Just Checking In...

Blogging will be light to non-existent today because I've entered Third-Stage cold-ness. By that I mean colds are predictable in their development and progression, at least that's my experience. The First Stage is awareness...you're off-center, slightly congested, and ill-humored. You know there's nastiness coming in the very near future. The Second Stage features all symptoms in full-bloom: sore throat, cough, and full-frontal mucous attacks. For me, the Third (and final) Stage is when the cold settles into your chest, characterized by much hacking, wheezing, and general unpleasantness. When I'm in the Third Stage I lose interest in most everything. Third-Stage can last a day or two, at the most; worst-case is a Third-Stage cold turns into bronchitis. Let us pray...

Normal programming will resume in the near future. In the meantime, I'd like to share an editorial I read last night. Key grafs:

The real House GOP problem isn't about lobbyists so much as it is the atrophying of its principles. As their years in power have stretched on, House Republicans have become more passionate about retaining power than in using that power to change or limit the federal government. Gathering votes for serious policy is difficult and tends to divide a majority. Re-election unites them, however, so the leadership has gradually settled for raising money on K Street and satisfying Beltway interest groups to sustain their incumbency.

This strategy has maintained a narrow majority, but at the cost of doing anything substantial. The last year in particular was an historic lost opportunity. House Republicans were also the main culprit in watering down Medicare reform, while Ohio's Mike Oxley has run the Financial Services Committee more or less as liberal Barney Frank would. Beyond welfare reform and tax cuts (and perhaps health-savings accounts), the GOP has achieved little in the last decade that will outlast the next Democratic majority.

The WSJ, it speaks for me. In other words: WAKE UP, GOP!