It's comforting to know we can count on "The Situation Room"

[ClusterFreak]

...to sound all the alarms and take us, at least briefly, to DefCon 1 when there is absolutely nothing to suggest anything untoward (i.e. terrorism)is behind a large scale power outage in the MOST DENSELY POPULATED REGION IN THE U.S.A. At least we have Ali Velshi to explain to us the principles behind treating intersections with traffic lights not working as 4-way stops. I hope they've got someone on the case of the worker who accidentally cut the power line. Make sure they weren't receiving training in Al Qaida camps in Afghanistan.

Darn the luck.....Wolfie thought he might have had something sinister on his hands there. I gotta hear Cafferty's reaction to all of this!

[Spinzonner]

1. On the other hand

it breaks up the day down here with all the TV stations switching from soaps and TV judges to breaking news.

Remains to be seen if it will last until Dr Phil and Oprah. Now that would be a real disaster ...

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. solar flare - a HUGE one, erupted a few minutes earlier

That is the most likely cause.