The 2011 session of the Iowa legislature will go on for weeks if not months, Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal said Thursday.

"This is going to take a while," said Gronstal (D-Council Bluffs).

A budget agreement between Republican Governor Terry Branstad, the Republican-controlled House, and the Democrat-led Senate is needed by June 30, the end of the fiscal year, to avert a government shutdown. House Speaker Kraig Paulsen predicted that an agreement would be reached by then.

"House Republicans are not going to let government shut down," said Paulsen (R-Hiawatha). "I think that would be unacceptable."

This year's situation is similar to one in 1992, when Branstad, who also was governor at that time, and the Democrat-controlled legislature were also deadlocked on the state budget and tax policy. A compromise was eventually reached on June 25, in a second special session.

Following Jeff Terronez's resignation as Rock Island County state's attorney and his guilty plea last week, I was waiting for the Quad Cities' daily newspapers to forcefully and directly raise a simple question: Why didn't he resign sooner?

More relevant at this point: Why didn't the county's Democratic leaders strongly encourage his resignation long before he agreed to a plea deal?

Alas, the closest the newspapers got was the Quad-City Times' April 27 editorial: "Terronez ... has decimated the credibility of his office, his former colleagues, and every Democrat who stood by silently as this crime was covered up for at least six months. That's how long Terronez dodged specific questions from us and others about this crime. ... If, as Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan claimed, police found only enough to charge him with providing the alcohol [to a minor], Terronez could have cleared that up with an honest answer in October."

But the "honest answer" the Times said Terronez should have provided is far different from his resignation. And both the Times and Rock Island Argus/Moline Dispatch seem more concerned with getting full details of the Illinois State Police investigation.

Take a second look the next time you see jet-streams way up in the atmosphere. Are they lingering for a long time? Do you see a pattern or grids forming? These are not commercial airlines creating these trails in the sky.

Geo-engineering programs that claim to prevent global warming by spraying toxins into our atmosphere are commonly referred to as "chemtrails." Most people assume the white, fluffy trails being emitted from some jets as they fly across the sky are condensation trails from exhaust, or "contrails." But common sense informs us that contrails do not occur in crisscross grids across the sky, remain overhead long after the plane(s) have left the sky, or continue to expand throughout the day, culminating in a veil of fog that eventually falls to the earth.

Chemtrails have become a common occurrence both nationwide and around the world, delivering massive doses of toxic materials over not just our farmlands and homesteads but also over some of the planet's most pristine environments, including Mount Shasta in California and remote areas of the Hawaiian islands.

Some big Chicago-area retailers have found a way to avoid paying high local sales taxes on their wholesale purchases. They've essentially set up their own "tax havens" in Downstate counties that have no local sales taxes. The havens are mostly just one-person offices with a fax machine.

The retailers contract to purchase mass quantities of fuel, or construction equipment, or lumber, or whatever, and then those contracts are faxed to their little Downstate offices, stamped as received and then faxed back to headquarters and - voilà - no high local sales taxes are owed.

Back in January, the Illinois Department of Revenue lost a court case filed by Hartney Fuel Oil Company, Putnam County, and the little town of Mark, Illinois (population 500). Hartney is based in Cook County but had a "sales office" in no-tax Mark. The Department of Revenue claimed Hartney owed sales taxes in Cook, but a Putnam County judge disagreed.

Nobody really noticed. But then some folks got the bright idea of introducing a bill at the Statehouse to codify the Downstate court case to make certain that all Chicago-area companies had the same option.

Bad move.