Paul Krugman explains how deregulation helped cause last week's blackout in his New York Times column, and Tom Oliphant explains the political obstacles to fixing the problem in his Boston Globe column. If you are worried about power grids around the country, check the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Current Energy site for the status of five regional power grids. The site plans to have power grid information for the whole country soon. This National Post article discusses the cultural history of urban darkness.