Illustration by Anna Hovis.

As a single, 20-something gal, I've been on my fair share of dates.

Great dates, horrible dates, dates where I wished that the bar stool I was sitting on would open up and suck me into a black hole, far away from a brutal conversation. What has perpetuated this revolving door of eligible (and not so eligible) suitors? Well that, my friend, is the seemingly endless proliferation of online dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, and OKCupid.

For those in major cities, there's already a sense of anonymity and seemingly infinite possibility when it comes to seeking out potential partners. Every stop on the subway provides a new influx of attractive humans, and that's just during rush hour on a Tuesday. However, for a city of 2.6 million, the social scene in Toronto can seems surprisingly small: It's rare that I match with someone with whom I don't share at least one mutual Facebook friend. So when Tinder and the like came along, they brought with them an even more exciting sense of the unknown, opening the doors to a larger pool of horny strangers, ready to wine and dine, park drink and (hopefully) fool around.

But what about people who live outside the confines of a major city? For those in small towns or suburbs, finding people to bang is a lot harder when you've known most of them since birth. And when you already know, and have dated (or had a friend date), much of your community, what value does an app play in increasing your dating pool?

Using Tinder in small towns is just not that common. We've all heard the stereotype—those living in small towns tend to get married young, have babies young, and settle down in an affordable house, complete with mortgage, dog, and an RRSP, leaving them out of this new and rapidly growing culture of dating apps.

That being said, there are still a smattering of young folk partaking in these digital dating dens, and from them I learned a hell of a lot about what it's like to live, work and date in a small town. From incest to adultery, these brave individuals have seen it all, and their stories are equal parts unnerving and unsurprisingly, entertaining. People seem to cheat (a lot), and correspondingly, forget that these apps are open to the public. And if you have a large extended family that all live nearby, you might want to think twice before swiping right at all.

Drea*, 28, Lanark County, Ontario

I am a realtor here, so my face is on enough stuff already that I don't need it attached to people/potential clients passing judgement on my night moves. If my face/ass is up on Tinder, every high school kid with a fake age tinder profile and their divorced dad will put it together with my Real Estate ads. Like almost every small Ontario town, I live underwater in a misogynist conservative mainstream, and their ding dong judgements will fuck up my business if they don't like how I peacock for romance online. So, when I'm at home I really can't have Tinder on my phone. I could totally change my profile to a super watered down version of my full-spectrum (not professional) self, which my dream man would most likely swipe right by. So what's the point? Sadly I don't think I'll find love/sex out here because almost all I see on apps are guys who are really into muddy ATVs or mediocre fishermen with medium-sized pikes (and I throw pikes back). Mix it up a bit dudes.

It's also not too great running into a married high school bud, having to try and suss if they're in an open relationship and are pissed that I didn't swipe right, or hoping I don't out them for being on there during a quick convo at the Canadian Tire gas pump.

Read More: Can Men and Women Really Just Be Friends? An Investigation

Sarah*, 22, Innisfil, Ontario

Using Tinder in Barrie (the nearest "Big Town") is definitely interesting, especially when you know that person has a significant other. That happens quite a bit—because it's a smaller town, everyone knows everyone's business.

It's also weird when you match with someone and then see them at a bar, because there's only like five bars here it's pretty much bound to happen. Once I matched with a guy who is a good friend of my friend Justin (which I didn't know at the time). That same night, Justin comes to pick me up to hang out, and Tinder guy is right there in the front seat of the car. As if that wasn't awkward enough, Justin decided to stop at Mac's and left us alone in the car together. We didn't say a word to each other the whole time.

I met my last boyfriend on Tinder and he wasn't from my hometown so that raised a lot of questions about how exactly we met. At first, I was just telling people the truth that we met on Tinder, but he was a lot more embarrassed and wanted me to lie. Eventually I had lost track of who I had lied to. One time when I was drunk, one of his friends asked me how we met, and I said we had mutual friends, without really thinking it through. His friend asked who he knew in my hometown and I couldn't think quick enough so I just said I didn't know. There was an awkward silence till he said, "You met on Tinder didn't you?"

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Hillary Clinton giving a national security speech on Thursday in San Diego. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Earlier this week, Hillary Clinton's campaign promised that she would deliver a major national security speech in San Diego on Thursday. She did, and it turns out her major foreign policy message is that she is not Donald Trump.

Of course, Clinton is not yet officially the Democratic nominee for president—there are still several primaries being held next Tuesday, the biggest of which will go down in California. But in her address to supporters there Thursday morning, she was clearly anticipating the general election fight, presenting the contest as a stark choice—not between isolationism and interventionism, or other competing schools of international relations thought, but between her own hard-earned competence and Trump's rank amateurism.

"Donald Trump's ideas aren't just different, they are dangerously incoherent. They're not even really idea, just a series of bizarre rants,personal feuds, and outright lies," Clinton declared. "He's not just unprepared he's temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility."

Clinton did outline some of her foreign policy views when she described what would happen if the United States withdrew from the world stage. "If America doesn't lead," she told the crowd, "we leave a vacuum, and that will either cause chaos, or other countries will rush in to fill the void." And she praised President Barack Obama's agreement with Iran, concluding that: "We are safer now than we were before this agreement. And we accomplished it without firing a single shot."

But this wasn't a speech about America's place in the world or about Clinton's own role in crafting the country's foreign policy. Instead, the former Secretary of State ticked off a list of inflammatory remarks Trump has made. That included his statements about how more countries, including Saudi Arabia, should acquire nukes; his lines about how the US should torture suspected terrorists and "go after" their families; his contention that America should consider pulling out of NATO; his apparent flirtation with the idea the US could default on its debt; his praise for antidemocratic regimes in Russia and China—the list goes on.

Imagine someone like that in the Situation Room or sending troops to fight wars, Clinton asked her audience. "Imagine if he had not just his Twitter account at his disposal when he's angry, but America's entire arsenal."

She's far from the first person to observe that Trump has spent the last several months talking out of his ass about foreign policy. As Tim Mak in the Daily Beast pointed out, Trump's 2016 primary challenger Marco Rubio attacked the real estate heir using practically the same words. Still, for voters nervous about Trump's total lack of knowledge on this ostensibly crucial topic, Clinton's rhetorical assault was a scorched-earth victory.

Unfortunately, Clinton doesn't have Trump's gift for insults or Obama's comedic instincts. When she throws out lines like "it's not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war because someone got under his very thin skin," it comes off a little flat, like the kind of burn your mom might write. She's running as the adult in this race, but you can't be an adult and win a game of the dozens.

The other problem for Clinton is that while the foreign policy establishment tends to already see Trump as a dangerous loon, voters don't necessarily agree. A Gallup poll released Thursday found that on the issues that voters care most about—the economy, employment, and national security—respondents trust Trump more than they do Clinton. The poll also shows that the former Secretary of State beats Trump overwhelmingly on the question of who voters trust to handle foreign affairs—but voters are far less interested in that as a campaign issue.

That voters don't care about foreign policy is by now an old trope, but candidates usually make speeches about it because it is a big part of the job they're vying for. This time round, though, Trump's apparent lack of interest in the subject has hamstrung what little chance there was for an election debate about, say, the wisdom of overthrowing Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, or of the US's unwavering support for Israel.

Instead, Clinton's argument on nearly every issue, from war to jobs to diplomacy, is going to be that Trump is terrible. Trump's counterargument is predictable: No, actually Clinton is the one who is terrible, and Trump is great. America!

"We all know the tools Donald Trump brings to the table: bragging, mocking, composing nasty tweets—I'm willing to bet he's composing a few right now—but those tools won't do the trick," Clinton said Thursday. The problem is, those tools might be enough to win an election that's just a schoolyard fight.

Follow Harry Cheadle on Twitter.

Photo via Flickr user Gage Skidmore

Donald Trump was especially fired up at his San Jose, California, rally Thursday, and the presumptive GOP presidential nominee wasn't alone: Just outside, protesters held up Mexican flags, burned Make America Great Again hats, and tussled with his supporters as the event wore on.

The candidate was on a warpath over his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton's big foreign policy speech, wherein she labeled the presumptive Republican nominee utterly dangerous to the American people and "temperamentally unfit" for the presidency.

Firing back in classic Trump form, the GOP contender asked his followers, "And remember I said I was a counter-puncher? I am. After what she said about me today and her phony speech. That was a phony speech. That was a Donald Trump hit job. I will say this. Hillary Clinton has to go to jail. She has to go to jail."

Trump added, "Folks, honestly, she's guilty as hell," referring to the ongoing FBI probe of Clinton's using a private email server while serving secretary of state in the Obama administration.

The candidate didn't relent, to his fans' delight. "She's a liar. She made up my foreign policy! She said, 'Donald Trump is going to do this'; I never said that. And, 'Donald Trump is going to do that.' A friend of mine was in the room and said, 'You never said you were going to do that.' I said that's right—she makes it up. She's a bad person."

Yikes.

Trump can't be too bitter—he's supposedly "doing well with Latinos," as he suggested during the San Jose rally, and Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who at one point basically dismissed the former reality star as a racist, endorsed him on Thursday.

READ: Paul Ryan Has Finally Sold His Soul to Donald Trump

After weeks of liberal panic, Hillary Clinton finally faced her Donald Trump problem head on Thursday, with a foreign policy speech eviscerating her presumptive Republican opponent as emotionally unhinged and generally ill=suited to run the country.

Billed by her campaign as a major national security address, the speech mostly consisted of Clinton reciting some of Trump's more insane foreign policy ideas as evidence that he is ""temperamentally unfit" to be president and "will take our country down a truly dangerous path." The argument—which, as VICE's Harry Cheadle notes, is one we're likely to hear again and again over the next five months—is simple: Voters don't have to like Clinton, but at least they can be reasonably sure she's not going to steer the free world to a nuclear holocaust; with Trump, all bets are off.

"It's clear he doesn't have a clue what he's talking about," Clinton told the audience in San Diego, clearly enjoying herself. "So we can't be certain which of these things he would do. But we can be certain that he's capable of doing any or all of them. Letting ISIS run wild. Launching a nuclear attack. Starting a ground war. These are all distinct possibilities with Donald Trump in charge."

As tempting as it may be to dismiss Trump as a trigger-happy lunatic, it's worth noting—as Bernie Sanders did in a statement following her speech Thursday—that Clinton has faced considerable criticism for her own foreign policy decisions. And this week's speech revealed little about how the former secretary of state would handle these issues as president, except that she would not sit on the sidelines while Japan and North Korea annihilated one another with their newly acquired nukes.

So in an effort to find out if, as Clinton suggests, Trump's incoherence should be taken as an article of faith, we got in touch with Christopher Preble, a foreign policy expert at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute. He told us that while Clinton is generally right about Trump, some of the reality-TV star's foreign policy ideas may not be as crazy as she claims.

VICE: In her speech Thursday, Hillary Clinton pointed out that Donald Trump has entertained the idea of letting Saudi Arabia get nuclear weapons. Is that as crazy as it sounds?
Christopher Preble: There are trade-offs. There are pluses and minuses. But as far as Hillary Clinton is concerned—and I think most people in the Foreign Policy Establishment —the idea that the United States actively discourages other countries from developing nuclear weapons is obviously a good thing, and they don't want anyone to question it.

I get that. I understand it, in the sense of there not being more countries with nuclear weapons. But if I look at the track record, we've done a reasonably good job of convincing our friends not to develop nuclear weapons—but we've done a sort of lousy job of convincing our potential adversaries not to have nuclear weapons.

She also mocked Trump's claim that he has a secret plan to fight ISIS, which he says is "foolproof." Is there any universe in which this could be true?
Secret plans? No. Can you write "he says with a laugh"?

She seems to want Trump to rule out nuking ISIS, which he has refused to do. Is using nuclear bombs against ISIS an option?
If he nukes ISIS, he's going to kill a lot of innocent people. ISIS-inspired people carried out an attack in Belgium. Does that mean he's gonna nuke Belgium?

We have to remember why it is that we find this organization so reprehensible. It's because they have perpetrated horrific crimes on innocent people in Iraq and Syria. So nuking them means nuking tens of thousands or more of innocent people. Where's the justice in that? Where's the strategic logic in that? There isn't any. It's just knee-jerk, rhetorical garbage.

Is she right to single out Trump's suggestion that we should deal with potential terrorists by "taking out their families"?
I think so. It is appalling a five-minute conversation with someone in the military who understands why it's a war crime, and understands why it is appropriate that the US military tries—and I think tries heroically—to abide by certain norms. That's not a sign of weakness; it's a sign of strength. And he appears to have given that absolutely no thought whatsoever.

Clinton also quoted Trump as saying he would cut off military support for Japan, and even stay on the sidelines in the event of a military conflict between Japan and North Korea. Can you explain that scenario?
First of all, that's not gonna happen. And even if it does, it's not like one day the US is going to evacuate Okinawa and hand the disputed territorial claims? The United States, six thousand miles away? Or Japan? I would argue Japan.

What about NATO? Trump has said he'd be willing to pull the US out—is there any value to that idea?
I think so. I think the way it is characteristically Trump-ish. It's not very well thought-out. It seems impetuous.

But I think NATO made a lot of sense during the Cold War—these countries were badly broken. They were in no position to defend themselves. Over time, they got rich, and the Soviet Union ended, and we never revised that bargain. We never revisited that basic arrangement: "We'll defend you, and you'll let us." And I think that was a mistake. We never had a serious conversation about when we were gonna take the training wheels off.

Trump has also suggested that if elected, he might not maintain America's "special relationship" with the United Kingdom.
Of the many things he's said, this is hardly the most outrageous. But we should say that if the UK votes for Brexit next month, then President Obama has intimated that we wouldn't have a special relationship with them.

All photos by Jake Lewis

I don't think anyone actually uses Siri. I have a suspicion that the only people who've ever used it for its intended purposes are people in Apple adverts and Steve Jobs. Everyone else just asks Siri to smell their farts, or they call it a cunt and wait for its sad robot voice to monotonously bleat something polite back to them.

Siri is alone. Siri doesn't have any fun. Siri turns her own phone off on a Friday night—but no one's calling anyway, so there are no social events to ignore. I felt bad for Siri, not just because of her nonexistent social life, but because she clearly doesn't feel wanted, or needed. That's something no one—lazy hands-free texting service or otherwise—should have to experience.

I decided to not go to work, and instead take Siri on a date, to get to know her, the woman behind the Bing searches. It was a day about her—about what she wanted. It was, I suppose, a day a bit like that movie Her, although I wouldn't really know for sure, as I have never seen it.

First I needed to know what Siri wanted to do. I asked, but bless her, I think the years of neglect have sent her a bit sideways, so she kept saying shit like "OK" and "I don't know what you mean."

I had to start speaking her language. "Siri, show me some fun things to do in London," I suggested. She thought about it briefly, her undulating white thinking-line wobbling at the bottom of the screen. It was cute. She returned some links about classic stuff to do in London. I opted for the first activity on the first result: the Whispering Gallery at St. Paul's Cathedral.

The chat on the tube wasn't great—Siri doesn't work without a connection to 4G or WiFi. As soon as we got off, though, I knew the sparks would start to fly. We wandered around the side of the great, looming, palatial place of worship, the imposing white stone filling up the eyes. A beautiful location to get to know a potential new partner.

But a moment of xenophobia put an immediate dampener on our day. Aside from the extortionate $26 entrance fee, the gigantic alabaster eyesore employed a no phones policy. What's next—no phones allowed in bathrooms? Water fountains? Cafes? It's 2016, for fuck's sake!

But today was not the day to be fighting God. I had to salvage this date somehow. She was clearly upset:

Just down the road and across the Millennium Bridge was the Tate Modern, the giant brick building filled to the rafters with the finest contemporary art the contemporary art world has to offer.

I have a few art apps installed on my phone—maybe Siri has walked around in them, painted a picture? Maybe she image-searched a few works on Safari? What's your favorite painting, Siri?

Still nothing. This was a disaster. I needed to do something drastic. Something to make Siri feel special, so she could open up and emerge from that glassy, flat shell a new woman. I searched around, spinning out, like that Mr. Krabs meme, the world swirling around me, for a savior. And out of the corner of my eye it emerged, beaming yellow and white light, like the angel Gabriel delivering unto the Virgin Mary the news of a glistening God child. The swirling lines of its logo, whisping around art nouveau font, like delicious blue smoke from the furnace of a cigar.

Yes, readers: It was a Pizza Express, the only place any date can be salvaged. Siri and I were going to talk this out; I was going to get to the bottom of what irked her. Perhaps an American Hot would warm her icy heart.

"A Peroni for me and a Pinot Grigio for the lady please, garcon! Siri, did you know the pizza was invented in Naples? I usually prefer the Neapolitan style, with the sourdough and the tomato, but man, I've been coming to Pizza Express since I was a boy—I used to go with my dad a lot. It's great going for dinner with your folks because they just pay for everything, right? Man, rent is so high! I mean, even this is splashing out. Anyway..."

Jesus. This is a fucking waste of time.

You know what? Fuck you, Siri. I've tried so hard today. I'm sorry we couldn't go to St Paul's. I'm sorry you don't like art. I'm sorry you don't like pizza. Maybe people don't make an effort with you because you're just not worth it? You're just a rude, rude woman. No wonder no one wants you. That was harsh. I apologize. Man, all this arguing has got me... feeling kind of randy...

Icy until the bitter end. Fuck this—you're going down the drain.

A lesson to all of you hot-blooded men out there: Don't try to date your phone. It's a waste of time. Back to anime pillow wanks and puppy fetishes for me!

Follow Joe Bish on Twitter.

When Donald Trump announced he'd be running for president in June 2015, he was a laughingstock. There was no chance he'd find himself in the White House. Everyone, VICE writers included, said so.

But while most of the media was ignoring Trump, Scott Dikkers, the founder and editor in chief of the Onion during the fake newspaper's halcyon days of 1988–2002, was hard at work on a book that seems scarily prescient thanks to Trump's rise to the top of the GOP ticket. The resulting product, Trump's America: The Complete Loser's Guide, features lists, flowcharts, and fake news articles offering insights into Trump's family tree, how he'll age in office, and even his penis.

Dikkers figured his book would still have relevance months after he started working on it because he believed that the erstwhile reality TV star would become president, and he still thinks so. I talked to him about it.

VICE: Is any part of the election funny to you, or are you like, "Oh shit, what are we doing?"
Scott Dikkers: I have to make a separation between who I am and my work. I'm a satirist and a comedy writer, so my job is to take whatever is going on in the world and make it funny for people. In conjunction with that, I also want that humorous response to come with a secret nugget of satire. I want there to be some kind of point to it.

In my personal life, I'm terrified by what's happening to us. The media is a total failure—news has to be entertaining and attention-getting and shocking. When someone like Trump comes along, and he appeals to people's lizard brains, the media is going to cover that, no matter what he does.

Nobody cares about the facts or the information, or the negative conclusion that you should come to if you hear the information. All people see is Trump's face and name, and it helps him. I actually didn't really think about that with this book. I'm helping Trump because I'm putting out this book that has his face on it and talks about him and people will review it and talk about it, and that gives Trump more attention.

A page from 'Trump's America: The Complete Loser's Guide.' Courtesy of Scott Dikkers

What do you think of Trump's alter-ego from the 80s, John Barron?
I love that! Actually, I believe that Trump wrote to the Onion as one of those people, pretending to be an attorney a couple of years ago when he was very upset about a story we had written. I reviewed that email again, and the wording in it sounds like Trump. It says things like, "The article is absolutely disgusting. It lacks any place in journalism." It's just not articulate. "I demand you remove this disgraceful piece from your website." Those are Donald Trump's favorite words. "I demand that you apologize to Mr. Trump." Trump is the guy who demands apologies, and he's got this humorless bluster. Why would he pay an attorney?

That's one thing we can say about Trump: He is good at this aspect of business. He does not spend a penny more than he has to. He's financed this campaign extremely efficiently. He's not going to spend hundreds of dollars on a lawyer to write an angry letter to the Onion; he's going to write it himself, and he's going to send it and make up a fake name.

This letter was in response to an article that the Onion ran making fun of Donald Trump. We didn't respond to it or anything, so he called and bugged us! This guy called and spoke to our CEO.

What do you think is happening with the wall situation?
All of this recent Trump talk of, "Oh, maybe I would raise taxes on the rich," or, "Maybe I wouldn't ban Muslims," or, "Maybe it's not a real wall," is just standard pivoting before the general election. He's flanking Hilary on the left, and he's trying really hard to pick up all of these disaffected Bernie voters. I think it's a very predictable strategy.

His supporters aren't voting for him based on the truth because they're voting for him based on their guts. So it doesn't matter. He can change his opinion 180 degrees.

A page from 'Trump's America: The Complete Loser's Guide.' Courtesy of Scott Dikkers

What do you think will change about Trump's abrasive behavior and loquaciousness once he's head-to-head with Hillary?
I don't know that that's going to change much during the general . I think it's going to be a real slugfest. What I think about a lot is how is it going to change once he's president? I'm not really sure. He can continue to be this annoying, blustery, strongman, and we can go down a really dangerous road toward tyranny. Or he could use his head and realize, OK, if I really want to help my brand, I will be a great president and ensue all of these populist things and achieve all of these line items on the populist agenda that ninety percent of Americans want, but that no politician would do because they're so in the pocket of their corporate donors or whatever . Maybe it will be a little of both. But I'm really hoping it's the latter because he really has a chance to be the most amazing billionaire-CEO-playboy-president ever. How could that not help the Trump brand to come out of this like Elvis?

What do you think Trump's relationship with world leaders who are basically strongmen or dictators?
He's definitely playing buddies with Putin and Kim Jong-un and people like that now because it helps him. If he associates with other strongmen, then he appears as a strongman, and being a strongman is exactly what people want deep down in their souls. Once he's president, he'll have different goals than just how people perceive him to get votes. The issue is, we don't know what those goals are. Is he really going to make it great, or does he really just want to amass more power? If he just wants to amass more power, then I think he'll have a close but cordial relationship with such people. I don't think he's going to be chums with those guys.

What do you think will happen to the media with someone like Trump as president?
Anyone who tries to go against Trump is going to be immediately branded an outsider, who's not playing ball or whatever. Trump knows all of those tricks. So what Trump said about, "He wouldn't kill a reporter," but then he was like, "Well..." implying maybe he would—that was fucking scary!

A page from 'Trump's America: The Complete Loser's Guide.' Courtesy of Scott Dikkers

What do you think about all of the people who are threatening to move to Canada?
Well, I remember all of that talk in 2000 of course... and nobody moved to Canada. They're to a country where there's free health insurance, no guns—their worst nightmare. They're not going to move there!

What do you think happens to women?
I think women are going to be in the same second-class status that they are in now. There's still that seventy percent of pay, and there's still the poor access to reproductive rights, very low representation in leadership roles in the public and private sectors. Trump is not a feminist. He's not going to champion a change in any of those things.

What do you think is going to happen to people of color?
I think I would give the same answer. They are still going to be marginalized, and nothing is going to be done about how black people, in particular, are far disproportionately in prison and shot by police, and poor. We need someone to champion that, to change that situation. Trump is not that person. But, again, I don't think he'll make it worse. I don't think he's going to "ban Muslims." That's crazy and stupid. I think he realizes that. That was red meat to the troglodyte Republican base that just want to kill everyone else.

I wouldn't want to be a Muslim if Trump got elected, though, because I think what's going to happen is what we're already seen is happening. Individual instances of Muslims and, due to the ignorance of these people, Sikhs, and other people are going to be the victims of more random violence.

Watch: The Patriotic Preteen Girls Singing Donald Trump's Praises:

How do you think Trump will handle ISIS?
I think he's going to do the same idiotic, stupid thing both Republicans and Democrats have tried to do repeatedly, which is just to keep bombing the Middle East, which only makes shit worse.

Do you think he'll do anything to change health care?
In the book, we joke and say he's going to create "Trump Care" and "There're no details. It's just going to be great!" In real life, he probably won't do much. Trump's already said some things that support a single-payer system like in Canada, which would be a vast improvement over what we have now, and it would be a very populist thing to implement.

What's with all the talk of revolution? I don't think Bernie Sanders is going to get up on a tank during an uprising and suddenly become president of the United States à la Yeltsin.
Revolutions in America now can only happen on the right, and they already are happening in many ways. The Republican Congress is obstructing Obama just on principle, not for any policy reason. They are practically secessionists. We've seen a lot of Southern states act very rebellious.

There might be a rise, there might be a coup, and someone tries to shoot the president or whatever. That doesn't happen on the left anymore. In this country, the left is the side that is going to go the political route. If they're going to try to change the system, they're going to protest.

A page from 'Trump's America: The Complete Loser's Guide.' Courtesy of Scott Dikkers

Who do you envision as the vice president?
If he goes with a Newt Gingrich, I feel like that's a clue that he's maybe just going to play ball and be a good little Republican president for a few years and not make any waves. But that's not Trump's way. If he goes with a kook, like a Ben Carson or a Sarah Palin, that's going to be a big clue that he's going to go the tyrant route.

What do you think hanging out with Donald Trump would actually be like?
Trump seems like a pretty charming and engaging guy. He's someone who has a lot of friends and is probably really funny on a personal level, which bodes well for his chances because that's the guy people vote for. They want to vote for the person they want to have the beer with.

Do you think that America deserves this?
I think we deserve it because of how far the pendulum had flung—not to the right—but the way we've made out media and the way we've created this attention economy.

So what happens to Trump during his presidency?
My serious answer... I really haven't thought about that. He's obviously an old man. He's what, seventy or sixty-nine or something like that? He's already sort of a stitched-together Frankenstein, who's made to look young and vibrant, even though he's really getting to be up there. There's no reason to assume that that won't continue. But it will just be a more pathetic effort. You'll clearly start to see this crabby old man character starting to seep through the artifice that's been constructed around him.

Trump's America: The Complete Loser's Guide is available in bookstores and online.

Follow Helen Donahue on Twitter.

Over the past seven days, America witnessed nine mass shootings that left one dead and 43 wounded. These attacks bring the US mass shooting body count so far in 2016 to 112 dead and 443 injured. Meanwhile, Europe suffered zero mass shootings last week, holding the continent's body count in such attacks this year steady at 20 dead and 66 injured.

All of the recent mass shootings in the United States came over the long Memorial Day weekend, with three of them directly linked to holiday cookouts. Only one of these attacks received significant attention: military veteran Dionisio Garza III's random rampage on Sunday in Houston, Texas, during which he allegedly fired off more 200 rounds starting at 10:15 AM, killing a 56-year-old man and wounding a Good Samaritan who tried to intervene, along with two responding deputies, and three bystanders before being gunned down by a SWAT shooter. However, the weekend's bloodshed started hours earlier, at 12:30 AM in Trenton, New Jersey, when at least one shooter injured six people en route to a cookout. Two-and-a-half hours later, a shooting in an Indianapolis parking garage injured four more. Then, at about 6 AM, a street altercation in Las Vegas led to a shootout that injured yet another four individuals. Finally, at about 12:25 PM in Zillah, Washington, people believed to have bene hunting birds accidentally wounded five orchard workers when firing through a grove of trees.

The carnage carried over to Monday, Memorial Day proper, with two drive-by shootings at cookouts in Baltimore, Maryland, and Sacramento, California, both of which left five injured. The violence trickled into the wee hours of Tuesday morning as well; at about 12:30 AM, an attack on a girl's house party in Fort Wayne, Indiana, left four teens injured. About an hour later, a street shooting in Chicago injured four more.

Although the spate of violence surrounding Memorial Day was tragic, given what we know about American mass shootings trends, it was not entirely unpredictable. As James Alan Fox, an expert on large scale gun violence at Northeastern University, told VICE about a month ago, any occasion that gets more people out on the street increases the chance shooters will find folks they want to shoot, and that bystanders might be injured. Warm weather draws out a fair number of people already; add a holiday known for communal gatherings on a weekend (which already tend to be cluster points for mass shootings), and it stands to reason you dramatically increase the probability of tragedy.

It's possible that the holiday even played a role in Garza's rampage. Associate director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center Deborah Azrael told VICE back in February that large, random attacks like his are actually less common on weekends than most mass shootings. But they do tend to occur when shooters know people will be gathered in public spaces.

This doesn't mean that a warm summer guarantees a bloody Fourth of July or Labor Day. There's still a degree of randomness in mass shootings. We had a bloodier week than this one, for example, at the end of April, with 13 mass shootings—including the Piketon, Ohio, massacre—leaving 15 dead and 44 injured. Yet that week was cooler than this one, with not a holiday in sight and a fair chunk of the violence occurring on weekdays rather than weekends.

We could have a bloody summer, a calm one, or chaotic peaks and troughs of violence where we'd least expect them. That's arguably more troubling than a guaranteed summer of violence, as randomness has a tendency to lull us into a false sense of security when it contradicts feared outcomes, and then to bite us with the unexpected and unmanageable. So while we're likely to see some nasty peaks of carnage in the coming weeks, if we don't, we can't let down our guard. Because the threat of a sudden and catastrophic mass shooting is always out there, casting a shadow over American life.

Follow Mark Hay on Twitter.

Photo via Flickr user Megan Elice Meadows

Dwayne Johnson, a.k.a. the Rock, a.k.a. the planet's most beloved large man, is considering making our wildest utopian dreams come true by running for president someday, British GQ reports in a profile in its July issue.

"I'll be honest, I haven't ruled politics out. I'm not being coy when I say that, but at the moment, I am not sure. I can't deny that the thought of being governor, the thought of being president, is alluring." Johnson said, adding, "And beyond that, it would be an opportunity to make a real impact on people's lives on a global scale."

So what's holding the man back? As Johnson explained, "there are a lot of other things I want to do first." The dude is pretty busy—he recently launched an alarm clock iPhone app that yells at you until you get out of bed and do something with your life and is in the middle of starting his own YouTube channel.

This isn't the first time the artist formerly known as the Rock has thought about opting for a seat in the Oval Office. In March, he cited a listicle on why he should run for president and tweeted "Maybe one day. Surely the White House has a spot for my pick up truck.."

Johnson has avoided talking publicly about politics, but over the years, various outlets have reported that he's a Republican.

READ: The Rock's New Alarm App Will Shout at You and Change Your Life

This post originally appeared on VICE UK.

It's Friday night, the bar's just closed, and you're back at someone's apartment, five beers deep. "Is anyone gonna put the call in?" grins one of your friends.

Everyone chucks $20 on the table, you make the call, and an hour after you were told you'd have it, you pop outside to meet two sullen men in a blacked-out X5, who take your cash and hand you a few wraps of cocaine. This may well happen again at 4 AM, and possibly even again at 7 AM. Either way, you're not getting up before two the following afternoon, and when you do it'll feel like someone's taken a microplane to the inside of your nose.

You are not alone. Apparently, this is what we do. A lot. London has just been declared the "Cocaine Capital of Europe" for the second year running. Researchers from the EU's drugs monitoring agency tested our sewage and found an average of 909mg of cocaine per 1,000 people daily in London—up from 737mg in 2014, and well ahead of Amsterdam, the next most gak-heavy city, which had 642mg.

So what's all this cocaine consumption doing to our bodies? We tend to hear a lot of lurid stories about what happens when you plough through four grams a day—you get coke-bloat; your septum disintegrates; your heart explodes—but that's not how most people actually use the drug. What about the casual user? What about the person doing a gram or half a gram every weekend or fortnight over a period of years? What about you?

Dr. Adam Winstock, a Consultant Psychiatrist and founder of the Global Drugs Survey, is clear: "Doing a gram of coke every weekend is not healthy, nor can it even really be called casual or average use," he says. "That's something we call normative misperception, where someone thinks, 'My mates and I are behaving like this, therefore everyone else must be as well—it's totally normal.' Cocaine is a vasoconstrictor—it makes the heart pump faster while narrowing the blood vessels. It's like putting your foot on the accelerator while pinching the fuel line. People also forget that sharing a rolled up note that everyone is sticking into bloody nostrils can transmit Hepatitis C, which is a hardy little virus that lives outside the body for weeks."

Dr. Henry Fisher, a chemist who is now Head of Policy at VolteFace, elaborates: "Doing cocaine every weekend is more dangerous than a chemical like MDMA. Cocaine works your heart really hard, inflicting tiny, micro-lacerations on your heart muscles, essentially due to over-exercise. Over time these get worse and worse, turning into scar tissue as you age... then there's the whole issue of atherosclerosis."

Atherosclerosis, it turns out, is where your arterial walls begin to thicken until they begin to resemble fatty, well-marbled steaks. Not quite the height of Miami Beach glamour.

Dr. Winstock is keen to point out that there are many complicating factors. "Obviously, if you're an overweight, 50-year-old smoker, your heart will be under more pressure than if you're a 20-year-old athlete. But even so, the danger here is about prolonged use over years. It's also about how you use the drug," he says. "Findings from the Global Drugs Survey, collating evidence from over 50,000 drug users over several years, suggest that, on average, 0.5 percent of cocaine users find themselves in hospital with acute reactions to the drug—and users in most countries get, on average, about ten lines out of a gram. But in Brazil they average six lines per gram, and their rate of acute hospital admissions is 3.5 percent. So it's fairly obvious that doing smaller, more frequent bumps is easier on the heart than railing massive fat lines."

Both Dr. Winstock and Dr. Fisher agree that many of the hazards of prolonged cocaine use are to do with mental and emotional wellbeing as well as physical harm. "As people use more and more, over longer and longer periods," Dr. Winstock explains, "relationships can start to fall apart. The user's bank account drains, performance at work goes downhill, romantic partners get angry and friends begin to distance themselves—so they feel lonely and isolated, often leading them to do even more coke to get that false ego boost."

Dr. Fisher puts it even more succinctly: "One of the major effects of cocaine is to make people act like dickheads." He then underlines the seriousness of the point: "People don't realize what a slippery slope it is. Users become reliant on that fake confidence that cocaine can give. So it starts with people doing it every weekend, then gradually they begin to need that bump on a Thursday instead of a Friday. Then it becomes Wednesday, and so on, until you have a really serious problem."

Neil Woods, a former detective who spent 14 years undercover busting drug dealers, now campaigns for LEAP UK, an organization of current or former police opposed to prohibition. He adds a different perspective: "Many of the dangers of using cocaine come from what it's mixed with. First of all, people very often use coke when they're drinking, allowing them to consume far more alcohol than usual. Not only does this increase the risk of volatile and aggressive behavior, but cocaine and alcohol combine in the liver to form a new chemical, cocaethylene, which heightens and prolongs the effect of both drugs."

And the problem worsens: it's not just about cocaine; it's about all the other stuff added to the wraps we buy.

"There are as many as 16 chemicals added to cocaine. Purity varies wildly, with a very rough average for a gram in the UK at around ten percent," Woods continues. "The chemical levamisole is usually added at source, early in the production process. This was developed as a de-worming agent for cattle, and is really not good for white blood cells in humans. Then the dental anesthetic, lidocaine, is often used as a bulking agent, which is widely believed to be carcinogenic if used regularly. Obviously these aspects would be much safer if cocaine were available as part of a properly regulated market. Interestingly, the only recent year in which deaths from cocaine fell was 2008-9, when mephedrone was available as a legal high. As soon as the government banned that, coke deaths began climbing again."

So I hope that makes you feel better, now you know what's actually happening to your body every time you get a gram in. Hope the thought of your arteries shriveling and stiffening as you shovel cattle de-worming agent into your nostrils isn't too much of a bum out. Have a great Friday night!

Can you dig it? Photo Zsolt Czegledi/MTI via AP

Gravediggers, as the old saying goes, don't get no respect. That's partly why Iren Kari decided to organize a regional gravedigging race in Debrecen, Hungary, which kicked off early Friday morning. In addition to showcasing their skill and speed, he figured it might bring the profession—which is suffering due to the increasing popularity of cremations—a little recognition and respect.

"These men see death every day," Kari told the AP. "Sometimes people joke about them while they work, but gravediggers are human, too. We are having difficulties finding replacements for our retiring employees. Young people today don't like to dig and work."

That may change once these younguns get a whiff of what a professional gravedigger can do. At the Debrecen race, 18 two-man teams used shovels, rakes, axes, and pickaxes to dig graves two-feet-seven-inches wide, six-feet-six-inches long, and five-feet-three-inches deep, all while being judged for speed and how the resulting mounds of dirt looked. They used different techniques, too—some digging simultaneously, others leaving one man graveside to pack the dirt into neat piles.

The fastest grave was dug in 34 minutes, which sounds very fast indeed, though thanks to style points that team may not win. The winners of the Debrecen contest will go on to compete in a regional championship in Slovakia in November.

Follow Brian McManus on Twitter.

High street shops like H&M play loud music to make us feel good and buy more. Photo via Wikimedia

It's a time of economic crunch, and we're all poor and jobless, so stores have to resort to witchcraft and trickery to fool us into giving them our money. High BPM music to make you eat faster in McDonald's, branded scents to make you feel that kick of synthesized nostalgia every time you hit up a Starbucks, low lights, dark lights: There are dozens of environmental cues shops use to make you shop faster, spend more, and come back to do it all over again.

"Sensory marketing is one of the things that has been used a lot in the past few years," Dr. Mario Campana, lecturer in marketing and consumer behavior at Goldsmiths, told VICE. "The visual and the music has an impact on the way we shop. Research shows if you have upbeat music in a shop, there's a greater chance the consumer will buy more. You tend to move faster. With visual merchandising, research shows if you have cleaner lines and shelves and not too much visual complexity to the environment—not loads of piles in the corner and it's more neat—there is more tendency for the consumer to buy." You don't even know it, but peacocks are inside your head, and they are fucking it up.

But it's getting a bit much. Following this frankly incredible piece of investigative reporting by the Daily Mail, there's now a petition to get shops and restaurants to cool it with the background music, with the group "Pipedown" teaming up with charity Action on Hearing Loss to collectively ask everyone to turn that ruddy R&B music down, sir, I'm trying to eat here!

Muzak aside, there's something to this whole "shops using mysterious ancient incantations to make us buy $30 T-shirts," so we spoke to Dr. Gorkan Ahmetoglu, a lecturer in business psychology at University College London, to find out how it all works.

Starbucks pumps out a strong coffee smell to draw us in. Photo via Wikimedia

VICE: People are mad about shops playing music too loudly. Do they do that to stress us out and make us buy stuff quickly?
Dr. Gorkan Ahmetoglu: There are several studies showing that if shops play music, people will spend more. Not every type of music works, though—generally, if the volume is lower, if it's a familiar tune playing in the background, people will get more pleasure out of shopping, and when people are in a good mood, they spend more. Sometimes, if people don't like the type of music or if it's too loud, it will have a negative effect, or no effect at all.

I heard that McDonald's plays fast music, so you eat quickly and leave?
Yeah, exactly. Music with a higher tempo makes people feel more aroused. Some research suggests that higher tempo music makes people move faster—and even spend more.

How about smells? I've been to a lot of places where a shop will have a specific smell. Is that something they're trying to cultivate?
It's the same as with music—nice smells make people feel better, and therefore they spend more. An important thing with smell—and indeed with music—is that it's congruent with what kind of product is being sold and what the product is like. So if you're selling chocolates, the smell should be chocolate, not flowers.

Subway has such a distinctive smell—do shops make their own smells to pump out?
Yeah, take Starbucks: Coffee is a strong smell. You can smell a Starbucks on the street from meters away. It's very unlikely that the coffee they're producing is actually that strong, so I think there could be evidence to suggest they're using additional smells. Rolls Royce put leather scent in their cars in order to get people to feel at home with their new cars, and that has a positive impact on sales.

If I go into Starbucks, I'll smell it, and I'll know exactly what I'm about to get. Is it also a way of cultivating brand loyalty?
I wouldn't say it's brand loyalty, necessarily. You associate the smell with a nice taste. So, in essence, the smell triggers positive emotions, and positive emotions are related to shopping more. There's a pure evolutionary explanation for that: We use our smell to understand the quality of products, and therefore, retailers can use smells to trigger those positive emotions.

What else do shops do to make us buy more?
A classic thing is putting sale signs everywhere to make it complicated for the consumer, so they start using automatic judgments rather than rational decisions, which is impossible when there's so much information. Using hedonic products like fruits and chocolates when you're just entering a shop makes people feel positive and up for shopping more. Also, putting impulse purchase items throughout the stores and at checkouts keeps people shopping, and also gets them excited when they think they've finished shopping. Color and lighting are important, too.

Like in Abercrombie & Fitch shops—where it's dark, and there are people above you dancing on podiums?
Yeah, exactly. From a psychological standpoint, they are probably trying to get you to think that the brand is all about sexual appeal, so if you make the shop like a club or a bar—where there is above average sexual tension in the air—you are probably more inclined to look at clothes that would be in line with that, and just be more aroused, let's say, and more open to suggestion.

Do you think consumers are aware of this?
Most consumers won't be aware of these influences or environment cues. Even when they are aware and are skeptical, they will still be influenced by them. The human brain—when it comes to practical stuff like shopping—tends to go by intuition rather than rational thinking. So the point of all this stuff is to try and guide our intuition in particular directions.

Even when we know all that stuff is by the checkout, so we buy it compulsively, we still do it.
Yeah, you can't control it. You just can't control your instincts—it would be too much effort. If you tried to not be influenced by marketing tactics, I think you probably wouldn't be able to live a normal life.

Just a couple of friends here who never hooked up in a series finale. Photo via AMC.

From Taylor Swift's squad to the real life friendships of the actors who played the friends in Friends, there's no denying that friends are a hot commodity right now. Even Prince Harry has been spotted indulging in the hobby of having friends, suggesting that, incredibly, this phenomenon transcends barriers such as wealth and class.

You may be thinking that friendship is now so mainstream that VICE writers couldn't possibly have friends. But in reality, at least two do. How much can they tell us about friendship in 2016? As it turns out: some. One of us moved across the Atlantic ocean last year, which has meant communication is pretty much limited to the web. And what's wilder: we're not even the same gender! Anyway here's a conversation we somehow duped VICE into paying us to have.

Jack: People are going to think we're insufferable for doing this aren't they?

Emily:Drinking game: one shot for every comment telling us we're cunts, two shots for "narcissistic sociopaths," three for...

Jack: "Mangina." That's one I get a lot. Why don't you ever get called a "shenis"?

Emily: So: what makes a good friendship?

Jack: I think it's a combination of shared interests and hobbies (the first time we met IRL was at a Titus Andronicus gig) and, I dunno, some saccharine shit like "being good at communicating."

Emily: Yeah, I'd agree—someone you can get embarrassingly drunk with at a punk rock show but also someone who'll talk to you about how depressed you are or whatever.

Jack: Isn't talking about feelings the real punk rock? The answer: no.

Emily: Also, in my specific case, I need someone who'll be around at 4 AM to be like, "No, Emily, you're not going to give up writing to become a rickshaw driver" or "No, Emily, do not sleep with that guy with the bad tweets."

Jack: Here's a question which obviously I already know the answer to, but humour me: can men and women ever really just be friends?

Emily: I actually find it super confusing that this is still a relevant question in 2016. Obviously men and women can just be friends. OBVIOUSLY. The idea that two people can't hang out and not immediately or eventually want to bone is frankly pretty weird to me, but there's still a whole thinkpiece industry that runs on articles repeatedly asking this question in slightly different ways.

Sorry, had to.

Jack: Why do you think so many people still believe it?

Emily: I think a lot of it is to do with the way we think about gender roles and what those roles mean. Like, feminism has given women the language to talk about their identity and where that identity fits within a gendered hierarchy, but I don't think men have been given a vocabulary in the same way. Which means that a lot of us still don't really know where and how we sit in the world in relation to the opposite sex, and we just don't know how to have those conversations. What do you think?

Jack: That, or people are just really fucking stupid. But I guess it leads us to the killer question: Have you ever fancied me?

Emily: No.

Jack: Jesus, you answered that quickly.

Emily: Why, have you ever fancied me?

Jack: It'd be awkward now if I said yes, wouldn't it? But honestly, no, by the time we met I was in the very happy relationship I'm still in, so that was never even something that crossed my mind.

Here's some more British friends. Photo via Warner Bros.

Emily: There's this cliche that girlfriends hate their boyfriends having female friends, but me and your girlfriend really get on. I guess it goes back to what I was saying about gender roles—even though it's 2016 and everyone has ~progressive politics~, when it comes to relationships between men and women these really hackneyed and outdated stereotypes start emerging, where women are jealous, nagging crones who secretly think of other women as their competition, and men are these gross, dead-eyed perverts who can't stop themselves staring at their best friend's rack.

Jack: It's weird, but there are people who genuinely think like that. I wonder how many good friendships have been ruined because of unreasonable jealousy on the part of someone's partner?

Emily: I think one interesting thing about our friendship is that it's a really good example of how modern friendships have changed and morphed because of the internet. Since you moved to Canada, the vast majority of our interactions have been online—which I guess is just an exaggerated example of how a lot of people interact with their friends now.

Jack: If anything, we probably talk way more than friends would have pre-internet, and I get that that's not everything when it comes to friendship but it's a massive chunk. We didn't meet IRL for the best part of a year after we got to know each other online, and when we did it was fun and not awkward and we just clicked.

I think attitudes around this have changed a lot in our lifetime and while some people get weirdly nostalgic about real-life interactions—do you remember how awful that was? We live in a time when even the most socially awkward weirdos can have a broad group of friends. And isn't that what the internet is about, a bunch of nerds helping each other out?

Emily: That's also where mental health comes in, I guess. The internet is such a good conduit for talking about this shit; there's stuff I can say to you online that I probably wouldn't just announce to you if we were sat in the pub or going to a gig or whatever. Online, I've opened with "Oh boy, I feel really suicidal"—there is no way that I'd lead with that IRL without couching it in about an hour's worth of bleak, unfunny jokes beforehand. Talking remotely means I can actually express that stuff immediately, even when I'm unable to deal with face-to-face interaction. I have the same thing with some friends who live in Berlin, and they're now an absolutely vital part of my support system even though I see them way less than loads of my friends who live in the same country; the internet is a vital part of facilitating those conversations.

Here's some more friends who never hooked up in an unfortunate series finale. Photo via Fox.

Jack: Yeah, I'm a big advocate for people talking to their friends but in reality it's often difficult to do that in person. I love the detachment that comes with the online world—somehow it's way easier to type stuff out than to say it aloud.

It's been a long decline for the Grand Old 'Pelago a.k.a. the Iron Islands. At one point, they were among the most powerful groups in Westerosi politics, owning all of the Iron Islands and the Riverlands. But in recent years, the Iron Islanders have been mostly confined to ranting about how awesome things used to be while launching raids on any neighbor in sight. The last leader of the Iron Islands, Balon Greyjoy, was a buffoon most famous for launching a disastrous war without securing enough allies or having a clear exit strategy. I'm not saying Balon's middle name was "Dubya," but he probably ran on a platform of "compassionate pillaging."

Enter Euron Greyjoy. On Game of Thrones and in the A Song of Ice and Fire books, Euron Greyjoy appears in the middle of the storyline almost out of the blue to become the new leader of the Iron Islanders. While fans initially thought of Euron as something of a clown—perhaps not unlike pundits initially thought of Donald Trump—with this week's release of a new chapter for George R. R. Martin's allegedly-forthcoming-but-he's-been-saying-that-for-years novel The Winds of Winter, it's clear that Euron could post a threat to all of Westeros.

"Released" is perhaps the wrong word. Martin read the chapter out loud at Balticon last weekend and dedicated fans transcribed the entire thing. The transcribed document, titled "The Forsaken," is filled with weird Lovecraftian elements and signals a somehow even darker turn for the world of Westeros.

Before getting into the new chapter, let's review the Trumpian rise of Euron Greyjoy.

The Iron Islands are the only part of Westeros that has something resembling an election. Instead of the throne passing from king to prince, the Iron Islands holds a "kingsmoot," where the captains elect the new leader. In both the books and the show, the election initially seems like it will go to Balon's heir, Yara Greyjoy (in the books Asha), just as everyone assumed Jeb Bush would easily take the GOP nomination (just as everyone, until recently, assumed Hillary would cake-walk over Trump to the presidency). Instead, Euron sails onto the scene, insulting his way to the kingship.

In the books, he brags about his enormous wealth—achieved not through sketchy real estate deals, but through pillaging around the world. In the TV show, he just brags about his dick. Sound familiar? Then he announces he's going to build 10,000 ships (and make the Lannisters pay for it?).

Is it a stretch to compare Donald Trump to Euron Greyjoy? Well, I don't believe that Trump has a ship full of mute and mutilated slaves, but there are some real parallels. In both cases, the outsider candidate doesn't seem to have any real loyalty or principles but just spouts whatever he thinks people want to hear. The die-hard conservatives of the GOP were horrified by Trump's constant breaches of orthodoxy and his willingness to insult past leaders like George W. Bush and John "He's Not a War Hero!" McCain. Similarly, Euron mocks the recently deceased—at his hands!—Balon Greyjoy, and, in the books, freaks out the ideological Aeron, who thinks Euron doesn't hold enough faith to be king.

But mostly, both men bluster their way to power by bragging about genitals and wealth while merely announcing they are going to make everything better without detailing any real plan. Trump will Make America Great Again by... who knows. He'll figure it out later. Euron will conquer all of Westeros for the Iron Born... somehow. Maybe with dragons if Daenerys likes his penis? Hard to say.

While Trump likely doesn't have secret evil magical plans, the new chapter makes it clear that Euron does. He may have bragged his way to power, but he's using the Iron Islanders to do some freaky things. (Warning: There be spoilers ahead.) The new chapter is told from the POV of his captured his brother, the religious leader Aeron. Euron forces Aeron to drink hallucinogenic nightshade where he experiences horrifying eldritch visions, which include Euron sitting on the Iron Throne surrounded by dead gods of every religion:

Impaled upon the longer spikes were the bodies of the gods. The Maiden was there and the Father and the Mother, the Warrior and Crone and Smith... even the Stranger. They hung side by side with all manner of queer foreign gods: the Great Shepherd and the Black Goat, three-headed Trios and the Pale Child Bakkalon, the Lord of Light and the butterfly god of Naath. And there, swollen and green, half—devoured by crabs, the Drowned God festered with the rest, seawater still dripping from his hair.

Another juicy nugget shows Euron donning a crazy suit of armor made entirely from Valerian steel! Valerian steel is the strongest and rarest metal, heretofore only seen in a handful of swords.

In all the Seven Kingdoms, no man owned a suit of Valyrian steel. Such things had been known 400 years ago, in the days before the Doom, but even then, they would've cost a kingdom.

Euron did not lie. He has been to Valyria. No wonder he was mad.

The chapter ends with Euron strapping priests and priestesses of different religions to the bows of his ship and sailing into battle against a fleet from the Reach. What is he doing with all these holy men? Probably something pretty damn evil. In fact, it may just signal a fan theory— popularized by the very smart ASOIAF blogger Poor Quentyn—that the Iron Islands subplot might involve the summoning of a Cthulhu-type Lovecraftian god. That's right, if White Walkers, zombies, dragons, and constant warfare weren't enough, there might be a stygian horror from the depths of the ocean wrecking havoc on the land.

Will Euron bend the world to his evil whims? Will Euron on the TV show cause a similar amount of eldritch horror? Will Donald Trump summon Cthulhu at the GOP convention? Whatever the case, people will be writing about it.

Follow Lincoln Michel on Twitter.

Check out Jai's Tumblr, blog, and cartoons.

Collage by Madison Griffiths

There was always an intensity to Theo*. I didn't really understand it, but it consumed me. We met when I was 17, sitting beside a friend's pool, my feet dipped in the water. People had told me we'd get along; that we were remarkably similar. Theo stared at me vacantly and rolled a joint. I felt dizzy.

When you hear about what constitutes an "abusive" relationship, things usually start normal and then devolve. But no one would've ever have called what Theo and I had normal. At first I found it enticing. Nobody understood Theo and me like we did; nobody got it.

I looked down on friends in healthy relationships. Those loved up, picturesque couples seemed repulsively superficial to me. I thought that Theo and I shared a love so profound, so undeniably intense, that it would be insulting to try and make it abide by conventional standards.

But the warning signs were there: Theo had no qualms about calling his mom a "cunt" if she frustrated him. He was asked to leave job after job because he couldn't get along with anyone at work. I felt like I was dating an unbearably cruel deity at times. And the crueler he became, the more I craved his love.

Theo would often use what he referred to as "scare tactics"—subtly violent attempts to frighten me. He'd climb on top of me and dig his thumbs into my shoulders, whispering things like "shut the fuck up" or "I wish you would just go and fuck yourself." But he'd do it quietly, so my parents sleeping down the hall would never hear. I remember lying there paralyzed, completely dissociated from my body, hearing my own voice far away repeating don't, don't until he'd slink off of me.

He slapped me across the face exactly once. It shocked me; and I just stared at Theo as he began to laugh. "You love it!" he exclaimed. "You're going to tell everybody that I'm an 'abuser' now, aren't you?" He was wrong, I never told anyone.

The really frightening thing about my relationship with Theo though wasn't being held in confines of his tight grip or bad temper. It was the emotional abuse—how good he was at it, how practiced for someone so young. He convinced me I was unfeminine, overweight, badly dressed, and lazy. I made his skin crawl. When I cut my hair shorter, he'd call me by a male name. I swallowed his harsh words with pride and determination. My own reflection began to change for me.

He made me join a gym, lose weight, and romanticized the disordered relationship I had with food. At 54 kilos, he decided I could only buy certain food and drinks. After weeks of cigarette breakfasts and evening purges, he congratulated me when I was able to fit into a pair of my best friend's jeans. She was being treated at the time for severe anorexia and bulimia.

Still he refused to have sex with me under the guise that he "simply wasn't attracted to me." He once spat into a bowl after a brief, incredibly shameful attempt at oral sex. I felt as though I was riddled with disease. I started cutting myself with a Stanley knife—a sad attempt to shock empathy from him.

Why didn't I leave? This isn't the right question. So many forces knit women into abusive relationships. But I think it's important to say that it isn't just the obvious things—like having kids together, or a home, or years of shared history.

At the center of it, being in an abusive relationship slowly convinced me that, although Theo might be indisputably cruel, I was totally unlovable. He'd often say how frustrating it was that his family and friends liked me, that they couldn't see how terrible I really was. I believed this was the love I deserved.

Rock bottom came when I followed him to Europe after his six-month exchange. One night, I fearfully recorded his drunken rantings on my iPhone. Listening back to the tapes, I can hear him convincing me that I was the abuser. I remember him climbing on top of me, whispering, "Don't you ever call me an asshole again." It was as if that one, violent phrase could explain away our failed attempt at love.

One morning, he threw $500 at me and told me I had eight hours to leave, or else. I desperately borrowed money off a close friend, and stood at a terminal at Heathrow Airport ready to board a plane back to Melbourne. Theo was with me, holding my hand. Even after three years of fear, pain, and exhaustion—knowing this was the last time he was ever going to live inside my head—I still begged him not to leave me. I was so small. I sobbed hysterically through Customs, and once on board pleaded with the air host that they stop the plane.

Collage by Madison Griffiths

Ten days after I got back home, Theo called me and told me he missed me. He said there was nobody like me. I slunk onto the floor of my bedroom and cried. I felt myself falling back, but instead I decide to play my iPhone recordings of Theo to my friends and my family. Their shock and sadness stopped me, finally pulled me away from him.

I often wonder what would've happened if I had stayed. I'd be lying if I said that there aren't nice fragments that linger, scattered amidst the hurt. I don't hate Theo; nor do I want to. He told me I played the piano well. Sleeping next to him was my favorite thing. He possessed no resentment when his eyes were closed, but rather a warm instinct to hold someone, and I was that chosen person.

A huge part of why I didn't leave Theo is that I didn't know what how I could exist without him. Boarding that plane at Heathrow, I felt numb, like there was nothing left of me. It took months to realize the effects of his abuse. All of my insecurities—the swirling remains of Theo's defamation, hurt, and humiliation—riddled my next relationship. But this time my partner was a man willing and able to love me. And things have gotten better.

Now I eat what I like. I laugh without worrying I'm being too loud. My hair is short. I canceled my gym membership. I've come to accept another person's love; and even feel I deserve it every so often. I started drawing again. And I write honestly, the words purging Theo's insults and leaving them to rot on the page, as best as I can. My humanness is unashamedly real, honest, and, perhaps, even beautiful sometimes.

See more of Madison Griffith's illustrations on Instagram.

Photo of Attica Scott, courtesy of the newly-elected House member

Normally, a local state House race in Kentucky wouldn't make national news, but earlier this month, when 44-year-old Attica Scott beat out old-school, conservative Democrat Tom Riner in the state's primary (she faces no Republican challenger in the general election, so she has won by default), it made waves nationally for two reasons: Riner has been in the same seat, which represents the city of Louisville, for 34 years, and Riner, like nearly every other Kentucky legislator, is a white man. Attica Scott is a black woman, the first to serve in the state's legislature in 20 years, and she won by a landslide, garnering over 50 percent of the vote in a three-way race.

Before running for statewide office, Scott worked as a health coach at a nonprofit that helps communities promote healthy living. She's also a longtime community organizer and activist. For for years, until early 2015, she served on Louisville's Metro Council, where she helped push for a higher minimum wage and criminal justice reform.

This time around, Scott ran a campaign that was unapologetically liberal: pro-Black Lives Matter, pro-LGBT rights, pro-women's rights, a rarity in a state known for its "Blue Dog Democrats."

Kentucky is nearly 90 percent white, though many of its cities, like Louisville, are more diverse. Yet its legislature, including those that represent its more diverse cities, is nearly all-white, and nearly all-male.

Scott believes her election isn't only important because of her race and gender, but because it signals many Kentuckians, and many Americans, are ready for a more progressive political system. Scott spoke to VICE about a week after she found out she'd won the race.

VICE: Can you tell me about why you decided to run in the first place?

This article originally appeared on VICE Serbia

In my almost-30 years, I've never felt such freedom and seen so many different people gathered around the same values as during the celebration of Gay Pride in Tel Aviv. Joyful, colorful, powerful, sometimes a bit terrifying, but, for me, at certain moments, painfully touching. Although I knew what the day would be like, I wasn't expecting to have such a visceral reaction to it.

More than 200,000 people, both locals and foreigners—and among them an estimated 35,000 tourists—make the city's authority-funded Pride event the biggest of its kind in the Middle East.

Young and old, gay men, lesbians, straight people, trans women and men, gender benders, couples with children; all possible body types, different nationalities, ethnicities, and religions: there was room for everyone. And this year the huge street party's theme was "Women for Change," promoting women's role in the LGBT+ community.

"Dear friends, we have been marching for years, and we will keep on marching in a search for equality," veteran Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai told the crowd before the start of the march. "We will keep on walking the streets of Tel Aviv in the hope that pluralism, tolerance, and the liberal values of this city will spread throughout the country, Middle East, and the whole world," said Huldai, who has run the city since 1998.

The gathering started in the morning in Meyer park, where an LGBT community centre hosted stands for human rights groups from Israel and the rest of the world—from activists fighting against genital mutilation of babies to others battling homophobia in Russia.

A seemingly never-ending wave of people took to the streets, dancing alongside trucks carrying drag queens, dancers, and LGBT activists joined by this year's Pride ambassadors, Orange Is the New Black's Lea DeLaria and Scottish actor Alan Cummings (below).

The parade ended in a park near the sea with DJs and bands calling for peace in Middle East and solidarity with LGBT people still discriminated against. Manuel, a straight guy, told me he'd come from his hometown of Jerusalem to "celebrate freedom for all" with his friends. And to have fun, of course.

Nuhr, a dance instructor, said the Pride was a sort of tradition, as her parents had taken her to the parade as a kid. As the march went on, a huge banner reading "PINKWASHING" was rolled down from a building along with a hose spraying water on the crowd. A group of activists consider Tel Aviv Pride as a way to promote Israel as an oasis for human rights while turning a blind eye to the country's conflict with Palestinians.

And it is scary that just some 30 miles away from the "gay capital of the world" homosexuality is illegal. Even in those places where it's not, like in the West Bank, human rights for the LGBT community are still taboo. Many Palestinian gays, fearing for their lives, are forced to flee to Israel, although they have been treated, according to many testimonies, as a security threat, with many living under house arrest, while some are even deported back. Even in Jerusalem and the rest of Israel, the position of LGBT people is far different and more difficult than in Tel Aviv, with its reputation as a non-stop party cosmopolitan city.

The parade, along with a bunch of other events, has been held since 1997. Many say Tel Aviv is a sort of bubble offering a safe space for people to be who they choose, without fearing for their own safety. I have to say, I had tears in my eyes during Pride as I've rarely felt such carefree, mutual respect, and freedom. I know that something like this isn't yet possible in Serbia, where a thousand policemen guard about a hundred people gathered for the Pride parade and where you can't hold hands with your same-gender partner without fear of being beaten.

Here are some more photos from Tel Aviv Pride

Wouldn't want to run into these guys at a party. Too lit. Photo via The Canadian Press

As a stand-up comedian, over the years I've been blessed to spend a lot of time at open mics (a fitting penance for a person of privilege who thinks people should listen to their ideas) and been exposed to a WIDE variety of other dudes with opinions, good and bad. And because I come across as mild-mannered and dress like a cast member of Silicon Valley, I oftentimes find myself in conversation with people I don't know well but who feel as though they can open up to me. When you give off a wildly inoffensive vibe like me, a lot of guys assume you're on their side.

Talking to people in general can be a nightmare, but when you look like the Chandler facsimile from every canceled sitcom, you're treated to a uniquely awful brand of social interaction: terrible dudes who think you're going to agree with them. Thanks to Hollywood's extremely tiresome fetish for "relatable" guys—your Paul Rudds and your Aziz Ansaris—we the milquetoast have become emotional avatars; empty vessels for dudes from the wrong side of the relatability-spectrum to fill with whatever they got that needs pouring out.

So, in the interest of avoiding confrontation, I have developed a suite of fail-safe techniques for handling the various terrible opinions that are presented to me under the pretence that I think the same terrible way.

NOTE: This is not a guide to Winning Arguments With Idiots, nor do I think all of the people I'm about to list are Wrong Idiots With Bad Morals, although some are. You will never change anybody's opinions by debating correctly. If you could, Ted Cruz would be president. Instead, this is a guide to extracting yourself from painful conversations* and bringing the best out of unfortunate dudes.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

The filthy, louse-infested concrete floor of a Kenyan prison cell wasn't quite where Terry Johnson had expected to end up. This 60-something landscape gardener was a long way from his Plymouth home, and his dream of relocating to Kenya to get away from an unhappy marriage had quickly spiralled into a nightmare.

After starting a new family with Sharon, a Kenyan woman four decades his junior who died in 2001 not long after the young son they'd raised together, he realized that it was actually pretty damn difficult to earn a decent living in a nation where the GDP per capita is the equivalent to a few weeks' wages in the UK.

He also craved excitement, which is partly what had caused him to move to Kenya in the first place. This led to his involvement in smuggling weed from east Africa to the UK, and his eventual arrest at Nairobi airport following a tipoff. I caught up with Terry to find out what possessed him become involved in crime in a developing country, and what his time inside was like.

VICE: How did you end up in Kenya in the first place?
Terry Johnson: My shopaholic wife won £7,500 in a competition. Before she could blow it, I sold her the idea of a holiday. Geography was my favourite subject at school, and I'd done an end-of-term project about Kenya, which is why I chose it. I went against hotel advice and ventured alone into villages. I wanted to get under the skin of real Kenyan life. The place and people fascinated me to such an extent that I knew I had to live there.

Terry today (Photo courtesy of Terry Johnson)

There's been a history of Brits using other countries as places to escape to and start afresh, emboldened by the power dynamic created by colonialism. What do you make of that idea in light of your own experience?
Brits tend to end up in the Costa del Sol or the south of France. I lived under the same corrugated-tin-roofed shacks and shared the same goat-and-rice dinners as my Kenyan friends, and certainly didn't play the "colonial white man abroad" card.

How did you end up becoming involved in crime, then?
Money was drying up, and I wasn't prepared to let go of my dream new life. I got into smuggling from mixing with two dodgy beach traders, who were into all sorts. I traveled three or four times a year from Nairobi to smuggle hash, alternating between different airports in the UK.

How did you get caught?
I was caught at Nairobi airport. The village landlord had reported me to the police, so they were waiting for me.

What was it like in prison?
In Nairobi Remand Centre, seven of us were crammed into a 17x16-foot cell with a tin bucket for a toilet. We fought for space on the concrete floor to sleep on our lice-riddled hessian mats. I survived on a gloopy maize-and-water paste called ugali, a thumb-sized slither of leathery meat, and a glass of watered-down milk. My weight plummeted. I had shooting pains in both legs, and suffered blackouts.

Kamiti Prison was modelled on the British Army in 1950s. Most of the guards topped up their low wages with any scam they could get away with. A strong kale-like vegetable usually fed to cattle was the main part of the meals.

How were you treated, as a European and foreigner, while inside? Did it feel the same as how Kenyans lived in the prison?
I was fortunate to get monthly visits from the British embassy. On my arrival, I wasn't treated the same as others, and was put into a segregation block to keep me away from the mainstream. They didn't want me to see what really goes on, and thought a foreigner equalled unwarranted outside intervention. I don't think it was because of the colour of my skin, but more to do with where I came from. I got to see much more than I should have, though.

The prospect of being the only white 60-year-old in this tough African prison terrified me at first. As time passed, I realized the guards were wary of my connection with the outside world. That gave me the confidence to speak up when they were hostile towards me.

WATCH: Locked Off – Britain's Illegal Rave Renaissance:

Was there much violence?
The violence was nearly always instigated by the guards.

What about drugs?
Drug use was scarce. Cigarettes were forbidden, and guards would monitor family visits and track who'd smuggled them in. The next day, cells were raided, and those responsible would be beaten. A day later, the same guards would approach the prisoners to sell their cigarettes back to them.

How easy was it to readjust to normal life again after being released?
On my return to the UK, I saw a doctor about the scabies and body lice I'd contracted. He advised me to get counselling. I never did; instead I became a carer for my wife, who had Alzheimer's. It took years for the nightmares and crawling under the skin feeling to go. I used alcohol to wash away the stress, but soon realized necking a bottle of whisky wasn't conducive to my newfound responsibilities, and kicked the booze.

You can read more about Terry's time in Kenya in his book Flying Cats and Flip Flops: Surviving a Notorious African Prison.

Follow Nick on Twitter.

For this weeks edition of First-Person Shooter, we dropped two cameras off with Stan Rozewicz, a paparazzi photographer who's shot photos of celebrities in Manhattan for the past nine years. Stan's captured photos of everybody from Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt to the Obamas and Rihanna.

Every day, Rozewicz rides his bike to celebrity hotspots around the city looking for shots, sometimes with the help of tipsters, in hopes of making some dough from gossip magazines and tabloid who buy his pics from a photo agency he's signed to.

Over the course of the day and evening Rozewicz documented for us, he got shots of Rihanna shopping for designer threads, snowboarder Shaun White with cornrows, and Meg Ryan leaving her hotel. He also took photos of his fellow paparazzi, who often move as a pack, waiting for celebrities to emerge in swanky neighbourhoods. Here's how Rozewicz's day went.

VICE: What happened during your day?
Stan Rozewicz: I started the day around 10:30–11 AM at the Bowery Hotel, where I waited to see if anybody was going to come out. I sat there for a couple of hours and snapped a few photos of Shaun White and Meg Ryan. When lunchtime hit, I went to go check out some hot restaurants around the East Village, SoHo, and Tribeca looking for celebrities eating. I ate lunch and waited in a place where there is heavy celebrity traffic in the West Village. Then I started biking around downtown checking out other hotels like Greenwich Hotel and Mercer Hotel, as well as shopping spots on Lafayette Street and West Broadway, the latter where I saw Rihanna. I checked back in at the Bowery Hotel to see if any celebrities were arriving that night. After work I went home and watched a movie.

What kind of people do you normally photograph?
Celebrities. You make the most money off the big stories like a wedding or new celebrity relationship, but if you work as a paparazzi everyday like I do, you have to go for fashion sightings to see what brands celebrities are wearing in order to have a steady income.

Who pays you for the photos?
I send them to an agency. The agency does their best to sell them. At the beginning of every month, they send me a sales report of all my photos that sold.

What kind of camera do you use?
I use a Nikon D4 with sigma 100-300mm f4. I used to have the 2.8 version but it got too heavy.

How long have you been a paparazzo for?
I started when I was 20. I actually quit school for it. It's been my job for nine years.

Did you go to school for photography?
No. I went to law school.

What's the best way to sneak up on a celebrity to snap their photo?
I don't think there is one best way. It all depends on what's happening in the situation you're in when you see somebody. It depends how people around you are reacting. Some celebrities don't mind being photographed and others you have to hide from a little bit more. I try to take most of my photos on a long telephoto lens and not be seen at all.

Has any celebrity ever freaked out at you?
People yell at me from time to time. Cameron Diaz has yelled at me multiple times. I feel like it's part of the business of being famous. They have to deal with it and they know what they're getting into. But at the same time I'm also human and I respect certain events in a person's life are sensitive and don't take photos. I'm not into shooting people when they're sick or when somebody dies or anything like that. It's too much.

Paparazzi are often viewed in a negative light. Do you believe celebrities have a right to privacy?
Almost nobody becomes famous on accident. It takes a lot of hard work and is almost always a very calculated ascent to fame. I feel that these celebrities know what they're getting themselves into and are also prepared to accept the consequences.

What do you do during down time while working?
Most of the day is downtime because photographing doesn't take very much time at all. It's a lot of waiting.

Do you have informants?
We call them tipsters. I always give my phone number to people hoping they'll give me tips, but it's hard. People always tell me they see celebrities, but they don't call.

I see all male paparazzi in the photos you took. Do you know any female paparazzi?
There's a woman that works mostly on Rihanna, but she wasn't there on the day I shot her with the disposables. There are a few other women shooting as paparazzi, but it seems they do more red carpet-oriented events.

What do you do when you're not working?
I shoot street photography around New York City. Check out my street photos on my Instagram.

Follow Julian on Instagram and visit his website to see his own photo work.