12 deg. C is 53.6 deg. F. Unless you are posting from a chest freezer, I find it hard to believe you would perceive that as “sweltering”.
That information has been out on the internet for years - it would be trivial for someone to download and print them out.
Especially if they’re looking a print/copy shop and don’t have to pay for toner and paper.
It can get down to -30 F here in winter. After I get used to going out into that, yes 53 F is hot if I’m working outside. Granted, the “chest freezer” is only in operation around here about 3-4 months of the year.
The authorities over there claim the CCTV’s all around plus looking into the records for all those blackberry and twitter accounts will lead to arrests… so maybe they will get caught, just not immediately?
No, they’re not vermin, they’re human beings. Granted, they are human beings doing bad things, but no, you do not want to give the police the power to be judge, jury, and executioner on the spot. History tells us that can also lead to great misery.
I could get behind that as a solution. Here’s hoping that if they try it, it works.
You may take it from me that it doesn’t get down to -30F in the UK in any season, and the rioters are correspondingly unlikely to be sweltering. One presumes that the immigrant element (if any) is even less likely to be disturbed by the heat.
An article on some possible causes: http://theweek.com/article/index/218125/what-caused-the-london-riots-5-theories
They’re rioting to steal free stuff mainly. They do this every so often. IKEA had a huge sale a few years ago at a store opening near the scene of the outbreak of the riot and they were stabbing each other over a cheap sofa. massive riot, police attacked etc. Basically there are some no-go areas for police in London and the criminals make everybody’s life a misery. Stronger policing, law and order etc,. needed.
It’s not the chill, it’s the chumidity.
I’ve heard this argument several times and it strikes me as bizarre. Why does the fact that they are looting undercut the claim that part of the trigger for the riots is anger and despair over a lifelong prospect of poverty? That seems like claiming that if a riot is full of white and black people beating on each other it disproves that it’s a race riot.
And calling the poor things like “coddled” and “ungrateful” is such a classic bit of right wing demonization of the poor that it makes the argument difficult to take seriously on its own. It’s a way of preemptively denying that there might possibly be some good reason for the poor to be angry.
Yeah, those right-wingers:
That’s right wing rhetoric, regardless of what he calls himself.
Are you saying you can get a new Blackberry with data plan for under $100/month?
I could afford that, but to my mind, if I’m an unemployed youth or making <$20K, that’s a luxury, and I’d get a basic shit phone with no data service. Blackberry indeed.
There are pay as you go Blackberries so yes. You could spend $20/month on it if it’s all you could afford.
And if they are, they can just steal a chest freezer! 
I normally have time for Brendan O’Neill, and I would say the summariser in the quote provided by Qin Shi Huangdi is not being entirely fair to his argument, which can be found in full here. He doesn’t use the word “ingrates” or anything like it, and while he does refer to them as “mollycoddled”, it’s not the standard Daily Mail rightwinger use of the term.
Basically, I would say his view is that increasing government intrusion into the lives of the poor (based on the assumption that they are incapable of looking after themselves) has resulted in groups of people with no real sense of belonging to a community. I guess that’s a point for debate, but he’s certainly not describing the rioters as a bunch of lazy welfare addicts who should take what they’re given and like it.
I work for a UK cellphone network. I don’t do sales, but here’s the cheapest I could find, and other operators are probably cheaper.
£16.50 per month is about US$27.
Thank you. This post lead me to look for photos of the rioters on Google Images. After looking at several dozen, I withdraw my remarks about the UK riots. The others still stand.
I think the biggest problem with this was, simply, that they weren’t expected. Which does seem reasonable - I can only speak personally as a Brit, but if you told me last week we’d have riots like this the week after i’d call you a muppet. Now that the police are actually getting into it, hopefully, things will calm down after a while.
What’s worrying me now (or perhaps, what’s worrying me in addition to) is potential vigilantism, and perhaps arising from that, the ability for extreme groups to take advantage of the situation. There was just a bit on TV a moment ago with a bloke from the EDL speaking about how they were down and around attempting to control and help out those people who were taking it upon themselves to patrol. And the rhetoric that’s being used by such patrolling groups is disturbingly similar to the type of speech commonly used by such groups. It’s not entirely fair - by and large, it’s simply because such groups do try and co-opt that kind of loud patriotism - but i’m worried about the long term ability for some groups to, well, boost their membership out of this.
The point is, even compared to other riots this has been very much about opportunism. There has been muggings and beatings of ordinary people as well as all the looting. It’s completely about “no-one can do anything, so why not?”.
We need to stop making excuses for such people.
I guess I’m weird for having grown up in extreme poverty and not wanting to steal, commit arson or beat people up.
Expecting it to happen now would have taken a crystal ball. But certainly I expected that at some point in the near future there was going to be another wave of riots worse than the ones that have gone before.
The same guys who rioted supposedly over tuition fees and the financial crisis, as well as other yobs like the EDL, have got a taste for rioting now, and figure the police can do nothing.