There has been a lot of press in the last 36 hours about Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, who allegedly attempted to sell an Illinois seat in the United States Senate. The seat was left vacant as a result of the presidential election, leaving the loser governor with the responsibility of filling it.

This really isn’t much of a surprise. The people of Illinois all knew he would be going to jail, but we assumed it wouldn’t be until after his term in office, and nobody really knew what it would be for.

The real issue here that I want an answer to isn’t whether he is guilty, nor is it who will be appointed; the real issue is about those damn Open Road Tolling signs. You see while serving as governor, Blagojevich commissioned parallel road construction on all major Illinois highways. That means if there are two main roads leading south, he made sure both would be under construction at the same time, which is also true for travel to the north and west (there is a lake to the east). This increased both stress and aggravation in addition to travel times.

At the termination of the aforementioned construction, his first Pièce de résistance (before being arrested) was to christen each of those construction sites with this:

Better get out the blue paint...

I had always thought it must have been a huge waste of money to begin with, but now am left wondering how much it will cost the state of Illinois to change all of them, or if I’ll have to buy the paint and do it myself.

Tenemos un sin verguenza,

Juan Luis