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The bicycle analogy simply isn't the same thing. I've yet to find a web site which lists spots you can go to find free bicycles to ride.

http://www.ibike.org/encouragement/freebike.htm

That's because you've never looked for one. :) First hit on Google for Bike Sharing Turned this up:

http://www.ibike.org/encouragement/freebike-usa.ht m#usa And in case you have a hard time reading, http://www.sopobikes.org/community/

Community Bike Programs

Community Bicycle Progams

Even better, many of the programs in the US are free, i.e., they don't charge people to use the bikes. Makes you proud to be an American, doesn't it?

Care to cite any sources for your claim?

Studies I've seen report that in the US, fuel and vehicle tax revenues only cover between 50% and 80% of the direct cost of road building and maintenance.

This figure doesn't even account for a bunch of road maintenance and support services that are often paid out of state/county/city general funds. Nor does it account for other indirect auto/road subsidies such as tax breaks for supplying parking, and externalities such as the health consequences & clean-up costs of pollution, nor the military and diplomatic cost of protecting US oil interests.

I'd love to see our available transit options compete on a real level playing field. But I'm really tired of hearing folks carp about bus, train, light-rail subsidies while the auto, airline, and truck industries gobble tens of billions in hidden subsidies annually.

The Going Rate: What it Really Costs to Drive
Summary here

In the U.S., the right to travel is derived from the synthesis of several rights. This was quite well laid out in Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. 116 (1958) at 125-126.

"The right to travel is a part of the `liberty' of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment. . . . Freedom of movement across frontiers in either direction, and inside frontiers as well, was a part of our heritage. Travel abroad, like travel within the country, . . . may be as close to the heart of the individual as the choice of what he eats, or wears, or reads. Freedom of movement is basic in our scheme of values."

Ahem... Free!!! Tech rant: This is both an "if you live in..." and "Bikes!" and "The simple solution is sometimes the best". So here you go. Cities that have free bikes for you to get around on. Really. Copenhagen, Denmark Helsinki, Finland Denver, CO, USA and Portland, OR, USA The Country of Lithuania And others... Yes, they get stolen and stuff. Mixed results. A work in progress, you might say. Maybe one of you eggheads will figure out how to make it work better. ;-)

It seems more likely that Don Funk wrote the article, though I'm not entirely clear on who Don Funk is -- donfu@microsoft.com? OTOH, searching Google his name shows up lots of places -- is it a name turned into a standard filler (like "foobar")? Or does he write lots of documentation, and uses his own name in example sometimes?

Now I suspect Don Funk wrote the article, and Mallinson is taking credit for it because the entire article is obviously a complete lie if Funk wrote it. The other possibility is that Funk wrote parts of it as documentation, and Mallinson used that content to produce the "letter".

The other thing that links Mallinson to the editing of the content, not the content itself, is the italicized comment on the bottom talking about converting the author to Pocket PC. Someone else referenced this site where this same Mallinson is referred to as an expert with Pocket PCs. Though, when I think of the possibilities, it again becomes likely that she already had all the content for a second article ready, and was setting it up for a followup.

The whole Pocket PC thing makes it seem very likely that Mallinson is simply lying about converting from Mac (at least to XP). But it would offend people more if a man wrote an article, and then was turned into a woman in a cynical attempt to make XP seem more soft and accessible. Probably several people wrote the article, and then one person put it together -- Dun Funk seems like his name is attached to technical things, so I would imagine he would not have put the article together, but would have written some of the more technical material in the article.

According to this site, she was helping this guy put together PocketPC solutions for use on his Africa biking trip. Sounds like she was a little more in the MS fold than the article said. I'm surprised she even still used Macs, being a PocketPC "solutions troubleshooter" and all!