Well, King Rod Blagojevich is at it again this year, stalling the state budget. Technically, all of the employees of the state should be on unpaid furlough right now and every state agency, other than emergency services, shut down. And King Rod says he's looking at the unbalanced budget looking for the appropriate areas to slice and dice with his line item veto authority, which he so callously used as a political weapon last fall.

This budget is a sham, with a massive deficit built right into it. Perhaps the General Assembly should have started with trimming of the budget for the Governor's office, yanking entirely all funding for office space and transportation for the Governor's staff that lies outside of Springfield. We're not talking chicken feed with this one - we're talking in the order of $15 million a year that could have been pulled out of the budget with no way for King Rod to unilaterally reinstate it.

King Rod is still ranting about needing to open more casinos in Illinois to raise revenues, and I'm glad that the House at least is resisting this move, even though Clown Prince Emil Jones seems to keep it alive in the Senate.

And now King Rod is looking at potential replacements for the seat held by Presidential contender Barack Obama. Illinoisans outside of Chicago are SO screwed, whether Obama wins or loses. If he wins, the man who will probably go down as the most corrupt governor in the history of Illinois, and that's saying something, with corrupt governors holding sway in Illinois for most of the last 50 years, will be appointing "our" Senator.

If Obama loses, you can almost be guaranteed that Barry Rockstar will be on the Democratic ticket in the gubernatorial primary in 2009 here in Illinois - and the idiots who elected King Rod will see a chance to get rid of him and replace him with Obama. The question is - which other corrupt Chicago Democrat will be on that ballot. William Daley? Lisa Madigan? Will downstaters in the party finally say "enough" and find one of their own to run?

The prospects of an Illinois run by a true public servant in the governor's office grows dimmer and dimmer.