Is Brexit A Victory for ISIS

“The lamps are going out all over Europe, and I doubt we will see them lit again in our lifetimes”
-Sir Edward Grey, 1914

The vote last week in Britain to withdraw from the EU (Brexit) was a victory for ISIS.

It was a victory for Al Qaeda.

It was a victory for terrorism.

At the Hague Congress in 1948, the nations of Western Europe, reeling from the destruction of the Second World War made a decision to change their history. They agreed to find a way to work together. This would culminate in the founding of the EU in 1957 and Britain’s decision to join in 1973.

This was a remarkably brave move, a decision to break with more than 1500 years of history and regional warfare. It was a noble experiment.

What drove the creation of the EU, more than anything else, was the shattering trauma of two World Wars that between 1914 and 1945 had killed more than 100 million Europeans and left almost all of its major cities in smoldering ruins.

Nothing in American history like this has ever happened. Nothing in anyone’s history like it had ever happened before. The combination of ‘total war’ and machinery of mass destruction effectively destroyed Europe. The devastation was catastrophic enough to change what had been 1500 years of a history of European nation going to war with other European nations: Britain against France, France against Germany, Britain against Spain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands.. on and on, year after year, century after century.

Finally, after 1914-1945 the Europeans collectively said, ‘never again’; from now on, we are all Europeans first and foremost.

Now, Britain has walked away from that idea.

The execution of that idea may have been flawed (what is not?), it may have had its problems (what does not?), but they pale in comparison what what European history and been for 1500 years prior to it.

Generals and politicians have always made the mistake of fighting the last war. Brexit is no exception.

It has been and remains the goal of fundamentalist Islamic terrorist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda to destroy the west.

They don’t have the weapons of the manpower to do it. What they have is fear, and they are exceptionally good a using it. Call it terror. This is what real terrorism is. The goal of terrorism is not to cut off a few heads or torture a few people or shoot up a few public spaces, frightening thought that is. The goal of terrorism is to terrorize a people or a nation into destroying themselves. It is asymmetrical warfare at its best. It doesn’t need armies. Like judo, it turns a people into their own worst enemy.

The vote for Brexit, the vote to walk away from, and start the process of destroying a unified Europe is terrorism at its best.

The ill advised Bush invasion of Iraq precipitated both ISIS and Al Qaeda. ISIS and Al Qaeda precipitated, by their own actions, the exodus of nearly a million refugees headed for Europe, a bastion of security and liberalism, in the best sense of the word.

It was the very fear of those refugees, of the foreign, of a ‘Muslim invasion’ that more than anything else drove the surprising Brexit vote in Britain and now has set in motion a chain of events that may well lead to the fractionalization of all of Europe and the end of the great European experiment itself. It wasn’t about ‘bendy bananas’.

Well done ISIS. Well done Al Qaeda. Brilliant move.

What Al Qaeda and ISIS could never have accomplished from their relatively small bases in Iraq and Syria they may very well have now started to achieve, not through ‘operatives’ infiltrated into Britain, but rather though the British themselves, and ironically, the people who though they were most opposed to terrorism. The irony is painful.

The departure of Britain from the EU will certainly have economic consequences; Scotland may now leave the UK; the UK may in fact be shattered; France, Italy, the Netherlands and others may now begin thinking about leaving the EU as well. Nationalism and localism and fear begin to reign supreme. Donald Trump looks more and more like a possibility in the US. The influence of Putin and China have been expanded exponentially.

The terror is real and it is among us.

“You have nothing to fear but fear itself”, FDR told the nation in 1932.

There are no FDRs today, and we are all very much afraid.

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James Dyson Awards 2016 Targets Design, Not Brand

While his name is synonymous with a revolutionary redesign and
deconstruction of the standard vacuum cleaner, and his TV advertisements
are a master class for inventors to promote their own products,
industrial-design icon James Dyson is not a fan of branding.

The Most Terrifying Glass Slide Ever Opens Atop L.A. Skyscraper

Beware this new Los Angeles attraction if you’re afraid of heights. I know I am because nope.

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US Customs wants to check social media accounts of foreign visitors

US Customs wants to check social media accounts of foreign visitorsIn addition to providing documents on their identification and travel permissions, foreign visitors entering the US may soon be asked to give their Twitter and Instagram accounts to Customs and Border Protection. The Department of Homeland Security has submitted a new proposal to the Federal Register that would update the required entry forms with a question asking for travelers’ accounts … Continue reading

After Math: What are we watching?

These days, it seems the only news being reported is bad news. Britain’s surprise exit from the EU stands to tear the nation in twain, Zika is spreading across the planet like viral wildfire, economic and racial divisions are widening; Trump is still…

AT&T Lumia 1520 Windows 10 Mobile Update Finally Released

nokia-lumia-1520-review-17
The Windows 10 Mobile update started rolling out a couple of months ago for supported handsets, some users have had to wait longer for the update due to carrier controls, and now AT&T users with the Lumia 1520 are finally getting the much-awaited update. The AT&T Lumia 1520 Windows 10 Mobile update is finally being released, ending the long wait for users who have been keeping their fingers crossed for it.

Reports starting coming in a couple of days ago that AT&T has finally started rolling out the Windows 10 Mobile update to the Lumia 1520. AT&T has also updated the support page on its website to reflect that the update is now out for users.

The support page confirms that this update has been released by Microsoft and AT&T effective June 23rd, 2016. In order to download the update users first have to download and install the Windows 10 Upgrade app on their device from the Windows app store.

Once the app is installed, the update will be available for download over-the-air. A Wi-Fi connection is required to download the update which weighs in at 750MB and the phone must have at least 40 percent charge for the download and installation process to begin.

If you’ve been waiting to get your hands on this update, just head over to the Windows app store and get the Windows 10 Upgrade Advisor app to start the update process.

AT&T Lumia 1520 Windows 10 Mobile Update Finally Released , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

5 Formative Queer Movies To Break Out At Your Pride Party

And like a gloriously gay lion, NYC Pride Weekend returns with a roar. For 72 hours, the city blares its swelling, ferocious orchestra of fabulousness, as we celebrate our LGBT family, and the progress our wonderfully messy community has made over the decades.

This celebration comes in many forms, like honoring the directly or not-so directly queer films which have enlightened our culture.

We asked Louis Virtel, comedian and writer, to discuss the five movies that shaped his queerness.

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Ask A Queer Chick: I Made A Mistake By Marrying A Man. What Should I Do?

Every month HuffPost Queer Voices partners with Fusion to share Lindsay King-Miller’s “Ask A Queer Chick” advice column.

Hey, everyone. I had this month’s column all ready to go, with a cheerful little intro about Pride and community and remembering to wear sunscreen. Then the Pulse shooting happened and I remembered that Pride and community aren’t just fun ways to spend an afternoon. They’re why and how we fight. They’re why and how we live.

Forty-nine people are gone, most of them queer people of color. They were dancing and celebrating in a place that should have been safe, a place specifically designated so that they wouldn’t have to hide who they were or what they wanted or who they loved. A massacre in a sanctuary.

I’m still reeling, and I’m sure many of you are, too. I want you to know that I’m here with you— that even if we’ve never met, we are grieving together and that makes us family. My heart is with you. My heart is with Orlando, with all the friends and families of the victims, with queer and trans Latin@s, with queer and trans Muslims. My heart is with the brave and proud and visible queer and trans people who refuse to let violence steal their honesty or their joy, and my heart is with anyone who isn’t out yet and is afraid and feeling alone. I promise you’re not alone.

I was waffling on whether to go to Pride this year, because I’m old and boring and it’s hard to find parking, but now my mind is made up. I’ll go and I’ll hold my partner’s hand and we’ll kiss in public and smile at strangers and I hope you all do the same. (And I hope you wear sunscreen.)

I’m a 21-year-old man who’s been forced to get a girlfriend and start having relationships with people that aren’t a priority for me right now. I feel like my mom and my sister are trying to make me feel more “masculine” and more “manly” by making me do things that I don’t feel comfortable doing. Plus, I’m not sure what I identify as romantically and sexually. Given that my family are mostly conservative and old fashioned, what should I do?

How have your mother and sister “forced” you into having a girlfriend? You didn’t really give me a lot to go on, here, so I’ll keep the advice general. If you don’t want a girlfriend, don’t have a girlfriend. If you don’t want to do traditionally masculine things, don’t do traditionally masculine things. If and when you feel drawn to pursue sexual and romantic relationships, do so safely, respectfully, and above all, on your own terms. Your love life is not up to anyone but you and your potential future partners.

I know I’m oversimplifying a little—depending on your specific circumstances, I might be oversimplifying a LOT. For instance, it’s seldom easy to shrug off the expectations of family members (whom you probably love, even if they’re putting unfair pressure on you to change who you are), but it’s much more difficult if you depend on them for financial support or shelter. If that’s your situation, you’re going to face challenges as you work to establish a life where you’re self-sustaining, so that meeting their expectations isn’t a question of survival.

Even if you’ve got a great job and a place of your own, it’s really scary to tell your family, “Respect who I am and stop pushing me to be someone I’m not.” You might be afraid they’ll reject you if you say that, and I’m so sorry to say this, but it’s possible that they will. If that happens, it will hurt. There’s no way around it. But it’s the kind of hurt that will become smaller and more bearable over time, as opposed to the hurt of hiding who you are and not pursuing the life you want, which will only grow and grow until either you break free or it consumes you.

Live your own life. Don’t make yourself responsible for how other people feel about your choices. They don’t have to live your life. You do. It’s going to be so much more wonderful than you can imagine right now.

Oh, and please read the next letter, because it’s a perfect illustration of why you need to start pushing back against your family’s demands as soon as possible.

I feel so lost and would like your advice.

I think I made a mistake by marrying a man. I am gay and in the closet. What should I do? My parents are deeply conservative and everyday it’s confusing and torture. I was pressured into marriage by family.

Please advise as to how to gain back confidence and follow my heart.

I’m going to be blunt: You should leave your husband. If he loves you and you don’t love him, every day of your marriage is going to break his heart in slow motion until you finally end it. The merciful thing to do is end it now and let him move on. If neither of you love each other, ending your marriage might be an inconvenience, but it’s the surest path to joy for you both.

You don’t have to come out in order to get divorced; you can simply say, “I was pressured into this before I was ready, and I’ve realized it’s not the relationship I want to spend my life in.” I’m making this sound easy again. It won’t be. But it will be worth doing, because once you let go of trying force yourself into a life meant for someone else, you can start searching for the thing—whether it’s a girlfriend or a career or a hobby or whatever—that feeds your soul, that makes you more of who you are instead of less.

You should probably take some time to yourself before you start dating again. (Obviously if you meet someone who makes your genitals sing in the interim, you’re going to ignore this advice and hook up with her. But it might get messy.) You were pressured into making a huge, life-changing decision against your own will; that suggests you’re used to people walking all over your boundaries. You need to spend time with yourself and get used to listening to the voice of your intuition or your gut or whatever you want to call it—the voice that tells you “yes, this is right for me” or “nope, get us out of here” or “I’m not sure, let’s stick around and see what happens.” And you need to practice expressing your boundaries out loud, ideally in situations that are lower-stakes than, say, a wedding.

If you want to come out to your family, if you think you need to share that truth with them in order to be free, go for it. If doing so doesn’t feel safe, you can wait. But either way, you need to practice standing up to them in small ways so you’ll be able to do it when it matters. Doing something little like wearing that necklace your mother hates or saying “no” when your father presses you to have seconds at Thanksgiving is a great way to start establishing healthy boundaries for yourself and reminding everyone (including you) that they don’t have the final say in your life.

Live alone for a while, if you can afford it. Take up as much or as little space as you want. Sing in the shower. Get really comfortable with both silence and the sound of your own voice. The great thing about following your heart is you don’t have to know where it’s going. Let it off the leash and just take in the journey.

I raised my kid like a good lesbian, QC—tonka trucks and princesses, and lots and lots of crayons. I swallowed her Barbie phase, her princess phase, told myself that as long as we kept up with the work of critically dismantling and noticing patriarchy issues in the media, we were gonna be fine.

She’s 12 now. We have a pretty great relationship and we talk about a lot of stuff, but I AM SO DONE AND DONE AND DONE with the obsession with boys and sexist bullshit that comes out of her. My friends all seem to have the most amazing kids who are, like, tearing down the kyriarchy on Twitter and absconding with pronouns. And I’ve got the girl who wants to give me a makeover twelve times a day and gets pissy when I insist that we don’t talk about diets at the dinner table.

HALP.

Oh, dude, you gotta stop comparing your kid to other people’s kids. You must. You have the child you have, and there is no one like her in all the world, and I hope that in your heart of hearts you wouldn’t change her for anything, so start there. Remind yourself of all the things that are lovely and amazing and brilliant and wonderful about your kid. So she’s obsessed with makeovers—does that express her love for bright colors? Her appreciation of fashion as an art form? Her desire to keep things fresh and new, her impatience with repetition and routine? What are the values you instilled in your kid that she’s expressing now, albeit not in exactly the way you planned?

Your daughter is an adolescent girl living in a media-saturated society that tells her appearances are everything and romance is the finish line of life. She’s working out her relationships with those messages as well as her relationship with you, the kyriarchy-dismantling, diet-hating lesbian who’s raising her. She has to figure out who she is as distinct from you, and one of the ways she can express her independence and uniqueness is by embracing all the things she knows you hate. I know this is driving you batshit—it’s supposed to. This is how she figures out how to navigate her own life, with your example to guide her, but ultimately on her own.

You can’t control how much of this conditioning she’ll ultimately absorb and how much of it she’ll reject, but keep in mind that she’s nowhere near the end of that process yet. She still needs your input, even as she pulls away from you. Continue to set and enforce boundaries (“no diet talk at the table” is a great one), but do what you can to express an interest in the things she cares about rather than trying to get her to care about the same things as you. Don’t pass judgment on your daughter’s interests—don’t tell her she’s shallow or wrong for caring about boys and clothes. Of course you should keep engaging her in discussions about sexism and unrealistic beauty standards, but what the hell, maybe if you let her do your hair once in a while it’ll be a fun opportunity for bonding. Keep emphasizing your values, don’t stand for her making sexist comments about other kids—but don’t insist that your daughter must be a gender-neutral online activist or your parenting has failed. As a lesbian, I’m guessing you’re familiar with the damage a disappointed parent can do, whether you’ve seen it up close and personal or in the lives of other folks in your queer community. Don’t be that guy.

Remember that the reason you want her to question patriarchal values is so that she won’t be harmed or restricted by them, not because you want to show off your Least Traditional Kid on the Block trophy. If wearing lipstick and having boyfriends is what makes her soul sing, wouldn’t you rather she go for that than squeeze herself into androgyny just to make you happy? Some girls just like princesses, and that’s okay.

Maybe your daughter will always be more traditionally feminine and more into appearances than you would like, but that’s her choice to make. Your job as her parent is to be there for her and love her regardless.

Thanks, everyone! Remember to send me your questions at askaqueerchick@gmail.com.

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Gun Control – Symbolic Gestures Won't Save Us

Gun control is out of control. Filibusters and sit-ins have roiled the Congress for the last few weeks. Orlando, San Bernardino, Sandy Hook . . . bullets fly, people die, Congress boils and nothing happens. The statistics astound: There are nearly 15,000 deaths and 28,000 injuries every year from guns – an Orlando every day. There are more guns in America than people, a fact that will continue in perpetuity, since people will die and the guns that kill them will live on. Gun deaths are on track to exceed automobile fatalities. What an exceptional nation we are!

The gun lobby, most notably the NRA and its fans, resists any and every proposed measure. Republican legislators will not pass a measure to keep those on the terrorist watch list from buying guns. They refuse to expand background checks. They won’t restrict a possible terrorist who can’t board an airplane from buying a semi-automatic weapon designed to kill dozens, scores, or hundreds of humans.

The NRA and its conservative lapdogs in Congress cite the same arguments every time mass slaughter temporarily diverts Americans’ attention from Donald Trump and Facebook to bloody corpses: The Second Amendment means what it says. Every American has a right to bear arms. The answer to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. The Kenyan Muslim Barack Obama and his lily-livered lefty allies want to confiscate all the guns.

On the other side, gun control advocates fall all over themselves to assure the electorate that they too love the Second Amendment, that they love to hunt, that they too have guns at home to protect their families from whatever imagined threats lurk in the American psyche. From this crouching posture they beg for minimalist, largely symbolic legislation. Can’t we at least stop a known terrorism suspect from getting his hands on an automatic weapon? Can’t we close the loopholes that make current laws a Swiss cheese joke? Nope, say the zealots – those things are a slippery slope to confiscation and fascist tyranny. And so it goes, over and over again.

Infuriating, but utterly beside the point. What our leaders and we are afraid to acknowledge is that the NRA, the GOP and zealous gun advocates around America are absolutely right. The proposed laws will not stop slaughters like Orlando or San Bernardino. According to a 2014 Slate article, there are about 3,750,000 military style assault weapons in the United States. An angry, delusional, madman like Omar Mateen doesn’t have to queue up at a gun store and pass a background check to get his twitching fingers on an assault weapon. We’re so awash in guns that locking the barn door is an absurd, albeit well meaning, gesture.

These sensational and tragic incidents are not the primary problem and should not be the central focus of the debate. Gun violence is a public health problem and a national psychological disorder. The vast majority of deaths are the result of gun violence in the streets, domestic disputes, the daily tragedies of suicide and the accidental deaths of thousands of children. Keeping assault weapons out of the hands of crazy people may be necessary, but is grossly insufficient. It is a bloody red herring.

If there is ever to be meaningful change in our violent nation, the debate has to start from a different position. Gun control advocates have conceded so much before the debate starts that nothing of real meaning will happen, even if the GOP is shamed into taking some small step. It’s like a divorce where one partner takes the house, the car, the retirement account, custody of the children and then agrees to enter mediation to decide who gets the silverware.

Here are a few real suggestions. Call it Uncommon Sense Gun Control.

1. Repeal the Second Amendment. It is anachronistic, dangerous and unnecessary. There is no threat to domestic tranquility that should justify anyone’s unfettered right to possess a deadly weapon.

2. Require thorough background checks, registration, training and licensing for the ownership of any gun.

3. Have an absolute ban on possession of any automatic or semi-automatic weapon by any citizen. Impose heavy criminal penalties on anyone who defies the law.

4. Require that every gun purchased in America employ the emerging smart gun technology that prevents anyone but the licensed, registered owner from discharging the weapon.

5. Confiscate any and all weapons that don’t meet the above criteria.

6. Hold criminally liable for negligence, any person whose weapon is used in a crime or a suicide.

7. Institute a buy back program, like that successfully employed in Australia, to immediately reduce the American arsenal.

8. Make it illegal to publicly carry, concealed or open, any loaded weapon.

Not a single one of these things would inhibit the use of appropriate arms for hunting or to protect one’s home from intruders.

So, let’s start the negotiations from there – and then we can argue over the silverware.

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Mitch McConnell Won't Say Whether Donald Trump Is Qualified To Be President

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is supporting Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump for president — but he isn’t saying, at least for now, whether he thinks the business mogul is actually up to the job.

McConnell twice declined on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday to say straight out that Trump is qualified to be president.

“Look, that will be up to the American people to decide,” McConnell said. “He won the Republican nomination fair and square. He got more votes than anybody else against a whole lot of well-qualified candidates. So our primary voters have made their decision as to who they want to be the nominee. The American people will be able to make that decision in the fall.”

Sixty-four percent of Americans believe Trump is not qualified to be president, versus 37 percent who say Democratic presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton is not qualified, according to a Washington Post-ABC poll released Sunday.

It’s been difficult to nail down Republicans’ positions on that question, particularly as many of them have distanced themselves from Trump amid his numerous controversial statements — which have included saying he would profit from a recent vote by the United Kingdom to leave the European Union; renewing his call to keep Muslims out of the U.S. (a ban he now says would apply only to Muslims from “terror states”); responding to the deadliest mass shooting in American history by patting himself on the back for past statements on terror threats; implying that President Barack Obama supports terrorists; and attacking an American judge for having Mexican parents.

After “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos asked McConnell whether he thinks Trump is qualified, the top Senate Republican said he sees it as a good step that the candidate is using a prepared script more often.

“I think there’s no question that he’s made a number of mistakes over the last few weeks,” McConnell said. “I think they’re beginning to right the ship; it’s a long time until November. The burden obviously will be on him to convince people that he can handle this job.”

He added later that Trump needs to “catch up and catch up fast” on fundraising for his campaign, after dismal finance numbers came out last week.

McConnell said earlier this month that he hoped Trump would select a running mate with more experience and knowledge than himself, “because it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t know a lot about the issues.”

Democrat Tom Perez, the current Labor secretary who has been floated as a potential vice presidential pick for Clinton, unsurprisingly had an easier time answering the qualification question.

“Is Donald Trump qualified to be president?” Perez said on “This Week” Sunday. “The answer is no.” 

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophoberacistmisogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.

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