California Republicans - Stupidest in America:

Seems I write this every six months or so that California Republicans are really, really stupid. They have a dream candidate in Arnold, and yet their egos get in the way and they'll split the Republican vote and lose...pathetic.

BBC Distorts The Truth:

Can't the BBC even tell the truth correctly with a graph? In this graph it looks like US electric consumption is up a thousand or more percent...but then you realize that their vertical axis starts not at zero, but at "2.0"....hmmmm. More dishonesty from across the pond...

AMATEUR ANALYSIS: Blackout Began in US!

After investigating the online records of incidences (at www.i-grid.com) of swag/swells/ and interuptions on the grid, I have identified the following as the first anomaly:

Local Time Event Type Location
08/14/03 04:05:55 PM Instantaneous Sag 2.6 cycles OHIO

this was followed by three more sags in Ohio over the course of three seconds and then a sustained deep undervoltage at 04:09:02 PM in Michigan.

The first anomaly identified in Canada was in Ontario at 04:10:57 PM Instantaneous Swell.

First power interuption occurred in the US at 04:10:34 PM in Michigan.

The first Canadian interruption was noted at 04:11:55 PM in Ontario.

So it looks like the problem started in the US (but this is just my analysis).

MORE:
From another website, here is the graph of the fatal moment for the grid in NYC,
from http://currentenergy.lbl.gov/ny/archive/:

Hawash Guilty!

This site has always maintained the US government knew what it was doing on this case. It is now time for all the Hawash supports to apologize to Ashcroft.

Dell Computer Customer Service Disaster:

I have a Dell and like it alot, but I've also had nightmarish customer service from many companies in my life and like to give voice to frustration whenever I can. Here is a piece of one man's story:

"When I called back, there was no history or place for the tech to see I had been on the phone for hours and a hard drive had been approved. I had to start all over with my case. This tech asked me if I had reformatted my hard drive since the new system board had been put in. I had reformatted twice before but not since the new system board was put in. Reformatting takes over 13 hours with back-up, reformatting, reinstalling the operating system, reinstalling programs, updating the programs online, reinstalling back-up and all of the other items needed. I did not want to do this and was upset that I had been approved for the hard drive and now I was un-approved. I can't tell you how emotional I was. It had been a long day with Dell. With each call I begged to speak to someone who was in charge. But after many pleas to many persons I realized that it must be part of Dell's policy to never, ever let the customer know a manager exists or to give out the number. Finally I gave up."