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To: Wharf Rat who wrote (21)5/27/2008 6:37:08 PM
From: one_less  Respond to of 3816
 
:-) Good place to start.



To: Wharf Rat who wrote (21)5/28/2008 10:47:30 AM
From: one_less  Respond to of 3816
 
For discussion: Is this a ban against discrimination or an invasion of the right to privacy by a 'protected status' group, and an open door to predators.

Self defined transgender individuals now have the right to go into restrooms and shower rooms according to their dress. In other words men wearing dresses have the right to enter girl's rooms.

=============

Senate Bill 200 and moral sovereignty
This Web-only Speakout has not been edited.
Whitney Galbraith
Saturday, May 3, 2008

Billed as “an expansion of prohibitions against discrimination,” this bill, now being debated in the Colorado legislature, would indeed expand the existing list of sixteen categories (go count them at www.leg.state.co.us) of personal identity qualifying for protected status by adding “sexual orientation...” or even “...the perception thereof” to over a dozen public and private activities, including private property usage, jury selection and charitable giving!

Besides the sheer inanity of such a sweeping collection of “protected classes” how are we to adjudicate “identities” as amorphous as those based on personal choice or behavior?

As a matter of law, how do we identify an individual’s “orientation,” whether it be political, artistic, economic, athletic or sexual, other than what the individual simply states?

As a matter of law, how do we identify, and punish, an individual’s “perception”? This is approaching government coercion of our thought processes, the theme of George Orwell’s prescient 1949 novel “1984,” which dealt with “Big Brother” governmental thought control and which today is reminiscent of Soviet gulags, where dissidents were shipped off to “psychiatric wards” for not toeing the party line.

When government creates an artificial group identity for “protection” purposes, it creates correlating obligations, responsibilities and liabilities on citizens not belonging to that “group.”

When government takes it upon itself to codify personal preferences, political and social agendas and impose them on others it is violating our moral sovereignty.

It is not government’s job to legally burden each American citizen for the choices that others are free to make in their own lives.

It is not government’s job to cleanse our very thought processes from what we as individual citizens care to believe. To do so is a violation of our own freedom of choice, freedom of association and freedom of conscience.

It is not government’s job to dictate to employers whom they may or may not hire.

It is not government’s job to dictate to property owners what they legitimately may or may not do with their property.

It is not being facetious to suggest that we are approaching the point at which each American citizen will have his or her own name on an infinite anti-discrimination statute. I, for one, would love to have my own private statute preventing anyone in America, anywhere or at any time to deny me anything I ever have or ever will want.

This bill is an egregious example of “reverse discrimination,” where each of us is sorely discriminated against for not believing what our individual legislators believe.

Just as America properly deleted earlier segregation laws and statutes, it is time to delete Senate Bill 200 and many of the other endless, and senseless, anti-discriminatory laws.

Whitney Galbraith is a resident of Colorado Springs.



To: Wharf Rat who wrote (21)5/28/2008 11:00:41 AM
From: one_less  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 3816
 
Knowing what we know about cloning would you want to be the clone of somebody else?

We know cloning is like xerox copies in that there are bound to be slight imperfections in the results.



To: Wharf Rat who wrote (21)5/30/2008 3:39:27 PM
From: one_less  Respond to of 3816
 
Hydrogen is getting closer...

link.brightcove.com



To: Wharf Rat who wrote (21)6/3/2008 2:22:11 PM
From: one_less  Respond to of 3816
 
Indonesian wonder fuel...Blue Energy

====================

Indonesian 'wonder fuel' just plain diesel: report Tue Jun 3, 2:29 AM ET



JAKARTA (AFP) - A controversial plan backed by Indonesia's president to turn water into cheap and limitless energy has run aground, with tests showing the wonder fuel is just plain diesel, a report said Tuesday.

Government scientists have revealed that tests on the so-called "Blue Energy," purportedly made from water, showed it was diesel from state oil company Pertamina, the Jakarta Post reported.

"Blue Energy is nothing extraordinary as it is just a form of hydrocarbon or fossil fuel," Research and Technology Minister Kusmayanto Kadiman was quoted as saying.

The energy "breakthrough" grabbed headlines in Indonesia after its inventor, Joko Suprapto, managed to convince President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono he could separate hydrogen from water, turning it into diesel.

The plan was exhibited at the United Nations climate change conference in Bali in December with the president's blessing.

Suprapto went missing last month but was found in a hospital in West Java suffering from heart problems after Yudhoyono, fearing he had been abducted by jealous oil barons, ordered a police search, Tempo news magazine reported.

news.yahoo.com



To: Wharf Rat who wrote (21)6/13/2008 11:08:03 AM
From: one_less  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 3816
 
1,000 extra nuclear power stations

Brown says world needs 1,000 extra nuclear power stations
Gordon Brown has signalled he wants Britain to play a major role in the race to build an extra 1,000 nuclear power stations across the world as part of his vision for ending the global "addiction to oil". The Prime Minister, who will be flying to Saudia Arabia for an emergency oil summit next week, said in spite of the risks of terrorism, Africa could build nuclear power plants to meet growing demands for energy.

independent.co.uk