I've been at work all night and have a question about the blackout:

[Pale Blue Dot]

No one seems to know exactly what caused it, but terrorism was ruled out very very early on. My question is: How were they able to rule out terrorism so quickly? And if they really don't know exactly what caused the blackout, isn't it irresronsible to rule anything out?

I'm sorry if this has been covered ad naseum tonight, but like I said, I have been at work with no access to DU and the TV news has been unable to answer these questions satisfactorily for me.

[NYC]

1. They just make things up.

I've heard a lot of the political nonsense tonight.

I don't know what caused it. Running water is gone, battery is running low. It's hot as hell.

Chretien said it may have been a fire at Con Ed station in Pennsylvania? I don't know.

[DuctapeFatwa]

2. The dollar started to go down but went up when "not terror" announced

The bush regime has been facing some opposition to its energy bill.

The people who believe they saw a fire on 14th St will come to understand that they were mistaken.

[tpub]

3. from what I've heard

it wasn't answered satisfactorily. It was just a blanket statement, "no, it definitely wasn't terrorism."

First Canada said it was lightning. Then a number of officials said it couldn't possibly have been caused by lightning.

No real answers, so far...

[seventhson]

4. They have no f*cking idea - it seems

unless they really do know and they are not telling us.

DRUDGE has the evidence that it was not what they say...

but not what caused it. The fact is that it MIGHT have been sabotage. Might have been Lihop OR MIHOP.

But no one on tv really seems to have a clue

[alaine]

5. There's another thread on here that said the dollar

started dropping until they announced it wasn't terrorism, and then it started going back up. Maybe they just know that Bush is toasted and are giving him time to sleep it off before they announce it is terrorism

All I've heard all day is we know it isn't terrorism, but we don't know what caused it. Something happened somewhere in the northern U.S or southern Canada maybe a fire in the lines that deliver power from Niagara falls. I think the most significant word here is "maybe".

They can't rule it out, but they already have. They can't find the WMD's, but they know they are there...

One spokesperson said it could have been an overload and the reporter immediately countered him by saying that this is the first heat wave that has happened all summer, the last two weeks or so, so the lines should not have been overloaded. He responded by saying the grids get overloaded sometimes at the end of the week. (???) She asked how could this happen again after the blackouts in '77 and '85 (or thereabouts, forgive if not exact year). He couldn't answer her.

[KoKo]

6. FinnFan they just don't know yet. But, two experts said: deregulation, in

contrast to Bush's statement that "our entire antiquated power grid needs to be upgraded."

The two different experts I heard on Cnn and then MSNBC said that deregulation had one draw back and that was that no
one company is looking for the "good of the whole system" anymore. They both felt that this issue needed to be addressed for the future. They felt that we needed more local control of our parts of the grid and cooperation between the newly deregulated power companies.

Now, of course, they had contrary experts who wwere happy to back up Bush's statement and were saying we needed MORE Deregulation. Bush's statement worried me that tomorrow he will declare "Executive Order" for Enron to come in and solve our Energy problems or maybe Enron in partnership with GE......that's what he always thinks...Privatize everything and bring his buddies in.

But, the two Epert Engineers I heard seemed to be very realistic saying they weren't against "privitization" but that someone needed to look out for the operation of the system as a whole. That made sense to me....but them I'm a Dem and it would!

That's all I know from what I've seen so far.

[NYC]

8. That's right. Beware deregulation.

I think that will be the outcome of this. They will make a push for deregulation.

[Peace_2_Everyone]

7. Here is a page with some links

that might help answer some of your questions.
http://www.weathermatrix.net/2003/0814/

I think it was massive overload on the system. No one has been trying to conserve electricity since the theft of 2k. Europe is baking and we all know, what goes around comes around. This could be partial punishment for the US’s part in global warming.

I am very disappointed to hear that if part of the electrical grid goes down, a lot of power plants (including nuclear plants) have to be shut down. Color me confused

[Skittles]

9. maybe they just meant

they didn't f***ing plan this

[Pale Blue Dot]

11. Bush sounded scared and incoherent

I know, I know, like everyday, but still....

IF this is terrorism, I don't think it's a LIHOP or MIHOP situation. I can't see what advantage this could bring to Bush.

From everything I'm reading, I think my suspicions are right: We really don't know what happened, and it IS irresponsible to rule anything out.

[alaine]

13. Incoherent as always, but the scared part probably had

more to do with that feeling of being in a public situation and thinking "Oh, God, I am SO f@cked up right now, got to keep it together, steady now, look concerned, don't sway...."

[Rex]

10. Massive EMP bomb.

Just think Oceans 11 times one hundred. Whoops, forgot to put on my tinfoil hat first.

:tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat:

[Homer12]

14. An Electro-Magnetic Pulse

..Could do this. As seen on TV.

[WilliamPitt]

12. How obvious would a terror attack have been?

I understand that no evidence has been found that something got blown up. That tends to leave some telltale signs behind. So if we're talking terrorism, we're basically talking about industrial sabotage, an attack on the infrastructure. How savvy does one have to be in order to shut down a massive power grid without leaving demonstrable evidence behind? How protected is this place? Was it insiders?

I'm pretty confident, despite the Bushian gibberish, that this was just a good old fashioned mechanical fuckup. I'm also sure the fired that claim out quick to spare the markets a beating; NASDAQ was closed, but the international market's weren't. The bond market flew upwards after this happened, a sure sign that people are bailing on stocks en masse.

Of course, if there are answers to the questions I asked that are unsatisfactory, I might have to change my mind.