As many of you have probably already heard, people still living in their homes in New Orleans have been ordered to evacuate the city by this evening.

According to the article, police and soldiers have been given the authority to “forcibly remove” people who still refuse to evacuate by the deadline. Right now, it is estimated that about 10,000 people are still in New Orleans.

I suppose you can argue whether people have the right to continue to live in their homes, but I have to admit, I’m curious . . . even if your home and neighborhood escaped serious damage from Katrina, why on earth would you want to stay in a city “surrounded by a toxic soup of oil, chemicals, garbage, human waste and floating corpses”?

In other news, a 10-month old baby was stabbed yesterday while in her stroller:

The nanny was walking with the baby around 5 p.m. when the man approached them a short distance from the girl’s home, Sessa said.

“He just came out of nowhere,” witness Hennessy Arias told the New York Post in Thursday’s editions. “The baby was hysterical, crying. ... She was crying and trying to gag for air.”

. . .

Bernard Derr, 48, a man with a history of psychiatric problems, was taken into custody a short time after the attack and held on attempted murder and other charges, police said.

On a lighter note, here is an article on the year-long slump at the box office. It struck me as mildly amusing, especially when they asked:

What went wrong?

Of course the article goes into detail about movies, but perhaps the answer is as simple as this: People are growing tired of shelling out more and more money at the theater to essentially watch trash.

Hey, it’s just a suggestion. ; )