Armed gangs of looters are roaming the streets.
They are stealing appliances.

On the other hand, one guy saved an old couple whose car got washed off a road next to a flooded gator farm.

What color shade of lipstick was looted to put on that pig?

This should put "looting for need" into perspective:

11:33 A.M. - Director Walter Maestri: We have no food or water for the evacuees. Says emergency workers have seized the food and water and drinks from Sam's Club, Wal-Mart and other groceries for evacuees, but he said that is all gone.

"To be honest with you, people who are oppressed all their lives, man, it's an opportunity to get back at society," he said.

A nice lesson in what inevitably grows out of a culture of victimhood. How many times has this person's attitude been reenforced by politicians, lawyers, leftist professors, and the media?

See, those store owners aren't hard working people who struggle to meet payroll and pay taxes. Theyt aren't even real people. Those store owners are SOCIETY, man. And society owes anyone who makes a claim of victimhood whatever he demands. Because if you fail in life, it MUST be someone else's fault.

Warden:

This is exactly the point I was trying to make on the earlier thread. The liberal goal is not progress and achievement, but equality regardless of merit. And of course the reason we don't have equality is the greed and prejudice of THE MAN. Taking things from THE MAN is just social activism.

"To be honest with you, people who are oppressed all their lives, man, it's an opportunity to get back at society," he said.

To be fair, this is the same logic that people will use when they inflate their claims to the insurance company. Just substitute 'paid premiums' and 'insurance company' for oppressed and society.

Puting race aside, human nature in general reveals itself when when authority vanishes. A lot of what's happening down there reminds me of what Pinker wrote in his Blank Slate, how the Montreal Police strike did in his youthful romance with anarchism.

As a young teenager in proudly peaceable Canada during the romantic 1960s, I was a true believer in Bakunin’s anarchism. I laughed off my parents’ argument that if the government ever laid down its arms all hell would break loose. Our competing predictions were put to the test at 8:00 A.M. on October 17, 1969, when the Montreal police went on strike. By 11:20 A.M. the first bank was robbed. By noon most downtown stores had closed because of looting. Within a few more hours, taxi drivers burned down the garage of a limousine service that competed with them for airport customers, a rooftop sniper killed a provincial police officer, rioters broke into several hotels and restaurants, and a doctor slew a burglar in his suburban home. By the end of the day, six banks had been robbed, a hundred shops had been looted, twelve fires had been set, forty carloads of storefront glass had been broken, and three million dollars in property damage had been inflicted, before city authorities had to call in the army and, of course, the Mounties to restore order.

Boy, I really wish there were more white people visibly looting. I'd bet that some would feel less guilty about things if that were the case.

In fact, by my calculations, equitable ethnic representation is down across the boards. Where are the Native American looters? The Pacific Islander looters?

I think it is in the interests of all citizens that we have looters that "look like America." The federal government should get right on this immediately.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Hey, don't you go and judge me, MAN. I'm just tryin' to make ends meet, and I need a big screen tv to do it.

Meanwhile, dead bodies float by while these jackasses celebrate by riding their new bikes down the aisles of devastated stores.

Some people are good. Some people are evil. The rest are children, who are ruled by their emotions and desires. The fear of prosecution has given over to the desire for unearned wealth. Just remember: These people live next to you too. They're in the malls, on the roads, driving past your kids on their way to school. And they're only restrained by a fear of 'getting in trouble'. Makes you remember why you have your gun license, eh? How'd you like to rely on the maturity and mercy of strangers in an unexpected disaster like this one? Sure must be nice to be surrounded by animals while you're trying to protect your wife and kids. I pray for the tourists who had no way to get out, and are trapped in the anarchy, as well as the elderly and weak, who look more and more like prey every day.

Especially the women, I am sure.

Speaking of home protection, in California, you don't need a license for a shotgun.

Just sayin'

All I know is that every time I've been to New Orleans, either I or someone else I was with had something stolen from them.

I did a trade show there once where, with security guards in each room, we lost about $30,000 out of $2 million worth of hardware.

It's not a racial thing, it's a Nawlins thing.

Obviously, an affirmative action program is needed to enable access to looting by all of America's rich spectrum of diverse peoples.

We need to divert some rescue efforts so we can airlift in some representatives of other groups and allow them some time on the ground to loot their share.

Only then can America make any claim to social justice.

"Officer, they're looting the Food King."

These folks haven't really thought this through. If you have to float grandma out on an air matress how are you going to carry all your loot? New Orleans will be uninhabitable for at least three weeks if not longer. The refugees will leave and all the TVs and tennis shoes will be left behind in favor of more important possesions. They can't use the DVD players today cause they have no electricity and if they leave them behind in their homes it's just evidence against them later. It gives one a glimpse into the fevered minds of looters. No sense of consequence, no sense of "future", little sense at all.

If you have to float grandma out on an air matress how are you going to carry all your loot?

"Splash..."

The thing that makes me feel as if my Cheerios have been pee'd upon is that I have yet to hear of any relief efforts being offered from our "friends" throughout the world. Lord knows we've put it out there for any of them time and time again.

Look, I'm as annoyed as the next guy that there isn't a German carrier battle group headed our way ready to drop pretzels and beer on New Orleans, but complaining about it just seems whiney to me. Cut it out.

Are so many of the thieves black because 67% of New Orleanians are black? Or are 67% of New Orleanians black now because so many blacks have been thieves? I recall that whites and the better blacks left the cities for the suburbs, to escape robbery and murder, mostly by blacks. Yesterday's consequence has become today's excuse.

OTOH, the joint increasiongly looks like a complete loss except for some small areas of high ground like the French Quarter. There may remain a tourist attraction but not a major city.

How many buildings will pass as structurally sound after having their lower floors submerged for a substantial period? How can we justify the immense sums needed to rebuild New Orleans when there remains no solution for preventing the same thing from happening again? Engineers have been studying the problem for decades with no answers for the likes of Katrina.

The most critical issue IMO is the wiring - they'll need to be rewired from top to bottom. Probably needed that anyway if they're more than 30 years old. Particularly so if they had aluminum wiring in the walls.

With the sheetrock down for drying out, the wiring job is simple unless the code people want the place brought up to 1999/2002/2005 level electric code - that will require some extra drilling and additional circuits put in.

Flooring warpage on plank floors might be a problem, might not - depends on the quality of the original flooring. Quarter-sawn planks tend not to warp(and wear like iron, even softwoods), but quarter-sawn wood was more expensive. Cypress, which there is a lot of in NOLA area, is pretty durable and rot resistant.

Ceramik tile on slab: just clean it up.

Laminates like Pergo:- total loss, they'll swell/warp.

Carpet: total loss.

Plywood over joists? If it was interior grade ply, it is going to delaminate - the glues aren't waterproof on interior grade. If they used exterior, just dry it out good and add some extra nails. I've seen wherea a dog piss soaked rug never allowed proper drying and completely rusted the nails holding ply to joists

[not my dog, it happened in an apt building I used to own]

Yo Ace - I feel like a moron having to misspell the word C.E.R.A.M.I.C to get it by the filter.

Seriously - this is degrading and damaging my self-esteem.

[not my dog, it happened in an apt building I used to own]

You worried about your dog's reputation or your own?

Yo Ace - I feel like a moron having to misspell the word C.E.R.A.M.I.C to get it by the filter. Seriously - this is degrading and damaging my self-esteem.

I hear ya , Tony. I don't remember the filters being this whacko until after the melt down.

There is one person and one person only to blame for the looting and disorder in New Orleans: Abe Lincoln.

I have to disagree with you people who want to put aside the "racial" thing. This was a great example of exactly what a "racial" thing this was. I am from Gulfport MS mostly white and completely destroyed by Katrina. We had NO help from anyone either. We did not loot we did not murder, and we definitely did not RAPE & murder combo. Not all blacks are savage criminals, but a much much larger % of blacks are criminals than any other racial group PERIOD! If you deny this OBVIOUS fact you are really living in a dream world.

It got so bad in New Orleans because it was filled with blacks with guns. Gulfport did not because it is filled with whites with guns.

America (minus) Whites = Africa.