This coming Election Day, Coloradoans will not only help select a new president, they’ll also place themselves at what’s being called ground zero in the battle over how human life is defined. A group going by the name of Colorado for Equal Rights has gathered over 130,000 signatures – well over the 76,000 required – to have a proposal put on November’s ballot defining a person as “any human being from the moment of fertilization.”

If passed, the proposal would radically impact everything from abortion rights to criminal law to obstetric care. By classifying embryos and fetuses as humans, all abortions – even those carried out because of rape, incest, or danger to the mother’s life – would be considered murder.

While it’s obvious that banning all abortion is the point of the proposal, less obvious are its ramifications in other areas. Could a miscarriage because of trauma to the mother in a car accident open the mother or driver to charges of manslaughter? Would natural miscarriages prompt criminal investigations? Will Colorado’s OB/GYN’s be exposed to entirely new frontiers in malpractice?

This is not a case of good intentions having unintended consequences, but bad intentions having precisely the sort of consequences its proponents envision. The creators of this ballot initiative know full well that foisting their unscientific, religion-based definition of human life on the public radically scales back the rights of women in Colorado.

Hear that? That buzzing noise like a swarm of wasps stuck in a gas can? That’s the sound of people saving money on gas and looking good doing it. According to the Denver Post, scooter sales throughout the Denver area on the rise. With gas prices creeping towards $4 a gallon and parking spaces in short supply, scooters are an excellent alternative to the eco-chic commuter who wants something a little more bad-ass than a Prius.

The problem with hybrid cars, of course, is that they look funny, don’t actually save all that much on gas, and have a way of turning even the mellowest driver into a smug, self-righteous tool. Scooters, on the other hand, get up to 85 mpg and project an air of sexy, vaguely Italian insouciance. All of a sudden, you’re not some schlub heading home from a day of cubicle drudgery, but Audrey Hepburn or a Milanese gigolo. And you can use the money you save on gas and parking for espresso and cigarettes.

Even the most loyal resident of a city can get tired of it sometimes. Lately, Paris has been on my mind – romantic accordion music, nameless red wine at a street-side café, effete, unwashed fops wearing scarves. Maybe it’s the springtime air full of the promise of new adventures. Maybe it’s having watched Ratatouille for the bazillionth time with my two year old. In any case, wistful ennui had settled in. Then I found the cure.

So what if Crepes & Crepes has been around a while and thus is hardly new. So what if the servers don’t deliver your food with a heaping side of condescension. When you open the menu you’ll find crepes in more varieties – and, frankly, crepes of better quality – than at 90% of the creperies in Paris. My wife and I were in the mood for something sweet. She ordered hers with Nutella and I ordered mine with fresh blueberries. Both were soft and rich, and all ingredients were fresh.

For a long moment afterwards as we enjoyed our French-press coffee, we felt secure in the knowledge that no one, anywhere in the world, had ever had a better crepe. In the end, that doesn’t say much for Paris. But it says a lot about Denver.