The story below the fold:

In 2005, a bus carrying seniors fleeing Hurricane Rita burst into flame outside of Dallas, immolating 23 nursing home residents. Investigators later found that the bus was: driven by an undocumented migrant without a valid U.S. driver’s license, lacking adequate fire extinguishers, and not registered to operate in Texas. When the bus had mechanical problems before the crash, the driver took it to an unqualified mechanic who failed to notice the critical fault–an unlubricated axle that eventually melted and caught fire.

BusBank (aka Global Charters) hired the subcontractor, Global Limo. BusBank boasted on its website that it had a “rigorous operator certification process” to ensure the safety of contracted bus drivers. BusBank used Global even though the subcontractor had a long record of federal and state safety violations, had entered bankruptcy, and was being sued.

Former Democratic Congressman William Jefferson was found guilty of 11 of 16 corruption charges today by a federal jury. [...]

Jefferson was charged with soliciting bribes and other crimes for a series of schemes in which he helped American businesses broker deals in West African in exchange for payments or financial considerations to companies controlled by members of his family, including his brother Mose, his wife, Andrea, their five daughters and a son-in-law.

Jefferson, who represented the New Orleans-based 2nd Congressional District for nine terms, will now face sentencing by Judge T.S. Ellis III, who earlier meted out stiff sentences for lesser figures in the case. According to the U.S. attorney’s office, Jefferson faced 235 years in prison if convicted on all counts, and will still face substantial prison time.

The verdict comes four years after the Aug. 3, 2005 raids of Jefferson’s homes in New Orleans and Washington, D.C., in which the FBI found $90,000 in cash hidden in the freezer of his D.C. home, money the government said Jefferson was going to deliver as a bribe to Atiku Abubakar, then vice president of Nigeria, to gain his help with a telecommunications deal in Nigeria being pursued by Lori Mody, a Northern Virginia businesswoman.

Here are some highlights from Reuters’ highlights of the energy situation: All of U.S. Gulf of Mexico oil output has been shut down; about 95 percent of natural gas output has been shut, and 433,600 Louisiana residents have lost power as a result — 101,500 in evacuated areas, 332,600 in occupied areas.

Read the whole factbox.

The Republicans also canceled their prime-time programming for the convention’s opening night, and most daytime activities. It’s unclear how else Gustav may effect the Republican convention.

Sen. John McCain told Fox News, according to the Politico, “It just wouldn’t be appropriate to have a festive occasion while a near-tragedy or a terrible challenge is presented in the form of a natural disaster. So we’re monitoring it from day to day — and I’m saying a few prayers, too.”

New Orleans is nearly deserted. Mayor Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city, and about 95 percent of the population left. Gustav has now been downgraded to a Category 2 storm, bringing some amount of relief to Louisiana residents, especially since weather analysts were reporting over the weekend that the hurricane could be worse than Katrina.

New Orleans residents are still coping with the aftermath of Katrina, three years later. The thought of another disaster washing away the work that went into rebuilding there seems just too much to bear.

In the sweltering heat, Palin received an enthusiastic greeting from an audience that the campaign said numbered more than 17,000, but was almost certainly considerably smaller. her speech was periodically interrupted by chants of “Sarah, Sarah,” and five audience members held up giant white letters that spelled “PALIN.” For the first time since McCain added her to his ticket, Palin sought to demonstrate that her experience in Alaska prepared her for the reponsibilities of the federal government. As Hurricane Gustav moved steadily toward New Orleans, three years to the week after Hurricane Katrina decimated the city, McCain and Palin paid a quick visit to the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency’s Emergency Operation Center in Jackson, Miss. yesterday, where they met with the governors of all four Gulf Coast states. Palin used this as a jumping off point.

I’d like to add my call also for every person and every family in danger to make a straight path toward safer ground. As governor of Alaska, I recently just signed a disaster declaration myself last month, when the people of the Fairbanks region, they faced the worst rainfall and flooding in decades, and when any governor calls for evacuation, these instructions need to be taken very seriously. To citizens in the Gulf Coast area, your lives and many others are in the balance, and the success of law enforcement, and of emergency workers, and our great National Guard, depends on your cooperation.

Palin’s remarks about the hurricane preparations were boilerplate, but her delivery was relentlessly upbeat. Even as she talked about the impending doom and gloom facing New Orleans, she spun just about everything she said in an optimistic light.

As we’ve seen in other disasters, crisis on this scale can bring out the best in our country. They show the resourcefulness, the resourcefulness of our people shine through, and the heroic kindness of which we are capable. And whatever the scale of destruction, grief, perhaps loss of life that this hurricane might inflict, people in the Gulf, that region will once again be counting on the good heart of America, Americans like all of you. I know that relief workers and charitable groups, and volunteers, they’ll be up to the task. So I join Sen. McCain in urging all of our fellow Americans to stand ready to help in the work and relief effort to rebuild. Some terrible days may lie ahead for New Orleans, again, and the region. But my fellow Americans, we’re going to get through this crisis, as we always do in our finest moments, by pulling together, and by helping where the need is greatest.

Palin’s speaking style is reminiscent of a friend’s impossibly cheery mother. It’s difficult to imagine her as an attack dog. Palin could provide relief from the near-constant negativity coming from the McCain campaign’s ads. In a reversal of the typical roles of running mates, McCain and the rest of his staff will be able to keep doing what they’ve done all along — launching broadsides against Sen. Barack Obama, while Palin can spread rays of sunshine throughout the battleground states where she will likely be spending the bulk of her time. If Palin largely refrains from going negative, it will make it all the more difficult for the Obama campaign to attack her without appearing to be “picking on the nice lady.” Palin can play the good cop, pushing her message of government reform and change to the masses, to the rest of the campaign’s bad cop.

The Sierra Club sent out a press release about one of those lessons — perhaps not the most important, but certainly one that finds relevance today. The environmental group points out that the Gulf Coast hurricane caused oil spills both on- and offshore, and urges supporters of offshore drilling to recognize the potential for future oil spills.

From the release:

New Orleans, LA: When Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29 2005, millions of people suffered a tremendous loss. This tragedy was only compounded by incompetent government response both in the immediate aftermath of and in the long-term recovery from the historic storm.

In the three years since Katrina struck, numerous problems have surfaced related to government inaction and official misinformation ranging from the problem of formaldehyde in emergency housing, and now to myths about whether the hurricane really did cause any oil spills along the Gulf Coast.

As we reach the anniversary, our presidential candidates should be talking about ways to get our government working for people again. But John McCain and other supporters of more offshore drilling are trying to rewrite history and perversely use Katrina as evidence that drilling and oil spills aren’t threats.

Fact–Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Caused Oil Spills and damage to both off-shore rigs and on-shore infrastructure:

• More than 9,000,000 gallons of oil were spilled as a result of the two storms.
  (Source: U.S. Coast Guard)
• Hurricanes Katrina and Rita alone “totally destroyed” 113 offshore oil platforms. One platform drifted 66 nautical miles before running aground on a beach in Alabama. Hurricane Dennis in 2005 nearly destroyed the then brand-new, state-of-the-art $1-billion Shell Thunder Horse platform—the largest of its kind in the world.
  (Source: Minerals Management Service)

Yet at campaign events last month, Sen. John McCain said, “I would remind you that off the coast of Louisiana and Texas, they both had hurricanes that did not cause any real difficulties. So the environmental side of it I think is pretty well okay.” Two days later he said, “I’m aware that off the coast of Louisiana and Texas there are oil rigs, as we well know, and those rigs have survived very successfully the impacts of hurricanes, Hurricane Katrina as far as Louisiana is concerned.” (campaign events 7/15 and 7/18/08)

When I talked to the California-based conservation group the Surfrider Foundation for my story on offshore drilling last week, the spokesman Matt McClain said much the same thing that the Sierra Club release:

When Hurricane Katrina hit back in 2005, there was a lot of attention in New Orleans to all the devastation and destruction that took place on land, and rightfully so. But when that story was breaking, what didn’t get a lot of attention was that over 100 offshore drilling platforms were destroyed or damaged during the storm. And they spilled a significant amount of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. It’s kind of funny, because the energy secretary, as recently as last month, got on the news and had said, “We didn’t lose one drop of oil.” Meanwhile, there are copious amounts of satellite imagery showing the spills taking place.

As McClain and other sources discuss in that story, such oil spills can do a lot more than look ugly. They can destroy ecosystems, kill off wildlife and shut down beaches — costing local businesses and the tourism industry a whole lot of money.