MICHELLE MALKIN HAS A ROUNDUP ON LOOTING: I agree with Jonah Goldberg that it’s one thing for desperate people to help themselves to bottled water, food, or diapers from abandoned stores, and another to just sack those places for valuables. People doing the latter should be shot.

IT’S LIKE A BIG RX-8: The Ford Iosis Concept Car. (Via Autoblog). Hey, Ford could do worse — and has!

THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE has a massive roundup on the military response to Katrina, which is quite extensive.

THE DEMOCRATIC SURGE continues.

RON BAILEY ON BIOTECHNOLOGY: “How Europe starves the world’s poor.”

GAS RATIONING AT THE WHOLESALE LEVEL, due to Katrina-related shortages.

LEGAL AFFAIRS has a number of interesting items on national security law.

DISASTER KITS: Reader Brian Cook emails: “Prof. Reynolds, you mentioned that everyone should have a battery-operated radio in his emergency kit. I submit that one of these is an even better idea.”

Actually, I have one. So does reader Andrew Centofani, who writes: “For emergencies I like the Grundig FR200. I just bought one a couple of months ago and thankfully haven’t had to use it for anything emergency wise, but it works great — about an hour with two minutes of cranking — and has an emergency light built in. If I could add anything to it I would have some sort of DC out plug as so I could power/charge other small electronics and add Weather / Emergency frequencies.” I agree.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Brian King emails:

have that same Grundig dynamo-powered radio, and I love it.

My wife has this one in her car: it’s got a “mobile phone charger” outlet. Her phone cord doesn’t fit the jack, but it is a DC out.

The Grundig FR-300 has a similar mobile phone charging jack.

Cool.

LEGAL PROBLEMS WITH SPACE ELEVATORS: My TechCentralStation column is up.

UPDATE: In the comments to that piece, reader J.T. Wenting observes:

Message: Space elevators most likely will be built from space down towards earth rather than from the surface up.

Would they still be an extension of the country they’re anchored to or would they be space structures reaching the surface?

I’d say the latter, similar to a ship mooring in a harbour not being real estate of the country that harbour is located in, as technically the space elevator would be moored to the ground rather than being built on it.

Interesting argument.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Rand Simberg has more thoughts:

The problems associated with anchoring such a beast in an unstable and/or corrupt equatorial country has caused many of those planning such things to put them instead on floating ocean platforms, in international waters. This raises some new issues, because now, instead of (as Glenn notes) the structure simply being a very high tower, it would now be a tall ship that would put to shame all of the previous false claimants to that designation, with their puny little sticks for masts.

Indeed.

FEDERAL RELIEF EFFORTS, including a Naval flotilla and 125,000 National Guardsmen, are on the way to afflicted areas, reports CNN.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

What most of these poor folks need right now is information on where they can go to seek shelter. I’m in Tuscaloosa right now and you wouldn’t believe the overflow of people seeking hotel rooms. Maybe the blogosphere can help get the word out to the relief agencies they need to get the word out to the victims. The University recreation center is offering shelter for now, but what happens when that overflows? How are these people going to continue to pay for hotel rooms weeks after this disaster?

I don’t know how to handle this problem, but I hope that somebody does. Ideas?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Kathy Childre emails:

I was thinking that there should be a way to set up a fund just for that. An hotel fund. I know in Baton Rouge some apartment managers are offering month to month leases for displaced persons and trying to find free furnture for them. Donating used furniture for the apartments would be nice to. If there were some way to set up a fund to pay for those leases as well it would be great. I’m just not sure of the logistics of it.

It’s a thought.

KAYE TRAMMELL has an open comment thread for people looking for news and information about survivors.

Also, here’s the Hurricane Katrina help Wiki.

Craigslist is running a lost and found list for friends and relatives. It also includes posts from people who want to help.

I’m not sure why, exactly, but more than anything else, reading the entries brought tears to my eyes.

Read this, too.

UPDATE: Here’s another Katrina missing persons board.

THE SLIDELL HURRICANE BLOG is gathering information about conditions in and around Slidell.

MICHAEL SILENCE HAS A ROUNDUP on misconduct by the ATF.

VARIOUS PEOPLE ARE CLAIMING THAT GLOBAL WARMING CAUSED KATRINA: EU Rota looks at the historical record and finds this argument wanting.

Here’s more from The New York Times:

Because hurricanes form over warm ocean water, it is easy to assume that the recent rise in their number and ferocity is because of global warming.

But that is not the case, scientists say. Instead, the severity of hurricane seasons changes with cycles of temperatures of several decades in the Atlantic Ocean. The recent onslaught “is very much natural,” said William M. Gray, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University who issues forecasts for the hurricane season.

From 1970 to 1994, the Atlantic was relatively quiet, with no more than three major hurricanes in any year and none at all in three of those years. Cooler water in the North Atlantic strengthened wind shear, which tends to tear storms apart before they turn into hurricanes.

In 1995, hurricane patterns reverted to the active mode of the 1950’s and 60’s.

It’s sad to see such lame political opportunism at a time like this.

UPDATE: Another response to lame, opportunistic, politically motivated claims.

THINGS SEEM TO BE GETTING WORSE IN NEW ORLEANS:

New Orleans resembled a war zone more than a modern American metropolis on Tuesday, as Gulf Coast communities struggled to deal with the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Deteriorating conditions in New Orleans will force authorities to evacuate the tens of thousands of people at city shelters, including the Superdome, where a policeman told CNN unrest was escalating.

The officer expressed concern that the situation could worsen overnight after three shootings, looting and a number of attempted carjackings during the afternoon.

They need to get these people out of the city as soon as possible.

NEW REPORTS FROM COASTAL ALABAMA look bad, too.

IAN SCHWARTZ has video from Biloxi, and it doesn’t look good.

SLATE WRITES ON DELL’S PROBLEMS, and Jeff Jarvis is mentioned.

My experiences with Dell, I note, have been good.

HERE’S A COAST GUARD BLOGGER, Tidewater Musings, who’s reporting on the Coast Guard’s rescue and recovery efforts.

READER DAVID BROADUS WRITES:

This is from the Baton Rouge Advocate about a good thing done in Houston for the refugees from AL, LA, and MS. I am going to contact other area restaurants and suggest they follow suit:

“Yesterday, we went to the IKEA in Houston. There were signs all over telling Louisiana residents that they could eat for free in the restaurant because of the hurricane. We enjoyed dessert and coffee, but we could have had a full meal for all of us if we’d chosen to. This morning, the local paper has a list of things to do in the city for people from LA, MS, and AL. Everything is free. All museums and the zoo are letting residents of those states in for free, and many of them will do so until the end of October. I guess that’s because they know that people may be stuck here for quite some time.

Sadly, yes.

IN PRAISE OF OLD MEDIA: I’ve watched the TV coverage today, and I think they’ve done a very good job; a story like this tends to bring out their best.

And you’ve got to admire the grit and determination of the Times Picayune, which isn’t letting the destruction of its city stop it from publishing:

The Times-Picayune was forced to evacuate our Howard Avenue newsroom Tuesday. We are setting up bureaus in Houma and in Baton Rouge to continue to provide coverage of this disaster. We will continue to publish the newspaper each day without interruption. We will make it available in PDF form on nola.com each morning around midnight.

Their web publication has also been excellent, and I suspect that quite a few newspapers will find themselves publishing this way, even without a hurricane, in the not-too-distant future. Likewise WWL TV which is still reporting (blog here, and streaming live video.

UPDATE: Reader Andrew Lee emails:

You should mention the radio broadcasters in the area too – I know the staff at WWL-AM (and their sister stations) have been trapped inside their building next to the Superdome for since Sunday night, and truly heroic measures were taken to get them back on the air after Katrina took them out. Imagine working on a 50,000 watt tower in chest deep water – dangerous! Right now they’re the only source of information for a lot of people in the area without power, television, or internet, and they really are performing like heroes.

What’s going to be interesting in the coming days is the cooperation between rivals in the radio business, as they combine their resources and available technologies to provide information – I predict they’ll be simulcasting on a lot of frequencies, owned by different companies soon.

Radio often gets overlooked, but it’s as vital and pervasive today as it has ever been… and there are still aspects of it that the satellite radio providers will never be able to compete with, despite all the hype.

Yes, and everyone should have a battery-powered radio in their disaster kit.

AUSTIN BAY on disaster relief, recovery, and development.

COUNTERPROGRAMMING: Michele Catalano has decided to focus on good news out of the hurricane area, letting everyone else report the bad. Good choice.

CHRIS NOLAN on Nick Lemann.

HOW BAD ARE THINGS IN JEFFERSON PARISH? THIS BAD:

If you live there you can go home next Monday, but only with photo identification, and only for a short time to collect clothes and other essentials. After that, you’ve got to leave again.

For a month.

There’s no way to spin this. That’s just horrible, horrible news. It’s so bad there, Parish officials have asked the public to donate boats to help with the rescue and clean-up efforts.

More reasons to think about hardening systems against disaster, though in truth I don’t know how much you could do about this. I hope, though, that people will be thinking about it.