or, “Everything I think I know about the transportation bill, I learned from Barnie Day.”

Barnie’s back and once again applying his eloquent prose regarding the transportation bill. While Brian Kirwin uses pie charts and Del. Albo uses toy blocks to demonstrate the (in)significance of 1% in a general fund budget of $17.3 billion, Barnie simplifies it like this: “This bill will have as much impact on transportation in Virginia as a wad of spit would in the Atlantic.”

More pearls from Barnie: “Probably 75 percent of Virginians don’t even know the legislature has been in session — and of those who do, the majority don’t care.”

Personal favorite pearl:

“These Northern Virginia poobahs get elected by running against the state, giving away the store recruiting all the growth and congestion they can lay hands on, and by approving subdivisions helter-skelter and around the clock. Then they say to Richmond, “We’ve got a problem. You’ve got to fix it. Pave us out of congestion.”

The reality is they’ve got all the tools they need to straighten out their own messes — all they need except the courage to use them.”

The bottom line on the transportation bill (as well as a lot of cockfighting type chaff) may best be summarized by:

“. . . we’ve got to get transportation off the table for now. It’s blocking a lot of other important stuff, like 40,000 additional kids coming into our higher education system — 40,000 kids with no place to sit.”

That bear never stood a chance.