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It’s now thought that last week’s blackout started in Ohio, but the real question is, why did it spread so far and wide? In 2002, the British company National Grid merged with Niagara Mohawk to create “NiMo,” the 9th largest utility in the U.S., serving 3.3 million people in the New England/New York area. Is this the grid that failed? Author Greg Palast wrote, “?After government regulators slammed Niagara Mohawk?with fines and penalties?the industry leaders got together to swear never to break the regulations again. Their plan was not to follow the rules, but to ELIMINATE the rules. They called it ‘deregulation’?And that’s why, if you’re in the Northeast, you’re reading this by candlelight tonight.”
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Seattle could experience a one-two punch. First, an earthquake reaching 9 on the Richter Scale could strike the Pacific Northwest. A quake of this intensity would be enough to pulverize skyscrapers and kill people where they stood. Along with the predicted eruption of Mt. Rainier, this foretells a dire future for the area.
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A new study of body lice reveals that humans started wearing clothes 70,000 years ago. And ever since, stores have been trying to sell us winter coats in August?but that may finally be changing.

“I can’t face winter coats in August,” says shopper Rachael Rawson, and most of us feel the same way. Dina ElBoghdady writes in the Washington Post that stores have finally started listening, probably because they haven’t been able to sell any of them during this year’s record heatwave.
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One of the underground heroes of the Iraq war was the anonymous blogger who posted daily messages about what it felt like to live through the war. After the downfall of Saddam, Salam Pax came out of hiding, and now writes for the Guardian newspaper in the U.K. His latest blog tells what it’s really like in Baghdad today.
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