The Chicago Sun-Times brings us Dick Durbin's take on the massive snowfall in the nation's capitol this month:

"I never could get over how people in this town reacted to snow," he said. "I am convinced that infants born in Washington, D.C., are taken from the arms of their loving mothers right when they are born into a room where someone shows a film of a snowstorm with shrieking and screaming so that those children come to believe snow is a mortal enemy, like a nuclear attack, because I have seen, for over 40 years here, people in this town go into a full-scale panic at the thought of a snowfall."

With today's snowpocalyse, Chicagoans are already expressing concern about a Sun-Times report that says the city has already spent 40 percent of its yearly snow removal budget. But the city insists that's not true as the budget runs from January 1 to December 31. The $6.6 million spent in December on snow removal comes out of the '09 budget, not the 2010 budget. more ›

While this latest winter storm is more fizzle than snow, Mayor Daley, perhaps remembering the outrage over last year's snowplowing failures, had prepared to reach into the city's overtime snow plowing fund to keep the streets clear. "You have to," Daley told the Tribune. "You bring them out at certain times. We do that all year." Streets and Sanitation has deployed 175 snow plow drivers to clear main streets across the city. And while Daley is hopeful that they'll be able to focus on side streets soon, he warned drivers to be careful. "Even arterial roadways that appear to be dry and clean can still be slippery in these types of weather conditions," the mayor said. more ›