Someday we'll live at the beach...

...when the land south of us slides into the Gulf of Mexico:

A new report by scientists studying Louisiana's sinking coast says the land here is not just sinking, it's sliding ever so slowly into the Gulf of Mexico.

Will the last people to leave south of Lake Pontchartrain please turn out the lights?

Uh, wait. If anybody's still alive:

About the best that could be said of New Orleans' murder rate in 2006 is that it has held relatively steady over the past six months.

The worst is that, if it continues steady for six months more, the city would have a 12-month murder rate about eight to 12 times the national average for cities its size, rather than this year's multiple of seven to 10.