SFist beat me to the punch on this, but it is my sad duty to report that the incomparable Kepler’s has closed after fifty years of business, the victim of what they style an “economic downturn since 2001.”

• Daily Kos performs crazed self-immolation of credibility.
• Strategic oil reserves opened; economists fear major gas crisis.
• Some good news in light of lootings and price gouging and general displacement: Millions have been contributed in relief.
• Interesting info about Bush: “Bush cut short his working vacation in Texas by two days — even though aides have long contended that his duties are uninterrupted when he spends time at his ranch in nearby Crawford, which has White House-level communications capability.”
• Death toll in Miss. remains unknown.
• More info on Miss.: “A 30-foot (10-meter) storm surge in Mississippi wiped away 90 percent of the buildings along the coast at Biloxi and Gulfport.”
• Current estimate of people trapped in New Orleans: 80,000.
• More: Dozens of carjackings overnight, with people firing at rescue helicopters.
• The name of the oil company that will be receiving the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is unknown. Anybody have a good guess?
• In the Glenn Reynolds universe, you shoot first and ask questions later. Apparently, Reynolds doesn’t understand that a major disaster often causes people to resort to crazy behavior, both authorities and looters.

• Closing levee breaches is National Guard’s top priority.
• A helpful history of hurricane flooding.
• Katrina is equivalent of Ivan in some parts of Alabama.
• Inflation worries.
• Overview of Katrina’s effects, at a glance.
• Latest from WWL: Navy now sending three ships from Gulf Coast. Four dead in St. Tammany.
• More at Brendan Loy’s about the levee breach threat abating and the potential threat from the Mississippi, given Katrina’s work up north.
• Nearly two days after this all started, Bush finally gets around to delivering a statement. Remarkable. Of course, there’s no mention of monies earmarked for federal aid. Will this prove to be as embarassing as the bargain basement Asian tsunami funding?
• From the WWL TV stream, river is back to normal height. Flooding now coming exclusively from lake.
• < a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1758006,00.html">“This is our tsunami.”

• Another account inside the Superdome. (Lengthier report here.)
• Total insurance bill: $25 billion.
• Prescient series showing worst-case scenario.
• 1 million can be left homeless.