The bad news just keeps coming.

· Sen. Dick Durbin didn’t have anything positive to say about the governor’s plan to sell or lease the lottery.

“I am skeptical of selling off major assets of the state,” Durbin said. “I think we have spent generations, decades, building up these assets, and selling them off for a short-term gain may be short-sighted.”

· The Rockford Register Star edtorialized against it today.

The Illinois lottery’s slogan is “have a ball.” Sometimes we wonder whether Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s slogan is “sell it all; Illinois doesn’t need its assets.”

· Dennis Byrne was acidic.

What Gov. Rod Blagojevich is trying to do to the state and its taxpayers used to be called “living out of the attic.”

That’s selling your assets in order to pay your everyday expenses, such as eating. Because you irresponsibly have been living beyond your paycheck, you must sell your car, furniture and first-born. Soon, your attic will be empty, and then how will you eat? Having sold off your house, where will you eat?

It’s a recipe for disaster, as it is for the State of Illinois.

· Finke was his usual self.

OK, maybe Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s big lottery/education plan isn’t ready for life support yet, but the early returns aren’t promising.

· And some SIU professors aren’t keen on the plan.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s proposal of leasing the lottery to fund education is an election-year ploy depending on a legalized gambling system the state shouldn’t be involved in to begin with, say two Southern Illinois University Carbondale professors who have authored papers studying state lotteries.

Donald Gribbin, a professor of accountancy, and Jonathan Bean, a professor of history, said politicians historically have used lottery money in place of state money to fund education, leaving schools with a zero net gain. While Blagojevich has promised the $10 billion expected from leasing the lottery would be used to expand education services, both Gribbin and Bean indicate it may be too tempting for legislators to fall into old habits with the lottery in the future.

Besides, they added, the money isn’t unlimited and it’s coming from state-supported gambling feeding off the notion one can strike it rich for basically doing nothing.

The professors authored a brief history of the Illinois lottery system in the winter 2005 edition of The Independent Review, “Adoption of State Lotteries in the United States, with a Closer Look at Illinois.” More recently, the two collaborated on a popular paper addressing Blagojevich’s lottery plan, “The State Lottery: ‘Go for the Greed!’”

UPDATE: Bert Doctor’s column in the Star is an entertaining read.

32 years ago, our General Assembly snookered the citizens of Illinois into believing that the lottery was going to be the answer to fund education. Well, you all know that it didn’t work!

Now you, governor, come up with this new master gambling plan to sell/lease (you still don’t know) the Illinois lottery system. You don’t go to Springfield to announce this master plan for education salvation. You call state Sen. James Meeks, D-Chicago, who threatened to run against you for governor to come to Chicago where the television cameras will capture this great announcement (or should I say snookerment). Can you believe that Gov. Blagojevich is telling Rev. Meeks, a fundamental Baptist minister, that gambling will save our kids!