The most interesting meeting on Obama’s schedule tomorrow is the visit to the offices of the United Mine Workers of America. Anyone who was privileged to hear International President Cecil Roberts at the Northern Virginia Central Labor Council’s dinner knows that he is already “Fired up, ready to go.”

“. . . the state of the GOP in the Old Dominion is so dire that Warner might as well be sworn into office early.”

That’s what today’s WaPo editorial says about the House Rs’ insistence that there is no need for additional revenue for transportation.

Sorta reminds me of the method Professor Harold Hill (in Music Man) used to teach children to play music. He called it the Think Method. “I now have a revolutionary method where you don’t bother with the notes,” he promised the children in River City. Thinking was all it would take to master a musical instrument. By the time the unsuspecting parents discovered that the Think Method wouldn’t work, Professor Hill would be long gone.

The Think Method was a sham in the musical, and it’s a sham in Virginia as well. We’re going to have to make some tough decisions about whether we really want to address our transportation needs–or just think about it. But unlike Harold Hill, we’ll still be around when voters learn that the Think Method won’t get us where we want to go.

He was merely the champion of the mediocre. Now we hear the call for “Equal Time for the Willfully Ignorant.” (BTW: The focus group that produced these views was conducted in Charlottesville.)

In preparation for Memorial Day, I’d strongly urge you to take five minutes to read Garrison Keillor.

About Ted Kennedy’s brain tumor. I’m a cancer survivor, and I hope he will be, too. But there’s no question this is serious stuff.

I am not making this up. Today is National Train Day. Their theme, unfortunately, is “Get Your Choo-Choo On.”

This would be important in a General Assembly blog only if one knows that our friend Ward Armstrong is something of a train fan.

Some might say “train nut.” They would also be right.

There’s an article in the new issue of State Legislatures Magazine on blogging that features — well, us.

Apparently, while in Carolina campaigning for that whole Presidential Primary thing, Barack O. found time to meet with my favorite — well, except for Dean Smith, of course — North Carolina resident. (He also played a pickup game with some members of the Carolina team.)

(For those of you who may be slightly less obsessive about the Tar Heel basketball team, that’s Coach Roy Williams.)

The National Association of Government Communicators checked out the blog we created while we were in Algiers. They loved the fact that we shared so many great new technology tools with our audience.