"And the state troopers were talking about making arrests"

That is most jarring of several memorable quotes to be found in this dispatch from New Orleans.

I mean, it just cannot possibly be the case that law enforcement officials in Louisiana put out the word to would-be evacuees that seat-belt and child-restraint laws would be vigorously enforced in the wake of a state of emergency. The mind reels. No one could possibly be that stupid.

Indeed, the only official mention of seat belts from the State Police that I can find is a public "reminder" from Troop C to wear them as you evacuate. Still, this man got the strict enforcement impression from somewhere and it helped to keep him from trying to leave the city with his large family. Troubling.

Comments

[Jennifer]

it just cannot possibly be the case that law enforcement officials in Louisiana put out the word to would-be evacuees that seat-belt and child-restraint laws would be vigorously enforced in the wake of a state of emergency. The mind reels. No one could possibly be that stupid.

Sure they could, especially if they're cops trying to make a quota, or trained to obey without thinking. I'm willing to bet that some guy down there with a pickup truck offered to let his neighbor's family ride out in the open cab in back, and the family was not allowed to evacuate because riding in the back of a pickup truck is FAR too dangerous--better to stay in New Orleans and wait for the monster hurricane to arrive.

At least one case. I'm sure of it.

[Jennifer]

Unfortunately, I will not be able to prove that I was right, because the family whom the cops evicted from the back of the pickup truck is now dead.

[RandyAyn]

Even more troubling is the combination of these two items:

1. Black people "loot" while white people "find"
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/09/01/photo_controversy/index_np.html

2. These statements from the aptly named Governor Blanco:

Gov. Kathleen Blanco called the looters "hoodlums" and issued a warning to lawbreakers: Hundreds of National Guardsmen hardened on the battlefield in
Iraq have landed in New Orleans.

"They have M-16s and they're locked and loaded," she said. "These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so, and I expect they will."

My question: Are the National Guard going to shoot the "looters" or the "finders"?

[NotJennifer]

Unfortunately, I will not be able to prove that I was right, because the family whom the cops evicted from the back of the pickup truck is now dead.

From falling out of the back of the pickup truck

[Scribe]

Black people "loot" while white people "find"

The photographer says he used the term "find" because the folks he was shooting -- white and black -- were not looting. They were chest-deep in the water, with bread and other foodstuffs floating past them from an inundated grocery. From Romenesko:

Chris Graythen wrote the caption for his photo of two hurricane survivors with bread and soda. "I believed in my opinion, that they did simply find them, and not 'looted' them in the definition of the word," he writes. "The people were swimming in chest deep water, and there were other people in the water, both white and black. I looked for the best picture. there were a million items floating in the water - we were right near a grocery store that had 5+ feet of water in it. it had no doors. the water was moving, and the stuff was floating away. These people were not ducking into a store and busting down windows to get electronics. They picked up bread and cokes that were floating in the water. They would have floated away anyhow."

[andy]

"They have M-16s and they're locked and loaded," she said. "These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so, and I expect they will."

Translation: Shoot them niggers dead!

[theOneState]

Jeff, that's a cheap shot...no way it's true as presented. This guy was talking about cops making arrests. Arrests! For seat-belt violations during an evacuation?

Be careful with the "this is outrageous if it's true" rants. Surely there are be better stories to help you make your point. Too many people are trying too hard to prove that regulations kill. Now's maybe not the best time for that.

[jf]

Um, where do seatbelts and child-restraints come into the story? It sounds more likely there were worried about being arrested for violating curfew than for seat belt violations.

Someone skipped their medicine today.

[RandyAyn]

Keep in mind that the black was also swimming in chest-deep water.

Where's the evidence that he "looted" as opposed to "found"?

I'll tell you where: in the reporter's mind.

[Phil]

Do you even read your own links, RandyAyn?

The AP database includes two other images from the same scene by photographer Dave Martin that refer to looters in the captions, though neither actually shows an explicit act of looting. Jack Stokes, AP's director of media relations, confirmed today that Martin says he witnessed the people in his images looting a grocery store. "He saw the person go into the shop and take the goods," Stokes said, "and that's why he wrote 'looting' in the caption."

This is the biggest non-controversy in the history of non-controversies.

[SP]

For God's sake, each of those photo captions was written by separate, unrelated photographers from separate, unrelated news agencies.

The vast majority of captions you see at places such as Yahoo News are the raw cutlines scribbled by photographers in the field. And as you can imagine, "the field" in New Orleans this week isn't exactly an air-conditioned newsroom with a staff of copy editors sitting around.

The real point here, though, is that if you're just now stumbling onto this particular photo-caption "outrage," your news-cycle response time moves about 72 hours behind that of the rest of the world.

[independent worm]

I mean, it just cannot possibly be the case that law enforcement officials in Louisiana put out the word to would-be evacuees that seat-belt and child-restraint laws would be vigorously enforced in the wake of a state of emergency.

Actually I read that guy's quote about the troopers and it made me think something totally different -- he was trying to make it look like he had a good reason for staying, so he threw that in there even though it makes little sense.

In a similar vein, I saw two college kids ( a couple, how cute!) who decided to "hunker down"*** together and "ride it out" instead of being smart and leaving. Their school had even instructed them as to a designated place that could accomodate them all. When asked why they stayed, the girl said "well, we understood that the place we were to go to, the parking possibilities were not to be had there." WHAT????

In other words, "oooh honey, a hurricane, how romantic! Lets go get a bottle of wine and have a nice night in together." But we don't want to look like assfucks on national tv, so i'll just beat around the bush about the "parking possibilities" that were "not to be had". Not that "just keep on driving then" was a possibility to be had, or anything.

Sorry, I deal with members of the general public and the flimsy excuses they offer to avoid liability/criminal responsibility/looking stupid every single day. That's what mister "troopers were talking about making arrests" was up to. Parse that sentence a little bit, and you get thin air. The guy's full of shit. He cites a vague "rumor" among "troopers" making "arrests" for an offense he doesn't specify. BULLSHIT. He didn't feel like packing his shit up and leaving, plain and fucking simple. And now that all hell has broken loose, he sure as hell ain't going to admit how bad he fucked up.

*** when martial law is declared, is it permissible to "shoot to kill" anyone who uses the phrase "hunker down"? Should it be?

[R C Dean]

"They have M-16s and they're locked and loaded," she said. "These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so, and I expect they will."

I certainly hope so. In a disaster scenario, looters should be shot, and their bodies left in the street for a warning. Pour encourager les autres.

Translation: Shoot them niggers dead!

So I guess if martial law is not imposed, it will be:

Translation: let them niggers steal!

[independent worm]

They have M-16s and they're locked and loaded," she said. "These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so, and I expect they will.

Does anybody else get the vibe, reading this, that Blanco is a trembling dope who is in way over her head?

[NoStar]

Not all blacks are niggers. Not all niggers are black. But they all should be shot when caught looting, especially when it's a TV and not food.

[Anonymous]

"Translation: Shoot them niggers dead!"

Will it be OK to shoot honky looters?

[NoStar]

It's OK by me. Shoot em twice just to be sure.

[JD]

Snopes is already on the case of the "looter/finder" flap: http://www.snopes.com/photos/katrina/looters.asp

[RandyAyn]

Phil,

Right. So it's "finding" if something is floating when you take it, and it's "looting" if it's on dry land when you take it. Thanks for the only belly laugh I've had this week!

One more thing: It looks like soda the black is carrying. The whites are said to have "found" soda as well. Who's the looter again?

[Jadagul]

independent worm: Most of us had that impression back when she got elected.

[Anonymous]

I got the impression at the time that she got elected because she managed to convince the voters that a nice white lady was better than that darkskinned foreign fellow.

Of course that was from those bush-loving bushbots over at NPR, so who knows?

[Peter Thomas]

The photographer who wrote the caption about people finding items wrote to say that is literally, and exactly what happened. The goods floated past them, and they plucked them from the water.

Let's put this one to bed, people. Sometimes what gets reported in the news actually is the truth.

[Ayn_Randian]

Yes, RandyAyn (and I have to say that as my Hit and Run evil twin, you are doing a damn fine job) if you walk into a store and take something when that store is on dry land, making that store safe with the possibility of the owners returning, that's looting, and if you find a loaf of bread floating down a newly-made canal, that's finding.

Are you really that fucking stupid?

[RandyAyn]

Ayn Randian,
It's not a matter of being stupid or smart, it's understanding the law. Any time you take something that's not yours its stealing. Keep in mind that the AFP photographer saw the items floating out of the store. The person who plucked the soda out of the water and the photographer therefore both knew that those items belonged to the grocery store. The white person stole the soda from the store, just as surely as if that person had walked into the store like the black and taken it off the shelf. To believe otherwise is to engage in evasion.

Perhaps a hypothetical situation might make things even clearer. You're driving past Wal-Mart, and somehow a water main right underneath Wal-Mart has broken and the store has filled up with water, causing the front windows to give way, and all of the items that used to be sitting on the shelves in the store are pouring out into the parking lot. Are you entitled to abscond with those items simply because they are "floating down a newly-made canal"?

I don't think so, and if you honestly think about it, neither do you.

If you take those items from in front of Wal-Mart you are looting Wal-Mart. When the white people took the soda they were looting the grocery store. There is therefore no difference between the black finders/looters and their white counterparts, from either a legal or moral standpoint.

[Some Cynic]

I'd speculate, from the article in question, that the father in the story was concerned the LA police would be using seatbelt violations as an excuse to search the vehicle, seize cash from the dad, etc.--given just how out of control the police are supposed to be there.

/Of course, cops there don't really need excuses, but I'd guess you learn to lay low.

[Jim Walsh]

If anything positive is to come out of this mess, hopefully it will be that fewer people will look to the government to solve their problems.

[Phil]

Yeah, that's terrific, Jim. And as a result, the government will stop taking their tax money.

Oh, wait. They won't. So you're letting the government off the hook for not doing the one thing -- the ONE THING -- it's supposed to do: Protect the safety and security of its citizens. It'll take their money and . . . what, exactly?

[Tim]

COON, COON Black Baboon...brutal, worthless, thieving GOON. Often high, thrives in jail, his welfare check is in the mail. Some 40 offspring have been had, not one will ever call him dad. And yet he hollers day and night..."I blames de white man fo my plight", it's him dat spreads trash all round my shack, it's him dat makes me smoke dis crack, he push my kind to burn and LOOT, and sends de po-lice dat we shoot. INCH by INCH we takin' hold, like when de white bread starts to mold...we'll overrun yo homes and soon...DEY BE ONLY FIT FO DE BLACK ASSED COON.

[mike]

Before now I was a realist. I didn't shy away from acknowledging the serious cultural problems that blacks have imposed on themselves. Now I'm a racist. I'm fucking sick of the media and peices of shit like kanye west whining about the poor niggers. The fact is, take away the water and it's just another day in the projects. You really think these niggers didn't have a car? How were they getting their 5 illegitimate kids to the fucking doctor without a car? They were just too stupid to leave. I actually heard one moron bitching that she wasn't given enough warning. I'm in Florida and I knew NO was fucked on Saturday. It's always someone elses fault. It's always the white man or the government. They sure like the government on the first of the month, though. Fuck jesse jackson and kanye west and that asshat mayor and the rest of you fucking niggers. Get a fucking job and take responsibilty for your own lives.

[DAN FESTLER]

It really warms my heart to see our fellow NIGGER citizens coming together in a crisis. They sure know how to help out the situation down there in N.O. I am glad to see that they are able put aside their diffrences and work together to help out their communities.

THE ESSENTIAL AMERICAN NIGGER:

Slink around, shuffling your feet and bobbing your neck like the lazy retard you are.
- Walk down the middle of the street because you don't know what a sidewalk is for.
- Hang out at carwashes and mini-marts because everybody knows these are the best places to be a dope, I mean dope.
- If you're a nigger bitch, shit three nigger babies into the world before 17 years of age. This assures that welfare money will support you, so your nigger men have more time to commit crimes. Oh yes, make sure each nigger baby has a different father.
- Bastardize the English language in the name of nigger culture. Make sure that several terms have multiple meanings and others have ambiguous meanings and that only 50% of nigger words are even complete words. Real niggers will know what you're trying to say.
- As a culture, make sure there are always more bucks in prison than in college at any given time.
- Hang out in packs of 10 to 15 and make sure everyone acts as annoying as possible. This helps to promote nigger individuality.
- Always talk loud enough so everyone in the 'hood' can fucking hear you, and if they are niggers, they will know what your saying, bro.
- Wear clothes that are 10 sizes too big, making sure the pants hang off your ass. Also huge pants facilitate stealing (let me translate that it be easier to lift dat 'box at the Kmart, homes). If you have to hold them up while you walk, it only looks badder.
- Park at least 5 junk cars in your yard while being careful not to use the driveway. It's OK to abandon them in the street as long as it's in front of someone else's crib.
- Exaggerate every motion, every tonal inflection and grab your dick a lot.
- Have red carpet, blue walls, brass and overstuffed furnishings (all rented), purple bathrooms and keep all windows covered so that no light can enter and no cops can see in while you...
- Do drugs, sell drugs, make drugs.
- Turn your backyard into a junk yard. If you don't have a backyard, turn your mother's into a junk yard. Eliminate every blade of grass.
- Travel around leaching off relatives, friends, salvation armies. Abandon your children with them also.
- Smack your kids and yell at them a lot. Make them feel less than human and that they have no future, which they don't because they're niggers like you.
- Drink cheap wine and malt liquor every day, forgetting that malt liquor is just fortified cheap beer.
- If you're a nigger buck fuck anything that moves, no matter how ugly she is. After two eight-balls, even the ugliest, fattest nigger bitch will look good.
- Be charitable and covet fat, ugly white chicks. After all, they're niggers too. They can't help being so undesirable to white men that they have to fraternize with black dudes on a 2020 trip. And white ho's are a special trophy too, especially the not so ugly ones.
- Spray paint everything in sight with scribbles that mean nothing to White people but mean things to fellow niggers (except niggers from another hood who will probably try to kill you for tresspassing on their turf)
- Use the term motherfucker in every sentence. It's one of the most versatile words in the nigger language, being a noun, verb, adjective and complete mini-sentence in event you run out of thoughts.
- Stop in the middle of the street, blocking all traffic to converse with fellow niggers and have complete disregard for everyone else.
- Delay everybody at the checkouts while you and 3 other dudes fumble around for the $1.42 for the bottle of Magnum.
- Clog isles at Kmart with strollers, bastard kids and your fat selves. If you're a cashier, never look at or be cordial to a customer and always talk to other niggers while you ring up the customer.
- Overcharge customers at Taco Bell and pocket the difference.
- Drive your car while slouched so low that you can barely see over the wheel (gangsta drivin').
- Get a job under affirmative action. Then sit around all day pretending that you earned the position and that the other co-workers respect you. Whenever you fuck up, scream racism! & hope you get enough Generation X liberals in the jury.
- Never, I mean NEVER, take any responsibility for your actions. Always blame others including Asians, Latinos, Mexicans, and especially Whites for your sorry ass stupid lives.
- Advertise your nation (gang) with a bewildering array of colors that mean nothing to any one but other nig's. Oh yes, if another nig violates your nation i.e. garbage strewn empty lots and burned out tenements, shoot their ass.
- Look for identity in murderous criminal gangs when you can't find it in broken nigger homes because your mother was a 15 year old cokewhore and your father is in jail doing 5 to 15 for pistol whipping a mini-mart cashier.
- Be all concerned with eastwest connections, cellular phones, beepers, drive by's and other trivial bullshit that Whites will never understand anything about (what's to understand)
- Lament ghetto gang life while at the same time...
- Listen to rap music, which glorifies gangsta life, crime, drugs, murder, early death, oppression of women. Rip off other legit music to fabricate rap music which probably takes an engineering degree to write (because of the technical know-how to operate the machines) while not requiring any music talent at all. Then get some young criminal scum to perform it, after changing his name to something stupid like Snoopy Dog. Spell the name of the group with phonetics and use a number in it because nig's really like that.
At least rap is an opportunity, e.g. for young black criminals to further their criminal careers. Rap needs only four things to be successful
a producer, a promoter, a front-man flunky, and MTV to shove it down our throats. Be sure to say absolutely nothing important during the 5 pages of dialogue in a given rap joint other than look at how much of a nigger I can be. Then roll a joint in the joint and think about the joint while stylin' to the joint.
- Show other lame-ass races the black race is unique by having a culturelifestyle that results in diseasespovertybirth rates for blacks consistently rising while it falls for the others.
- Fear and loathing of dogs is set in the genes for nig's. Of course bigotry against blacks is set into the genes of dogs. So be sure to get a dog, tie it up in the cold and mud and neglect it until it dies. Then start all over again.
- Always have ten excuses involving hospitals for why you can't pay your bill. When or if you finally settle up, pull out a big wad of bills out of the welfare check to do it. Cash must be used because you long ago fucked up your credit and checking account.
- Cram 5 generations into a two room government apartment and still be able to neglect your kids.
- Die young. The #1 cause of death for nigger males between 15 and 30 is murder.

[Tim]

I Love this post!

[George Barnes]

DAN...you are THE MAN! Fuckin' GREAT post brother! Please visit my website @ http://www.resist.com -- sign up and BECOME A MEMBER BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.

[WAR]

Hey DAN....check out the "racist cartoons" at http://www.resist.com, I think you will enjoy them. Your brother, WAR

[anonymoid]

Hooray, the racists have taken over. How fun. Let's hear more bullshit from know-nothings! Huzzah!

[mike]

hey war fag and retarded george, take your gay ass nazi shit somewhere else. There are real white people who reckognize that black culture is fucked up. Then there are asshats like you who just need to get a fucking life. How fucking pathetic do you have to be to join WAR? You fucking morons wouldn't know a jew if he was fucking you in the ass. So where does the anti-semitic shit come from? You're lonely little uneducated losers parading around in symbols that a million hours of education couldn't teach you about. Because you're fucking morons. You're no different from the animals in NO. Just a bunch of dumb fucking niggers with white skin.

[One Dumb Nigger]

Well folks, I happen to be black and I am VERY upset with my brothers and sisters down their in N.O. looting, raping, shooting, etc. You can take the nigger out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of the nigger...that's all I have to say. Yes, I have stolen during my life, and I have also (and still do) sell and use crack, pills, weed and Colt 45 beer. However, I don't take it into the streets. 'cause i be labled a black ass coon like dem mofo's down dere. I loves me some bbq wings, watermelons, poke rinds wit hot sause and ice cold Colt fouty five. I be grabbin by dick while i talk too.

[Makes Me Wonder]

As I watch the evening news coverage of this devestating act of God in New Orleans, I keep seeing over and over how White people are unloading water, pushing eldery Black people in wheelchairs, White People helping and assisting. However, in the backgrouond scenes, I keep noticing Blacks sitting on their butts, scratching their heads, looking off into space and not attempting to lift a finger? Case in point, just now I saw on CNN a White rescue worker pushing an elderly Black man onto a wheelchair ramp, but in the background, several Blacks were just sitting their watching him? I just don't get it? Do the Blacks in N.O. expect US to do EVERYTING for them? Here's my suggestion: Seal off the entire lower portion of Louisiana and give it to the fucking Niggers to kill each other over. Just give it to them! Problem SOLVED. I know this sounds a bit curt, but PAY ATTENTION to the background scenes on TV and you will see. "They" are the most worthless bunches of people EVER brought to America. They are NOT Americans - just Black Assed Coons trying to scrape by on whatever the Government "gives" them.

[Misty Taylor (Ga.)]

I am not a racist, but I do agree with the previous post to a certain extent. I too have noticed how the blacks just sit around, watching white people help and assist. The scene which caught my eye was the one on Fox News where a line of white people were unloading bottled water with 20-30 blacks standing around in groups like a bunch of apes waiting for their hand-out. Why didn't the blacks unload the freaking water!? You tell me why? (everyone already knows the answer). Misty

[NigNogs...]

Niggers will be Niggers in times of stress. Some may wear a suit and tie, others wear police uniforms, some are mayors or serve in other high ranking positions. However, they are still Niggers. And as we all KNOW --- NIGGERS WILL BE NIGGERS! Period.

[I agree...]

Ever since I got mugged about a year ago, I've never been able to act the same way around niggers. They anger me.

[Diversity is a weakness]

Dan.

That was the fucking funniest shit I've read all week!

[DAN FESTLER]

I'M THINKING ABOUT RUNNIN FOR PRESIDENT.

A VOTE FOR ME IS A VOTE FOR THE MAN WHO WILL CURE THE AMERICAN CANCER. NIGGERS WILL BE EXECUTED OR DEPORTED(repatriated) AS A PRIORITY ON MY LIST OF THINGS TO DO AS PRESIDENT.
2ND: THE MIDDLE-EAST. CAN YOU SAY "GLASS PARKING LOT" FOR THE NEXT 500,000 YEARS. NO INVASION FORCE NEEDED JUST 20 MINUTES OF FLYING TIME FOR 20 PEACEKEEPER ICBM'S AND A WHOLE LOT OF PROBLEMS SOLVED IN A MATTER OF SECONDS.
3RD: BARBARA WALTERS STARS IN HER OWN SNUFF FILM. THEN ITS AIRED ON EVERY MAJOR NETWORK COMMERCIAL FREE!!!!
4TH: I WILL EXERCISE A RIGHT OF FIRST STRIKE ON NORTH KOREA AND END THAT THREAT FOREVER...

PS>>>>FOR ALL MUSLIMS: I SHIT ON THE FACE OF ALLAH AND WILL KILL HIS UNPURE OFFSPRING!!!!THE FOLLOWERS OF ISLAM AND THE FALSE PROPHET MOHAMMED ARE BOUND FOR AN ETERNITY IN HELL. I WILL SEND THEM THERE EN MASSE IF I BECOME PRESIDENT. I WILL FINISH WHERE THE CRUSADES LEFT-OFF...

[DANNY FESTLER MN]

SAVE AMERICA:VOTE FESTLER