Anybody who has cleaned out a driveway and then seen a snow plow come along and create a new snow barrier will appreciate this video. The secret is to clear an area at least 10 feet to the left of the driveway, so the plow does not come into contact with snow there.

The video is on a site with other winter safety tips as well.

Merry Christmas!

Imagine you’re playing a game of Risk, or Monopoly. You roll the dice and then get to move in a way that isn’t allowed by the current board configuration. You smile and produce a gold-plated card that says you have been given the power to “redraw the board to your own liking” with an added note that your opponent does not have a similar power.

Kind of changes the game.

That’s not too much different from what will happen leading up to the 2012 election year. Census figures will be used by the parties in power, all across the nation, to redraw political maps.

Press reports indicate that Republicans control 54 percent of state legislatures after last month’s election. And many of the states gaining U.S. House seats are in the South and the West, where Republicans have an edge.

That’s not the case in Illinois, of course, where Democrats dominate the House, Senate and have a Democratic governor.

There will be hundreds of scenarios spun before the final Illinois and Missouri redistricting plans are unveiled. (I’ll do some speculating myself at times, because that’s part of my job.) But in the end, the maps that emerge for legislators, members of Congress and even city councils may be different from what everyone expected.

In the run-up to the 2002 redistricting, then-state Rep. Art Tenhouse, R-Liberty, was concerned that he might find himself redistricted out of his own core area. He even discussed the option of moving into Quincy if a new map was drawn in such a way that Quincy was usurped into some other district.

In the end, the 96th District that Tenhouse held in 2000, got renumbered to the 93rd District of 2002, but remained fairly well within the previous boundaries.

Lawmakers and political junkies will hear countless rumors before the new maps emerge months from now. The stakes are high enough, everybody will obsess a little about what might happen.

My own guess is that redistricting will be ugly in some respects and for some political regions. It will be anticlimactic in other places.

Until the map is finalized, nobody will know exactly who holds the golden “get out of jail free” card.

Illinois has a budget deficit estimated at $13 billion or more. The shortfall has been hitting regional agencies for years, but is especially bad at this moment.

Western Illinois University in Macomb is owed more than $37 million by the state. University President Al Goldfarb told the Chicago Tribune that the state allocated $53 million for WIU during the budget year that began July 1. At this point, none of that money has been delivered.

WIU officials estimate they can weather the cash flow problem until March or April, depending on the timing and amount of tuition money received by the university.

Funding for Transitions of Western Illinois has been slow or nonexistent for the past couple of years. Executive Director Mike Rein has gotten local support for the agency, which helps those with developmental disabilities and mental health issues.

Nursing homes and hospitals, which suffered for years with underfunding and late payments, are closer to current than they were in the past. Members of the General Assembly made that possible with a law that gives nursing homes and hospitals a higher priority during the bill-paying process.

There is no light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, the tunnel looks more like a deep, dark budget hole for the state of Illinois and its service providers.

Congress will not be growing any time soon after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered dismissal of a lawsuit seeking to increase the size of the U.S. House of Representatives.
This week’s ruling will ease the concerns of many voters who have given Congress low approval ratings. It will not be welcomed by residents of states that are likely to lose congressional seats after the U.S. Census Bureau releases state-by-state population counts next week.

Both groups are right to demand better government, but the way to do that is by insisting that legislators truly represent their constituents.

The rejected lawsuit, Clemons v. U.S. Department of Commerce, basically argued that the U.S. House no longer follows the famous “one man, one vote” principle put forward in the Baker v. Carr ruling. They pointed out that while the average member of Congress represents nearly 700,000 residents, the House member from Montana represents 905,000 and the one from Wyoming represents 495,000.

The relief sought in the Clemons suit was to formulate a new plan that allows more House members so that parity is restored. That would necessarily swell congressional ranks.

At the heart of the Clemons and Baker lawsuits is voters’ desire for effective government. That cannot be assured by numbers alone. It is dependent on able public servants and an engaged electorate.

People of all political persuasions — liberals, conservatives, libertarians and populists — should seek to elect legislators who represent their views. … Which means that voters who are not of the majority view at that time will often be disappointed.

In the end, as long as America is not of one view, Congress will always be a sore subject.