Let's see, there's CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and some small outfit called All News Network (I have it on DirectTV). Then there's the regular network outlets and local stations with their daily quota of news. That's a lot of airtime to fill.

Sure, this storm is an inconvience. Many flights are being canceled, schools are being closed, and driving on ice just plain sucks. Having thousands of people without electricity in cold weather is a bummer, too.

One pet peeve of mine is the number of people cited as being killed by the storm. Probably all of them are really killed in auto accidents. In other words, they're killed by bad driving, not the storm. It'd be different if something like an ice laden tree fell on someone but not due to bad driving.

Some winter storms are newsworthy. We had one here a few years ago that paralyzed the area for days (18" of heavy, wet snow dumped in a few hours) and resulted in several deaths from people stupid enough to be caught out in the mess. Those storms are no fun at all. Major ice storms really suck, too.