We’re so happy that NY is finally becoming a biker-friendly city. Help make it more so and qualify to win some hard cold cash:

Transportation Alternatives, NYC’s leading advocates for cycling, announces the Biking Rules PSA Competition!
Submit PSAs (moving or still images ) with creative messages cyclists can follow for Rules of the Road and/or Why Biking Rules! to encourage new and old riders alike to get out and ride.
Grand Prize is $4000 cash and other prizes include a free Kona Bike, a consumer camera, and tons of cycling gear! Go to www.bikingrules.org/psa to submit and learn more about the Competition. Deadline to enter is August 31, 2009!
Still Images: including photography, poster art, graphic design, illustrations…
Videos: including narratives, documentaries, animations, and any other moving image. Entrants can submit both Do-It-Yourself Videos made with cell phones or consumer grade cameras or High-Definition Videos made with professional HD or HDV Cameras

Sign up and/or find our more here. [image via]

This is why our health care system is an epic fail. via cbs5.com

In late April, Shelly Andrews-Buta was scheduled to undergo treatment for breast cancer that had spread to her brain, threatening her life…. But instead of having doctors working to remove her brain tumors on the day the surgery was scheduled, she sat in a San Francisco hotel room… Blue Shield, decided it wasn’t going to pay for the treatment her doctors at UCSF Medical Center had recommended.
Andrews-Buta was stunned. “I mean this is my life, this is my life, this isn’t, gee, if we don’t do it you’re just going to have a cut that doesn’t heal, this is you’re going to die,” she said.
Without treatment, her doctor told her she in fact would die: tumors had invaded 15 separate areas in her brain…. But the doctor said when it came to getting Blue Shield’s approval for the procedure; she was surprised to learn that the company’s policy lays out that a patient who has more than three brain tumors, what doctors call lesions, would not be covered for the gamma knife procedure.
Dr. Sneed felt the policy was unreasonable. “What I was up against was just a rule: ‘Well, if it’s more than three lesions, that’s too many,’” Sneed said.

Meanwhile, Congress continues to pander to the insurers.

Like many of the newly employed-ish, I am always searching for ways save a little cash. I have expanded my definition of the acceptably soft avocado, abstained from fancy imports such as Olde English, and I make my own coffee as often as my days allow. However, on torpid summer nights, I usually lack the foresight and/or sobriety to brew a pot and refrigerate it. As such, I am generally willing to drop a couple of bucks on a large iced coffee to make an inexplicable 15 minute wait for an L that much more pleasurable.
But I mean a few dollars. When the L Stop Cafe opened last Saturday at 490 Metropolitan, I had hopes that anyone heading to Lorimer from the west would have an efficient, affordable alternative to Sunac, and their occasionally hot-to-the-touch iced offerings and limited counter space. But at $4, L Stop’s large iced is 60 percent more expensive than that at Sunac, Atlas, and almost any other shop nearby, where the going rate is $2.50. Even at Oslo, Grumpy, and your other ethos-included joe slingers, you’re talking $2.75 or so. (Smaller maximum size, perhaps, but a darn sight better.) At the chains, you’ll pay up to $3.03 at Starbucks, $2.65 at Cafe Europa, and about $3 for a large at Dunkin’ which, I believe, is roughly equal in volume to your recommended daily intake of oxygen. In fact, the only other place I’ve ever seen a $4 iced is Espresso 77 in Jackson Heights. As the lone upmarket coffee shop in that ‘hood, I was willing to chalk that up to supply and demand, but the L Stop, with plenty of competition nearby, has no such excuse. So is this the way the world is headed? Seems like only yesterday, before Neapolitan pies, people ate slices of pizza and the ever-rising cost of those had the city all worked up, talking inflation this, income disparity that. Is our ritualized, warm-weather caffeine boost any less important? Why get mad when our newly-arrived street urchins ask for our change if we’re willing to throw it away on such grossly overpriced refreshments? And does anyone have any other examples of the $4 and up large brewed iced from around town to add to my nascent blacklist?
(Bonus: If someone can explain to me how the refrigerator space and ice require the huge markup on iced coffee to begin with, I’ll buy you one myself. The $2.50 kind, that is.)

I love that Katie Couric is a recurring character and just hope Buchanan becomes one too. Best moment: Buchanan’s fleeting guitar solo.

The Rural Alberta Advantage (or the RAA, if you’re into acronyms) is playing a free show at the Music Hall tonight. Doors are at 8. The RAA are in town following the successful official release of Hometowns in July, their full-length debut that’s been making the rounds at their shows since 2008.

Girls and Los Campesinos! are playing Union Pool tonight before kicking off their tour at Webster Hall tomorrow. $10 at the 8pm doors…Girls at 8:30.

It already feels like APW happened a week ago. Three days of getting simultaneously sunburned and rain soaked, traveling home on the L train at peak weekend sexy hours covered in mud, and funnel cakes topped with meat and cheese. Moral of the story– my body hurts and brain won’t work, but for all the right reasons.
If you’d like actual commentary on the Liberty State Park festivities, check out our Twitter page. But if you’re being lazy, like me, just take a look at the pretty pictures after the jump.

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I realize that my IQ dropped about 20 points the moment I posted this, but I still kinda love it. Reminds me of the ‘futuristic’ TV programs in Mike Judge’s Idiocracy. And you’ve got to respect the execution.

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The sun just came out, but the music has been moved to Brooklyn Bowl at 6pm. Bands start at 7pm.

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after a large countdown clock played out, Jay-Z launched on stage with a cover of the Beastie Boys’ classic Licensed To Ill track, “No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn.” He’s now the first rapper to headline a major American rock festival, and maybe the first rapper to cover the first act to open up hip hop for white guys. He dedicated his entire set to Yuach