As a Brit in Cameron’s Britain, I am so incredibly angry about what they have made my country about. The Britain I grew up - increasingly diverse, broad-minded, accepting, and interested in the outside world - has become a suspicious, introspective, hostile place under the Cameron regime, and over the next five years,…

Don’t believe the Daily Mail

Because they didn’t fly to a hostile country. They flew to a country that markets itself as vacation resort, which has a sizable amount of UK teenagers going to and to which a lot of UK teenagers these days have ethnic and family links to, and then they arranged overland travel to the hostile area. One of the girls…

It’s a really sad situation. I work with young people in East London, many of them just a little older than these girls. I don’t know how frank they are with me (I am, after all, an Old) but the it seems to be a combination of hormones, hubris, resentment at lack of opportunity and a (very teenage) desire to both kick…

It’s fucking impossible to be a non-Brit in Britain in this regime. The first time I lived there, under Blair/Brown, I never had any problems, and no one seemed to bat an eyelash when I rocked up for a job interview with my Canadian accent and slightly dodgy visa. It seems like every day, under Cameron, rules are…

As terrible as this sounds, it’s the truth: if you have British citizenship/parentage, your chances of getting a decent job will be much greater than if you’re on a visa or otherwise not convincingly “British enough.” The last time I lived in Britain, from 2010-2012, I had a visa which had no work restrictions on it…

Nuke em.

They should have done a season of the Bachelorette about it.

Over half of the terrorists associated with the Islamic State are middle-class, well-educated people. ISIL itself is well-funded, well-armed, and even its rank-and-file soldiers are wealthier than the average people in that region. This is not a decision of last resort for the terrorists. ISIL has an appeal to them.

Can’t believe I’m responding to you, but please review the linked Guardian article, or any of the many articles about this story, and point out to me where it insinuates in any manner that they were raised to be “religious fundamentalists.”

I think there was actually something on Jez right after they disappeared. They are often contacted through Twitter or other social media and there’s a lot of stuff about having your own home and just this general message of you’re doing the right thing and look at all it will bring you. I remember a jokey tone because…

Lack of experience, cognition clouded by hormones, human desire for community / love / purpose. It’s a powerful cocktail that makes vulnerable people do some pretty extreme things. Couple that with an organization that has developed propaganda that is tuned to prey on young people’s idealism and vulnerabilities and…

London IS fucking brutal. It’s just getting more expensive and more people seem to be struggling (I seem to recall Paxman grilling Cammo about the skyrocketing number of food banks in the capital since he was elected in 2010).

A seemingly uncomplicated life where you are contributing to a cause greater than yourself?

They probably just moved to Syria for the affordable house prices and better job market tbh. London is brutal.

I made a snarky comment about the current state of England (and the British isles as a whole, really), but I do think it’s worth examining how three young and by all accounts vibrant and gifted girls could be so unhappy and/or disenfranchised with their lives that they could be successfully brainwashed to join ISIS,…

I guess some people will do anything to get out of Cameron’s Conservative majority England?

Found the catalog.

Yup. ALSO this kid is one that has multiple disabilities- he also has a rare genetic condition. The article about him that Carrey pulled the picture from also pictured him smiling and happy in other photos.