attaching them to rockets, meaning it would feasibly be able to blast them at all its imperialist pig-dog enemies in the USA—but obviously, these claims haven't yet been verified.

Regardless, politicians around the world—including ones in China China, North Korea's largest ally—were quick to issue statements denouncing the totalitarian government. For instance, the UK shadow foreign minister Hilary Benn said: "If verified, the nuclear test carried out by North Korea represents a clear violation of numerous UN Security Council Resolutions and I condemn it in the strongest possible terms."

To learn more about North Korea's latest round of chest-thumping, we talked to John Sweeney of BBC Newsnight, who is also the author of North Korea Undercover, a book about the time he spent in the country for a Panorama investigation. (The BBC later apologized for using a London School of Economics trip as cover for entering the country).

VICE: First off, do you think there's any truth to North Korea's bomb test claims?
John Sweeney: Yes, because the Americans have measured earthquake readings below the ground near their nuclear testing site. The North Koreans have been getting better at making bombs, and the Chinese help out in terms of their economy; it would seem that Kim Jong-un is using this money to develop the bomb.

OK, so say the bomb test was successful—that doesn't necessarily mean they can get the bomb to anywhere it's going to do any damage, right?
No, the catch is this: Making a bomb—an atomic bomb or hydrogen bomb—isn't that difficult these days, if you've got billions of pounds and you make it a priority. The difficulty is shrinking the bomb and putting it on a rocket.

Do you think they're capable of that?
People in the know still believe that the North Koreans are not in the position where they have shrunk nuclear weapons enough to put them on a rocket. They have had failing rockets, too, like flailing shrimp. The best rocket they've done has gone over Japan into the Pacific, but nowhere near the United States. There is a North Korean graphic of a nuclear missile hitting Washington DC, but that's a joke and remains a joke.

READ ON VICE NEWS: North Korea Just Insulted the US and Bragged About Its New 'H-Bomb of Justice' at the UN

So the world remains a scary place, but not all that scary.
They exaggerate their rocket capability an absurd amount; it's a foolish claim. They do have a rocket that can fly 500 to 800 miles, but not the thousands of miles it needs to cross to America.

So if they exaggerate all the time, why should we take their most recent claims seriously?
We should take them half seriously, because the dangers are that you could put the rocket into a ship and take the ship and sail it into a harbor and it blows up. But that would be suicide for North Korea, and I don't believe Kim Jong-un wants to commit suicide.

So why is he making such a big noise about it?
I think that the big picture is that North Korea is using their nuclear weapons and these announcements as a smokescreen to mask an enormous human rights tragedy, and the more we worry about the threat from North Korea it seems the less space we have in our minds and hearts for the ordinary people of North Korea, who are suffering. We need to pay less attention to all this hoo-ha.

You just used the phrase hoo-ha, so I'm going to assume we definitely shouldn't be worried for now.
We should be worried, because a psychotic lunatic has got his finger on the nuclear button.

WATCH: Our documentary about North Korean labour camps.

Fair enough. How about what's left of North Korea's international allies? Where do they come in this discussion?
There is only one partner to North Korea these days, and that's China. The Chinese need to watch what's happening very, very closely. For the moment Japan hasn't got a nuclear weapon, but if North Korea , and then the Chinese will become extremely alarmed by that, and then there's a danger—via a series of miscalculations—that you have a situation like August, 1914. Things aren't good at the moment between China, Japan, and other states in South East Asia.

So, basically, North Korea's claims, in the worst possible situation, could lead to escalation on all fronts?
The danger is that North Korea's recklessness might destabilize —it might push Japan into becoming a nuclear power. It's not immediately frightening, but it is disconcerting. But the essential reality is that North Korea is one of the darkest places on Earth

In terms of life for the average person?
Yes. Compare it to parts of Syria and Iraq currently under the thumb of ISIS. In 2003, after Saddam's fall, everyone could use a satellite dish and freely listen to the world's media. Even people under ISIS have a better idea about how democracy works. No one in North Korea has any idea of what we think of their regime; they live in darkness. It's why I passionately believe that the BBC should get a service to broadcast into North Korea, and the BBC are working on it.

From your experiences in the country, how real do their threats seem? If they were capable, do you think they would really start a nuclear war?
When I was there for the BBC, the rhetoric was incredibly angry—threatening the United States with thermonuclear war. But there was an extraordinary, amazing mismatch between what they were saying to the West and how they were acting on the ground, happy as Larry. We took selfies with the colonel in charge of the DMZ; there is one in my book. And that same night our minder sang "My Way" by Frank Sinatra during karaoke. If you're at war, you don't sing that fucking song.

Follow Amelia on Twitter.

Alexis Vasilikos is a Greek fine art photographer and the co-editor of Phases Magazine. His work explores the presence of the sublime in everyday life and his website is stuffed full of these beautiful snippets. His images have been exhibited and showcased in several group shows in London, New York, Vienna, and Athens.

Vasilikos just put out a new imprint called All In,which is an extension of the dialogue he has with collaborator Jerome Montagne on Phasesmag.com. It is a freestyle edit acting as a synopsis of 20 years of his work as a photographer and also the first of a series of books Vasilikos's Phase Editions plans to publish. Below is a selection from the book:

Photo by Étienne Rouillon/VICE News

This article originally appeared on VICE France.

One year ago, two terrorists burst into the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and killed 12 people in cold blood. Two days later, another man attacked the mini-market Hyper Cacher in the 12th arrondissement, killing three customers and a clerk. On November 13, 2015, Paris came under attack yet again, the killers taking 130 lives and injuring 352 more.

Twenty-one-year-old Julia*, a student who lives in Paris, was at the Bataclan that evening, where 90 Eagles of Death Metal fans died. After hiding for half an hour among dead bodies and almost taking a bullet in her hand, she managed to flee the venue along with a friend. We met with Julia to talk about what life has been like since that horrible evening. The following is her account, edited for length and clarity.

If I think about it properly, my behavior—or my daily life—hasn't exactly changed, but perhaps it's too early to say that for sure. Yet, ever since the Bataclan attacks, everything feels a bit absurd—as though I live in a movie or a dream. Everything I do—mundane chores, like cooking or shopping—now seems strange and almost inappropriate. I keep wondering how it's possible for me to be going about my routine when so many died. I almost feel guilty. That said, I don't suffer from shock, despite the things I saw that evening. I can't explain why.

I also feel like, after enduring that, I can get through anything. For about half an hour, I was convinced that I was going to die. The result is that nothing really scares me today. Of course, I jump out of my shoes when I hear a bang or something like that, but I'm not sure this is out of fear. I gather that it's an automatic response: My brain and my body are still on alert. They were guided by my survival instinct for 30 minutes and have been ever since. In fact, I feel much more alive now; my senses—my hearing and my vision, in particular—have improved.

Watch our interview with the Eagles of Death Metal:

I find myself being less cautious without wanting to—for instance, I sometimes cross the road without looking to see if a car is coming. In that regard, my relationship with death has evolved. People are scared of the unknown. After going through that psychological experience, I have no reason to be scared of death.

During the attack I was surprised at how my body reacted. When everyone lay down on the floor after hearing the first shots, I thought it was weird that my heart didn't start racing or that my body didn't start shaking. I was so calm and didn't try to escape or find a solution; I simply let events guide me, which kept me from analyzing anything too much and therefore feeling afraid. The fact that my friend Florian* stayed close by probably helped, too.

However, I did get stressed when Florian and I took advantage of the fact that a lot of people got up to run and flee. We were doing something about our situation; we stopped being victims. But right in the moment, I wasn't sure if running away was a smart move, because the terrorists had already shot some of the people who had tried to escape. That decision was extremely hard to take.

I keep wondering how it's possible for me to be going about my routine when so many died. I almost feel guilty.

Shots started being fired in our direction, so we had to lie down again. I wondered again if I should give up and become passive, or try to escape again. It was hard to make a choice. Florian thought the same thing.

It took me a few days before I could remember the 30 seconds of escaping—my brain had kind of erased that moment, and even now only a few images come to mind when I try to recall it.

I only began to understand how serious the situation was when I saw injured people on the pavement outside the venue. It affected me more than the dead bodies I had seen inside. A little later we went to a flat nearby with some other survivors. The atmosphere was unreal. Nobody could comprehend what we had just experienced. We were listening to the radio and everybody cried when they heard a man describing what he'd just seen. It was not until I saw the videos and heard others talk about it that I fully realized the extent of the horror.

Throughout that weekend I couldn't do anything but read or watch anything related to the attacks. I watched all the videos and looked at all the most gruesome photos because I didn't know what else I could do. I needed to convince myself that it had all actually happened. I remember watching footage taken by a journalist from his window near the Bataclan, hearing the screams and the shots and feeling removed from it.

The video Julia watched after the attacks

I stopped doing that about a week after the attacks. I didn't feel like I needed to take part in the mass commemoration because I had experienced what was being commemorated myself. I guess I was "touched" by the "Je suis en terrasse" movement, but at the same time I can't help but detect a certain hypocrisy in it.

I saw Florian that Sunday—two days after the event. We went to the 11th arrondissement to find out what we needed to do in order to get our belongings that had been left at the Bataclan. That felt extremely absurd, considering what had happened.

Eventually we got called into the venue. When I was asked to hand in the ticket I'd been given in the cloakroom, I became acutely aware of the importance I had implanted in physical things that reminded me of the attack. I wanted to keep my ticket, even though it was bloodstained. I've also kept the entrance ticket. There's nothing in the world I would exchange it for. Same goes for the clothes I wore that evening. They were also bloodstained, so my mom washed them. If it had been up to me I'd have kept them in a box, unwashed, so I could look at them from time to time. I'm not sure what makes me want to do that—perhaps I'm afraid that time will take certain memories away. I know other survivors have done the same. I also placed my shoes—also covered in blood—in a corner in my flat and haven't touched them since. They're disgusting, clearly, but I need to keep them.

That same Sunday, Florian told me he was "happy to be alive." I can't say I share that feeling. I'm obviously glad I'm still breathing, but never told myself so. Florian also said he didn't feel comfortable taking the Metro or staying in an enclosed place. For me, it's more complicated; I remember being in the university library one day, looking at everyone around me and thinking, "They are oblivious." They didn't have any reason to fear anything. Thinking they were as unsuspecting as the people who were with me at the Eagles of Death Metal concert made me feel deeply uneasy.

"I feel connected to the people who almost died with me, even though I don't know them and probably won't ever see them again."

Since November 13, I'm a lot more indecisive and prone to mood changes than I was before. I plan to do something, and then I change my mind. I never used to be that way. I lost interest for certain things and activities as well. Although I started studies that are going to last for a long time, I ask myself why I did that. What purpose could that serve when everything could disappear in a second?

For a while I saw a counsellor. I talked and cried and it did me a lot of good. I did speak to my family about what had happened in detail, but I couldn't tell them how I felt because I didn't want to worry them. I also want to keep a few things for myself.

Talking about what I went through that evening with others makes me uncomfortable at times. I don't like it when my relatives talk about it because they don't necessarily know how to approach the subject correctly—I don't even know how they should—and I don't think they can understand what I went through, even if I tell them the full story. Paradoxically, for the weeks after it happened I couldn't talk about anything else. That's why I wanted to stay with Florian, who wasn't a very close friend then but who has become since November 13; only he could understand me.

The fact that my friends didn't go through it with me kind of put a distance between us. A few told me that everything was OK because I was alive. When they were told I was alive, they didn't care about how many people had died. It's hard to accept that when I identify as part of the group we formed that evening—us, the victims and survivors of the Bataclan. I feel connected to the people who almost died with me, even though I don't know them and probably won't ever see them again. I may not have lost anyone I knew that evening, but it's hard to face the fact that while we survived, 90 others lost their lives. That feeling of having failed them is horrendous. Since then, I feel like nothing shouldn't be taken for granted, because it's all hanging by a thread.

*Names have been changed.

Photo by Lily Rose Thomas

It's sometimes difficult to figure out how best to actively challenge negative attitudes toward the LGBT community. I suggested locking a bigot in a room and electrocuting him while straight porn plays in the background, but gay rights groups weren't into that idea. They suggest more subtle approaches, like correcting people who use the term "gay" pejoratively, sharing well-written articles about LGBT issues, and attending a protest or march. These are, granted, small steps, but they make a difference, especially in terms of visibility. They take on the thin end of the wedge that is discrimination, and are things that we can all do quite easily.

And yet, the question of what else we can do to make life better for LGBT people remains a big ask.

Especially as we now understand—arguably better than ever before—that no two LGBT people are the same, nor do they face the same struggles, or have the same needs. Of course, some things are going right for LGBT people as a community. When I look to those around me, I see young LGBT people having smart debates about intersectionality, coining new terms that they feel help to define their sexuality and gender, and looking back at queer history to understand how we got where we are today.

Sometimes, however—and we saw this a lot in 2015—these acts can breed infighting, unnecessary subdivisions between LGBT groups or a tension between those with more radical and those with more assimilationist politics. Hence Amrou Al-Kadhi, founder of drag troupe Denim, offering this New Year's resolution for LGBT people: "Let's remember that being queer is not so much about sexual orientation but rather rejecting dominant pressures for all of us. We need to rebuild the safe collectivity of a gay community without judgement or hierarchy." I agree with Amrou—in 2016, we all need to try to get along a bit better so we can establish a few shared goals.

I asked a handful of people I respect what these goals or resolutions should be. But first, mine is that we need to abolish the myth that equality has been achieved. As of 2014 in the UK and 2015 in the US, it is now legal for same-sex couples to marry one another. LGBT people can now, theoretically, adopt, and raise children in these countries while everyone remains safe in the knowledge that our kids might not grow up to be LGBT themselves. Transgender people can technically serve in the army should they so desire. In these respects, the law recognizes us as equal, creating an illusion that "Equality" with a capital E has been met.

Being queer is about rejecting dominant pressures for all of us.

In actuality, these sanctified, state-level recognitions of equality are far from the legalization we so desperately need to protect those who are marginalized the most, particularly trans people and LGBT people of color. Matthew Horwood, a representative from LGBT rights charity Stonewall, sums it up: "There's sometimes a misconception, with same-sex marriage now legalized, that equality has been won for lesbian, gay, bi, and trans people. But there is still so much left to do. We cannot be complacent."

Matthew is talking about how equality in law does not mean equality in practice. In 2015, LGBT people endured workplace discrimination, everyday microaggressions, and endless homophobic abuse. Rates for homophobic hate crimes rose dramatically in parts of the UK. They might have dropped off in America, but trans people took the brunt instead. A terrifying 23 American trans women were killed in 2015—a crisis. The hate is so all-encompassing that many LGBT people internalize it, too. A recent study in the States revealed that 41 percent of trans people have attempted suicide, compared with 4.6 percent of the general population.

We need to remind people we're not there yet, that we only need more state-level provisions of care. Fewer LGBT people would face discrimination or be fired from their jobs if there were better workplace policies to protect us. Fewer transgender people would die in prison cells in the UK if they weren't put in a gendered prison that doesn't correspond to their lived gender. Fewer transgender people would kill themselves if they could afford the healthcare to have transitional surgery in America, where you have to pay for it.

Related: Watch our documentary about the struggle for transgender healthcare in Canada, 'On Hold'

Legal equality will trickle down into a better, general treatment of LGBT people, in the same way that having important conversations about LGBT issues in the public sphere will too. We need more celebrities like Ellen Degeneres, Miley Cyrus, and Laverne Cox to keep using their statuses to raise awareness for various problems threatening LGBT communities. We need more films like Tangerine and TV shows like Orange Is the New Black to tell stories about LGBT lives. But—and there is a but—if 2015 taught us anything, it's that these things are not enough and can, in certain cases, even misrepresent the true experiences of LGBT people.

Ray Filar edits the Transformation section of Open Democracy (which you should really check out here). Ray has a couple of goals for the LGBT community in 2016. One is that we need to find a way to stop violence against trans women of color, and another is that we need everybody to stop worrying so much about what genitals everybody else has. 2015 was the biggest year on record for coverage of trans issues in the media—from Caitlyn Jenner's somewhat problematic "coming out moment" to Germaine Greer's transphobic remarks. But, says Ray, why don't we make 2016 the year we refocus the conversation on how being transgender intersects with other types of marginalization, like poverty, disabilities, or drug use?

And what else can we do if we're not a policymaker or in the extended cast of Orange Is the New Black? Well, says Ben Walters, who campaigns to save gay spaces, we can put money behind the bar in our favorite queer spaces, a nd "look out for new sites we can fill with queer community and culture." Green Party activist and editor of blog The Queerness, Lee Williscroft-Ferris, reminds us that us LGBT people need to make sure we vote. "That might sound obvious," he says, "but it ensures we have an impact on policies that affect us." Charlie Craggs of Nail Transphobia says: "Talk to a trans person and make yourself an ally." And another good one: Dan Glass of ACT UP London suggests that marginalized groups team up and stand in solidarity for one another, like the excellent activist organization Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants.

This article is by no means an exhaustive list of ways to make life better for LGBT people in 2016 (that would be an impossible task), but in researching and writing this piece, it became apparent that there are fucking tons of things we can focus on to make our lives better. We need to blog about our lives, we need to tweet, we need to sign petitions, we need to be seen protesting in public spaces, we need to create gay spaces, we need to hold vigils for LGBT suicides and murders, we need to demand equality, we need to stage interventions, we need to elect gay officials, we need to self-publish, we need to support LGBT art and cinema and literature, and we need to correct people when they say something harmful toward our community whenever it is safe to do so.

In 2016, we need to take up more space, be more caring for one another, and continue to attempt to break through to those who need to hear it most—or as Matthew from Stonewall puts it, "change hearts and minds." Because, while we might be harming ourselves, I'm almost 100 percent sure it's not LGBT people murdering each other. (If we were, who would we lip sync along to Cher with?) The people who are doing the killing are—as we all are—part of a larger system of structural discrimination predicated upon misinformation. In 2016 let's stop arguing and picking fights with one another where it's unnecessary and focus on better educating these people—the people who couldn't care less.

And that is, I think, quite a lot to get on with.

Follow Milly Abraham on Twitter.

Water headed for Quesnel Lake gathering in a sediment pond. Photo by Farhan Umedaly

There will be no charges or fines issued against Imperial Metals as a result of the catastrophic failure of its tailings dam at the Mount Polley gold and copper mine last summer, according to Al Hoffman, the BC's chief inspector of mines.

The decision not to forward charges to Crown Counsel was based on Hoffman's yearlong investigation into the incident, in which a dam enclosing the mine's tailings storage facility collapsed, sending 10 million cubic metres of water and 4.5 million cubic metres of slurry containing tens of thousands of kilograms of toxic and carcinogenic materials into Hazeltine Creek, Polley Lake, Quesnel Lake, and the surrounding environment.

The investigation was completed and presented in a government report on Dec. 17.

"Though the mine and its engineers employed weak practices on the mine site," they were "not in contravention of any regulation," Hoffman said via email. They also did not legally contravene existing mining legislation, he added.

Some of the weak practices included a failure to account for the strength and location of a layer of clay underneath the dam in its design, inadequate water management, insufficient beaches and a sub excavation at the outside toe of the dam that exacerbated its collapse.

"The conclusions are fair, based on the regulatory regime we have in British Columbia right now, but therein lies the weakness," said fisheries biologist and long-time local resident Richard Holmes. "The mining company really walked a very fine line between creating profit for themselves and meeting their regulatory requirements—which by the way were very, very weak. And the government themselves were negligent on our behalf as citizens of the local area. They never monitored this project well enough and the regulatory regime was not powerful enough or strong enough to rein the company in."

Currently, mining laws do not allow for administrative penalties. At present, the government has very few tools to enforce compliance other than to shut the mine down, issue stop-work orders or pursue prosecutions according to Hoffman. Plans are underway to address this and other regulatory issues with new standards and guidelines.

Look at Anna Haifisch's art and comics on her website and Twitter.

Members of the New York City Police special task force stand guard at Times Square before New Year's Eve celebrations on December 31, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images)

October 1: Christopher Harper-Mercer shoots up his Umpqua community college English class in Roseburg, Oregon, killing nine and injuring nine more. November 13: At least eight men attack three different locations in Paris, killing 130 and injuring hundreds more. November 27: Robert Lewis Dear shoots up a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood, killing three and injuring nine more. December 2: Syed Rizwan Farook, with his immigrant wife's help, shoots up his office holiday party in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 and injuring 22.

All these attacks, some dubbed terrorist attacks, some not, have been ratcheting up the anxiety of Americans and the rest of the planet, especially in the wake of obsessive cable coverage. And we're already overreacting, as when Los Angeles shut down its public schools in response to a dubious bomb threat, or when Rochester, New York, canceled its New Year's Eve celebrations after the FBI arrested a mentally ill panhandler on terrorism charges—a man the feds paid informants some $20,000 to set up, and Walmart $40 to outfit.

In other words, we're letting the terrorists terrorize us, and it only feeds more attacks.

"The government and media sensationalize in a manner that spreads fear and misunderstanding that drives ineffective policies," says Mike German, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU and a former FBI counterterrorism agent. "We have to take the terror out of terrorism."

Right now, we're not even close to doing that.

In October, in response to the Umpqua Community College attack, President Obama emphasized that gun deaths, generally, are a bigger threat in the United States than what most of us consider terrorism. He asked the media to "tally up the number of Americans who've been killed through terrorist attacks over the last decade and the number of Americans who've been killed by gun violence, and post those side-by-side on your news reports." Even by conservative measures, that weighs 150,000 gun deaths in the US between 2001 and 2013 against the roughly 3,000 terrorist attack deaths between 2001 and 2014. In that context, it becomes clear that mass shootings, of all sorts, are the problem, and that mass shootings inspired by Islamic terrorism are a subset. So solving terrorism—at least in the US—should be about solving crimes.

But in response to the San Bernardino attack (and the cable news obsession about it), Obama gave a speech treating the San Bernardino mass shooting and those 14 deaths differently. That incident, he said, was terrorism. Because Farook and his wife had "gone down the dark path of radicalization" before their attack—as if Dear had not)—Obama called for several policies focused exclusively on terrorists, such as "mak sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun" and, obliquely, creating weaknesses in communications technology to make it harder for terrorists, and everyone else, to encrypt messages.

Rather than remain silent about America's deadbeat Sunni "allies," its leaders need to demand they work to combat the extremist ideology fostering Islamic terrorism most threatening to the country.

Worse still, even though Farook first started planning a terrorist attack way back in 2011, before the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) even existed in its current incarnation, Obama promised more air strikes against ISIS in response, just as the French bombed a bunch of mostly empty sites in Syria in response to the Paris attack. The problem is that's likely to help the group recruit more fighters to travel to Syria or inspire more attacks by individuals in the West.

"The use of military force to bomb terrorist organizations in so-called safe havens appears to be one of the most powerful recruitment tools there is," Micah Zenko, a senior fellow at Council on Foreign Relations, says of attacking failed states like Syria or Yemen in the name of denying terrorists safe havens. "If you believe the Safe Haven Myth, you must continually use force to attack terrorists organizations, which provides the basis for their recruitment to replace the foot soldiers you killed."

While some of what Obama laid out in his December speech makes sense—especially his determination to avoid another major ground war in the Middle East—even that effort lacks a larger strategy. Most tellingly, Obama's speech described our closest allies against ISIS to be other Western countries: France, Germany, and United Kingdom. The push from Western countries to bomb more is a tacit admission that those who should be fighting the threat—predominantly Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey—have largely backed out of that effort, with the Saudis escalating a proxy war against Iran rather than fighting ISIS. That makes it difficult to fight ISIS's ideology, as Saudi Arabia's own extremist strain of Sunni Islam arguably serves to legitimize that of ISIS.

Rather than remain silent about America's deadbeat Sunni "allies," its leaders need to demand they work to combat the extremist ideology fostering Islamic terrorism most threatening to the country. "We need to come clean with how we feel about the inaction or support of our allies" for Sunni extremism, former CIA analyst Nada Bakos argues. "When it comes to ideology," she adds, "this issue has to be solved by regional governments."

Experts recommend an analogous approach domestically when it comes to dissuading those who might join overseas or try to carry out their own attacks. For years, people within the Muslim community have tried to intervene as family or friends got sucked in by the lure of terrorism. Perhaps the most unfortunate example of that came when the father of Mohamed Osman Mohamud called the FBI in 2009 to ask for help with his son, who had ties to some terrorist propagandists. Instead of helping, FBI informants spent a year coaching the teenager into a bomb attack on Portland's Christmas tree lighting ceremony. Mohamud is now serving a 30-year sentence for pressing a button he believed would set off a bomb, the unfortunate outcome of his father asking for help.

Rather than make it easier to step in before young (usually) men do something stupid, the US government has perennially tried to set up programs, called "Countering Violent Extremism," to intervene. The Muslim community distrusts such efforts, in part because they usually focus exclusively on Muslims, not extremism generally, and in part because such outreach has been used to spy on the community in the past. The FBI "is not an agency that is set up to handle interventions, nor is it tasked with the rehabilitation of suspects," argues Samer Khalaf, President of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. "The Arab and Muslim Community does not trust the FBI because of the past and well-publicized actions of using strong-arm tactics to force members of the community into becoming informants and its practice of profiling."

Watch our documentary about how Pablo Escobar's legacy of violence drives today's cartel wars.

Seamus Hughes, deputy director of the program on extremism at George Washington University, says such efforts should be localized, usually run by non-government entities. There are analogous programs used to convince adherents to both far-right extremist factions and gangs to leave the groups, both in the US and overseas. Such groups have been effective in the UK and Germany, though in some European countries (including France) there are more legitimate grievances on the part of Muslim groups as a whole. But because of laws uniquely applicable to international terrorism in the US, most notably a 2010 Supreme Court ruling finding that counseling terrorist groups could be deemed providing support, such localized interventions carry legal risks of being prosecuted as extremist. Plus, if an imam intervenes but fails to stop an attack, he might be held liable. As Hughes explains, "we need to provide legal assurances" that those who try to divert people from extremism "won't be unduly affected by it." Rather than insisting that the FBI or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spend their time trying to divert young people getting sucked into ISIS on Twitter, federal authorities ought to make it legally safer for community members to help convince people not to pursue violence.

That's especially true because career incentives for the FBI remain focused on arrests and convictions, with a current emphasis on Islamic extremism. Until that changes, it will be particularly hard to divert those who consider, but turn away from, Islamic extremism.

Online recruitment via social media presents a unique problem. ISIS's facility with using social media like Twitter to spread propaganda and videos does serve as a key recruiting platform, one other extremist groups are now mimicking. Bakos, the former CIA analyst, notes that it's not just terrorist recruiters who can use social media to motivate people to do something they otherwise wouldn't.

"Look at how teenagers use social media, how they use it to bully people, to shame others, to get them to do things they might not otherwise do," she says. In response to ISIS's exploitation of social media, US Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein have renewed their earlier efforts to pass legislation requiring social media companies report "online terrorist activity." Yet the risk of asking social media companies to arbitrarily define terrorism was displayed just last week, when Arab Spring activist Iyad al-Baghadi, after being confused by the New York Post with ISIS's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had his Twitter account shut down for a period. A better solution would be to report users who open a series of new accounts in response to being shut down, though according to testimony from FBI Director Jim Comey, social media companies have cooperated without laws that force them to.

Moreover, the US thinks too much in terms of countering ISIS's ideology and too little in offering something constructive to address perceived grievances. A recent study by Hughes and GWU colleagues on Americans attracted to ISIS found many were searching for a sense of belonging, as well as responding to grievances such as Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's repression of rebels. That, reinforced by a narrative pitting "us against them," is similar to what attracts people to other extremist groups. The proliferation of terrorism and other gun violence suggests we need to offer ways for people to address complaints and develop a sense of community without killing a bunch of people to attract attention. In Europe, with its much larger population of (largely unassimilated) Muslims, such efforts need to extend at a macro level to address some of the persistent grievances.

In the US, the parallel rise in both Islamic and domestic extremist groups invites a consideration of whether the FBI needs tools focused primarily on Islamic extremism, especially given a rising number of domestic terrorist attacks thwarted by the FBI without these tools.

"We no longer teach prescriptive interviewing as opposed to brute interrogation." —David Gomez

Immediately after 9/11, the US government tried to make FBI pursue Islamic terrorism more like the CIA would, divorcing intelligence collection from specific crimes. As recently as last year, advisors insisted the FBI should spend more time mapping out where potential Islamic terrorists might come from, which amounts to profiling, even though FBI agents reported they found little value in the activity.

Retired FBI counterterrorism Executive David Gomez argues the FBI went too far in embracing this intelligence role, unmoored from directly preventing attacks or investigating crimes already committed. "What prevents a terrorist act is getting right in the middle of them, conducting surveillance, recruiting people within the organization, recruiting outsiders to infiltrate the group, developing undercover operations," he says. "Those are different types of activities than traditional intelligence collection."

This approach needs to be embraced without an over-reliance on tracking online communications, because in the absence of human involvement, that doesn't necessarily help prevent attacks. Gomez suggests the FBI has grown far too reliant on technical toys. "We've lost ability to talk to people, recruit people, investigate people," Gomez says. "We no longer teach prescriptive interviewing as opposed to brute interrogation. People rely on electronics and Internet too much, and aren't being taught interpersonal skills." That mirrors a parallel concern that the CIA, too, has deemphasized its ability to collect intelligence directly from people.

The importance of human involvement has proven especially true in Europe, where case after case has shown authorities knew of extremists who would go on to carry out attacks, but didn't have the manpower to track them closely enough to prevent it. (To be sure, some countries in Europe also need to do a better job of sharing intelligence, as proved to be true in the lead-up and aftermath of the Paris attack.)

We need to stop letting terrorists terrorize us, because that only makes them stronger.

Ultimately though, 14 years after starting but making little progress in a global "war on terrorism," it is time—at least for Americans—to return to thinking about these attacks in terms of crime, not Terrorism. That's true, in part, because (as President Obama observed), gun crimes of all sorts are the bigger threat in the US—not to mention a great deal of violent or impactful crimes that go unsolved as the country obsesses about just one kind of attack. Both German and Gomez argue the FBI should focus on the crimes themselves, for which politics or ideology are just the motivation. Indeed, some crimes, such as weapons trafficking or robbery, may lay the groundwork for larger terrorist attacks. German further argues that by focusing on otherwise unsolved crimes, you'll end up stopping the terrorism that such crime facilitates. "Focusing on solving uncleared violent crimes will save more lives and unintentionally interdict more terrorism than mass surveillance ever will," he says.

The federal response, thus far, to the occupation by a far-right militia of a wildlife refuge in Oregon may provide lessons. Though the occupation is still in its early days, the government seems committed to de-escalating the situation, not only to avoid loss of life, but also to diminish the appeal of the occupiers. That's a dramatically different approach than the feds usually take to Islamic terrorism or even unarmed civil disobedience. But it has the advantage of treating these people as trespassers with guns, rather than as a movement that, by being targeted, might attract others.

We need to stop letting terrorists terrorize us, because that only makes them stronger. If they're treated like criminals, just as the other mass shooters are, we might begin to focus on underlying causes of all kinds of shootings, and save a lot of lives along the way.

Marcy Wheeler is an independent journalist covering national security and civil liberties and a fellow at X-Lab, a technology policy think tank. Follow her on Twitter.

Photo of the Kaaba and a sea of people making their hajj via WikiCommons

Authorities in Iran have announced plans to bar Iranian citizens from making a hajj to the Saudi Arabian cities of Mecca and Medina, CNN reports. The country is also freezing all Saudi imports.

Tensions between the two Middle Eastern countries have been rising recently, after Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran following an attack on the Saudi Arabian embassy in Tehran. This latest move shows just how much their relationship has deteriorated, and a pilgrimage ban is more than just symbolic: Reportedly, around 600,000 Iranians make annual pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina every year, and Saudi Arabia makes billions from religious tourism.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have been longstanding rivals in the region, and Iran has banned its citizens from traveling to Mecca before, most recently in 1987 after a clash between protesters and Saudi security forces in the city left hundreds dead. (That ban lasted for three years.)

Iran has also accused Saudi Arabia of purposely targeting the Iranian embassy in Yemen during a recent airstrike, though according to the BBC the building may not have been hit.

Joy is dead. Photo via le fromage

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Well I don't know about you, but I don't have a fucking clue how to do my job after ten days of not doing it—I am cheese now, I am the cheese man, my legs are made of them little Lindt things and my blood pulses thick with gravy, I cannot comprehend anything that is not prefaced by that magical Christmas-themed BBC logo card with the twinkling snow effect and that little alive sprout—and I am looking at my laptop screen just bewildered. What in... how the fuck do I do my job? How do type? Shh, shh. Just scroll through all the emails people inexplicably sent over Christmas and slowly delete a few until home time. Straight to bed and soup for dinner. Fend off the reality of an unfestive world with hot bowls of food and blankets.

But January is a long month, arduous and gray. And things are going to happen in it, every day of it. You need to know these things if you are to conquer them. You need to prepare for the onslaught of a harsh and uncaring month. Here's everything that's going to happen to you in January.

Real life photo of your commute. Photo via weegeebored

CONFUSION ABOUT THE YEAR

In olden times—come gather round, younglings, and let me tell you about the olden times—in days of yore, they had this special kind of money your grandma used to use to send you money for your birthday, and it was called "checks." You had to take checks to a bank to cash them. They were slightly too large to be folded up neatly in a wallet. You had to line up and hand them to a person. They would take three days to clear. It feels like grandma was really trying to make you earn your money, right? Is anything really worth $12? Is anything really worth lining up and talking to a person for? The answer, as checks will tell us, is "no."

But the old joke would go: well now I don't know what year to write on my checks.

And then—again in olden times, in the past—when you went to school and opened your fresh new workbook for January and went to write the date in the top right-hand corner of the page—or left-hand corner, depending on how deranged and insistent your teachers were—you would write last year's date, and then have to scrub it out with pen and write it again, and, oh god you've gone over the edge just rip the page out and start again.

And the old joke would go: I don't know what year it is! What am I like!

But then now, like, when do we ever write the year down? How frequently do we need to know the year? And the truth of it is: the only time we ever need to know the year is when we are calculating someone's age based on their birthdate, possibly while checking their ID at the bar. And we all do it in the same way: we figure out how old they were in the year 2000 (the easy bit) then add however many years have gone on from there (hard bit), and then sort of look up and to the right a bit, and... yeah, OK, you're 25? Yes: I can serve you alcohol. It can take anything up to March to figure out what year it is. Anything after that and it's possible you've had a brain injury.

IT IS THE FIRST OF THE MONTH, AND EVERYONE IS DOING DRY JANUARY

"No alcohol for me, thanks," they are saying, holding their hand over an empty wine glass. "I'm doing Dry January." You nod. That's not a thing. "Yeah," they say, stretching their arms, their voice pitching up a little with the exertion. "Went for a run earlier."

This is not interesting news. It is not inherently interesting to not drink for 30 days. The challenge is that it is a rub against the ordinary (nobody does Dry January because they are light drinkers who can easily do it—they do it because alcohol is part of their life, a social lubricant, a crutch), but not enough of a rub for it to be anything other than dull. Because the hoops you have to jump through, my God. A friend of mine asked me to an after work tea shop last January. Imagine: a tea shop. Tea! No alcohol! Just tea! For an entire evening!

Do you know what three rounds of tea does to the human bladder? Do you know how dry your mouth goes after three entire teapots of Earl Grey?

My dudes, I ate four brownies that night.

"Heh," they say. "I actually feel kinda good. I might see if I can keep it up a little longer, maybe until summer?"

TEN DAYS INTO THE MONTH AND EVERYBODY IS DRUNK

"Dry January is an entirely unsustainable concept!" they say, over Jägermeisters chased by rum. "The one month we crave and need alcohol is the one month we shun it!" Two bottles of vodka and entire thing of, of all things, advocaat. "Why did I try to be better!" they say, crying openly. "Why can't I ever be more!"

This is you, this is, for precisely six days in January. Photo via Ross Heale-Whittle

PEOPLE WHO DON'T ATTEMPT TO CHANGE THEIR DRINKING HABIT AT ALL AND THEN WONDER WHY THEY ARE TIRED AND SAD ALL THE TIME

"I'm glad I don't make empty promises of self-improvement to myself! Those people who do Dry January are such smug fux! 'Ooh, I don't drink, I am an angel person!' Fuck off out of you! PUBS UNTIL I DIE! PUBS UNTIL I DIE!" –Me

"Ugh I slept so badly last night. Why am I tired all the time? Why can't I sleep?" –Me

"Haha, bit of a weird one: I spent all my money on beer so now I can't buy us dinner tonight? Can you get this one?" –Me

"Why can't I concentrate today? On the one constant and enduring love in my life: content? I only had two beers and a whiskey last night, before five hours of fitful and erratic sleep." –Me

"I, honestly, cannot wait to die." –Me

YOU TRY AND TACKLE THE SALES BUT HAVE A BIT OF WOBBLE AND EVENTUALLY YOU WILL LOOK BACK AT THIS WITH HINDSIGHT AND SEE IT AS THE EXACT START OF A CRISIS

Look at yourself, look around you: because you are in a line of 20 people winding around a provincial branch of John Lewis with the following discounted items: new sieve (-60%), big oven glove (festive theme but you'll use it year-round and it's only $3), impractically large novelty keyring (Kevin the Minion dressed in a scuba outfit, roughly the size of three oranges), new cheese grater (it comes with a miniature grater for nutmeg!), Christmas-themed chutney 'n' cheese set ($6), one unstuffed cushion cover (you do not realize it doesn't come with the cushion until the cashier takes the display cushion out, and by then it is too late to go back and get another, tagged up, filler cushion, and so you resolve to go back to John Lewis to get a naked cushion at a later date but it's a very specific size one that they discontinued in November)($6), toast rack (who the fuck racks out toast? Just eat it. Eat toast off a plate. If anything, a rack makes it cooler quicker)($1). And then you look around and think: I don't need these things. And then you look around and think: if anything, I could afford these any time. Why don't I just buy them any time? And then you look around and think: is anything worth this pain? No. Nothing is worth this pain. And you dump the whole lot into a cash register display of decorative chili oils and sprint out of the store so quickly and while crying that a man with a walkie talkie chases after you accusing you of stealing, and then, like the weak little creature you are, you go home and drop $300 on Asos jumpers that don't properly fit you.

YOU MAKE A BIG FUSS ABOUT BEING FIT THEN HAVE A LOAD OF LEFTOVER CHOCOLATE BECAUSE IT WON'T EAT ITSELF

Back to the gym for the full "half-hour sign-up procedure with a hench dude in a polo shirt jabbing his thumbs artlessly at a touch screen before upselling you the $110-a-month package," are you? Complimentary backpack, right? Went twice in one week (well, once: second time you took your kit to work and back which sort of counts)? Only, what's this: oh, it's that entire box of liqueur chocolates, two alternative chocolate option Chocolate Oranges, and that entire tin of leftover Quality Street that everyone in your family inexplicably doesn't like despite them being the best ones, that your mom somehow convinced you to take home with you. Well: It's rude not to consume these things. What are you going to do, keep them in a cupboard until they go all furry and gray? No. No. Best to ditch the gym and have a caramel cup 'n' First Dates night at home. Oh, look: You just put a pound on.

Photo via Dennis Crowley

YOU TRY AND TAKE A GIFT BACK AND THE CASHIER ON THE SPECIAL GIFT RETURN DESK LOOKS AT YOU LIKE YOU COMMITTED A BAD WAR CRIME

They work, the returns desk dwellers, behind a special desk, a special low desk, a special low desk behind which basic actions such as "checking for a tag" or "taking a jumper off a coathanger" seem to take 60 or 70 times longer than usual, a bizarre alternate universe with a spiraling line behind it, and you bring your item back—for some reason your grandmother got you a onesie that says 'KE/EP CA/LM AN/D CUD/DLE U/P' down it, each word broken by a central zipper—and they look at you like you are, i. scum for bringing back your granny's appalling onesie, like, bro, do you hate your gran?, ii. scum for potentially wearing this item, sullying the lining of it, bringing it back with the tags intact and trying to claim innocence, and iii. scum for needing the $29.99 so desperately this early in the month that you would line up for 45 minutes with a special gift receipt to claim it. And you are. You are scum.

HAVE THE SAME FUCKING TIRED CONVERSATION ABOUT CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR AT LEAST 15 DAYS INTO THE MONTH

First day back at work is great—you just hammer your flat and useless hands against your work keyboard like Elmo trying to play piano and buy your one and only salad of the year in a fit of health-centered pique at Pret ("It's got nuts on it! Nuts and leaves! And it almost tastes as good as a sandwich!")—apart from all the endless, endless, endless conversations with everyone about what their Christmas was like ("I went to see the fam. It was good to have some down time, you know?" –literally everyone) and how their New Year worked out ("Quiet one, really. Few drinks." –literally everyone). But now we are all trapped in a sort of mass uncomfortable conversational gray area, where:

i. Every person you see for the first time this year will say (with a sort of joking half-heartedness) "Happy New Year," and you have to say "Happy New Year" back, because Happy New Year;

ii. Everyone will ask you how your Christmas was and instead of just saying "fine" and be fucking done with it you will actually start relaying your Christmas to them—because Christmas is a precious time special to you and you want to share it, to grasp onto the last warm dying tendril of it —even though you know they don't care and you don't care;

iii. The entire shape of making-coffee-in-the-same-shared-kitchen small talk has now changed, is now exclusively about Christmas, about how quiet it was, about how you wish you didn't have to come back (joking!), about how it was really nice to see the family, you know, and then you pat your stomach and say: few too many chocolates, though (joking!);

iv. And this can all fucking go on until February, because nobody knows when to stop enquiring about Christmas, or New Year. Christmas broke up with us, all of us. Stop bringing Christmas back up in conversation. It was good, OK! It was fine! Stop mentioning it!

And the dust consumes this fetid earth, and the trees ease over from their roots, and the sea dries salty on the ground, and the people die and the animals die and the sun slowly starts to wane, and yet you hear it, still, distant but howling, a whisper on the wind: How was Christmas?

YOGURT ADVERTiSements

Time you fixed your shits up, kid! You know your shits have been bad for months! You need to firm those fuckers up with fiber! Eat a yogurt! Eat a six-pack of yogurt! Martine McCutcheon eats these, and she shits like a dream!

EVERYONE LONELY WANTS TO FUCK, EVERYONE UNHAPPY WANTS TO FUCK

January 3, according to the hundreds of thousands of PR emails I came in to work to find, is some sort of dating watershed: the day everyone cold and unspooned over Christmas reactivates Tinder and OKCupid and starts messaging with wild abandon, and the day everyone locked in a loveless marriage finally takes the decorations down and has a very real conversation over the leftover Cointreau about how it's probably time for a divorce. And so the dating world is like a zombie apocalypse out there: Everyone is wild-eyed and hungry for flesh, bumping from hyped-up burger restaurant to hyped-up burger restaurant to hold ketchup-stained hands with each other before going home to bone under a slightly-too-small blanket, a flurry of dickpics, a hailstorm of emergency pubic waxings. Welcome to January, a hyperdating version of hell.

Photo of you via Tim Patterson

A QUICK STOCKTAKE OF LAST YEAR'S PROMISES TO IMPROVE SHOW DELIRIOUSLY POOR RESULTS

Oh, something's fallen out of your wallet while you're taking your credit card out to pay for a load of fruit (you're going to have a three-to-six day phase where you get Really Into Juice): oh it's... it's all of your resolutions from last year? Haha, you don't remember making this. What's on here... "Work out more"? Heh. Well, there were those four yoga classes you did with that Groupon. "Cook more healthy meals"... pretty sure I made chicken once, so. "Connect w/ famil—" listen, it's not my fault they don't know the rules of Monopoly. "Save 5 percent of pay every month" hahahahahahahaha. "Ask for payrise at wor—" look, the thing is, right, is having dreams will kill you. "Meet someone significan—" lists are stupid and for idiots! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to spend 40 minutes cracking a single pomegranate into bits so I can juice the fucker! Happy New Year, Sir!

YOU SPEND A THOUSAND HOURS OF YOUR LIFE Vacuuming UP PINE NEEDLES

Pine needles in your feet and in your slippers. Pine needles in your socks and in your shoes. Pine needles in alcoves and under carpets. Your rugs are needles now. Your skirting. And in the middle of it all, pine needle ground zero, that gray empty area where the Christmas tree once was, surrounded by needling chaos. Fuck Christmas. Fuck Christmas trees. Fuck everything.

THE SAD GRIM SIGHT OF THE CHRISTMAS TREE GRAVEYARD

It is quite sad though, seeing the trees all out on trash day, what once was loved left outside now to rot, browning and wilting, trash bag taped around their bases, lined up like prisoners ready to be shot. Everything lives and everything dies, you think, from the top deck of your bus. Except January, which lasts forever.

YOU ARE POOR AND EVERYONE AROUND YOU IS POOR

"EARLY PAYDAY, BITCHES! You get a present! You get a present! You get a shot! I get a shot! Ubers home! Ubers all the way home! Cocaine! Cocaine and Ubers! Christmas cocaine and Christmas Ubers! TWENTY. FIVE. POUND. PLUM. PUDDING. FROM. HARRODS. YOU. SNUB. DICKED. MOTHER. FUCKERS." –You, on December 24

"Oh Jesus Christ the last time I ate something that wasn't a single slice of white bread was last year" –You, on January 24

YOU FINALLY ESCAPE THE GRAY WET MISERY OF JANUARY, OF AUTUMN WITHOUT THE COLOR

January 28, that's how long you need to last. That's the general date that everyone on a monthly direct-deposit run will get paid on. "Oh, but I get paid a slightly different day to everyo—" nobody cares. We are in this together, now. We are all in our winter coats with our blankets round us, tins of Heinz Big Soup in the cupboards, soldiers in the storm. The nights are dark and early. The afternoons are gray and long. The central heating and the blasted wind are playing havoc with our skins. There is no merriment in mulling things anymore. There is nothing to look forward to, no candles to reverently light. January is a slog, of rain that goes sideways, of emotionlessly eating great large wedges of Christmas cake leftover from the good times, of counting out your big mug of change at the Coinstar machine, hoping you'll have enough for a big thing of pasta and some tomatoes. Still, not long left now. Only... god, how many more days of this? Oh god. Oh god.

Follow Joel on Twitter.

A US oil tanker in 1921. In December President Obama signed a spending bill that lifted a 40-year ban on exporting US oil. Photo via California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Over the holidays, when most Americans were busy buying stuff and trying to stay cool in the December heat, one of the most significant environmental policies of the last several decades was quietly enacted. There was no public vote, no public debate process. Instead, the move to allow oil to be shipped overseas from the United States was made when President Obama and Congress signed a huge and otherwise-inconspicuous spending bill into law on December 18.

Now, for the first time in 40 years, and just as the US reaffirms its commitment to crack down on greenhouse gas emissions, oil producers will be allowed to ship their carbon to foreign countries on big freighters, where it will likely burn with less oversight and fewer environmental laws than it would be subject to in the US.

The reversal of the oil export ban, along with the expected first shipment of liquefied natural gas to a foreign country ever (expected later this month), is great news for oil and gas producers who've been hit hard by lower and lower prices for their goods in recent years. But, experts say, it's terrible news for the rest of us and the global environment. And it's especially depressing coming right after so many world leaders, including President Obama, committed to battling climate change at the Paris Climate Conference last month.

"It's a huge deal," Jean Su, a lawyer with the environmental nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, told VICE over the phone. "It's less than a week after the Paris agreement was signed and Obama said the US was committed, then we go and sign a thing that regresses on everything that happened in Paris. It's horrendous."

There's a good reason oil and gas producers want to open the oceans to crude and liquefied natural gas: they're losing tons of money. Oil prices dropped from over $100 a barrel in 2014 to just about $35 a barrel today. That's about the same amount it costs to produce a barrel, meaning right now oil producers are making nothing. Natural gas prices are down to their lowest levels in 16 years.

And there's a logical reason for that, too: Over the last decade, the United States has produced a truly amazing amount of oil and gas. Thanks to new technologies, mostly fracking, which allows producers to extract gas and oil from rocks thousands of feet below the surface of the earth with a mix of high-pressured water and chemicals, production of oil skyrocketed from about 5,000 barrels a day in 2008 to 8,700 in 2014. Natural gas production increased by about 40 percent over the same period . So lower prices at the pump and for your home heating bill are a natural reflection of the market. But it also meant oil producers were going broke: 40 oil and gas producers have filed for bankruptcy in the last year alone.

The solution, it seemed, was finding new markets where oil and gas could be sold for cheaper. On New Year's Eve a Bahamian tanker called the "Theo T" cruised out of Corpus Christi, Texas with the first batch of crude oil to leave US shores in four decades, thanks to the budget bill that enabled it. And later this month, the first-ever ship carrying liquefied natural gas will leave from a huge new plant on the border of Louisiana and Texas.

It's a huge milestone for the industry, but environmentalists say exporting is a losing proposition for everyone.

"We're already on the frontlines of oil and gas production," Raleigh Hoke, an activist with the Gulf Restoration Network, which works with communities affected by oil and gas in Louisiana, told VICE over the phone. "There are already 28 export facilities being constructed along the coast, so that means countless new pipelines through people's backyards, new trains carrying oil which are dangerous, and it hinders our efforts to restore our wetlands."

But it's not only local impacts: transporting oil or liquefied natural gas takes tremendous amounts of energy.

"To make it, you have to put a lot of energy in to freeze it, to transport it, to keep it pressurized not only on land but all the way across the ocean," said Dr. Seth Shonkoff, an environmental science researcher at the University of California Berkeley. "No one is researching how much additional methane we're putting into the atmosphere by doing that."

The other problem is leakage: Natural gas has been touted by Obama as a "bridge fuel" to get the world off of coal and other dirtier fuels. But it's only better than coal if the vast majority of it doesn't leak into the atmosphere before being burned. But there's already evidence enough methane leaks out all over the place to negate any of its climate benefits, and Shonkoff said exporting that methane gives it myriad new opportunities for it to leak into the atmosphere more. That means exporting liquid natural gas could make it dirtier than coal. Still, no one knows exactly how bad gas exports will be for the environment.

But it's slightly more clear what oil exports will do: one analysis found exports will allow for 3.3 million more barrels a day of oil to be produced in the US between 2015 and 2035. Burning that would result in 515 metric tons of carbon pollution a year—that's the equivalent of putting another 135 coal-fired power plants in the US.

So why did President Obama, who just weeks prior signed one of the most significant climate agreements in the world, approve of such an environmentally detrimental policy shift? The short answer: politics. Without throwing a bone to oil-backed Congresspeople, the budget bill last month would have likely been blocked. And now with the policy enacted, it's likely there won't be any chance to reverse that decision until the US gets a new President, and a new Congress.

"Frankly we just have to wait until November," Athan Manuel, an organizer at the Sierra Club, told VICE. "And then hope we have an anti-fossil fuel Senate and an anti-fossil fuel President."

Follow Peter on Twitter.

The miners of the Battle of Blair Mountain. Screengrab via YouTube

There's a scene in The Wild One, a 1953 movie starring Marlon Brando before he got fat, in which members of the Black Rebel Motorcycle club are dancing with some women.

"Hey Johnny," Mildred asks, "What are you rebelling against?"

"What do you got?" Brando replies.

That attitude more or less sums up the American attitude toward revolution. Taxes we don't like? Dump some tea in the river. Coal miners feel like they're getting shafted? Grab some rifles, boys, it's a battle. Don't want to pay your grazing fees? Round up your militia, give them assault rifles, and get those boots on the ground. Since the country's founding, there has been a grand tradition of Americans rebelling against America.

Typically, and this may be a spoiler, these insurrections do not work out. The most famous example, of course, is the little scuffle the US got into with the Confederate States of America, but there have been tons of others. Here are six examples of citizen-led insurrections, rebellions, and coups d'etat that show the misguided militiamen starving in an Oregon wildlife refuge this week are not only poorly prepared, but also unoriginal.

Shays' Rebellion

Daniel Shays and Jon Shattuck, planning a rebellion. Image via Wiki Commons

Year: 1786
Who Revolted: Farmers led by Daniel Shays, over high taxes
How They Failed: Beaten by better armed government forces

The ink wasn't even dry on the Articles of Confederation before the new Americans started agitating against their infant government. Two groups of Massachusetts farmers led by Daniel Shays and Luke Day got fed up with the government demanding they pay taxes in hard currency rather than goods. Most farmers didn't really have hard currency because they farmed to live rather than sell and because the Continental Army was paying its soldiers with the prospect of being free from Britain (a precursor to paying interns "in experience").

In August of 1786, a militia took control of a courthouse and prevented the court from doing its business. On September 19, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts indicted eleven rebels for a series of charges that amounted to treason. Everyone's favorite microbrewer, Sam Adams, suggested that revolt in a republic should be punishable by death.

Six days later, Shays and Day organized a group to shut down the state supreme court. They were met by a militia that had been tipped off about the planned attempt and paid to stop it. The Rebellion came to a head when Shays marched on the Federal Armory at Springfield with 1,500 men, intending to coordinate a simultaneous attack with Day's forces. The state had around 1,200 men. When Shays advanced, on January 26, 1787, the state militia fired grapeshot from two cannons. This killed four and wounded twenty, and caused general retreat and panic. Two days later, the militia so thoroughly surprised the Shaysites that they barely had time to pull up their pants. There were no casualties and the rebellion was more or less over.

JOHN BROWN'S RAID ON HARPERS' FERRY

John Brown dragging his son and shooting his rifle. Image via public domain

Year: 1859
Who Revolted: Abolitionist John Brown and his acolytes, to incite a slave rebellion
How They Failed: Overcome by superior government forces after failing to incite a slave rebellion

John Brown was a notable rabble rouser with the insane idea in his head that people in America should not own other people in America. You may also remember him as the owner of the most homeless looking beard in the entirety of American history.

In 1859, Brown holed up with 18 men—13 white and five black—in a farmhouse to plan the storming and seizure of the federal armory at Harper's Ferry. He invited Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, but Tubman was sick and Douglass thought Brown was touched in the head. He was right. Anecdotal evidence aside, Brown's lawyers claimed insanity when trying to save him from the gallows, though he protested, saying he was "perfectly unconscious of insanity."

The basic plan was to seize the army and incite a slave revolt. Brown projected that hundreds of slaves would cast down their chains and join the small force on the first night and that he would have a nice little fighting force by dawn. The only problem was that they forgot to tell the slaves what was going on.

Everything went well at the start. Brown and his men captured commander Colonel Lewis Washington (a relative of George's) to take as a hostage, cut telegraph wires to cut off communication, and stopped a passing train to prevent word of their attack from spreading. They happened to kill a freed black baggage handler who attempted to stop them—a bad move when you're trying to incite a slave rebellion—and then let the train go for some reason. The train's conductor immediately told people there was a crazy guy attacking the armory, and Brown's team was eventually captured by then-US Army Colonel Robert E. Lee, who showed up to take charge in the 1800s equivalent of his street clothes because he had been vacationing in Texas.

After the rebellion and before Brown was hanged, Lee said that he thought the black members of Brown's party had been forced into action (a really bad move when you're trying to incite a slave rebellion). But Brown had no regrets, and before his execution he wrote:

"I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty, land: will never be purged away; but with Blood. I had as I now think: vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed; it might be done."

He was more or less right.

Wilmington Coup D'Etat

A Red Shirt rally on November 1, 1898. Image via NC state archives on Flickr

Year: 1898
The Revolutionaries: Angry Southern Democrats who wanted to reinstitute racist policies
How They Failed: They didn't :(

In November of 1898, a group of angry white supremacist Democrats marched on the city hall of Wilmington, North Carolina and seized control of the government, deposing the mixed-race Republican government. And here's the thing: It actually pretty much worked.

The coup took place on November 10, two days after a vote restored the Democrats to power across the state. Before the vote, gangs of Democratic-affiliated "Red Shirt" thugs went around and terrorized black voters until they stayed away from the polls. The white supremacist leader, Col. Alfred Moore Waddell, publicly said that he would use black bodies to "choke the current of the Cape Fear River" before the election.

They won, but Waddell decided he couldn't wait and stormed the city hall anyway. Up to 90 black people were killed when the white supremacists took power. They got away with this because they took control of the government and because it was more or less allowed to murder black people in that time.

The next year, 1899, the Democrats enacted Jim Crow laws like literacy tests and poll taxes to prevent black people from voting them out of power—the precursors to modern voter ID laws that similarly disenfranchise people who are already getting hosed by the system.

Battle of Blair Mountain

Top: Federal troops set up tents. Bottom: A federal guard on duty in a mining town. Image via West Virginia state archives

Year: 1920-21
Who Revolted: Mine workers, against their union-busting bosses and, later, federal troops
How They Failed: The mining companies had more guns, bombs, and the backing of the government

While the Battle of Blair Mountain wasn't exactly an attempt to overthrow the US government, it was a move by protesters for fair working conditions in the many coal mines of West Virginia. Initial protests sprung up because the company refused to provide payment in US currency, let alone let the miners do things like take a vacation or start a union. The revolt started in May 1920, when 12 agents of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency evicted some miners and their families from Stone Mountain Coal Company houses.

This was a fairly common practice. The miners would be forced into tents and then a heavily-armored company train called the "Death Special" would pass, shooting machine guns into the tents. They were stopped in town by Police Chief Sid Hatfield, who placed them under arrest—a gun battle ensued, killing three townsfolk and seven of the agency detectives.

Tensions escalated for over a year, culminating in a force of 13,000 United Mine Workers marching on Blair Mountain. US President Warren G. Harding threatened to send in troops and bombers to disrupt the UMW force, but balked. Instead, the coal company hired private planes to drop bombs and leftover gas from WWI on the workers as they attempted to reach the non-unionized towns on the other side of the mountain. It wasn't great.

On September 2, about a week after the hostilities began in earnest, federal troops arrived and the impressively-named UMW commander Bill Blizzard disbanded his force. After the skirmish, UMW membership went from 50,000 to 10,000.

Battle of Athens

The crowd outside the Athens, Tennessee jail as returning GIs attack it with dynamite. Image via Tennessee State Library and Archives

Year: 1946
Who Revolted: Returning World War II soldiers
How They Failed: They didn't

Following World War II, about 3,000 veterans returned to McMinn County, Tennessee, to find that it had been taken over by an asshole sheriff abusing his power to line his pockets and the pockets of his friends.

The basic problem was that county law enforcement operated on a fee system: the more arrests were made, the more money they got—sort of a reverse version of current quota systems. The sheriffs would pull over busses passing through the county and basically randomly hand out public drunkenness tickets.

The returning GIs loved drinking and hated the crooked cops that were constantly busting them for loving drinking, so they decided to push their own candidates. McMinn County had already been investigated three times for voter fraud, and to ensure that plenty more fraud would take place, the sheriff got some 200 armed deputies from neighboring counties to patrol polling locations on Election Day.

After the vote, the sheriff's deputies stole the ballot boxes and took them to the jail. Yes, really. The GIs marched on the jail and a standoff ensued. Eventually, the GIs just dynamited the thing open and went and got the ballot boxes. In the end, five of the GI candidates were elected. As you can imagine, this garnered quite a bit of press.

Days of Rage

Year: 1969
Who revolted: The Weathermen, against the Vietnam War
How They Failed: Outnumbered by the Chicago police

Over three days of October in 1969, the Weathermen faction of Students for a Democratic Society staged a series of protests designed to " bring the war home" to Chicago. About 800 people showed up in Lincoln Park, wandering around and listening to desultory speeches. Only about 250 remained when, at 10:25 PM, they got a signal from a bullhorn and began marching to the affluent Gold Coast neighborhood, smashing windows. They found and destroyed a Rolls-Royce, completely. Their target was the Drake Hotel, where Julius Hoffman, who had presided over the Chicago 8 trial, was staying.

They made it eight blocks before running into a forming police line. The police counterattacked and basically just ruined the Weatherman's shit. The protesters had football helmets; the cops had everything else, including nightsticks, actual body armor, and cars, one of which apparently drove into the Weatherman group at 25 miles per hour.

The next day, a 70-strong "women's militia" assembled in Grant Park. They were overpowered by police when they left the park to raid a draft office. Illinois Governor Richard Ogilvie summoned more than 2,500 National Guardsmen to fight off the Weatherman attack.

On October 11, the Weatherman organization held a 300-person march through the Loop, Chicago's central business district. Though the police stood two deep on both sides of the protest, the Weatherman marchers broke through and started smashing car and store windows. In the ensuing scuffle, a policeman was paralyzed as he attempted to tackle a protester. The Weatherman organization subsequently started singing a parody of Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay" to mock the cop's condition. The cop, Richard Elrod, now has a street named in his honor.

Follow Michael on Twitter.

A 1939 poster warning of the dangers of syphilis. (Image via)

The genitals of Britain are all festering time bombs, at least according to the tabloids. This week they reported an "explosion" of STIs, caused by dramatic cuts to sexual health services and the rise of hook-up apps. But how much of that is true, and how much is scaremongering by a conservative press that just doesn't want you getting your bits damp?

STI diagnoses in England are hovering near half a million, down very slightly on previous years but still near an all-time peak. However, that overall number is only a small part of the story. Some areas are worse than others; in Hackney you can find chlamydia in over 4 percent of the population, which is a hell of a lot, while Lambeth leads the country in gonorrhoea.

There has been some success in treating certain infections—the HPV vaccine has really helped the nation's genital wart situation, for example. But that has been dwarfed by rises in the rate of infection for other STIs. Gonorrhoea cases rose 19 percent in a single year, while syphilis went up by a spectacular 33 percent. That should be a big worry for men who have sex with men, who account for about 80 percent of syphilis and 50 percent of gonorrhoea diagnoses.

Naturally, people are looking for someone to blame, and dating apps have come under increased scrutiny. Several doctors have blamed services like Grindr and Tinder for the rise in STIs, and the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV even suggested they could be "potentially dangerous" to users' health. They believe that people who date online churn through sexual partners faster, exposing them to more infections, but nobody seems to have put any data forward to back this up.

In fact, more robust research seems to suggest that young people are actually having less sex. A big UCL study in 2014 found that women and men between the ages of 16 and 44 were having sex an average of 4.8 to 4.9 times per month. Ten years ago, just before Facebook appeared on the scene, they'd both be doing it more than six times a month. In the US, a huge study of over 33,000 Americans found that Baby Boomers slept with more partners than millennials and came out with the amazing statistic that half of all 20-somethings hadn't bedded anyone in the last year. Less "Netflix and chill" and more just, well, Netflix.

Photo via Flickr user Jes

So if kids aren't to blame, what explains the rise? For some diseases there's a simple explanation. If you look at a chart of chlamydia infections in England since the early 2000s, it looks like there's been a massive increase—in 2005 there were about 200 cases per 100,000 people, but by 2008 there were over 350. In 2005, the NHS launched a successful National Chlamydia Screening program. With more people being tested for it, more cases were found, and that's why the graph shows a big rise.

For other conditions it seems far from clear—the reasons may be different from disease to disease, and the situation in Hackney might be driven by different factors than the situation in, say, Cheshire. But one thing we do know is that the more people get tested, the fewer people will be infected—which is why doctors told the Guardian this week that the British government's £40 million cut to sexual health services will result in an "explosion" of new infections.

We already know what happens when you reduce STI funding because we've seen it elsewhere—cuts to clinics in New York contributed to a 60 percent rise in gonorrhoea diagnoses in the five years leading up to 2014. That's 60 percent more money that needs to be spent treating gonorrhoea, which is almost certainly going to cost more than the amount saved by the cuts.

That's not the worst part, though. All those untreated diseases out there are evolving, and fast. New strains of gonorrhoea have appeared that can resist the antibiotic drugs we use to treat it. An outbreak of "super-gonorrhoea" appeared in Leeds last year, and at least two frontline antibiotics used to treat it are no longer effective.

You might think gonorrhoea isn't much more than a nuisance, but that's mostly because we can treat it. Without those treatments, it can do serious, life-long damage, sterilizing men and women and causing pregnancies to develop outside the womb. More drugs are in development, but if we're burning through treatments as fast as we can invent them, that's not a great situation.

So that's our future: a post-industrial wasteland filled with rampaging drug-resistant sexually transmitted diseases. The only hope is that by the time things get really bad our grandkids will be too busy pissing about with emojis on their iPhone 42s to bother with any of that grubby sex malarkey.

This post originally appeared on VICE UK.

It's 9 PM in India and on the screen in front of me, two politicians are hollering at each other. Finally, one of them gets the upper hand. "Don't be a fisherman," he screams at his opponent, "don't be a fisherman." His opponent flails, tries to regain some initiative, but it's too late, "don't be a fisherman" has turned into a chant, his opponent has won this round. But this is The Newshour, with Arnab Goswami, and on The Newshour, with Arnab Goswami, there's only one winner. That winner is the man the whole country knows only as Arnab.

If you've never seen The Newshour , then imagine nine disembodied heads surrounded by flames screaming at you in a format and color configuration that looks like a slot machine. Then imagine one large head in the middle that controls all the other heads and shouts more than them and at a greater volume. That's Arnab, the one shouting head to rule them all. His show is Fox News on steroids. It makes most other news programs look like an official broadcast of a 19th-century royal coronation.

And it is a phenomenon: The Newshour is the most-watched English-language news program in India by miles and miles. The show claims, on average, 76 percent of English language news viewers in its time slot. Arnab is accepted to be the best-paid news anchor in the country.

Remixes of Arnab shouting hit the dance floor at regular intervals, some of them bangers—"Arnab Trap," for example—some of them more thoughtful, emotional numbers, like Interrupception, which features Arnab shouting "I'm not stupid" again and again over a piano loop before turning the name of the person he's shouting at—Tamil politician Subramanian Swamy (also fond of shouting)—into a kind of melancholy refrain.

The Newshour provides rich material for this stuff because it is so often the same and because it provides such a depressing, hysterical example of the direction news programming has traveled in this century. Two "burning" current affairs issues are discussed on the show, with Arnab conducting a panel of guests who, within minutes, are doing nothing more than making LOUD NOISES, a la Brick Tamland in Anchorman. On the screen, a graphics onslaught includes a dizzying array of flashing signs, hashtags, slogans, and flames marking the "Burning Question." Arnab then uses the full weight of his news anchor privilege to shout louder than everyone else.

Related: Watch 'My Life in Monsters,' our documentary about the animator behind 'Star Wars' and 'Jurassic Park'

His shouting is elevated, though, to a kind of higher truth. The show is billed as "Super Primetime" and its host is trumpeted by the channel, Times Now, as the man who holds the powerful to account, the man who is truly standing up for the people of India. This means that it is never Arnab who wants an answer from a politician, it is "India," or "the people," or "the country." The country's perceived enemies are viciously attacked: Pakistan is derided as a "terrorist," "rogue," and "failed" state (in fact, a friend of Arnab's says he'd be happy to see Indian bombs fall on Islamabad); the novelist Arundhati Roy was branded "disgusting"; a Greenpeace activist was mocked for wanting to travel to the UK.

"Do not give me generalities tonight!" Arnab shouts at his guests, before letting them give him generalities. On one show, discussing the arrest in Indonesia—after more than two decades—of the on-the-run Mumbai gangster Chhota Rajan, Arnab persistently threatened to reveal the contents of classified government documents that allegedly linked a number of top politicians to Rajan. "I'm really tempted to spill the beans," Arnab roared, again and again.

But Arnab never did spill the beans and he never does. Instead, he uses the privilege of his Western education—he had stints at both Oxford and Cambridge—and his position at the heart of the English-speaking media elite to create a lot of sound and fury which does nothing for the ordinary people he claims to champion because, in the end, nothing is really discussed and no one is really made to answer any questions. As the Indian historian and journalist Vijay Prashad tells me, Arnab "pretends to be the Grand Inquisitor for the People. But of course once the cameras are off, the bonhomie resumes. This is more theater than politics. The politicians get the visibility, and Arnab gets the ratings."

No politician is a better example of this trade-off than Sambit Patra, spokesperson for the BJP, India's ruling party. Patra is on The Newshour all the time. In fact, if you flick through any news channel at any hour of the day the chances are you'll find Patra sitting there in his Modi jacket—he basically spends his life moving from one studio to the next. He is the BJP's sin eater: letting Arnab shout at him and admonish him, taking the blows for Narendra Modi because he knows they don't really mean anything. In the world's largest democracy, The Newshour provides the potent illusion of democracy: The people want their often corrupt rulers to be held to account, they want to see them being shouted at. But while Arnab dishes out the punishment, it amounts to nothing. And in his style is being aped as desperate competitors try and claim some of his massive audience.

The phenomenon has gone worldwide, providing patronizing lulz aplenty from non-Indians. But of course this kind of jingoistic nationalism and over-hyped adversarial programming, which loses truth and nuance behind an avalanche of shouting, is hardly a uniquely Indian phenomenon. It seems increasingly to be a product of democratic societies that are replacing democracy with its loud-mouthed illusion.

Follow Oscar Rickett on Twitter.

Bill Cosby facing arraignment on charges of aggravated indecent assault last month. KENA BETANCUR/AFP/Getty Images

On Wednesday, two women who said they were sexually assaulted by Bill Cosby, including one who would have been 17 at the time, found out that the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office wasn't pursuing charges against the 78-year-old comedian. As has proved the case for the vast majority of the 50-plus others who have come forward to accuse the comedian of rape, the statute of limitations on the allegations has expired, prosecutors believed. (The one exception so far is the 2005 accusation leveled by Andrea Constand that finally resulted in criminal charges against Cosby in Pennsylvania on December 30.)

Whatever the legal consequences, Cosby is essentially disgraced in the eyes of the public. Since the allegations against him became well-known, he's lost an NBC sitcom and Netflix special, statues of him were removed from a Disney theme park and in LA, and even President Barack Obama basically apologized for not having the power to revoke Cosby's Medal of Freedom. Despite all this, despite the sheer number of women who have accused him of sexual assault, despite his own admission he obtained Quaaludes to give to women he wanted to have sex with, there are people who still adamantly believe Cosby is innocent—or who love him despite his sins.

The freshest evidence of his enduring appeal came on New Year's Eve, when Cosby broke his social media silence to thank fans and supporters; the Facebook post received more than 31,000 likes in the ensuing week. Tons of comments rolled in from people all over the planet calling him a "great man" and "one of my favorite comedians of all time."

Even people who enjoy the man's acting and jokes might pause and go, A great man? Really?

"Many fans have a hard time believing that anyone who has as much notoriety or success as a celebrity can actually be human or can have the faults or flaws that the rest of thew world has," explains Alan Hilfer, chief of psychology at Maimonides Medical Center in New York. "They put them in an unreal place and have a hard time giving that up because in many ways they're hoping there's an ideal out there."

One of the people defending Bill Cosby to this day is Wilmington, Delaware, native Crystal Lambert, who tells me via Facebook that she's been a fan of the comedian "since Mortimer Ichabod Marker and Jello pudding pops." She notes hasn't read the deposition and plans to direct prayer to the situation rather than scrutiny. "We as the public have a civic duty to back a man that gave and taught us so much," she says.

It is true that Cosby has been a philanthropic powerhouse over the years, particularly to historically black colleges. Among the donations he's made in the past are a $20 million gift to Spelman College in 1988, and $3 million to the Morehouse School of Medicine. (In July, Spelman ended a professorship named for Cosby and returned money associated with it to a foundation established by his wife, Camille.)

Many of Cosby's fans aren't weighing the good against the bad, however—they don't think the bad was all that bad to begin with.

Jeff Juraska is one of those who defends the comedian steadfastly. The sole caregiver for his almost 93-year-old mother in Central Florida, Juraska says he's read part, but not all of, the deposition. "If we are going back into the 70s, the way I remember it, being just a kid, everyone was doing drugs of various kinds," he tells me over Facebook. "I don't believe admitted to his charges."

Echoing that opinion is a man named Austin Casey living in Honolulu. He concedes that Cosby has made some "questionable decisions," but doesn't think that he's a criminal—despite having read up on the Constand case.

"The issue is determining what constitutes 'rape,'" he says. "I don't think that making a series of questionable decisions leading to you having intoxicated relation with someone and later regretting it or feeling like you were assaulted constitutes as rape. I think a lot of people—both men and women—would be able to lock partners up if this was a valid basis to charge someone with sexual assault."

For those willing to link their Facebook profiles to one of the more reviled men on the planet right now, it seems like what's at play here is either a willing suspension of disbelief or, more perversely, the conviction that having sex with people who cannot consent is—at least when Bill Cosby is involved—somehow fair game.

If nothing else, these fans aren't ready to let their icon go.

"If people are upset and disgusted, I could totally understand that," Casey continues. "But I don't think we should try to tear him down, tear his career down, and tear down everything good that he's stood for for the past 50 years. This poor decision of a married man seducing women to sleep with him shouldn't imply that everything he's stood for and preached is somehow invalid."

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.

Illustrations by Joel Benjamin

I'm on an odyssey of the psyche and pussy, a journey to decipher the difference between sex and love, fantasy and reality. Yet when I attempt to navigate these questions by fucking a lot of different people, it messes me up. So nowadays I talk and write about this stuff instead.

Recently, I spoke with three male porn stars: Ryan Driller, Tyler Nixon, and Christopher Zeischegg a.k.a. Danny Wylde. Ryan Driller is a suave, polished man of porn who has been in over 500 scenes and played porn versions of Magic Mike, Christian Grey, and Superman. Tyler Nixon is like the young, hot surfer bruh of porn. Christopher Zeischegg is more of an alt star: a writer, musician, and filmmaker who spent eight years working in the adult industry as Danny Wylde, but no longer performs. I spoke with Driller and Nixon on the phone, and with Zeischegg in person on his bed (we didn't have sex), about on-set crushes, pussy eating, and desire as a drug.

VICE: I don't like reality. I'll do anything to escape. I've tried everything and I've had to give up a lot of things that helped me escape and then hurt me. One thing I've bottomed out on numerous times is sex that feels like love. So I'm curious about your take on the line between lust and love, and when lust feels like love?
Christopher Zeischegg: I guess what can happen in porn, and even in real life... you can have chemistry with someone on-set and you develop this real emotional connection within the boundaries of that day. I feel like I've fallen in love with someone for a day. But then the day was over and I had no real interest in pursuing it after. For whatever reason—chemistry, whatever the fuck—you're like, "Yes I really like this," but then it's over. And that's nice, being able to have that within a contained box.

Tyler Nixon: Lust is powerful. People confuse love with lust all the time. Love is so easily thrown around these days that it's lost its original value. I'm being very blunt about it, but it's true. I think in every relationship, the longer you're with someone you can't expect that sexual tension to fully be there.

Have you ever gotten emotionally attached to anyone you've shot with?
Tyler Nixon: When I came into the industry, I knew that I had to secure my emotions really well before going in...so I have caught feelings, but every time I caught feelings I was like, "OK, I'm being a little ridiculous."

Ryan Driller: I have hooked up with a handful of people in the industry, but I tend to date outside the industry. There have also been some girls that I've had a strong emotional chemistry with and it could have crossed the lines of it being just a work transaction experience.

Christopher Zeischegg: Oh, definitely. I would develop crushes on people, but oftentimes I was in a long-term relationship as well and we had established kind of an emotional monogamy, and sexual monogamy apart from work, where we would both go to work, fuck people, then come home and be with each other. But I would definitely have the experience where you had a great time, maybe even fooled around before or after on set, and then you go home and it's like... I can't say that would disappear immediately. Sometimes it was still there, your long-term relationships have that insane fire in the beginning that dies out.

I feel like that fire itself is kind of a drug. I like to use it to escape myself and kind of get high. But I think I got in enough pain that I was just like, "I can't do it with this anymore."
Christopher Zeischegg: After my last relationship ended I was really hungry for that. I had these, I guess they were just flings. But part of my problem—and maybe this has to do with being in porn for so long—is that I may feel like I'm in love with you before I know anything about you. But then that establishes certain expectations. And maybe then in the same week it's like, "Holy shit, I'm not sure I have any interest in you other than this."

I was hooking up with this guy and he would always go down on me when I had my period and I was like, "Oh, he must be in love with me. I mean, his face is bloody." But I think the truth was he just loved eating pussy. Any pussy. What do you think is the difference between sex and love in this case?
Ryan Driller: I'm a very horny guy. I have a high libido and a high sex drive, so lusting does come from a physical place. I see somebody who's got attractive attributes and I want to put my penis inside her. But there is a stronger connection when you have that love and you will do anything for that person. I, too, love eating pussy. I know biology, I know it's not grotesque, so I'm not going to stop when my partner has her period.

What's the longest you've ever eaten pussy for?
Ryan Driller: Well over an hour.

Tyler Nixon: I don't know, multiple minutes? I enjoy it, especially when I find a girl who I enjoy myself and find to be very lovely down there.

I always joke that it takes me 48 hours to have an orgasm. With my partners I'm like "Is this OK? Is this OK?" and they're like, "Do you want me to wear a visor that says 'It's not taking too long'?" Of course there is a range within the female experience. But often in porn the women come very quickly. And obviously they're not all real. But some of them probably are, right?
Tyler Nixon: Forty-eight hours? Someone better get on it then.

Ryan Driller: There's a good percentage that are real, especially when it comes to pussy eating. That's a time when you can't see as much anyway so it's fine to go into a natural pussy-eating position, whereas doggy and missionary are at a 90-degree angle—it's not actual missionary position. It looks like it because of the camera angles.

Were you ever in the midst of a pussy-eating session and the crew was like, "OK hurry it up. Proceed to fucking now"?
Ryan Driller: All the time. Though there are a few studios that just let you go and do your thing. They don't care as long as they end up with 26 minutes of content.

Danny Wylde: I still do some sex work in real life, in the flesh, but that's not as big of a concern because I don't have a crew around me. People aren't like sitting there when you're jerking off, trying to get it up, and the crew just hates you. Everyone wants to go home and you're fucking it up. All the new girls get offended. If you're 18 and beautiful, and some guy can't get his dick up, it's like, "What the fuck is wrong with this person?"

But that's a good lesson for all of us: just because a guy can't get his dick hard doesn't mean he's not attracted to you. It could just be nerves. Why did you quit performing?
Danny Wylde: Since I was 19 or 20 years old I was taking Cyalis. At one point I injected my penis with this steroid that just makes it hard. But I got really psychologically addicted to these drugs, because I was taking them constantly. So there were times when I would get priapism, which is where your erection doesn't go down. I went to the ER the last time and the doctor was like, "You need to knock this shit off, because if you start causing scar tissue to build up in your penis from us stabbing it to drain blood you're going to fuck things up." And that was basically just me saying, "OK, I'm gonna quit."

I'm a hypochondriac with anxiety disorder and I feel like I'm always suffocating. So during sex, being choked is not my thing. But it's so trendy now. There's such a proliferation of it in porn that I'm like, "Does everyone enjoy it except me?" I've had more people attempt to choke me in the last 1/5 of my sexually-active life than in the first 4/5ths, and I wonder how many of them really enjoy it and how many are doing it because that's what they see and think they are supposed to do.
Danny Wylde: That's a good question. I would assume that some enjoy it and some don't, but just go along with it.

Ryan Driller: It's a good question. Are we teaching people what we think is supposed to happen or are we doing it because that's what everyone wants to see. I mean it's on that edge where people must want that and that's why it's popular. But there are always trends in porn. When I came into the industry MILFs were huge. I do a lot of the romance stuff because I have a problem totally degrading women. I can't really grab a girl by the neck and throw her around and talk a lot of shit, because it's not in my nature.

Tyler Nixon: I tend to choke a little bit. Like my hand will always wind up on a throat. But it's not like I'm choking, it's more like I'm passionately, like, look at me type of thing. If it's aggressive, it's very degrading kind of. I mean I have to do that. Porno is performance art—that's all it is. Everything people do in an average scene, unless you're watching X-Art, you're doing positions where you're contorting your body and it's not really that comfortable.

All I've ever wanted is a big dick. Like, I felt that if I had a big dick that things would be OK. That I would be protected from the world in some way, like everything is shit but at least I know I have a big dick. The dick is with me. It's a force. Has having a big dick ever provided you with emotional or psychological consolation?
Tyler Nixon: Oh my god, does it show that clearly on my social media that I'm an emotional wreck?

Danny Wylde: Uhhhh, no.

So Sad Today: Personal Essays will be released next March from Grand Central Publishing. Pre-order it here.

Follow So Sad Today on Twitter.