is anyone near the area? not just london, birmingham too... is there anyone alright?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/aug/08/london-riots-third-night-live

Nope, I'm nowhere near. but I've got a couple friends who are by there, hoping that it won't spread that far. What's a useless riot gonna do anyways. Nothing.

Haven't had time to follow the news lately, so what are the riots about?

>>3 From what I heard, some guy decided to shoot at some cops, so the cops fired back and ended up killing him. The people than protested the killing which turned into riots and looting.

They seem to think the police should have found different solutions to stop the guy than killing him.

Well what did they want the police to do, politely ask him to stop shooting at them and offer to buy him a drink? If you get shot at, you're perfectly within your right to shoot back - in both cases death is certainly a possibility, it's just whoever comes out of it alive after a shot is fired.

This rioting seems really unnecessary, and seems more like a group dynamic thing (these people are mad, I'm mad too!!!) than an actual jointed cause against something important. Kind of bullshit.

Timeline of events for those of you interested. Starts at the bottom of the page and goes up.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14436499

Hm, sounds like the case where the guy got shoot was the spark for the riots not the reason, even though I got no idea what reason sould be o.O

Anyways I think that the riots are just plain stupid, if you really wanna change something in society running amok in the streets is definly not the way to change it to something better...

After running through some more articles, and reading some comments people left on them, it seems like part of the reason for the riots lies with the people being upset over their government cutting things that the rioters don't want cut.

>>7 I agree rioting is stupid if you are trying to change something. I should think that would just make people look on your ideas even less favorably than they may at the beginning.

Don't mind me, just leaving this here to clarify stuff a bit:

http://pennyred.blogspot.com/2011/08/panic-on-streets-of-london.html

From what I'm told, police shot and killed a guy (who judging by the outrage, was probably black). So there were rioting and typical FTP behavior. Then news came out that the guy the police shot had a loaded gun. Except...people are stupid and kept rioting anyway. =__= It's disgusting.

It seems the riots have a lot to do with race, but I don't want to start an argument. If you've watched the news about the "inspirational speech," the woman calls out blacks in particular in their behavior of looting a Foot Locker. They were stealing air jordans...I don't know if that's supposed to be funny or sad.

Here in america our government are thinking of cutting social security, medicare and all that stuff, if they actually go through with it a riot might start up here! Scary.

Yesterday they barely authorized the use of Water Cannons. If it was here in America I think rubber bullets and tear gas would already have been used.

>>11 Honestly I don't see the point of social security. When it first started, it wasn't that much money because 4 people supported one senior citizen. Now that all the baby boomers are retiring, they're saying it's more like 2 people for one senior citizen so the amount of taxes we (people with jobs) have to pay has increased.

Frankly, it's not the government's job to take care of old people. It's the old people's children's job. You parents take care of you when you're young, and it's your responsibility to take care of your parents when they're old. Or maybe that's just my traditional thinking.

Anywho, if a riot does start because of that, the only people rioting will be senior citizens and the extremely poor (to qualify for medicare, you have to make WAY below minimum wage and the only way to achieve that is to not work, since even part timers aren't poor enough to qualify). Also, a 2 billion cut isn't that much. Most of the funds they cut were from education and transportation, since most voters are old, cutting social security is a no no. Oh wait, children can't vote! YAY let's just cut their education!!! :D

Sorry for the above.

*Your

These riots are just pathetic, they're just a bunch of kids trying to take advantage of the situation. They're not accomplishing anything by destroying people's lives and the cities, all they're doing is get their faces on the giant screens and get labeled as scum. People even died for this nonsense, innocent people for god's sake!

>>15, thats what a lot of ppl think. but its called a mob mentality. theyre so overwhelmed by someome(probly the one leading them from behind) to do violence, that in their minds, to them, their force in numbers can rule the world. in summary, with a large group of ppl, they are not what usual ppl call humans

bump

>>16 So basically:

Person A: Woah, Bob just threw a rock at an injured child!
Person B: AWESOME LET'S RIOT BRO.
Person A: Allll right. Giggidy!
(riot starts)