'Third World' power outages plague US homes, firms

'Third World' power outages plague US homes, firms: "Power outages -- like one in late October that left two million people without electricity in the northeast, in some cases for several days, after an unseasonably early snowstorm -- are a fact of life for many Americans. "Is Connecticut a Third World country?" asked a contributor to Newton Patch, a community website in neighboring Massachusetts, frustrated by the indefinite loss of electricity."