Proposition 8's defeat in California isn't the only thing making headlines for the gay rights movement as of late. According to the Washington Post, gay Mexican citizens who seek asylum in the United States are facing an increasingly uphill battle. Changes to the general asylum policy and a few rejected cases have resulted in what many fear is the end of a practice that provided safety for dozens since the mid-1990s. 

Persecution based on sexuality, in a country where machismo and conservative Catholic ideals run deep, once made a strong enough case for gay Mexicans seeking refuge up north. But liberalized laws on homosexuality and an increase in gay pride efforts have made the case a harder sell. Mexico City now recognizes civil unions, and the city's gay pride parade draws more than a million people each year. 

So why should the United States leave open the possibility of asylum? Despite the gains, negative attitudes in Mexico about homosexuality persist, leading to workplace discrimination and brutality against gays. Between 1995 and 2006, more than 1,200 Mexicans were killed because of their sexual orientation. And for all the good they might have done for the country's gay rights movement, liberalized laws have provoked a backlash from homophobic parts of society -- including some members of the Mexican police force.

Another reason to leave the asylum option? Consider the impact these homophobic attitudes and actions have on the spread of HIV/AIDS. Men who have sex with men in Mexico are over 100 times more likely to contract HIV than the general population. Says Martin Martinez Sanchez, a Mexico City hospital employee, of gay men in the capital city:

They have sexual encounters in clandestine areas, and in parts of the city that are just horrible and dangerous... Later they go home and have unprotected sex with their wives. Many gays feel they have to have a wife for appearances."

For many, asylum might not just mean escaping discrimination -- it can mean a lifeline to better care. Mexico's routine medication shortages mean inconsistent treatment for the disease, which usually requires daily pill dosages. As long as prevention and treatment measures for AIDS lag, the United States ought to think twice before closing its doors.

Still think the global credit crunch is all about the TED spread and collateralized debt obligations? Think harder. Export-bound grain has started piling up in Canada as sellers have begun refusing to trust the credit lines and financial institutions linked to their foreign buyers.

The problem is that Canada's export cargoes don't get loaded until buyers can prove their ability to pay -- proof that has been increasingly hard to come by in the wake of bank defaults and shrinking credit markets worldwide. Unable to get credit lines, many buyers have left the grain market, generating big losses for Canadian shippers. Add to this the greater costs that shippers now shoulder because of delayed payments, and the picture starts looking pretty bleak. 

And Canada isn't the only country suffering from the crunch. U.S. and South American shippers are taking even harder hits. Los Angeles and Long Beach -- home to two of the biggest ports in the United States -- have already seen a 9 percent drop in imports this year. Global shipping rates are down 74 percent from last May. 

With 90 percent of the world's trade in goods going by ship, credit access is key to trade's survival. It's also key to investment in product development, which surely will fall as manufacturers face greater declines in profits. Moldy grain looks like small peanuts by comparison, but don't tell that to Canadian shippers. Grain is their country's biggest agricultural export. 

FILE; RICARDO HERNANDEZ/AFP/Getty

Felipe Calderón has finally earned his wings.

This week's trip to New York for the U.N. General Assembly marks the first time the Mexican president has been able to use his presidential jet without getting congressional approval, a task that has proven tough at times for Calderón and his predecessor, Vicente Fox, who saw planned trips to Canada, the United States, Vietnam, and Australia nixed back when he was in office.

Although Calderón has been able to fly problem-free to more than 25 countries in the past 20 months, his relationship with Mexico's Congress -- where his party is in the minority -- hasn't been rosy. The president's razor-thin victory in 2006 put him at odds with opposition lawmakers from day one, and a recent frenzy of drug-related killings in Mexico hasn't made him the most popular leader around. Things are so bad that, earlier this month, he got approval to give his annual address to Congress as a document rather than having to enter the chambers and give it as a speech.

Perhaps the new jet rules are a conciliatory move on Congress's part to help Calderón boost Mexico's image overseas, which certainly hasn't been improved by the recent crime wave or by falling oil production. Now, at least poor Felipe won't have to feel like a kid asking his parents for permission to play down the street. That's got to be pretty demoralizing for a president.

The drug wars in Mexico have sunk to a new low.

Yesterday, a gang of hooded gunmen shot eight patients to death and wounded six others at a rehab center in Ciudad Juárez in what looks like part of a drug-gang feud in the cartel-ridden city. The gunmen reportedly stormed the center (during a Wednesday night prayer service, no less), then picked out their victims and took them to the back patio to be shot. The gunmen then opened fire inside the rehab center, leaving behind 60 shell casings.

FILE: ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP/Getty Images

These shootings bring the city's total of drug-related killings to a whopping 40 -- for just this week. A major drug transit point, the border city has always run rampant with cartels and crime. But the recent outbreak of murders and kidnappings is something new. So far this year, Ciudad Juárez's murder toll sits just below 800, most of them drug-related.

Things don't look too good for Felipe Calderon, who vowed to crack down on Mexico's drug traffickers at the beginning of his term. This year's wave of violence might just be a reaction to his stepped-up efforts to combat crime, but the Mexican president has some house-cleaning to do. Just today, six members of the government's top organized crime unit were arrested for supposedly leaking information to drug traffickers.

With Mexico still awaiting some $400 million in U.S. drug-war aid, Calderon better step up his efforts to kick out the bad guys soon.

FILE; Feng Li/Getty Images

Protesters just can't win in China these days. Now, even those who have requested official permission to protest in Beijing are being arrested, including a handful of citizens upset about having their homes destroyed in preparation for the big games. One would-be demonstrator, Zhang Wei, was even given a sentence of 30 days after repeatedly applying to protest about her forced home eviction.

Given the nature of the protest application process, it's not surprising that the three city parks "designated" as protest zones (and patrolled daily by police) have remained pretty quiet. Two, in fact -- Shije "World" Park (shown above in June) and Ritan Park -- have reportedly remained 100 percent protest-free since the opening ceremonies.

It all makes the words of Wang Wei, the Beijing Olympic Committee's executive vice president, sound pretty empty. Here are his comments from today's press conference in Beijing on press freedom:

[T]he Olympic Games coming to China will help China to open up further and to reform."

Tell it to Zhang Wei.

TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images

It's time to get your (Smart)bike on in D.C.

The long-awaited bike-rental program kicks off this week in Washington, which joins the ranks of Barcelona and Paris as a leader in promoting ecofriendly transportation. Washington's program is less ambitious than its European counterparts -- with just 120 bikes to Paris's 20,000 -- but Jim Sebastian, bike and pedestrian program manager for the D.C. Transportation Department, expects the Smartbikes to be a big hit:

It's really going to be replacing cab rides and car trips for a lot of folks looking to get around the city quickly... Plus they won't have to worry about parking."

An annual fee of $40 gets riders a program membership card and up to three hours' use of a SmartBike. There's no limit on the total number of daily trips, so riders could theoretically tool around all day on the cherry-red cycles.

No matter how long riders use the bikes, though, the city hopes they'll be safe: Each SmartBike member gets a safe-cycling guide, a bike map of the district, and a manual outlining D.C.'s cycling laws. The program doesn't provide helmets, but Sebastian does encourage riders to wear their own.

Riders will also have to provide their own locks, at least for the time being, which might pose potential problems of theft and vandalism (something Paris knows about). Still, the real litmus test will be how much use the program gets in its first few weeks. D.C.'s unseasonably mild August might spur some people to try the bikes. I'm tempted to give it a try this afternoon, if the weather holds.

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Beach volleyball isn't the only event giving Russia fits in Beijing.

More than a few Russian Olympians have faltered in competition and come up well short of national medal expectations. In fact, it wasn't until today that Russia captured its first gold medals of these games, with both Nazyr Mankiev and Islam-Beka Albiev taking top honors in Greco-Roman wrestling. Adding those two golds, Russia's medal count now totals 12, which still leaves it far behind China (27) and the United States (29) -- and pretty unlikely to reach its goal of 80 medals by the games' end.

One Russian who failed to medal was 20-year-old weightlifter Svetlana Tsarukaeva (left), who added insult to injury by banging her head on the door frame as she exited the competition. Anastasia Zueva, favored for the silver in the 100m backstroke, came in a distant fifth.

Most surprising, though, are the number of setbacks in sports that are typically Russia's strengths, including gymnastics (the men's team finished a dismal sixth) and tennis (Maria Sharapova dropped out, and third seed Svetlana Kuznetsova lost in an early round).

So what gives, Russia? It could be that the team is still shaken after five of its members -- including a discus champ and former world-record holding hammer thrower -- were suspended for reportedly trying to cheat on their drug tests. A lack of trainers could also be to blame.

Of course, some might attribute the lackluster showing to bad karma from the Georgia conflict. At least the Russian and Georgian (er, Brazilian?) beach volleyball players put the affair aside, embracing before their match.

In any case, it looks like luck is currently on Georgia's side. As of about 30 minutes ago, the country just won its first gold of the Beijing Games, thanks to Greco-Roman wrestler Manuchar Kvirkelia.

Google

As if Georgia didn't have enough to deal with, yesterday the country's cities and transportation routes completely disappeared from Google Maps. Reportedly wanting to keep its cyber territory conflict-neutral, Google removed all of Georgia's details from its maps, making the war-torn nation look like a ghostly white blob flanked by Russia and Turkey. Georgia, though, isn't the only country going blank on Google: neighboring Armenia and Azerbaijan--who have their own ongoing terrorital dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region--are coming up empty too.

Some online commenters speculate that the allegiances of Google's Russian-born co-founder Sergey Brin might have something to do with Georgia's disappearance. That's pretty doubtful, but it's possible that Google doesn't want their software used for military purposes.

But Google has helped out Georgia in one major way, providing (albeit "involuntarily") Georgian sites with a "cyber-refuge" from Russian hackers. News service Civil Georgia as well as the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs have started using the Google-owned site Blogger to post updates and press releases on the conflict.

 Update: Google denies that it has made any changes to the map:

“We do not have local data for those countries and that is why local details such as landmarks and cities do not appear.”

Looks like we may have gotten a bit ahead of ourselves, though as NYT's Miguel Helf notes, Google does seem to have plenty of "local data" about Georgia in its Google Earth program.

Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

While Kim Jong Il tries to throw his weight around on the world stage, one North Korean has actually done it. Today, Pak Hyon Suk won her country's first Olympic gold medal in Beijing, beating out the favorites in the 63 kg women's weightlifting category. This is the first time a North Korean has won a gold in women's weightlifting since the event started in 2000 (China, by contrast, has swept all five of the weightlifting categories it has entered in these games).

Pak was nearly eliminated after failing at her first two attempts. But, with a little help from "Dear Leader" (who declined an invitation to attend the games), she made it through. Says Pak:

[W]hen I was about to do my third attempt, I kept in my head the thought that my dear general's eyes will be upon me ...And that thought by itself was great encouragement, and that's how I managed to lift the last weight."

Pak may be the first North Korean on the medal stand this year but her country has picked up eight golds over the years, putting it well ahead of the chronic Olympic underperformers on FP's recent list. At least India finally broke its gold medal curse with a win in 10-meter air rifle on Monday.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

President Bush just wrapped up a four-day stay in Beijing, where he caught plenty of action from the sidelines (and on the volleyball courts). Avid sports fan that he is, Bush clearly enjoyed himself, spending his final day in China cheering on the U.S. men's swimming team as they clenched victory in the 4x100-meter freestyle relay.

I guess Bush's decision to opt for an extended Olympic vacation in the midst of Georgia's crisis shouldn't come as a shock. After all, he does have a history of notoriously slow reactions to catastrophic events (Hurricane Katrina, anyone?). Still, you'd think the prez would have wanted to at least appear to be in crisis mode by returning to his home office ASAP. Georgians certainly must feel that way.

Bush hasn't completely ignored the conflict: He reportedly got round-the-clock coverage from aides in Beijing. And he did make a few increasingly tough statements briefly before returning to Washington and speaking on it this evening, saying, "The Russian government must reverse the course it appears to be on."

But the fact that he devoted much of his past few days to Kobe Bryant's jump shot, Misty May-Treanor's fanny, and Michael Phelps's medal hopes rather than Georgia's plight makes his words ring a little hollow this evening.

Violence in Iraq might be declining, but a recently, there's been a troubling rise in the number of female suicide bombers in the country. Women account for 23 of the country's suicide bomb attacks so far this year, including two last week in Baghdad and Kirkuk that left nearly 60 people dead and 250 wounded.

One anonymous Iraqi woman explained the motivation:

The Americans took my husband. They destroyed our home. We've got nothing. We're living by the grace of God. We will not stay silent, and everything, including bombings, we can do in response."

Iraqi insurgent groups have taken advantage of this grief, benefitting from some tactical advantages women bombers offer: They can easily hide explosives under their robes, and cultural protocol means male guards are less likely to fully frisk them. Cultural norms also mean women are forced more easily into the act by a male recruiter or even a family member.

One woman recently entered police station seeking protection from a close relative -- an al Qaeda member -- who had tried forcing her into an explosive belt. She's now in protective custody, but too many other grieving and victimized women -- many of whom have lost not only a spouse, but their source of income -- are out there, ready to destroy themselves and others in the name of justice and revenge. Given the Iraqi government's budget windfall, there's no excuse for not helping them.

A few U.S. cyclists made a fashion statement this morning in China, rolling into the Beijing airport wearing black respiratory masks. The athletes ostensibly donned them as a precaution against the city's notorious air pollution, but they look, well, a bit excessive.

The International Olympic Committee's medical commission chief expressed serious doubts about the "efficiency" of the masks, but the U.S. Olympic Committee's chief communications officer was less diplomatic, calling them downright "unnecessary."

The move does seem a little dramatic. After all, couldn't the cyclists have at least waited until they got outside the airport to put them on? And how long can you actually wear those things around all day?

ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP/Getty Images

Given the country's history, Italy's attempts to curb crime have gotten disturbing in recent days. As if the country's scapegoating of immigrants wasn't enough, now hear this: An Italian mayor has banned group gatherings in certain areas.

Under the edict, passed in the mid-sized northern city of Novara, gatherings of more than two people would be prohibited in public parks and gardens. Mayor Massimo Giordano claims that the policy will help cut down on noise and vandalism, but his opponents say it smacks of fascism. The parallels are certainly there: Mussolini prohibited gatherings of five or more people in the 1920s, as part of his creation of an Italian police state. Sure, Navaro's 350-euro fine hardly rivals Il Duce's punishments, but the point is pretty clear: There are "better ways to tackle the city's problems," as opposition councilor Sara Paladini puts it, that don't require such heavy-handedness.

Moves like Giordano's seem to fit a worrisome trend in Italy. Just today, the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi ordered troops to begin patrolling Italy's streets in an effort to combat crime in major cities. While the 2,500 troops won't have powers of arrest, their presence is still pretty disconcerting (especially for tourists, some of whom have already asked if Italy is in the throes of civil war).

And it's hard to imagine the policy will truly increase security. It seems more like a poor smokescreen for ridding the streets of unwanted immigrants, who have already been subject to other discriminatory policies in Italy as of late. Berlusconi should get tougher on the country's real problems and real criminals (like the Mafia) and stop putting the blame on a few incidences of pickpocketing. Or la bella vita could be in jeopardy.

iStockphoto.com

With all the recent talk of withdrawal and the surge, it's easy to forget that the U.S. military remains stretched dangerously thin. The latest evidence? Unqualified soldiers are being promoted to sergeant, Salon reports. Given that noncommissioned officers are at the core of combat ops and training, this could be a big problem.

Called "paper boarding," the expedited promotions process can have some pretty nasty results. Officers lacking proper training and experience are often ill-equipped to deal with the realities of battle leadership. One of Salon's military sources recounted some paper-boarded officers who "freaked out" in battle, resulting in an incident that left their platoons badly shaken. Plus, guys who get an unfair job boost aren't likely to make friends with the older recruits who had to earn their stripes. If there is anything crucial in combat, it's keeping up morale -- and looking out for the guy next to you.

Along with paper-boarding, the military has used some other questionable tactics in the past few years to deal with its retainment and recruitment woes. In 2005, stop-loss policies (compulsory retirement postponments), along with lower standards for criminal background checks and officer competency, became common practice. Some longtime sergeants have noted serious declines in standards as a result, like the promotion of soldiers considered "trainable" rather than ready to lead. The huge reduction in the number of occupational specialty shortages (such as for artillery expertise) also draws attention to the military's hiring and promotion frenzy. Since 2005, 74 percent of those vacancies have been filled. This might be good in theory, but it calls vetting practices into serious question.

With plans to add 65,000 soldiers to its ranks by 2010, the Army is going to be on the lookout for more sergeants and junior officers (particularly if Afghanistan gets more U.S. troops). Lets hope the promotion process gets a bit more stringent in the meantime.

First bikes, and now... electric cars? Oui, says Paris's Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, who recently proposed a program that would soon put 4,000 of the zippy, fuelless vehicles on his city's streets. "Autolib'" would mimic Paris's widely successful Velib' (bike rental) system, with hundreds of lots situated around the city to provide pick-up and drop-off points for vehicle users.

While there are still plenty of details to work out -- including rental costs and how to monitor car lots -- Autolib's expected start date is a little over a year from now. Some Parisians can hardly wait, especially given skyrocketing gas costs and parking headaches. Others are looking forward to the program for environmental reasons, including Greenpeace France's President Pascal Hunting:

Today we have consumer habits, whether it’s going to Ikea or elsewhere, which necessitate that once in a while, even those who can’t afford cars need to use one...we should be open to this type of initiative, knowing that there is not one solution to the problems of transportation and climate change."

Some Parisians have pooh-poohed the plan, including members of the city's influential Green Party, who claim that their city's goal should be to reduce car use altogether. Others worry about worsening the already notorious Paris traffic.

As for moi, I think the mayor is onto something. But if some of the problems the bike rental program has faced are any indication, Delanoë might want to figure out a security plan before Paris's cool new rides start turning up in Australia.

NELSON ALMEIDA/AFP/Getty Images

Despite the recent biofuel backlash, there is one place still singing the praises of ethanol. It's estimated that Brazil has cut fuel costs by 30 percent since switching to fuels based on sugarcane -- an agricultural commodity that the country produces in droves. And the country hasn't just saved money from its biofuel habit: it has been turning some profit too, exporting several million tons of its crop to the United States, Europe, and even Japan this year and last.

Brazil's happiness with the ethanol boom underlies an important point about biofuel production: namely, that a regional or country-tailored approach works best. For a nation with a high production of sugarcane -- which packs more than five times the energy of corn and hasn't resulted in major environmental degradation -- it's understandable why biofuel is so popular and promising.

The sugarcane situation in Brazil isn't without its shortcomings: some sugarcane workers face slave-labor conditions, while some worry that their jobs will be replaced by more mechanized cane-cutting. But sugarcane production is an overwhelming boon for Brazil, and other countries would do well to learn from it's success -- and to benefit from it themselves.

The U.S. could step up its imports of cheaper, greener Brazilian fuel rather than continuing to subsidize domestically produced corn-based ethanol. The anti-biofuel crusaders could also stop lumping together Brazil's sugarcane with other "bad" ethanols so that countries like the U.S. will continue to lower trade barriers. That'll be a sweet deal for everyone.

KCNA/AFP/Getty Images

Speculation is growing that Kim Jong Il will soon make a few pitstops around the Pacific. First up for the North Korean president? Beijing. China's Vice President Xi Jinping, who visited Kim in Pyongyang last week, reportedly asked Kim to attend the Olympics opening ceremony -- though there's been no word yet on Kim's response. Another unconfirmed Kim stop is Vietnam, where North Korea's ties have grown closer in recent months.

For Dear Leader, Beijing probably looks like a good platform for improving his global image and expressing support for China, his chief patron. And U.S.-North Korean relations, which have warmed of late, could be advanced by a hint of greater openness from Pyongyang. (Wouldn't it be interesting if Kim rubbed elbows with Dubya at the games?) There's even talk of the two Korean teams marching together at the opening ceremony in a "gesture of peace."

I'm guessing that Kim's real motive would be aid, much of which comes from China and Vietnam. Food shortages have prompted Kim and Co. to slash citizens' rations in recent months, prompting fears of massive starvation. Kim's recently strained relations with South Korea, which provides hundreds of millions of dollars of yearly aid to the North, certainly makes it necessary for the despot to seek help elsewhere.

They've tackled malaria and AIDS, but now two billionaire philanthropists are taking on another developing world health-scourge: smoking. Former Microsoft Chair Bill Gates and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg just pledged $500 million to the fight against tobacco use, most of which will go to developing countries. Check out their discussion with Charlie Rose here:

Gates and Bloomberg have a tough battle ahead of them. In India, a country of 120 million smokers, the death toll from tobacco use could cause more than 1 million deaths a year by 2010. Most of these deaths are likely to result from cardiovascular diseases, tuberculosis, and especially cancer, which is contracted at much higher rates for smokers of bidi (popular hand-rolled cigarettes sold in Southeast Asia) than for smokers of regular cigarettes. Even China, which has stepped up its anti-tobacco campaign in the lead-up to the Beijing Games, is likely to lose 100 million of its male citizens currently under age 30 to tobacco-related death by 2030.

The billionaires' efforts, which include bringing health officials from developing countries to the United States for workshops on lobbying and public service advertising, face other hurdles. Governments collect major revenues from taxes on cigarettes, and the bulk of money for Mpower -- the WHO program the philanthropists are funding -- is spent on lobbying these governments to take actions like prohibiting smoking in public places and raising tobacco taxes. That could mean lots of lined pockets and wasted dollars. Tough anti-tobacco measures in the United States and Europe seem to have worked -- rates of smoking are on a decline -- but only time will tell whether they'll be equally successful in developing countries. Gates and Bloomberg face fierce competition: Phillip Morris, for instance, has been marketing its popular Marlboro line in India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Mexico in recent years.

I'm rooting for the rich guys.

Barack Obama won't be speaking at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin after all, but his upcoming trip to Europe is still a huge deal.

What should the senator be thinking about before he goes? Here are a few diplomatic overtures I'd recommend:

• Acknowledge the importance of U.S.-European relations. Many of your outlined goals for making the United States safer -- e.g. defeating al Qaeda, stabilizing Afghanistan, and preventing Iran from getting the bomb -- are going to require close cooperation with Europe. You don't have a great record of paying attention to the region, having been there once in the past decade (and having never called a single meeting of the Senate Foreign Relation's subcommittee on Europe). Put some meat on your vow to reach out to America's closest allies, but don't get too lovey-dovey. Proclaiming "Je suis un Français" in front of the Arc de Triomphe would probably hurt your chances in November.
• Listen to what Europeans tell you about integration and the thorny issues, like immigration, that go along with it. Your rhetoric on NAFTA show that you've got some learning to do here, and Europeans have been doing the whole "regional integration" thing for decades. But don't be afraid to challenge European mindsets, either -- sadly, many still think a minority candidate could never be elected in their country.
• Stopping in London, Paris, and Berlin is all well and good, but passing up Brussels? The heart of the EU is where the region's major policies -- like those on trade, immigration, and the environment -- are actually molded into shape. Be careful about weighing in on contentious topics like the Lisbon Treaty, but a trip to EU headquarters next time would send the right signal. Plus, you could work in a plea for unity given the ongoing turmoil over the Belgian PM's resignation. Just don't get caught drinking any Stella Artois or you can kiss Missouri goodbye.
• And hey, how about a shoutout to the new EU members? Romania, Poland, the Czech Republic and other eastern European nations have experienced major economic growth in the past several years and have seriously stepped up their trade with the United States since 2000. It's too late to add any more stops to your itinerary, but acknowledging these rising European stars would underline your call for "supporting Europe's strategy of enlargement."

JEAN AYISSI/AFP/Getty Images

Sacrebleu! Around 3,000 bikes have been stolen since Paris introduced its "bike-for-hire" program a year ago, while another 3,000 have been damaged or destroyed. Some of the missing bikes have popped up as far away as Australia.

Despite thefts and damages, Paris's bike-rental program has been a success, spurring spin-off systems as far away as Sydney, Spain, the United States, and Finland. In Paris, vélib' customers rent bikes by paying a yearly, monthly, or daily subscription fee, either through a prepaid card or by credit card at one of the city's 1,200 bike stations. The best part? Any rental under 30 minutes is free.

The vélib' system is popular for other reasons too, like its environmental friendliness. The program has also generated substantial revenues for Paris's government, which allows the company JCDecaux to use 1,600 free advertising spaces in exchange for bearing the system's costs.

But the vélibs aren't without problems. Three riders have already been struck and killed this year, and many motorists complain of unskilled cyclists clogging the roads. The safety situation is further complicated by the fact that vélib' stations don't rent helmets.

Still, other congested cities are starting their own bike rental programs soon, albeit on a smaller scale. Washington's "Smartbike" program will kick off in August with just 120 bikes, while Chicago's is still tied up with legal issues. Rental programs are currently enjoying success in Vienna, Copenhagen, and Rome, though Paris by far boasts the largest system.

With gas prices these days, more people around the world will no doubt soon be pedaling like the Parisians. Hopefully the French will soon be able to boast about their reduced auto usage -- but first they'd better make sure they can keep enough bikes around.