Most of the American Eastern seaboard has lost power
An apparent cascading sequence of failures takes down most major Eastern US cities.
The BBC reports that most of the Eastern US and Canada is suffering from lack of power - not because of terrorist activity, but because a power station in Niagara, NY failed. This caused a series of cascading failures, which the comments in this Slashdot discussion suggest were due to hardware not being replaced and AC units suffering in the recent heat.
Given that we’re in the middle of the California recall election campaign, this may or may not prompt people to think again about the reasons behind the rolling blackouts that decimated the Californian economy in 2000-2001. The word “Enron” is already being mentioned. (Incidentally, why has everyone gone quite on Enron?)
Incidentally, the Slashdot discussion also includes the best sig quote ever: “You’re just jealous ‘cause the voices talk to me” (tgrigsby).