Fox and Time Warner can't come to an agreementIt looks like those of us with limited cable-provider options (ahem, Time Warner Cable!) are facing a pretty dire winter -- one without the NFC playoffs, "The Simpsons" or "Family Guy."

Fox is asking for payment for its local stations at an amount believed to be one dollar per month per subscriber. Time Warner has an estimated 13 million customers, so that would be a lot of banana skins. We also vaguely recall a Time Warner Cable commercial complaining that Fox was basically asking for a "300 percent raise," which they seriously do not want to pay -- so much so that Sen. John "Windsurfer" Kerry has politely asked the two to please hire an arbitrator to help them sort the mess out so that he doesn't have to ring in the new year by never getting to watch "American Idol" ever again*.

The present contract between the two expires on Thursday, although we suspect nobody is actually going to notice Fox is missing until Sunday night.

*possible motivation.