How can she know much of what she is saying is true though?

If I heard a rumor, say that an armed gang was systematically raping and murdering anyone could find, in that circumstance I'd probably believe it or at least act accordingly -- but how would anyone know if it were true? How can she know the fires are arson as opposed to accidents?

I'm sure there will be bodies that were shot, but my guess is it won't be more than a few.

Of course, only time will tell.

I have similar doubts as Trudy -- not that the woman is not reporting what she hears as true fact, but in this highly scary situation, a handful of guys riding around with guns once becomes 'roving gangs' by word of mouth. (OTOH, she might well have seen the bodies with fatal gunshot wounds.)

That Chrysler Snoop Dogg commercial gets more non sequitur every time I watch it.

Oh, and tomorrow, the A's get their first look at King Felix.

I don't really doubt that there were gangs out there. It's a very violent city with a large criminal underclass. The story of the local police sending in 88 cops at the Convention Center on Wednesday and being repulsed by armed gangs there certainly indicates that there was some organization, and a lot of guns. Aside from that we do know that guns were one of the most looted items in the day after the flood, and we do know that a number of prisoners escaped.

If LA were evacuated and left to the Crips and Bloods and people who were turned out of prisons, then you would expect them to control the streets.

I think that part of the problem for the media is they already told that story when they had all the first wave of looters, and then had to eat it when they saw all the desperate and abandoned people on the streets and at the Dome. It's like they couldn't handle anything more complicated than "Black people: shiftless looting thieves!" Oops, actually "Black people: poor and abandoned and desperate!" It's got to be one or the other for the media, when the story is vastly more complicated.

I'm dubious about roaming rape gangs and thrill killers. But everything I've heard does indicate that there were organized armed gangs. That is one of the reasons why they couldn't clear out the hospitals, or get close to the Convention Center.

fwiw, I like the posted articles only because I'm on a crappy slow dial-up and it usually takes forever to load new, image-laden pages.

fwiw, I like the posted articles only because I'm on a crappy slow dial-up and it usually takes forever to load new, image-laden pages.

In the interests of compromise I'll try to keep it to shorter excerpts.

Even my eyes were bleeding after posting that long post in asscaps.

But I thought it was useful because in my experience with the earthquake in San Francisco, the major media starts to shape a narrative and then won't deviate from it. I think the issues in New Orleans are complicated and getting inside accounts (even second hand) are useful.

So, and I'm asking this in all seriousness, do we think the country could collapse?

Back in 1755, Lisbon suffered a catastrophic earthquake that destroyed all but a handful of buildings and is thought to have killed 90,000 people in the city. Before the quake, Portugal was in with France, Spain, and England in the race for colonialism. After the quake and the ensuing political turmoil Portugal was done as a colonial power.

They held on to Brazil, Mozambique, and their Pacific possessions for 200 more years, though. And Portugal as country did not break up and has held its own economically. It did become quite a poor country (though never on the Greek level of poverty) in the 20th century, but it's doing very well now in the EU.

That's why I think the US will remain. We may lose power and prestige over the next century as "the Chinese century" starts, but we'll still be here as a country.

America is very adaptable. The tensions between the coasts and the middle, between liberal and conservative, between the religious and the irreligious, between the races have always been here, and we've survived. And these tensions will always be there. But like the Borg, we'll just keep adding technological and intellectual uniqueness to our own and adapt.

The Grey Lady gets snarky (this is the 3rd paragraph - would this be the nut graf, Teppy?)

"Today, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Louisiana and toured a medical facility at the New Orleans international airport. He spoke to and shook hands with military and rescue officials, but walked right by a dozen refugees lying on stretchers just feet away from him, most of them extremely sick or handicapped, Reuters reported."

"Today, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Louisiana and toured a medical facility at the New Orleans international airport. He spoke to and shook hands with military and rescue officials, but walked right by a dozen refugees lying on stretchers just feet away from him, most of them extremely sick or handicapped, Reuters reported."

Look, you go to disaster sites with the lack of compassion you have, not the compassion you wish you had.