I'm with Dana. I heard this morning he was returning.

Having been in Miami for two riots I can predict the narrative going forward.

Over the short term it will cause some damage to the ruling policies of the Conservative party in power, but long term the poorer black neighborhoods where the riots started will really suffer. They'll become economic black holes where absolutely nobody will reinvest their money, particularly the small, local shop owners who don't have the resources to start from scratch.

Riots happen when people feel completely disenfranchised, if they see the ruling structure as grotesquely unjust and without hope of equitable treatment. But the riots themselves are like microeconomic nuclear bombs. Those neighborhoods will be economically radioactive for decades.

yep.

see: Detroit

Consuela, any chance that the screw of your job filling could leave you with the opportunity to pull out all the stops wrt pointing out nemesis failings?

Texas people, RIGHT HERE!

The heat has become a weight. Everyone is just exhausted and there is still no sign of it breaking.

Riots happen in the absence of some meaningful political outlet to channel the anger. Not disagreeing the Hec on the outcome.

A note on renter's insurance: it does not cover flooding; you have to get a separate rider for that. If you're on the tenth floor, I guess it doesn't matter, but it's wise to check when you're buying exactly what they will and will not cover. (This is true for homeowner's as well.)

Also, IME, if your insurance company does not make it easy for you to get renter's insurance, they aren't likely to make it easy to get paid if you have a claim, either. It should be a matter of one simple phone call to add it to your existing policy (or to get a policy if you have no others).

The coverage in Britain keeps coming back saying the riots seemed organized on the second and third nights. People arriving in groups in cars etc.

I suspect that we're seeing a kind of Twitter riot, as news gets out immediately that there's unchecked looting in a particular area then people descend on particular neighborhoods or specific stores knowing beforehand that the situation is uncontrolled.

Ugh, London. So upsetting.

The heat has become a weight. Everyone is just exhausted and there is still no sign of it breaking.

Bleh.

Another angle the press are taking (and I'm seeing it in the pictures they're showing) is that despite the racial aspect of the initial riot, they're emphasizing that teenagers are descending en mass in various areas to do the looting. Looks like lots of poor, white Council flat teens swooping in to do a little looting, a little havoc.

In short: ::cues up Sonic Youth's "Teenage Riot"::

And again I think this is not disagreeing with anyone. But one of the comments at Hullabaloo:

Spontaneous uprisings almost always appear to be less political than opportunistic. Rarely is there much sophisticated political consciousness. Looting is in part about taking advantage of a situation to get yourself stuff. But ask yourself this-- under what conditions do the perceived pros of engaging in opportunistic looting and anarchy-- the confusedly mixed motives of venting unfocussed anger and getting free stuff-- outweigh the percieved cons-- fear of arrest, of losing a job, etc? 1) When you don't have a job or much else to lose. 2) When you don't see a prospect of getting a job or a future worth protecting, 3) When people in power are also perceived to be criminals with impunity, and 4) when the state and the forces of order have lost both some of their operational effectiveness and some of their moral authority. Looking at these 4 points, we can see that Cameron's austerity, unpunished bankster fraud, and the impact of the Murdoch scandal on the police, all have a very real impact on this turn of events. In short, even if most of the rioters are apolitical looters out for free stuff, this is still totally political.

I think that comment only makes sense if we distinguish "Political cause" from "political motive".