They doth protest too loudly

The whole kerfuffle regarding transportation secretary Mary Peters is, uh, water under the bridge. But today, Salon has a nice overview, with lots of great insights from the "bicycle activist" community, as well as Demcrats... who really can sit this one out, it's so absurd.

"It's a red herring to point to bike paths and even imply that if we didn't build another bike path we'd have all the money we need to fix our highways and bridges," says Jim Berard, communications director for the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. "You can't build very many bridges with the amount of money that you would save if you didn't build any bike paths."

So let the neo-cons be shrieking harridans on the subject of bike paths, while turning a blind eye to somewhat more profligate spending in certain oil-producing parts of the world.

Also this: On the one hand, we want to suggest that it's not just activists who care about bike paths and lanes and signage and other "crazy" accomdations for bikes. On the other hand, it's kinda hard to ride a bike without being active -- although some of those recumbant riders really do look and ride like they're asleep on the La-Z-Boy.