Dance Magers

In what's being heralded as a secular triumph, the UK government has banned the teaching of creationism as science in all existing and future academies and free schools.

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Jack Coleman, a.k.a. Horn-Rimmed Glasses guy, a.k.a. HRG, a.k.a. the only character that didn't make us want to punch ourselves in the face every time he was on-screen, will be joining NBC's 2015 Heroes reboot.

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This is a vintage photo of a young Bill Nye doing science in 9th grade. Not to brag or anything, but I also did science in 9th grade. "You set the chemistry lab on fire." I was EXPERIMENTING. "With arson?" I didn't want to go to gym class next period because the other boys would try to twist my nipples in the locker room. Thanks to gamlit, who tried to take home the dissected pig in 10th grade and barbeque it.

What the -- get down from there! This is a short video of a BMW that believes it can fly during a rally race. Thankfully, it doesn't crash into the group of bystanders at the bottom of the hill. I was afraid that was going to happen. It didn't though, so that's a relief. Also: peeing after you've been holding it as long as you can. It's a little game I like to play. One time I drank two nights in a row and never went to the bathroom until the day after. The key was only taking shots. Plus double-looping a rubberband around my pecker. PROTIP: That also works great for long car trips. Keep going for the video plus a BONUS one of a car taking a turn on two wheels. Thanks to whoever posted this on their Facebook wall, who probably doesn't even read Geekologie and should be unfriended.

“It smells like blood. And it tastes like raw flesh. It’s not something you’ve ever been exposed to. But it strikes a chord somewhere deep inside.” That’s how Sheena Shaw, a 29-year-old porn star and extreme anal queen, describes the primal appeal of rosebud—a kind of extreme anal sex that is rapidly gaining popularity in the adult film world, popping boners and flipping stomachs with equal abandon.

While rosebud is named after those crimson flowers you get on Valentine’s Day, that’s where any intimation of sweet, romantic love ends. The sexual act that Shaw specializes in is, in fact, caused by an anal prolapse—a medical condition in which the inner walls of your rectum collapse and slip out of your butthole, the bright red internal tissue blooming out of your anus like a desert rose (cue Sting).

Of course, extreme anal practices like rosebud, fisting, enemas, and ass gaping are nothing new to the S&M crowd, or even the gay-porn industry. What is changing, however, is the encroachment of hardcore sex acts from the fringe into the mainstream. “Everyone’s pressured to do anal,” Sheena says. “Culture teaches us what to like and what not to like.”

What used to be taboo is now a staple, and the public is taking notice. On a thread titled “Increased Visibility of Anal Prolapse: Reasons?” from September 2013 on the online forum Adult DVD Talk, a user commented: “Anal prolapsing: at one time it was reserved... for girls who had performed one too many double anal scenes (Ava Devine, Amy Brooke: we’re looking at you). Now, we’re seeing much more of it on screen, even from performers who are fairly new to the industry.” So what is causing this blossoming of a thousand rosebuds? The same user hypothesized that anal performers just hid their prolapses off camera in the past. “(They) are now only showing it on screen because it has become acceptable and there is a growing market for it.”

Indeed, big porn companies like Evil Angel have started to produce top-quality extreme anal films with a variety of high-profile porn stars. Once a trend like this takes hold, a self-perpetuating feedback loop almost guarantees its continued spread. “When a gorgeous porn star does it, it is legendary stuff for extreme-anal-porn fans, thus resulting in even more gigs for the girls who can and will do it,” says the California-based porn director Jay Sin. He’s witnessed this effect firsthand—films of his like Deep Anal Abyss, Anal Acrobats, and Anal Buffet have gone on to become cult favorites. (Anal Buffet is now into its ninth sequel.)

But the conclusion that everyone from your boss to your creepy uncle is tuning in and getting turned on by girls pushing their innards out of their assholes is a vaguely unsettling—and simplistic—one. While porn films have gotten more aggressive and violent in recent decades, this could also be a result of not just evolving tastes but the internet’s impact on the porn industry.

The sheer quantity of amateur videos available for free on streaming sites poses a huge business problem for the commercial industry. Why would you reach into your wallet to purchase a film when thousands of videos of couples banging in their bedrooms are just a few clicks away? In response, the industry has turned towards niche markets that can’t be found easily online, for free. After all, the average girl next door might be able to take dick like Sasha Grey, but she most likely won’t be able to rosebud on command.

Mike South, a blogger who has been called “the king of porn gossip,” believes that by turning toward extremism, commercial porn has lost touch with its core fan base, who would be grossed out by rosebuds. When he first came into the business, in 1992, as a porn director and actor, the industry was effortlessly churning out releases, South says. A flooded market meant that films had to be different to get noticed. “At first it was relatively benign—gang bangs, anal, that kind of thing,” he recalls. “Then it was dressing girls up like preteens and picking them up on swing sets in schoolyards, forced oral until they threw up, forced anal… The more uncomfortable the girl looked, the more the industry would give it awards.

“Companies in porn are like blackbirds on a phone wire,” he continues. “When one takes off they all follow. I think, in this case, they all followed into the side of a glass building.”

Similarly, being able to rosebud is also a way for actresses to differentiate themselves from their competition. Working up to the level where you can prolapse isn’t easy. It requires repeated and prolonged scenes of taking massive objects up your ass until your rectal walls are so loose, you can just push them out of your anus. Sheena describes the feeling as similar to having a baby—only a few girls can just “plop it right out.” Most have to start preparing for the anal feat the night before, sleeping with butt plugs in to stretch out their assholes. They also train themselves to have powerful abdominal control, relaxing their sphincters and pelvic-floor muscles while simultaneously contracting their abdominal muscles. “I wish it hurt still, but it doesn’t,” she laughs.

Even so, self-inflicted anal prolapses are extremely risky. Few performers will risk losing their fans by admitting this, but bowel problems are a common side effect of repeated rosebud scenes. While many stars claim to take breaks, even time off doesn’t really tighten everything back up. Rectal surgery, typically reserved for the elderly, is the only medical solution for plugging up a leaking ass.

The problem is that in an industry where word-of-mouth is sometimes trusted more than facts, many actresses are ignorant or disbelieving of these long-term health risks. “When I started doing [rosebud], I wasn’t aware of the repercussions,” admits Sheena. “People would say, ‘Oh, that’s a myth.’ But I know women who have gotten really hurt, who’ve gotten tears and fissures in their assholes.”

Roxy Raye, photo courtesy of RoxyRaye.com

Roxy Raye, another leading anal queen who specializes in rosebud scenes, has faith in the invincibility of her physical prowess. “I wouldn’t say I’m concerned about the long term. Over the six years I have done this I have always healed very well,” she claims. “I don’t think the average joe realizes how elastic of a muscle your ass is. Maybe I’ll be the first guinea pig to report back on the results in ten to 15 years.”

The dominant attitude of the industry toward the possible side effects of repeated rosebudding is perhaps best captured by Jay Sin, who has directed Roxy in several of his films. “If there are [side effects], it’s cool,” he says, somewhat flippantly. “She could stop doing it.”

In a way, porn stars who rosebud are like football players, sustaining repeated physical injury for our entertainment. Except that, unlike pro-athletes, porn stars rarely, if ever, make more money for rosebud scenes than “regular” anal acts. (Although anal queens like Roxy and Sheena still command higher overall anal rates than other stars.) When I asked Sheena what resources would be available to her if she got injured on set, she replied, “No one ever talks about that. They make you sign waivers before you do these scenes. You’re absolutely not going to get workers' comp.”

When it comes to what happens to performers once they leave the business, South glumly notes that there are absolutely zero safety nets to catch them should they develop physical issues further down the line. He puts it this way: “The industry doesn’t care about performers. They care about better train wrecks.”

Perhaps the only recourse for the next wave of rosebud stars is to take the advice of the more experienced. Sheena Shaw remembers how Amy Brooke, a legendary anal veteran, would tell younger performers what they were in for. “OK, girls, keep it up and you’re going to be a spokesperson for adult diapers!”

For those with an interest in seeing a rosebud bloom, here is a super NSFW video clip titled "Anal Acrobats Extreme Prolapse" from PornerBros.com. 

Follow Michelle on Twitter.

Interesting graphic choice. These are Pixel Panties, lady's underwear that look 8-bit. They're currently an Indigogo project but already funded so you can get a pair starting at $25. They'll go perfect with a Minecraft creeper mask. Trust me, your boyfriend will love it. Keep going for a shot of all the colors and a video. Thanks to Paralyzed Player, who reminds us all there's no excuse not to play.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

This is a video of a recently discovered Super Mario Bros glitch that awards infinite 1-ups (although you can only keep 128). Wow, thirty years later and people are still discovering new tricks. Although how anybody discovered this one is beyond me. First you have to beat the game, then start a new 2-player game (like new game+) and have one player die while a vine is growing and then it will continue growing up through the ground on the next player's turn. And, if that player is on a level with two trapped enemies, you can repeatedly booty-bump them for free lives. And I thought running around in games trying to find cracks in the walls was fun! Keep going for the how-to video. Although having to beat the game first to get infinite lives seems a little redundant. Thanks to E V I L A R E S, who is so evil he once choked out player 2 with a NES controller cord.

A demonstration against NSA mass surveillance in Washington, DC, in October 2013. Photo by Elvert Barnes Photography

In a move that has alarmed civil-liberties groups and transparency advocates, the Department of Justice has been working with local police departments across the country to squelch public-records requests on controversial cell-phone surveillance technology.

In December, USA Today reported that cell-phone surveillance technology originally designed for the US military was finding its way into state and local police departments across the country.

Since the USA Today report, public-records requests have unearthed documents showing state and local police departments in 15 states using so-called “International Mobile Subscriber Identity" (IMSI) catchers such as Stingray, Kingfish, Harpoon, Amberjack, and Hailstorm.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Hanni Fakhoury said that Stingrays act as a “man-in-the-middle” device, intercepting data by emulating a cell-phone tower. With the briefcase-size technology, police can identify and locate cell-phone users in a general area or search for a specific individual. It also vacuums up metadata from phones.

Law enforcement agencies purchase the devices through federal grants under the auspices of anti-terrorism operations. Police say the technology can also be used for search-and-rescue operations, kidnappings, and mass-casualty events.

However, the full details of how police departments are using military-grade surveillance technology—often without warrants—are being blocked from release by an aggressive effort from the federal government and the corporation that sells the devices.

In separate cases in at least three states, federal agents under the Department of Justice worked with local police to keep records on IMSI catchers secret.

Civil-liberties groups say the Obama administration’s effort to suppress state public-records requests, given the controversial nature of the IMSI devices, undermines the president’s claims to transparency, especially following the NSA spying scandal.

"The 'most transparent administration in history' should not be in the business of undermining state open-government laws,” said Ginger McCall, the general counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

"Cell-site simulators are very invasive devices that sweep in vast amounts of private information unrelated to any investigation,” McCall continued. “The public deserves to know if Stingray devices are being used by local law enforcement, how frequently, and what protocols are being put in place to protect ordinary people's data." 

This cell-phone tower thinks it's a palm tree. Photo via Flickr user J. N. Stuart

Federal Meddling
Last week, activist Freddie Martinez sued the Chicago Police Department for records on Stingrays after the department ignored his Freedom of Information request.

In a phone interview, Martinez said that he first suspected the Chicago Police Department was using Stingrays during a 2012 NATO summit in the city. Martinez said protesters began noticing their cell phones behaving strangely: batteries draining too fast, text messages not sending, etc.

Similar lawsuits have popped up around the country. In March, a local independent journalist sued the Tucson Police Department for records on the Stingray device it had bought in 2010 for more than $400,000.

Oakland County, Michigan, officials denied a Freedom of Information request from the Detroit News in April seeking information on the county’s use of Hailstorm, a more advanced version of the Stingray technology. The county claimed the records were protected by anti-terror laws—a justification that has appeared in several other cases.

“So little is known about Hailstorm that even national experts will only speculate about its capabilities,” the News wrote.

Nathan Wessler, a staff attorney with the ACLU, said the town of Sunrise, Florida, wouldn’t even confirm or deny it had any records on Stingray technology—the sort of response more often given by the CIA than small towns—until the ACLU found a purchase order for a Stingray unit on the city’s website.

But the most interesting case occurred in Sarasota, Florida, where the US Marshals Service confiscated records on Stingray surveillance from a courthouse just hours before the records were due to be handed over to the ACLU.

The Marshals Service said it deputized one of the local police officers as a federal agent, making the documents property of the Marshals and exempt from state open-records laws.

"This idea that the feds can swoop in and claim records is a real significant problem," Fakhoury said. “Once state officers get these devices, they belong to the state.”

Wessler said the ACLU is now challenging the confiscation in court.

The US Marshals directed a request for comment to the Department of Justice. A Justice Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement: “The US Marshals Service declines to comment due to pending litigation.”

What links several of these cases together is an unusual amount of meddling from the federal government in state public-record disputes. The FBI has coordinated responses and crafted legal arguments for police departments to keep Stingray records under wrap.

The court case in Tucson includes an affidavit from an FBI special agent who said the disclosure would "result in the FBI's inability to protect the public from terrorism and other criminal activity, because, through public disclosures, this technology has been rendered essentially useless for future investigations."

In Tallahassee, Florida, prosecutors in a criminal case coordinated with the FBI to keep key portions of testimony involving IMSI catchers sealed. In the case, police tracked a stolen cell phone to a man’s apartment using an IMSI catcher, and after being denied entry, forced their way inside—all without a warrant. The government refused to explain how it had located the suspect until the judge agreed to close the courtroom and seal the transcript.

The FBI did not immediately return requests for comment for this article.

Anne Weismann, the chief counsel of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said the Justice Department’s interference in state public-records requests "is extremely troubling and cannot be reconciled with the President’s purported commitment to transparency and willingness to engage in a greater public discussion about the metes and bounds of government surveillance.

“I question what possible legitimate federal interest could the FBI and US Marshals have in preventing the public from learning how local law enforcement authorities conduct surveillance,” she continued.

Part of those federal interests was revealed earlier this month, when the ACLU persuaded a judge to unseal the Tallahassee transcript. According to testimony, Tallahassee police had used stingrays at least 200 times without ever seeking a warrant from a judge.

Sealing court records has become another favorite tool of the federal government for hiding surveillance activities from the public. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that requests to seal court orders for electronic surveillance have spiked across the US. In most cases those orders stay sealed indefinitely.

According to a Journal analysis, requests for cell-phone location data and electronic tracking more than quadrupled in the Southern District of Florida over the last decade.

‘Technology We May or May Not Provide’
Florida also happens to be the home of Harris Corporation, the defense contractor that manufactures IMSI technologies such as Stingray and Hailstorm.

Harris spent $3.5 million lobbying the federal government in 2013, including on such bills as the Department of Homeland Security Authorization Act and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Harris gets a lot of bang for its buck. The Department of Homeland Security has awarded Harris a sole-source contract for its IMSI catchers, meaning DHS did not go through a competitive-bid process. When a state or local police department gets a DHS grant for cell-phone tracking technology, it buys a Harris product.

The AP reported that government sales of IMSI systems like Stingray accounted for almost one third of Harris’s $5 billion in revenue.

DHS has said that Harris is the only provider of IMSI technology, but the ACLU disputes that claim.

Harris also requires police departments buying Stingray devices to sign non-disclosure agreements, forbidding them from revealing details about the devices.

For example, Sacramento declined to provide documents or comment to the ACLU, claiming it would be inappropriate because “the acquisition or use of this technology comes with a strict non-disclosure requirement.”

The NDA that Tucson agreed to, revealed through public-records requests, says that the city “shall not discuss, publish, release, or disclose any information pertaining to the Products covered under this NDA to any third party individual, corporation, or other entity, including any affiliated or unaffiliated State, County, City, Town, or Village or other governmental entity without the prior written consent of Harris.”

The agreement also says that the city should not release any information Harris deems confidential and should let the company challenge public-records requests in court.

“In the event that the City receives a Public Records request from a third party relating to any Protected Product, or other information Harris deems confidential, the City will notify Harris of such a request and allow Harris to challenge any such request in court. The City will not take a position with respect to the release of such material, beyond its contractual duties, but will assist Harris in any such challenge.”

The idea that an NDA could trump public-record law is troubling to many transparency advocates.

“It is just not permissible under state public-records law to exempt yourself from the law by signing a secret agreement with a corporation,” Wessler said. “That's just out of bounds.”

In an emailed statement, a Harris spokesperson said: “We are unable to comment on classified DOD or law enforcement technology we may or may not provide.”

Photo via Flickr user J. N. Stuart

‘A Far Cry from Anti-Terrorism’
State and local police departments mostly appear to obtain Stingray devices through federal grants under the Department of Homeland Security’s Urban Areas Security Initiative.

For example, Oakland County, Michigan, received a $258,370 federal grant for its IMSI catcher, according to records obtained by the Detroit News.

When it applied for AUSI funding in 2011, the San Jose police said the money would “assist regional law enforcement in countering terrorism and investigating and apprehending terrorists.” Yet the devices often end up being used in regular criminal investigations.

“When it's being used by state and local law enforcement, it's overwhelmingly being used for regular police activities,” Wessler said. “In Tallahassee, not one use was for counter-terrorism. I expect that's true everywhere else. It demonstrates how easy it is to get these DHS grants and how little oversight there is once the money goes through.”

Annual reports from the Oakland Police Department cite about 20 Stingray arrests a year. The division deploying the devices is focused on “guns, drugs, and gangs,” according to internal reports obtained by the ACLU

Fakhoury said he knew of one instance in which a Stingray device was used for a tax-fraud investigation. “I'm not saying tax fraud isn't a serious deal, but it's a very far cry from anti-terrorism,” he said.

Despite the best efforts of the Feds, more and more information on IMSI systems has been leaking out. Since USA Today’s original story in December, news outlets and transparency advocates have identified nearly a dozen more cities using Stingrays.

Last week, the ACLU published an interactive map of where the technology is deployed, and news outlet Muckrock recently launched a crowd-funded project to investigate the use of Stingrays nationwide. Additionally, nine states have passed laws this year tightening the use of IMSI catchers.

The ACLU also won a major victory last week when the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that police must acquire a warrant to obtain stored cell-phone-tower information. But IMSI catchers are so new and, until recently, so unknown that no major court case has specifically examined their use and whether they violate citizens’ privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment.

“This is the million-dollar question,” Fakhoury said.

For Harris Corporation, it could be worth much, much more.

Follow CJ Ciaramella on Twitter.

This is a knife block that looks like an X-wing fighter (£70, ~$120). It comes with and holds five different knives (cook's, bread, carving, utility and paring). What's your favorite kind of knife? Mine is a ninja sword. "That is not a knife." And my penis isn't a laser gun but do I not hold it like one and make sound effects when I pee? "You have a point." Ahahahhaha, no I don't either! Clearly my brainwashing is working. Thanks to Dal, who always runs with knives because life is too short to not take risks.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station will soon wake up to a stellar view of Earth while sipping an invigorating cup — or, actually, a pouch — of gourmet espresso. Italian companies Lavazza, a coffee brand, and Aerotec, an aerospace firm, teamed up to create a coffee machine capable of brewing eye-opening beverages in zero gravity. Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti will deliver the device, appropriately named the “ISSpresso,” and in so doing will also become the first I

This is a thing about playing old NES games that I couldn't beat as a kid to see if I could beat them now as an adult, but let me tell you this first: I had sex while wearing a Power Glove not that long ago. It's maybe the most impressive thing that I've ever accomplished in my whole entire life. The backstory to pull the first part together with the second:

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General Stanley McChrystal as commander of American troops in Afghanistan in 2009. Photo via US Embassy in Kabul

SpaceX, the rocket and spacecraft company founded by South African–born magnate Elon Musk, has been locked in a bitter dispute with United Launch Alliance (ULA)—a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing—for US government contracts worth billions of dollars.

Now the lobbying firm with close ties to a notorious retired general is joining the fray.

Musk is suing the Feds, claiming ULA's recent no-bid contract with the US Air Force reeks of corruption, and that his company can save money for taxpayers. In response, ULA has stepped up its game, retaining a lobbying shop tied to retired General Stanley McChrystal, the former top American military commander in Afghanistan, VICE has learned.

This week, ULA registered Shockey Scofield Solutions as its lobbying representative, a company that filed registration documents showing the exact same Alexandria, Virginia, address as McChrystal's consulting firm, the McChrystal Group. Shockey Scofield also has a history of partnering with the McChrystal team to contact officials at the Defense Department. 

The McChrystal Group itself is not a registered lobbying firm, exactly, but acts as close partner to Shockey. Earlier this year, McChrystal's firm was caught receiving payments from a Shokey Scofield Solutions client while reaching out to Pentagon officials regarding a Global Positioning System (GPS) dispute for the same client. “Shockey Scofield Solutions has active partnerships with the following firms,” reads a selection from the Shockey website before specifically listing the McChrystal Group. 

Jeff Scofield, a founding partner at Shokey Scofield Solutions, wrote VICE in an email that McChrystal's firm "will not be involved in this client or any of our clients," claiming that his company only rents space to the former general's consulting operation. Asked why his lobbying shop lists McChrystal as a "strategic partner," Scofield did not respond. Previously, McChrystal Group and Scofield's lobbying firm have jointly worked peddling influence on behalf of the controversial telecom company LightSquared.  

Asked about ULA's relationship with McChrystal, Mark Bitterman, the vice president of Government Affairs with ULA, did not deny working with the former general. He responded with the following rather cryptic statement: “With a variety of misinformation being discussed about the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program, it is important to ensure lawmakers and the public have accurate information."



The issue at hand between SpaceX—whose rockets are currently used to ship cargo to the International Space Station—and ULA is the Air Force’s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, which US Senator John McCain describes as "a vital $70 billion national security space-launch program that, without competition, has been plagued by exponential cost growth and schedule delays." Musk claims his company could provide the same service as the Lockheed Martin-Boeing venture at a fraction of the cost.

 Last month, he made headlines when he pointed out that Roger S. Correll, a former Air Force official in charge of the EELV program, went to work for Aerojet Rocketdyne—a company that builds rocket engines for ULA—right after awarding ULA with its lucrative EELV contract.

"V likely AF official Correll was told by ULA/Rocketdyne that a rich VP job was his if he gave them a sole source contract," Musk tweeted, referencing a report by the National Legal and Policy Center, an ethics watchdog.

Revolving door corruption is one of most common forms of influence peddling in Washington, DC. It's currently illegal to hand a politician a million-dollar check in exchange for tweaking legislation, but there is little preventing any public official—whether a US senator, a member of the military elite, or an administration chief of staff—from handing out a favor while in office and then "retiring" to take a highly paid job at a company that benefited.

The fact that McChrystal has cashed out since leaving the military is well known. Not long after he was forced to resign following Michael Hastings's spectacular Rolling Stone story that featured the general and his staff openly talking shit about Obama administration officials, McChrystal joined the board of Navistar, a military contractor that won big contracts for work in Afghanistan. The McChrystal Group website once advertised “professional expertise in navigating the policy of the federal government” and “legislative strategies to help clients solve complex problems." After several news outlets noted that this sounded an awful lot like lobbying, the language was deleted from the site. 



As for ULA, the Lockheed Martin-Boeing joint venture, Business Insider reports that the company is ramping up its attacks on SpaceX to hamper the rival from challenging its contract for Air Force rocket launches. ULA has invested millions in lobbying and recently handed out an infographic mocking the technical abilities of SpaceX. 

But as the filing this week shows, they're also quietly bringing out the big guns by cozying up with a lobbying firm that has historically had General McChrystal at its disposal.

Lee Fang, a San Francisco–based journalist, is an investigative fellow at the Nation Institute and co-founder of Republic Report.

This Italian Porn Star Is Swearing off Orgasms In Pursuit of a "Collective" World Cup Orgasm

Because the majority of major news outlets do a worse job than I do (and I literally do zero job and try to talk about privates as much as possible), here's a headline from The Los Angeles Times' coverage of the E3 convention. As you can see, somebody clearly knew what they were talking about. No word if they also got to demo the latest games for the Sega 3DS, but I expect to read all about it in tomorrow's paper. Thanks to Paul, who actually got to see the new Nintendo PS4 and said it was breathtaking.

Photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his Republican primary in Virginia last night in a stunning upset that has sent GOP leaders into a panic, scrambling to figure out how one of the party’s rising stars—and the presumptive Speaker-in-waiting—could lose to an obscure libertarian economics professor with an unfortunate last name.

For those of you who don’t follow politics closely, it’s hard to overstate the shock and confusion that has rattled the Washington establishment over the past 12 hours. No one saw this coming (and anyone who says otherwise is lying). No sitting House majority leader has ever lost a primary. And Cantor didn’t just lose—he got creamed, losing to unknown and unfunded Randolph-Macon College professor David Brat by 12 percentage points.

So far, the boilerplate takeaways are (a) that Cantor’s loss likely kills any chance there may have been for immigration reform and (b) that despite recent Establishment victories, the Tea Party still packs a punch. Both of those things may be true: One of the main lines of attack on Cantor, leveled by Brat, as well as talking heads like radio hosts Mark Levin and Laura Ingraham, was his supposed support for “amnesty,” and his loss is likely to deter other Republicans from ever touching reform legislation; he’s also the second Republican incumbent to lose a primary challenge from the right this year, and others, including Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran, are expected to follow.

But all this obscures the broader significance of Cantor’s loss, and the ripple effects that it could have not only for the GOP, but also for the business interests that have long enjoyed cozy relationships with Republicans in Washington. Since 2010, Cantor has politically existed at the nexus of Big Tea Party and Big Business, two dominant, and often warring, factions of the Republican Party. A prominent fundraiser, Cantor helped usher in the Tea Party takeover of the House in 2010, and until recently, conservatives considered him an ally, if not one of their own. At the same time, Cantor was a go-to ally for business, and Wall Street in particular, consistently protecting industry interests even as his party moved further and further to the right.

In the process, he sided with business on some unpopular issues, including extending the government’s terrorism-insurance program and taxing private-equity income at lower capital-gains rates. Cantor raised close to $5.5 million this election cycle, drawing in cash from trade groups like the American Chemistry Council, the NRA, and the National Association of Realtors. According to data from Open Secrets, Cantor’s top five campaign contributors were Blackstone Group, Scoggin Capital Management, Goldman Sachs, Altria Group (the parent company of Phillip Morris), and Charmer Sunbelt Group, a major liquor distributor.

Brat, on the other hand, was a Tea Party candidate in the truest sense, reflecting the right-wing populist sentiments—the xenophobia, the hatred of both big government and big business—that first propelled the movement back in 2009. Tellingly, his campaign did not receive any money from professional Tea Party groups like FreedomWorks and the Club for Growth, but instead ran on just $200,000, which is about the same as what the Cantor camp spent on steak dinners for donors.

Academically and politically, Brat is best described as a libertarian, and an unabashed champion of “free-market economics,” in the vein of other Tea Party libertarians like Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee, and Michigan Republican Rep. Justin Amash.  On the campaign trail, though, Brat couched these positions within the context of the increasinly resonant themes of crony capitalism. He relentlessly criticized Cantor’s cozy ties to Wall Street and groups like the US Chamber of Commerce, as well as his unwillingness to go after Big Banks after the financial crisis.“If you’re in big business, Eric’s been very good to you, and he gets a lot of donations because of that, right?” Brat said at a Republican Party meeting in April. “Very powerful. Very good at fundraising because he favors big business. But when you’re favoring artificially big business, someone’s paying the tab for that. Someone’s paying the price for that, and guess who that is? You.”

He elaborated at a town-hall meeting last month: "All the investment banks in the New York and DC—those guys should have gone to jail,” he said. “Instead of going to jail, they went on Eric’s Rolodex, and they are sending him big checks.”

“I'm not against business,” he added, summing up the central theme of his candidacy. “I'm against big business in bed with big government."

The race was another example of the Free Market vs. Business battles that have divided the Republican Party on issues like the debt ceiling and balanced budget amendments. And in this case, business lost—badly. In the House, GOP leaders announced that Cantor will step down from his post as majority leader in July, opening up the door for more conservative members to take his place. Of particular concern to business interests is Representative Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who has recently clashed with Cantor and industry lobbyists over flood insurance, and who is the Tea Party favorite for the majority-leader spot. Hensarling said Wednesday that he is "prayerfully considering" whether he will make a bid for a leadership position. 

In the long run, Brat’s win is being viewed by conservatives as a proxy victory for the growing libertarian wing of the Republican Party—a triumph of limited government, Ayn Randian principles over Cantor’s more moderate “Making Life Work” plans. And the fact that Brat pulled off his upset victory over Cantor with such a distinctly anti–Wall Street message suggests that right-wing anti-government populism continues to thrive, at least in Virginia’s Seventh Congressional District. 

The US Government Claims It Must Destroy Key NSA Evidence to Protect National Security

Image via Flickr user Big Ashb

Not long before he killed himself, David Foster Wallace wrote a short piece for the Atlantic about the War on Terror called "Just Asking." It detailed a disturbing thought experiment about whether maybe occasional terrorism in our country is, for lack of a better term, worth it:

What if we chose to accept the fact that every few years, despite all reasonable precautions, some hundreds or thousands of us may die in the sort of ghastly terrorist attack that a democratic republic cannot 100-percent protect itself from without subverting the very principles that make it worth protecting?

It's an uncomfortable notion, but if you chew on it for a second, you'll pick up what he's putting down. We all want (a) Freedom, whatever that is, and (b) to not be suddenly blown up by a stranger. But maybe we can't have both, and if you have to pick the better one, between freedom and 100 percent never being suddenly blown up by a stranger, maybe it's freedom.

There are already plenty of think pieces on America not being free anymore, because of the Patriot Act, and the NSA, and all that. I won't dwell on that part of Wallace's argument. 

Instead, think about how Wallace's thought experiment would play out if it were, hypothetically, put to a vote. After all, America occasionally does use its shambles of a democracy to make a change because an attitude has shifted.

Look at pot legalization for instance. We aren't a country of pot users. Only 7.6 percent of American adults use marijuana habitually, but the issue has amassed enough support to bring us to the brink of nationwide legalization. This happened thanks to the tiny sliver of Americans who legitimately need it for medicine, in addition to a much larger, passionate group of habitual users who just think it's a fun thing to smoke and are supported by lobby groups like NORML.

These are the kinds of passionate people who make weed part of their identity, and they're slowly winning:

But the surprising power of that 7.6 percent of the population is nothing. Last time Gallup ran a poll, the percentage of Americans who owned guns was about 47 percent, or 147 million people. And are those 147 million people maybe a little bit ardent? Gun-control advocates don't, I think, stop to consider that when gun owners say they love their guns, they really, passionately, deeply love them with a zeal that makes the biggest stoner look—well—apathetic.

Just look at this guy:

Listen to how he talks about going to the range and firing thousand of bullets. Did you notice he said he had made an Excel spreadsheet of all his guns? Are we to believe he's personally shot someone with his Sig Sauer with rainbow finish? Probably not. It's just a pretty thing he really likes having around.

And have you ever been to the Internet Movie Firearms Database, the site that catalogs every gun in literally every movie ever? I'm sure it doesn't surprise you to learn that there's a page there for Commando that's longer and more elaborate than the same movie's IMDB page. But they've also got comprehensive pages for everything from Bruce Almighty to Purple Rain. Imagine how excited they are when a Rambo movie comes out on Blu-Ray, and they have the chance to freeze-frame and figure out which brand of silencer someone is using.

That kind of love is almost cute. Almost. 

So while the NRA may be a bloated, possibly corrupt, excessively powerful lobbying force, partly staffed by horrible racists, it's also the mouthpiece of a fandom more widespread than Bronies, Trekkies, and Furries combined and multiplied by a hundred. Gun ownership is almost inarguably the single most popular hobby in America, and the NRA is a consequence of that. 

Even popular gun-control efforts that failed, like the 2013 bill, would have been nothing more than tiny, symbolic changes, such as making background checks more ubiquitous, or eliminating high-capacity magazines. Elliot Rodger passed his background check and didn't use high-capacity magazines. The presence of the NRA makes real reform so far-fetched, nothing has even been proposed, let alone voted on, that will get us anywhere close to Richard Martinez's "Not One More" promised land. 

And meanwhile, there's shooting after shooting. When these things happened, the president used to fly out to the grieving town and give a speech. Now we don't even fly our flags at half mast. They've become an ongoing problem we can't take the time out of our day to be individually upset about, like Adam Sandler movies.

Everyone would prefer that these school shootings stop, even Wayne LaPierre. The NRA's solution to the problem, arming teachers, is the only answer that anyone's made any progress on. But that's a joke of a solution. Even if a school shooting happened to start in the classroom of a teacher who happened to be packing heat, the shooter would still be able to put a bullet in another student, or for that matter the teacher, while she's writing an equation on the blackboard. But most school shootings seem to happen in the hallways anyway, and even armed and trained campus police will never be such eagle-eyed Clint Eastwoods that they can stop the initial few shots from happening. 

Matching shooters gun-for-gun isn't a solution anyone takes seriously, not even the NRA. The real answer is that we, the American people, see that there are school shootings, and we all agree that they're tragic, but then we've done the David Foster Wallace thought experiment in our heads: Gun control would mean an America with fewer school shootings, but we would lose some of our gun freedom. 

And apparently we don't want to live in a place like that. 

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Note: Worthwhile interactive panoramic shots of the collection HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE. The Guinness Book of World Records recognized largest video game collection is currently up for auction on GameGavel. Bidding is just over $100,000 with five days remaining. The auction includes over 11,000 video games, including complete catalogs for many systems. The incredible full list:

The following categories are COMPLETE U.S. sets, and may also include import titles, as well: 3DO, Action Max, AGP X-System, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, Atari Jaguar, Atari Jaguar CD, Atari Lynx, Buzztime, Captain Power, Game Boy Advance e-Reader, Neo-Geo Pocket Color, Nintendo Virtual Boy, NUON, Sega CD, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, Tapwave Zodiac, Tiger Game.Com, Turbo-Grafx-16 CD and Turbo-Grafx-16 Super CD. The following categories are NEAR COMPLETE U.S. sets, and may also include import titles, as well: Bally Videocade, CougarBoy, Fairchild VES Channel F, Game Wave, Gizmondo, Halcyon Interactive, LaserActive, Magnavox Odyssey2, NEC PC-FX, N*Gage, Sega 32-X, SuperVision, Vectrex and XaviX. The remaining games are for the following platforms: Amiga CD-32, Amstrad CPC, APF MP1000, Arcadia 2001, Atari 2600, Atari XE/XL, Bandai / Apple Pippin, Bandai Playdia, BBC Micro, Casio Loopy, Colecovision, Commodore 64, Commodore 64/128, Commodore Vic-20, Dragon 32, DVD Interactive, Epoch Cassette Vision, Epoch Super Cassette Vision, FM Towns, FM Towns Marty, Hyperscan, LaserDisc Interactive, Leap Frog Leapster, Leap Frog Didj, Mattel Intellivision, Mattel Aquarius, Microsoft X-Box, Microsoft X-Box 360, Microvision, MSX, NEC TurboGrafx-16, Neo-Geo AES, Neo-Geo CD, Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Nintendo Family Computer Disk System, Nintendo GameBoy, Nintendo GameBoy Color, Nintendo GameBoy Advance, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Nintendo 64 DD, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Wii, Philips CD-I, Radio Shack TRS-80, RCA Studio II, Sega SG-1000, Sega Master System, Sega Game Gear, Sega Genesis, Sega 32x CD, Sega Pico, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Sony Playstation, Sony Playstation 2, Sony Playstation 3, Sony PSP, Sony Vita, TI-99/4a, Tiger R-Zone, Timex Sinclair, Tomy Tutor ,V.Flash, V.Smile, Wonderswan and Wonderswan Color.

Damn, that's a lot of video games. You think if I won the auction I'd have time to play them all before I died? "Depends on when you die." My doctor says any minute now. Keep going for a video tour of the entire collection. Thanks to nappo and Charlie^2, who plan to get a group together, win the auction, then alternate months with different systems and games. OMG PLEASE LET ME GET IN ON THIS.

An armed robber caught by facial recognition software has been handed a 22 year jail sentence. His image was captured by Chicago Transit surveillance cameras, and compared to a database of 4.5 million criminal booking images. Biosignatures are increasingly being used by law enforcement.

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Can the growth hormones found in meat products affect human reproductive health? The authors of this study set out to answer this question by looking at the sperm counts of men who eat various amounts of meat products. Turns out that the more processed meat the men ate, the lower their sperm counts were, particularly for those men who ejaculated more frequently. Although the scientists weren't able to relate this result to the hormones in the meat per se,  if you're trying to increase your s

The last time I was excited about seeing a photo of a boner was in fourth-grade health class via a projector transparency from the 70s. Ever since that initial shock of just seeing a real wiener, images of dicks have just come off more goofy than sexy. Unfortunately, in the age of smart phones, women like me all across globe are plagued with shitty dick pics. We're sent unimpressive and often unsolicited schlong shots from horny dudes who think they are really doing something special by snapchatting a selfie of their one-eyed snake. Little do they know, their penis pics often become the butt of jokes between girl friends.

What dick pics need today is a little more creativity and fun—not trick photography to make their peckers look like giant phalluses from Monster Island terrorizing a metropolis. In order to combat the world's sad barrage of boring penis pics, Los Angeles natives Lauren Brenner and Stephanie Pool have developed a photo customization app called Rock That Cock. The app allows dudes to modify their cock photos with stickers and backgrounds. Lauren, a yoga instructor and comedian, and Stephanie, a creative strategist, have spent the past year creating the app. Soon men will be able to share an image of their Johnson being abducted by a UFO while wearing a Lil Jon face. As if that wasn’t enough, the duo will also be donating a percentage of the profits from Rock That Cock to prostate cancer.

In anticipation of the launch, Stephanie and Lauren have created a new Rock that Cock tumblr, where photos are posted of the customization options that will be available through the app. In order to find out more about how they plan to change the world’s standards for dick pics, I called up Lauren and Stephanie.

Classy Lauren Brenner and Stephanie Pool 

VICE: Why did you want to start Rock that Cock?
Lauren Brenner: It seems like all of my girlfriends are inundated with dick pics. Technology is moving forward, and dick pics aren’t going away. In my ideal reality, they are just going to get amazing. I promise that dick pics now are just getting laughed at and shown to like 45 people. Why not be in on the joke and make it hilarious? It could be fun. It is all about spreading joy in the most ridiculous way. We are really close to a time where bros can send hilarious pictures of their dicks to one another. If you can send me a picture that makes me think you’re smart and funny and also slip in your big penis, that’s awesome.

Stephanie Pool: No one ever asks for dick pics. We are assaulted with them. We get a text message, and inside is a dick we didn’t ask for. If you are going to send me a dick pic, you might as well make me laugh. 

What’s your experience with dick pics?
Lauren: Many times you get unsolicited dick pics. I will be looking at my phone, and there’s a dick. I have seen really embarrassingly artsy dick pics where a tank top will be pulled to the side and one of his nipples is showing too. I want to help these guys out and give them tools to make their dick pics better. 

Have you had a positive response from men who want to use the app?
Lauren: They love it. Everyone I have talked to about it wants it. 

How exactly do you modify the pics?
Lauren: You can put your dick in a jersey. It can wear an engagement ring that you uploaded. You can put a sombrero on your dick if you’re on the beach in Mexico. You can use a stock penis, which is a papier-mâché penis, so it’s not too obscene. Or you can use a picture of your own penis and upload it to your own backdrop or a stock backdrop. People can take dick pics they have received, make them hilarious, and send them to their friends. 

Stephanie: We have a bevy of options, which include pre-designed backgrounds like your cock in Tahiti or your cock in a hammock. We also have stickers, like a wig or hat. Then we have the ability to upload whatever you want. For example, if you took a picture with your new Maserati and you want to replace your body with your dick—you can do that. Then you have the ability to publish it, so you can put it in your pictures folder or in a text message. Also, there is the anonymous ability to share to a public forum if you are proud of what you’ve done.

When I first watched the video, I didn’t think it was real. Have you had that response?
Lauren: Definitely. At first we were joking because we had witnessed an interaction with two girls. One girl was like, “This guy just sent me a dick pic to apologize,” and the other girl was like, “I get so many dick pics.” I was like, so many dick pics? How do you tell them a part? At first we were just going to make a parody video, but everyone wanted us to really do it.

So, a lot of the things that you see in the video are actually going to be available in the app?
Lauren: Totally. Some things that we don’t have in the video are little stickers. Those are pretty basic. Can you imagine, like, a four-leaf clover on your penis? It could be really dumb or really amazing. It is up to the guy to showcase his personality. You can give the man the tools, but you can’t make him use it correctly.

When are you hoping to launch the app?
Lauren: We are hoping to launch it this summer. Maybe on the Fourth of July; it is very American. Everything is in place. We are just getting ready to pull the trigger—or blow our load, if you will. The way we are going it is that the app will be free, but there will be little upgrades. Two bucks if you want to make your penis an ATM and shoot hundred-dollar bills out of it, because that is awesome.

Follow Erica on Twitter.

Fill up on all the Ghostbuster trivia that's not only clever, but pleasing to the eye. We're basically sluts for infographics here, and this one designed by Mike Seiders is pretty fantastic.

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A controversial new theory claims that many features of the human face are the result of evolved defensive measures against fist fights.

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This is the current world's most expensive Starbucks drink, the $54.75 Sexagintuple Vanilla Bean Mocha Frappuccino, a 128oz (that's a gallon) behemoth with 60 shots of espresso. Twitter user Andrew Chafari got it for free by using his Starbucks gold card. Of course it took making friends with the baristas at Starbucks to make it happen. Some other lady actually managed to order a drink that cost $56.70, but that one is disputed as the most expensive because she didn't bring a cup large enough to fit the whole drink. DISQUALIFIED. Granted pretty much anybody could order the most expensive Starbucks drink if they wanted provided 1) they have a friend who works there and 2) brought in a cup the size of a kiddy pool. I'm going to go this afternoon and order a $600 drink. Then take a picture of the drink and receipt and run. Sure my friend might get fired, but his house parties always suck anyways. Thanks to lib, RosettaStoned and Allyson, who agree if the person in front of you at Starbucks starts ordering the most expensive drink, your only option is to tap them on the shoulder and challenge them to a duel to to the death.

A hundred and one years ago, in 1913, the famous British mathematician G. H. Hardy received a letter out of the blue. The Indian (British colonial) stamps and curious handwriting caught his attention, and when he opened it, he was flabbergasted. Its pages were crammed with equations – many of which he had never seen before. There were many kinds of formulas there, and those that first caught his attention had to do with algebraic numbers. Hardy was the leading number theorist in the world – ho

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Sex-trafficking laws hadn’t been written yet when I was growing up in the mid 90s, but today sex-trafficking laws are all the rage. The laws are so broad, the authorities have used them to charge women with trafficking themselves. The media warns readers about violent pimps stealing girls from malls, but most victims’ stories are very different. I know this because I was a teen trafficking victim, and my experience reflects much of the research that’s been done with trafficking victims.

When my dad pimped me out during the Clinton era, the state called his crime “sexual abuse of a minor.” When the cops decided to try to “rescue” me when I was 15, they pressured the state to take custody of me so that my dad couldn’t snatch me and run. At that point, I had been living independently and with friends for years. My caseworker at the Department of Family and Youth Services (now the Office of Children’s Services) was reluctant to get involved—she thought I was a liar who needed to be punished for making up stories about my dad—but she eventually did what the cops said. Most of my foster-home stints lasted less than a week.  

That was how the state “rescued” me from being pimped out by my dad—but I was lucky. Other teens have been raped and pimped in foster care. I didn’t know it at the time, but this is why I was so lucky: Ten years before, my mother ran with me to a neighbor’s house because she was worried we would be hurt. We sat up all night, equally afraid of going home or calling the police. That neighbor went on to become a police officer, and when a report about me came across her desk—similar to the 13 reports about me that had been made to the Department of Family and Youth Services and the two other reports that had been made to the police—she made it her mission to rescue me.

Within a few months, the state had run out of foster homes for me, so they dumped me in a youth shelter—that’s when I got banned from the shelter. I had been living with adult friends, who had started the process of adopting me, for three or four weeks. It was the longest period of time I had lived somewhere in years. After I unpacked my bag, my caseworker arrived and said the fire exits weren’t sufficient. She demanded I collect my belongings, follow her outside, and climb into her car.

“I don’t have time for this,” my caseworker said in the car. “I was supposed to get off work half an hour ago, and my kids are waiting for me to come home and make dinner.” She claimed the state lacked any more foster homes for me, so she took me to the youth shelter. I was familiar with the shelter because I usually stayed there for a few days between friends’ houses, so I didn’t mind. Before she let me leave the car, she went through my bag and confiscated my money, saying that I would probably spend my cash on drugs.

A few weeks later, I found out my caseworker had lied about why she removed me from my friends’ home. In court, my guardian ad litem allowed me to read my file. I found a big stack of papers revealing the true reason I had to leave my adult friends’ home: My friend had allegedly abused her son and allowed a child molester to live in her driveway.

Though the shelter typically allowed kids to stay for only two weeks at most, I stayed at the shelter for seven weeks, since the state had run out of places to keep me. The shelter forbade minors from leaving without a good reason, like attending class or going to work. I hadn’t attended school in years, so I kept inside for the duration of my stay.

Eventually, I got really bored at the shelter and started carving on my arms. The next day, I held the shelter director's baby while she and all of the staff had a meeting about me in the kitchen. They decided I had to leave because I was too much of a suicidal liability. They called my caseworker. Since I wasn’t actually suicidal, the hospital wouldn’t take me. My caseworker found me new foster parents, a couple who had recently immigrated to America from India. My first night at their house, the husband angrily criticized the dinner his wife had cooked for him. She threw away the food and then cooked him another meal. The following day, I went for a walk and forgot to go back.

My caseworker called my friends and told them I was a runaway (she said if they harbored me, they could be charged with a felony), so I went to a hotel bar instead of bothering my pals. At the bar, I found a man to go home with. Today we would call this “survival sex.” According to a recent study of youth in New York City’s sex trade called "Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children," 30 to 50 percent of homeless youth work as sex workers and only 16 percent of girls started with a pimp or escort service.

A couple days and a couple men later, I ran into my best friend’s foster parents at the store. She had lived with them since her mother died years ago, and they said that they could easily take me in because they were already licensed to foster her. They called my caseworker, and she came right over. After my caseworker searched my bag for drugs and took my money again, she agreed that I could stay with them. My new foster mom took me shopping and bought me a pretty baby-blue sweater that covered the cuts on my forearms. 

My first night at her house, I sat down with the family at a big, round table for dinner. We look like a family! I thought—at least until I noticed the kids looked at the floor and stayed silent. I soon found out why they kept their mouths shut. Midway through dinner, my friend’s brother took a timid bite of macaroni, and my new foster mom exploded. She said his chewing was disgusting, called him a dog, dumped his plate on the floor, and then stood over him ordering him to eat like a dog and lick the floor clean. As he obeyed her demands, she kicked him.

A few hours later, my new foster mother tucked me into bed, kissed my forehead, and told me I had a family now. I waited for her to leave and then grabbed my blue sweater and climbed out the window. Outside, I realized we were miles out of town, and I didn’t have any equipment for cold-weather camping, so I climbed back in the window. The next morning, I called the cop who looked out for me, and she picked me up. I asked her to drop me at the store and promised her my new foster mom would pick me up later—adults accusing me of being a crazy liar had taught me to stop talking about abuse.

I walked to my usual bar, where I met their new bartender. He refused to let me in, since I was underage, so I walked in the cold through the areas where men usually picked me up and paid me for sex, stomping my feet in the snow to keep warm. No one stopped for me, so I walked to the shelter and begged them to let me in.

“I don’t think I’m supposed to let you in,” the worker said. “Just come in and warm up while I call and check.” She called the director at home, and the director said not to let me in. 

“You know I might just freeze to death in your parking lot,” I said. In response, the worker gave me a blanket. I wrapped my body in the blanket and then sat in the snowbank near where the director always parked.

“Fuck you,” I told her when she arrived.

“You need to get off our property or I’m calling the police,” she said.

“Call the cops! Call the cops and tell them how you don’t let kids in your shelter!”

She rolled her eyes as she stepped around me. “I don’t have time for this,” she said. I looked at the morning traffic and snow and then stripped down to my tank top. A couple minutes later, one of my regulars stopped to pick me up. Who needs a shelter when you can suck dick for cash?

Photos of legal document courtesy of the author

My situation wasn’t uncommon. The rescue industry and the laws it pushes cause so much harm that there is an entire book called Collateral Damage: The Impact of Anti-Trafficking Measures on Human Rights Around The World. “First, we were surprised how many stories we heard from girls, including transgender girls, and young women, including trans women, about their violent experiences at non profits and with service providers,” the Young ­Women’s Empowerment Project found in a participant-directed research project. “This was upsetting because adults and social workers often tell us that seeking services will improve our lives.” 

Their findings didn’t shock me. After I left that foster home, my caseworker once again said she had run out of foster homes for me. My friends were—understandably—still afraid to harbor a runaway. My cop gave me a list of charities to call, but they all said they didn’t get involved with minors, so some of the shelter workers snuck me into the shelter at night, when they were the only ones working, and let me sleep in a warm room downstairs. Other nights, I slept in the snowbank at the shelter so I could yell at the director when she arrived in the morning, or I stayed with men or in hotel rooms they got me. For a period of time, I got off on bringing men to the shelter parking lot to do our business, but the shelter director never caught me like I secretly wanted. Once I hitchhiked to another town, spent a summer turning tricks with a friend, and then became a glamorous stripper for a few weeks. Another time I built a treehouse by a lake and cooked rabbits over a fire like in My Side of the Mountain.

Looking back, I wonder what my caseworker thought I really was doing to survive—or if she thought about it at all. I’m pretty sure that anyone with even the smallest bit of common sense knows that if you take a teenager who’s done sex work, take away her support system, and leave her homeless during an Alaskan winter, she’ll do sex work to survive. Confiscating money from her every time you see her should make that picture even clearer—after all, inducing a minor to do sex work could make a person guilty of sex trafficking under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Did my caseworker sex traffick me? Did the state, or the shelter director, or the system traffic me? Why is the system so stacked that an independent adult prostitute can be charged with sex trafficking herself, but the state can allegedly coerce people into sex work with no consequences?

Studies show that my experience of sex trafficking isn’t uncommon. In a research project called the Bad Encounter Line, the Young Women’s Empowerment Project tracked violence in the lives of girls in the sex trade. The results showed that 30 percent of violent encounters were with police, 6 percent with DCFS, and 1 percent with shelters. Pimps accounted for only 4 percent of violent encounters. Sexual violence by police officers made up 11 percent of the total reports—almost three times as much as pimps, and overall there was seven and a half times more violence from police than pimps.

My story has a surprise happy ending, though: The state dropped custody of me. When I was 15, my caseworker told the judge plainly that I was a waste of resources. He read my psychiatric evaluation and agreed with her. “This is very serious,” he told me. “I’ve seen these diagnosis before. You’ll probably be dead before you’re 16.”

That night I slept in the shelter parking lot and fantasized about killing myself dramatically on their sidewalk. Unfortunately, that would have proved that they were right about my being a big suicidal liability.

Within a couple months, I petitioned to be emancipated. The judge granted my petition, allowing me to get a “real” job, rent a small house, enroll in high school, and do sex work much more safely and infrequently—all things that were impossible while I was in state custody. 

Tara Burns is the author of Whore Diaries: My First Week as an Escort and Whore Diaries II: Adventures in Independent Escorting. 

Back in 1910, in the midst of the American meat crisis, the US government came up with the idea to import hippos for food. This is how the "American Hippo Bill" was introduced. And now Bret Ratner and Edward Norton are turning this strange hippo story into a movie.

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Some government screw-ups are so epic that they require decades of effort. Such was the case for the recently cancelled plan to convert surplus weapons-grade plutonium into nuclear fuel. Not only did the U.S. waste $4 billion dollars, it increased the likelihood that terrorists could obtain bomb-making materials.

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The best movies are insanely quotable . The classic dialogue sticks with you and becomes your new catch-phrase , even if you sometimes misquote it . But some of the best dialogue wasn't in the script at all. Here are 12 famous lines you probably didn't know were improvised on the set.

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