There has been plenty of partisan rancor across Colorado as Election Day approaches. Here in the capital, it's out of this world.
Ballot Initiative 300 would require the city to set up an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission, stocked with Ph.D. scientists, to "ensure the health, safety and cultural awareness of Denver residents" when it comes to future contact "with extraterrestrial intelligent beings or their vehicles."
Promoting the initiative: Jeff Peckman, a silver-haired entrepreneur who lives with his parents. "Low overhead," he explains. Mr. Peckman is a firm believer in intergalactic life, though he has never been personally contacted by an alien. That gives him more credibility, he says; it's harder to dismiss him as biased.
Mr. Peckman has recruited about 20 volunteers for his campaign.
They face an impassioned opposition led by Bryan Bonner, who dismisses the unidentified-flying-object buffs as delusional if not outright frauds.
One thing about Mr. Bonner: He spends his spare time crawling through spooky spaces, deploying remote digital thermometers, seismographs, infrared cameras, electromagnetic field detectors and Nerf balls in pursuit of evidence of the paranormal. He is, in short, a ghost hunter.
And he has rallied his colleagues at the Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society to fight Initiative 300 as an embarrassment to science—and to Denver.
"This is about the reputation of the city," Mr. Bonner says.
Replies Clifford Clift, a Colorado UFO researcher: "The paranormal group is saying we're outlandish?"...
"The great storm is coming, but the tide has turned." Culture, Catholicism, and current trends watched with a curious eye.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Buffy vs. Doctor Who--Go!
Or, in news a little closer to reality (though not much):
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