Hey, AP *Does* Need Spellchecking.

Check this out:

A New Orleans police officer holds a shoot (sic) gun as he tries to keep people away from a drug store in a flooded area of downtown New Orleans, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. Numerous other nearby stores were previously looted. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

One would hope that all the guns owned by the New Orleans Police Department were "shoot guns."

Maybe they meant to write "NOPD officer holds a shooty stick..."

The accompanying article, however, doesn't put Nawlin's in a good light.

"It's downtown Baghdad," said tourist Denise Bollinger, who snapped pictures of looting in the French Quarter. "It's insane."

Actually, Kid Various would not be surprised if downtown Baghdad was better off. Despite the odd car-bombing and military sweep, it seems as if life continues as normal. Good to know we have a new yardstick for measuring civilized behaviour (or lack of it.) It's all part of the media narrative.

At a drug store in the French Quarter, people were running out with grocery baskets and coolers full of soft drinks, chips and diapers. One looter shot and wounded a fellow looter, who was taken to a hospital and survived.

Larry Looter: Give me those Ho-Ho's!

Barry Looter: You can have these Ho-Ho's when you pry them from my cold dead fingers!

Larry Looter: Suit yourself! BANG!

Man, we truly are one step away from the savannah aren't we? What about when New York was blacked out a few years ago? Everyone kept calm and remained civil. There was no mayhem, no casual looting...

Sean Jeffries of New Orleans had already been evacuated from one French Quarter hotel when he was ordered out of a second hotel Tuesday because of rising water.

The 37-year-old banker — who admitted to looting some food from a nearby supermarket — said the hotel guests were told they were being taken to a convention center, but from there, they didn't know.

"We're in the middle of a national tragedy," he said as he popped purloined grapes in his mouth. "But I know this city. We will be back. It may take awhile. But we will be back."

37 year old BANKER???

A hurricane blows through and all of a sudden a normal, responsible everyday banker finds moral lease to go on a shopping spree?

Kid Various theorizes that if he had no food, no prospects of getting food, and the automatic slide doors were open, he might walk off with some food (hell it was all going to rot anyway.) But he'd be sure as hell to leave some money in the cash register!

We're trying to live in a society here!