You know, I really don’t miss suburban sprawl or blogging in traffic. Probably good to endure both now and then as a reminder.

Here are some less hectic midday news/views items:

* The Onion offers its own rankings of top 6 colleges. Very funny.

* Interesting Shane Goldmacher piece on feud between Rand Paul and powerful Kentucky congressman Hal Rogers.

* Ted Cruz stalks off stage at conference for Middle Eastern Christians after his identification of Israel with his hosts’ cause drew some boos.

* Utah Gov. Gary Herbert reports “conceptual” agreement between HHS and his state on Medicaid waiver to accompany expansion.

* Politico update on GOP rescue mission for Pat Roberts, or as campaign of Greg Orman calls it, a “mudslinging hit squad from Washington.”

And in non-political news:

* Oscar Pistorius cleared of murder charges by judge, but could still face homicide conviction.

As we break for lunch, here’s John Martyn performing “Spencer the Rover” in 1977.

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Ed Kilgore is a political columnist for New York and managing editor at the Democratic Strategist website. He was a contributing writer at the Washington Monthly from January 2012 until November 2015, and was the principal contributor to the Political Animal blog.