[the Deejay]

If someone beat me to posting this, I'm sorry. No one had when I did a "search."

[Paul Atreides]

Well, Obubba Been Laiden did say Senator El Chupacabra had thousands of volunteers. I guess the offices needed more furniture and the pantsuits finally disintegrated.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

We had a large airliner crash in Detroit in 1988. People were taking watches and rings off of some of the arms that were ripped from the passenger's bodies. Nothing surprises me anymore.

[Paul Atreides]

Please don't think that I am making light of a disgusting situation. I think that it is deplorable that individuals, who could be donating their time to helping find survivors, would be doing such a thing. Sadly, such situations bring out the worst in some people.

[dougherty]

Such a shame people can be so heartless and sick.

[KillerWabbit]

Sounds like more than one person is involved. Maybe many more. It's gonna be sad if the NY fire or other dept winds up with a huge black eye over this - after all the bouquets of praise.

Worse though, would be a coverup to prevent a black eye.

[aomagrat]

And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

[Az Joe]

In the words of the former mayor of Chicago, the late Richard Daley..."Shoot to maim looters, shoot to kill arsonists."

[2Trievers]

A just reward would be the one practiced in the Muslim law ... find the perps and hang them on the spot. It would be ironic justice, after all.

[tet68]

I know it's easy to start nailing the rescue folks but keep in mind there is a LOT of subterranian life in NYC.Some creatures live their lives out down there.

[ThirdMate]

The real prize is 12 tons of gold and 132 million troy ounces of silver buried beneath building seven, home to a precious metals exchange.

[Nitro]

I doubt it, if only because most of the people that might reach that area are Cops and Firemen. In New York, most Fireman and Cops are Catholic, meaning Irish and/or Italian and stealing from the dead is even worse than stealing from The Church!

And if you know anything about the Irish and the Italians, you will know they take God and Mother Church very, very seriously!!!

[Mathlete]

Some people are like that. America is, as perhaps Rome was, the super powers of civilization because they built their government and laws based on this principle. PEOPLE ARE—as opposed to PEOPLE SHOULD BE. The first form uses the indicative of TO BE where as the second uses the subjunctive. Realists use “IS, AM, ARE, WAS”—idealists use “SHOULD”. This is your first indicator when talking to people when trying to tell an idealist from a realist.

Some people scavenge. Most of the people there at ground-zero were just helping. A few saw what they believed to be an opportunity. The few that actually found some valuables and decided to keep them were probably poor. By poor, I mean poor in spirit, ethics, character, and philosophy—although I would bet that they were probably poor in wealth too. I’m sure these people are “poor” because they allow themselves to grave rob rather than the other way around. If our goal were to prevent it, we’d have more police out there. I doubt that it was so important at the time. Perhaps the though of looting got more people out there than what might have been. This may have saved lives—a small price to pay.

We’d like to believe that all people should be altruistic and that we can somehow overcome our human nature when disasters like this occur. This article proves my point that people ARE first and SHOULD second. And I love them for it—the bastards that they are. Looting is not what I would do since I believe that my secret actions and my private thoughts are not just known to me. I believe that something is watching me. God perhaps. If not, then the Universe, or Karma, or futuristic historians, or more importantly myself and how it affects my subconscious behavior to others. People that don’t believe this concept—those believe that if they can “get away with it”—if no one sees them—that their private thoughts are theirs and theirs alone—those people have weak character. They are setting up reverberations in the fabric of quantum space-time that will come back to bite them. They may not even know that it bit them when it does. Perhaps they were destine to be millionaires but instead remained middle class for their entire lives. Perhaps they destine to live to be 90 but instead die at 85. But whether these people believe that all this is irrelevant mystic crap or not, I sincerely doubt they can convince themselves that they are living life to its fullest or that they are getting the most from their short existence. I’m sure these people believe that “Life is not fair”. But life is absolutely fair in all ways. Have pity for them. Some may get caught by the police. All others will get caught by the ironic and humorous nature of the universe.

[OldFriend]

Didn't Hitlery just say she spent the entire week at ground zero...............guess she needed a new watch!

[freedomtrail]

Same thing happened in 93' but it was the ATM's.Its all on tape. Never shown,never will be.

[darth]

I have not been on FR for over a month, so maybe someone else has had the same paranoid thought: Is anyone worried about the Federal Reserve gold vault below the WTC? What if the terrorists had planned to tunnel in while the recovery is providing lots of covering noise above. No guards, alarm system, etc. for a few weeks. Making a profit from their holy war would be just their style.

[RiteCon]

I can not imagine any of those firefighters or policemen doing this....