As the Great Blizzard of 2010 blanketed New York City, most residents were blissfully unaware that their city's 911 system was on the brink of collapse. The system fielded 50,000 calls in a single day, and at one point the backlog swelled to 1,300 calls. The mayor was called to account for the slow service and promised that it wouldn't happen again.

But David Rosen and Bruce Kushnick report in AlterNet that New York's close call is an example of a much broader and deeper problem. Cash-strapped state and local governments are raiding funds set aside for 911 service, and the system is hurting badly:

The fight is on for Canadian identity in communications and culture, even if it does seem that only one side has shown up.

The Conservative government's calculated, but decisive, plan to remove foreign ownership rules from Canada's telecom and broadcast sectors will begin with satellite telecommunications -- in short, Telesat Canada.

When Harper overturned the CRTC to allow the Egyptian owned Globalive into the mobile phone market, he did it by changing the definition of being foreign owned, without changing the law as such. The sleight of hand in the Globalive decision may be tested in the courts -- but now the government is proposing to go further and address ownership outright.

“Hello, Mr. Harper – you are cutting out on me and I don’t understand what you are saying”

“Sorry about that, but don’t worry: you are a consumer and we put the consumer first.”

“Prime Minister Harper, I am very concerned about the implications of this decision for Canadian culture.”

“You are breaking up there… must be a dead zone.  As I was saying, this is about quality and consumer choices.  There is too much regulation on choices that should be between you and your broadcaster, I mean cable company, damn it,  I mean phone company…”