Raithe

Well over the course of last night Copycats kicked off in Manchester, and some in Birmingham and Nottingham as well as some continuation within London. But from what I've heard it's not so much angry rioters as again, groups of yobs trying to take advantage of the public worry and general sense of chaos. They had a bit over 16,000 police in London and a few armoured vehicles patrolling the streets. The rumours of potential Army involvement keep spinning around. Oh, and of course now there are the conspiracy theorists at work, trying to suggest that a lot of the rioting/looting done by masked individuals isn't so much as criminals but black-ops agents of the evil government as a means of building an excuse to "repress the poor". The fact that a group of looters knocked over a fancy dress store to steal masks to wear when they hit some shops down the street apparently got ignored by the people who started that one up...

The question is if they lied or if they were mistaken. As I said, if you're going after a known armed criminal, and he happens to be holding a gun.. If you hear what sounds like a gunshot, you'll probably take a shot at him. Okay, so it turns out afterwards when they do the after action report he didnt, but you thought he did, you'll report what you perceived even if it ends up that you were wrong. I'm just saying it doesn't automatically mean they were lying. Edit: and remember, the armed police over here have to go through a ridiculous amount of psychological testing and other assorted testing before they get on the armed response squads. It's pretty much one of those "if you ask to get on it, you'll be turned down" type of career options in the police.

True. Even the family of the guy who was killed are saying they're shocked and surprised by the riots and wished that the civil unrest wasn't happening.

I guess it's one of those things.. if you know the subject of the arrest is a potentially violent person..and they're holding a gun.. and suddenly there's some sharp noise that sounds like a gunshot.. Would you take the time to make sure it was him, or would you decide to shoot him to make sure no civilian / fellow police officer is hurt? There are swings and roundabouts to both sides of that argument...

No, we like baseball bats... Remember, we don't do guns. Bats, clubs and sharp, bladed instruments.. them we do. Edit: And cricket bats do work nicely..but are a little unwieldy for certain swings if you don't know what you're doing.

I think this is really going to depend how well the adverts blend into the background or just how glaringly obvious they are...

One thing the news is mostly skipping over, is the amount of people being left homeless and with most of their possessions burnt. All of those little shops being set on fire.. a lot of them have apartments rented out above them.

Random trivia for the moment.. the explosion of popularity of Bruce Lee films back in the 70' actually led to a large number of the "organised" football hooligans into turning up with sais, nunchuka's, and assorted martial arts weaponry due to the ease of being able to hide it under a jacket..

And ours doesn't cause riots. Yours is just rugby, played with 40lbs of protective gear and a break every 5 minutes.

Well lets see.. combine troops fresh from Afghanistan, riots, bolshy teenage gangs who think they're tough, and the excess of partially-extremist moslems who agitate in London.. and all who like to play the race/religion card at the drop of a hat.. That would get very messy. Even beyond what we have at present. And Tale : It's not been that long since the grand era of football hooliganism The coppers were all trained up for those sorts of rioting crowds.

Londoners ready to clean up their streets...

Stretching my mind out by trying to develop a system model of riots. And just went to get some snackables for lunch, opened up a jar of pickled onions to go with the cheese and biscuits.. and found that the jar had fermented. That is the first time I've ever seen that happen.

Well this one was an interesting question and answer from the Eidos Montreal team..

For the random interest factor.. :

The London inner-city gang culture is quite.. well.. severe. It tends to get glossed over in the international news, but yeah, that's where a lot of the impetus in the riots is coming from. Hell, it was only a couple of months ago we had the arrest of a 15 year old "hitman" who killed a woman for 200 quid and the "props" it would give him with his local gang.

Eh, not in those rioting cities you won't. If it was more Westminster instead of central London maybe.. but not a chance in Liverpool , Birmingham or Nottingham. Well, possibly Bristol - a lot of the lawyers old boys network get their Law degrees there.. but then monocle wearing types would probably get theirs from Oxford... Edit: And Scotland Yard are saying that they will have over 13,000 police officers in London within the next 24 hours...

Well by now, that's money already spent no ? There's still a fair chunk to be spent before the Olympics lands.. and more to be spent during the Olympics....

You really think that ? Actually, most of the people are know would appreciate the Olympics not being here. A lot of people have the view that the government is wasting a crapload of cash on the Olympics when it could be better used for things like..oh.. health and education. The Olympics is taking on the same sort of view as the Millenium Dome when it was being built. It'll be nice and shiny but pretty much a money pit and waste.

Well there's a lot of reports about the various youth gangs taking part and the looting going on.. and the fact that they're using things like Facebook and Blackberries to text /instant message each other to coordinate and avoid police and start off riots as distractions.... Which makes me wonder how well it'll be to get those records and access to prove "conspiracy to commit" charges which are notoriously hard to prove...

Hm, I seem to recall stumbling on some news report yesterday that made mention that a lot of the "heavy riot gear" isn't actually kept in the UK, it's most in Ireland, so they'd have to take the time to ship some of it back to London before it would be available for use... Some of the big water cannon type stuff for dispersing rioters and the like...

I was just trying to decide if he was attempting to be humourous or see if he could frenzy the optimistic fans..

So the latest "facebook unlock" on the DEHR site is a behind the scenes look at how the pre-beta game testing goes. And the new Behind 2027 - Audio

That was the first deus ex! Yup, and I'm sure I heard a line from David Sarif on the "I know you didn't like shanghai but you've got to go back and deal with.." in one of the many trailers/behind the scenes /gameplay shows...

Wasn't there something about the storyline will actually have you returning to cities/hubs you'd visited earlier in the game, so you'd be able to see how some of your choices had affected things... I vaguely recall hearing something about that. And then of course there's that great big circular sea-base thing you catch a glimpse of at the end of one of the cg trailers. So I'm thinking it's some hidden research area in the middle of the atlantic rather then a mcguffin buried in ice at the poles..

Had a rough night with little sleep, and then woke up with the joys of a headache stabbing and grinding away... Although at least there's no stress of the dogs this week, they're off with my sister so a certain sense of peace. But then going to have to keep an eye on mom, she's got a brief hospital visit and surgery this week. Some bones removed from her hand, hopefully reduce at least some part of her pain levels and maybe provide a bit more mobility again for her... Although it's going to be in a cast for 6 weeks or so after...