Bicyclists in New York

When did having a bicycle give people special privileges? I'm standing here in a subway care on my way to work. Standing next to me on the typically crowded morning subway car is a guy with a bike. It doesn't occur to this numbskull that there is no room for a bicycle. He doesn't care; he's priviledged.

It is common on the streets of New York to see bicyclists riding on the sidewalk. And while the rest of us, including cars, must stop at the red light, those rules don't apply to a biker. And it can dangerous for all. There have been cases where bicyclists have run over and killed pedestrians. So it is dangerous. NY City government seems oblivious to the issue. Maybe one day some politician's mother will be run over and then something will be done.

While I was writing this the train was delayed for several minutes. This has also become an increasing problem. I don't expect that to improve either, especially in these weak economic times.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Source: Hillary Clinton Out of the Running for VP

Obama and his people are no fools. Choosing Hillary as a running mate would've been a mistake Obama would've regretted for at least 4 years. On top of that she would've been a drag on the campaign, along with Bill. These people are out for themselves.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) will not be Barack Obama's running mate, but she will be the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention - at least that is what some of her boosters are saying.

Though Democratic and Obama aides say no decision has been announced on either score, a group called Vote Both, created to lobby Obama to pick the New York senator as his second, yesterday said Clinton is out of the running.

"Because of your work, Senator Obama asked Hillary to be his keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention!" said Vote Both founders Adam Parkhomenko and Sam Arora on their Web site. "Regretfully, this means that Senator Hillary Clinton is no longer under consideration as Senator Obama's running mate."

Asked how he knows, Arora told The Associated Press, "All indications we have from people close to Senator Clinton and Senator Obama are that Hillary is not on the short list."

Clinton purportedly will make the coveted keynote address on Tuesday night, Aug. 26. The vice presidential nominee usually speaks on Monday and Wednesday.

Historically, keynote speakers have not been running mates but an up-and-coming leader, such as Obama in 2004.

Obama should choose Evan Bayh as his running mate. He has the credentials and is popular figure in a region that Obama needs, the Midwest. Kaine is just as inexperienced as Obama and lacks foreign policy expertise, which Bayh has.

White House hopeful Barack Obama is close to picking a running mate with Timothy Kaine, the one-term governor of the pivotal state of Virginia, a prime contender, reports said Tuesday.

Kaine, 50, has told close associates that he has had "very serious" conversations with the Democratic senator about running as his vice presidential nominee, the Washington Post reported.

The Obama campaign has been closely vetting Kaine's background, but is also taking a serious look at senators Evan Bayh and Joseph Biden, the newspaper said.

Video: Howard Wolfson debates Karl Rove on Race Card

Karl Rove admits that the McCain ad was not exactly the best. This could be one of Rove's last appearances on FOX before he goes to jail.

Another Victim of the Government Anthrax Witch Hunt?

The FBI got pie in the face with their Hatfill fiasco so they went after another innocent victim - Bruce Ivins. On the surface it would be suspicious, a scientist suspected of the anthrax attacks commits suicide before he could be arrested. That does not guilt. It could be he was guilty of some other activity for which he feared to be exposed. And if Ivins was the man why wasn't he suspected first rather than Hatfill? It seems the Feds are intent on finding their man no matter who they blame. The suicide makes it convenient for the feds to claim they found their man. The anthrax attacks were carried out by al Qaeda. That simple.

A top U.S. biodefense researcher apparently committed suicide just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailings that traumatized the nation in the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a published report.

The scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who worked for the past 18 years at the government's biodefense labs at Fort Detrick, Md., had been told about the impending prosecution, the Los Angeles Times reported for Friday editions. The laboratory has been at the center of the FBI's investigation of the anthrax attacks, which killed five people.

Ivins died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital in Maryland. The Times, quoting an unidentified colleague, said the scientist had taken a massive dose of a prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine.

[...]Just last month, the government exonerated another scientist at the Fort Detrick lab, Steven Hatfill, who had been identified by the FBI as a "person of interest" in the anthrax attacks. The government paid Hatfill $5.82 million to settle a lawsuit he filed against the Justice Department in which he claimed the department violated his privacy rights by speaking with reporters about the case.

The Times said federal investigators moved away from Hatfill and concluded Ivins was the culprit after FBI Director Robert Mueller changed leadership of the investigation in 2006. The new investigators instructed agents to re-examine leads and reconsider potential suspects. In the meantime, investigators made progress in analyzing anthrax powder recovered from letters addressed to two U.S. senators, according to the report.

O'Reilly Commentator Calls McCain Ad "Stupid": Transcript

This is good stuff. FOX doesn't know what to think.

[...]Scott McClellan cavalierly saying that some people at FOX, including me, get White House talking points. Totally untrue. What's your take on it?

[...]I think Scott McClellan is Richard Rich. And much like the movie, the only person he can probably depend on down the road to take him back is Bush, the man he was a traitor to. Bush is a good man. He'll probably take him.

O'REILLY: I don't think he'll take him back, but I could be wrong on that.

But I told Scott McClellan, look, you're being played, you're being used. And in this business, news and entertainment, people use people all of the time, but McClellan is resisting that. He doesn't seem to get it yet. And I'm just going, is he obtuse, or does he just not want to get it?

MILLER: He's a little stupid, and at this point, Chris Matthews fancies himself sort of Edward R. Murrow to coffee gophers, and I guess he likes — this is sport for him. It's like, you know, sitting ducks in a barrel or something. He weighs in, and he takes guys like McClellan apart. It's easy play, it seems, for him to take these guys apart. He's not exactly Dorothy Parker.

Dennis calls McCain campaign Stupid:

O'REILLY: All right. So Britney and Paris, when they say celebrity, they show them. Does it work?

MILLER: I don't want John McCain and his campaign to be aware of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. If he's in the gravitas business, and I know that's overused, but I don't even want him to know about that.

Now granted, if you're talking about a testimony to the dangers of being over-drilled, you might want to go to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. But quite frankly, it seems a little stupid to me, a little juvenile. Maybe they should have shown those women screaming on the "Sullivan" show and cut to the Beatles with, you know, Obama's head art-boxed onto all four of the Beatles or something. But this one seems a little stupid.

Like I said, those two girls are so down-marketed at this point, why does a presidential candidate, indeed one in his 70s, even know who they are?

O'REILLY: I just want to make two points. No. 1, I did not get the drilling joke that you just put out. I didn't get that. And No. 2, it's a subliminal thing. That's what this is. That they present these people, lightweights, and nobody takes them seriously, in the commercial with Obama. And the subliminal message, as "Saturday Night Live" used to do all the time — remember the subliminal guy? — is that he's a lightweight. He doesn't know anything. That's why they did that. But you don't think it worked?

MILLER: I don't think he's a heavyweight, but I think you, at your own danger, start comparing him to pop idols like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. That's a little bit too disparaging.