I’ve decided to secede from Illinois. Who needs a silly state that ends with an &uot;s&uot; anyway?

I was shocked and appalled when that crazy (there is no other appropriate word) governor, George Ryan of Illinois, let 167 death row inmates off the hook last Saturday.

Has he lost his mind?

In a ridiculous blanket move, he commuted the sentences of the 167 inmates &045; every one of them.

He did not consider each case separately. He did not research the background of each individual criminal or each individual victim.

He just disregarded the judgments of all of those judges and juries, the work of all of those police officers and prosecutors and committed the funds of the state of Illinois to house and feed those criminals for the rest of their lives.

He said: &uot;Our capital system is haunted by the demon of error &045; error in determining guilt and error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die …

Because of all these reasons, today I am commuting the sentences of all Death Row inmates.&uot;

This guy is out of his mind.

Now, these prisoners join the general prison population.

Nice move, guv.

I’ll admit that there may be a couple of cases where those being held on death row may be innocent. I may be the queen of England, and I may be bringing in $1 million per newspaper. (I’m not, by the way.)

It is, however, in those rare cases that I would consider it perfectly sane to go back and review the evidence, the decision, the actions of the courts and the juries and decide, on an individual basis, that a prisoner does or does not deserve to be on death row.

But what Ryan &045; surprisingly, a Republican, by the way &045; has done with his blanket action, is just plain crazy.

He’s released these murderers into the general prison population where they can teach the minor felons how to really kill someone &045; how to murder, rape, destroy lives.

Nice move, guv.

A friend of mine predicts only bad coming from this move and believes that for each person who suffers, who dies, who is raped and murdered in the future, Gov. Ryan should be held accountable at the same penalty, since it was his action which ultimately caused it.

If I were a police officer, a judge, a prosecutor in the state of Illinois, I would be furious.

If I were a member of the family of one of the victims, I would be livid. If I were a murderer, I’d be thrilled.

This craziness cannot be allowed to happen. How can one person, in a moment of clear, unequivocable insanity, wield so much power?

Yep, I’m seceding from Illinois &045; as if Oprah Winfrey were not enough of a reason