Florida Gov. Rick Scott recently turned down $2 billion in federal funds for high-speed rail, mostly as a means of sticking it to the liberals in Washington. But If you live in one of more than a dozen other states, you should thank Governor Scott for his sacrifice! Because the Department of Transportation announced how it would divvy up Florida's rejected money today.

The killing of Osama bin Laden has put a renewed focus on pumping time and money into failed counter-terrorism measures across America. So now, since ever-vigilant Senator Chuck Schumer has nothing better to do with his time, he wants to start a "no-ride list" for Amtrak trains across the country. That sounds like a great idea, because we all know how well the "no-fly list" has worked out for the airlines. Just ask any of the little kids who can't get on a flight with their parents. Or, ask the men sitting in jail for trying to blow people up on airplanes.

Almost everyone who encountered murdered defense contractor John Wheeler in the days before his death says he was acting crazy. New surveillance video doesn't dispute this. Wheeler wanders around a parking garage with one of his shoes in his hand.

Amtrak hero Stephen Tschida is "exhausted, but back on a TRAIN." Godspeed!

This afternoon, I went for a walk through Queens' Astoria Park. While there, I noticed an Amtrak cleaning car making its way down the Hell Gate Bridge tracks... and dropping baseball-sized stones onto the street/sidewalk below. Video and pictures inside.

Beef and trains. Two All-American favorites. But what if they could somehow be combined? Well, Amtrak is testing a new train and it is powered by beef-based biofuel. Is this the most American form of transportation ever?

The airports were a mess yesterday. Today the chaos descended on commuter trains. Some sort of mysterious electrical problem shut down service on Amtrak and New Jersey Transit for nearly three hours this morning. But the problem has since been resolved and the trains are running again, so you no longer have an excuse to get out of visiting your relatives in New Jersey for Christmas, assuming that was something that had crossed your mind. [NYDN]

The Way We Live Now: Sulking about moodily. Night school is kicking our ass. We can't pay the train fare to work. And what's the point, even? There's no hope for employment. Unless you star in a music video.

Amtrak is broken today, Rachel Sklar reports, and a lot of poor Twitterers are trapped on trains somewhere between Washington, D.C., and Boston, awaiting rescue and sending out distress "tweets."

Have the political gods gone crazy? It would appear that way, because the Senate voted to allow Americans, who aren't always the most stable of folk, to carry unloaded and locked guns on Amtrak trains. How can this be good?

We on the record as being tired of waiting for our own American Bullet Trains, but Amtrak is obviously trying to sabotage potential public support for high-speed rail transit, if this upcoming celebrity appearance is any indication.

Glenn Beck, Fox News' resident Barnumesque dildo, was a guest on The View today, and, predictably, things became contentious on set, even more so because of a bullshit story about an encounter with Whoopi and Babs that Beck recently peddled on his radio show, so Whoopi went off on him.

What was Martha Stewart's favorite part about attending the inauguration in DC? No, not watching Obama's swearing-in or attending the galas, silly. Martha says she was most excited about the train trip that she took to get there, since she got a really good deal on first class Acela tickets and ran into Dan Rather, too! [MarthaStewart.com]

Amtrak is having a fine year thanks to the plunging economy and the rising price of gas. According to the Journal, the number of people riding the railway jumped 13.9% in July from a year earlier, and it's on pace to have a record year. Except now they system is getting overcrowded and uncomfortable. And Amtrak now says it needs at least $5 billion for upgrades. You can go back to taking planes now. [WSJ]