(2003-08-14) -- A widespread electrical power outage affected some 20 million North Americans tonight, but none were so hard hit as writers of so-called weblogs, a kind of online journal.

With no electricity, many "bloggers" were forced to post their latest musings to the Internet by candlelight. Some resorted to using old-fashioned kerosene-fueled personal computers. Others wrote their thoughts out longhand on paper then ran through the streets reading them aloud to the passing crowds of stranded commuters.

Andrew Sullivan immediately posted an essay claiming that bloggers had brought down the power grid "just like we brought down Trent Lott and Howell Raines."

But there were some bright spots in the midst of the darkness. Dozens of blogs set up PayPal donation links to a fund for purchasing backup power systems for bloggers in the outage area.

And while traffic snarls frustrated urban commuters, traffic at InstaPundit.com spiked to more than 7,500 visitors in the hour following the start of the blackout.