The past year the majority Democrat legislator in Colorado sent to Governor Bill Ritter over 400 bills to sign. While a handful of these bills were widely publicized, one Senate Bill 200 that was signed on June 5, 2008 by Governor Bill Ritter didn’t get a lot of publicity.

Why?

Because this bill expands the “ant-discrimination” law that covers sexual orientation not only homosexuality or bisexuality, but also “transgender status or another person’s perception thereof.” The bill prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation or identity. It protects those who identify themselves as gay, bisexual or transgender from discrimination in areas including housing, business and education. And here is where this law really gets interesting, it also prohibits discrimination in “public accommodations.”

Here is a link to the actual bill http://www.leg.state.co.us/CLICS/CLICS2008A/csl.nsf/fsbillcont3/BD7A295EB6F4460E872573F5005D0148?Open&file=200_enr.pdf.

Known as the “unisex” bathroom bill, this law is a potential time bomb waiting to explode.

The bill allows men who self-identify as “transgender” a legal right to demand to be able to use women’s bathrooms, health club showers, bathhouses and any other “public accommodation.”

In addition, the bill doesn’t define the term “transgender”. In other words, not only is there no legal definition for transgender, but there isn’t even a solid dictionary definition for a court to rely on. Instead, transgender status is a matter of self-identification. Any lawyer will tell you that rendering such a claim is nearly impossible to prove or disprove.

So now, it’s legal in the state of Colorado for a grown man to walk into a girl’s restroom in an elementary school, for example, for whatever purpose, and it is illegal for the school to say you can’t do that. Isn’t this just a wonderful law for sexual predators!

Colorado’s bleeding heart liberals want to make the state’s laws of fairness and justice applicable to everyone living in Colorado. Sounds to me that they even want to make child predators and perverts happy living here too. You see, when something happens, they will be the first ones to say, “How did that happen?”

Rumor has it that Governor Ritter had to pay back some of his staunch supporters – Gay Activist Groups who gave big bucks to his campaign – with this bill. Is this true or just innuendo? No one knows for sure because Governor Ritter won’t comment about signing this bill into law.

I’ve lived in Colorado for over thirty years and used to read the Denver Post religiously. However, in the past ten years this newspaper has turned into a “rag.” Their biased editorial comments and non-descript articles are not worth the dime the newspaper is printed on. 

Now the Denver Post all of a sudden decided that it would be a great idea – maybe to sell more of its rag paper – to publicize Colorado State Employees Compensation. See their article at http://www.denverpost.com/ci_9465204.

First of all they claim that they have the right to do so according to their legal request filed pursuant to the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA), §24-72-201 et seq., C.R.S.  Well that’s nice, but instead of reviewing the compensation and listing the compensation as a group for each Colorado State Department, they included names and titles of each employee along with their salary. Then they put all of this data up on a web site where anyone from anywhere can go and find the information.

As one angry state employee commented, anyone who is savvy in searches can figure out who these people are and where they live. A victim of a violent crime commented that she is now afraid that her attacker may find her again. For fair disclosure on my part, I do have a member of my family who is a Colorado State employee and who is very unhappy with this confidential information published on the World Wide Web.

Did Greg Moore the editor of the Denver Post take any of this into consideration when he agreed to create this “informational” database? Probably not.

I really think he didn’t care. I’m scratching my head as to why he even did this. What was his purpose? Is this news that we all need to know? For what purpose?

Maybe to see how our tax dollars are spent? If he wanted to show the taxpayers of Colorado how their money is being spent I say go after the Colorado State Legislators run by a majority of Democrats with a Democrat governor, who passed idiotic bills this year at the taxpayers’ expense.

Sure, the Denver Post web site tried to justify posting their salary database by saying that other states post this information by newspapers, organization or government web sites. Then they list a handful of states: Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia.

Once again, the Denver Post lives up to their reputation of being nothing but a “rag” newspaper that is now reaching far into the World Wide Web.

In today’s economy with high gas prices – it’s over $4.00 in many places and some say it will top off at $5.00 by the end of the year – the latest fad to save gas mileage for you car is called hypermiling. But does it really work?
Wikipedia defines hypermiling as fuel economy-maximizing behaviors and techniques that drivers can use to optimize their automobile fuel economy. Most driving is done in the city and as we all know your car gets lower mileage than on the highway. Some of the causes is due to idling time at either red lights or in traffic jams and more frequent braking. Also the way some people drive-  quick starts and stops and exceeding the speed limit -also consumes a lot of gas.

Here is a good article http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=93129&catid=188  that explains some of the myths to hypermiling. Basically the article claims that the way you drive can cause burning unecessary gas. It also goes on to say that some of the techniques of hypermiling may be dangerous. For example, coasting or even shutting off your engine when you approach a stop light or sign is not a good idea because your power steering won’t work. Try steering a car with no power steering – can’t be done!
Or turning the corner without braking  some hypermilers claim this technique increased their gas mileage from 20 miles per gallon to 45 miles per gallon. I remember teaching my oldest son to drive, he never would brake in a turn. Darn near took my head off with that technique! Also it is very dangerous if a pedestrian is crossing, I’m sure you get the picture. The article goes on to say that if you try some of these techniques, there is a possibility you may save 5% and maybe up to 15% on gas mileage.
So is hypermiling a fad or fact? I don’t think we will know for sure. Some people swear by the techniques. Then there is the safety issue.
If you want more information on hypermiling check out Hypermiling.com http://www.hypermiling.com/. This site gives you ideas on saving gas as well as several articles to read on this new fad.