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Denver Rejects UFO Agency To Track Aliens 80

Posted by samzenpus from the name-and-galaxy-of-origin-please dept.
Republicans weren't the only ones to win big yesterday. Aliens in The Mile-High City can breathe easier thanks to voters rejecting a plan to officially track them. From the article: "The proposal defeated soundly Tuesday night would have established a commission to track extraterrestrials. It also would have allowed residents to post their observations on Denver's city Web page and report sightings." Let the anonymous probings begin!

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Denver Rejects UFO Agency To Track Aliens More

Denver Rejects UFO Agency To Track Aliens

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  • Would these be illegal aliens?

    Or is there some sort of interplanetary visa?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Skarecrow77 ( 1714214 )

      I was about to point out that tracking aliens, as they're most likely crossing state lines on their descent from orbit, is obviously a federal responsibility, and thus completely out of the jurisdiction of the city of Denver.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by headhot ( 137860 )

        Well they probably cross national borders too, so its clearly the UN's job.

        • UN's job.

          Error - not found.

          • But...without an expensive government bureaucracy, how are the people of Denver supposed to post this and other info online?

        • and they most deffinatly crossed planitary boundries... what orginization do we have in place to deal with these aliens? there needs to be oversite! these aliens cant keep comming in, stealing hard working earthling jobs! someone think of the earthli.... I WELCOME OUR NEW ALIEN OVERLORDS.... PLEASE GOTO YOUR LOCAL WATER TOWER FOR MANDITORY PROBINGS EARTH... ERR FELLOW HUMANS!

          • Dey tuk er jerbs!

            • No, there were lots of local jobs.

              Look at how the airport was built.

              http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Denver_Airport.html [anomalies-unlimited.com]

              • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

                by GNUALMAFUERTE ( 697061 )

                Webkit. You can thank Apple for being open when using the browser on your phone.

                Except you should actually thank the KDE team, for making Konqueror and KHTML. Apple just stole it, just like they did with OSX.

                • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

                  by NatasRevol ( 731260 )

                  Yes, they stole it. Some say forked it. And added to it. And shared it. And now others use it- people who use Symbian, Android, webOS, Kindle.

                  It's called 'how open source works'.

                  Moron.

                  • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

                    by GNUALMAFUERTE ( 697061 )

                    No, you are wrong. Apple didn't share it because they wanted to. They did it because they had no choice. KHTML is under the LGPL, which means they can link prorietary software to it, but they can't restrict KHTML itself. That's why they kept Webkit free ('cause they didn't have a choice), but the next piece of software (Safari itself) is proprietary. Also, the KDE team did most of the hard work, not apple.

                    • Really? Had no choice? They couldn't have chosen some other browser implementation? Some other fork with some other license?

                      And the KDE team did 'most' of the hard work? Have you seen what Apple has done? Yes, KDE laid a great foundation, but Apple has taken it much farther, faster than the KDE team ever could. Just go look at the CVS - anyone can. And don't forget that Apple's fork of KHTML happened in 1998.

              • You should thank Lars Knoll for choosing the GPL for their KTHML project. Thats the sole reason Apple are forced to share their improvements to the khtml rendering engine in return for all the free code they got from khtml. Its not like Apple had a choice in the matter except starting from scratch.

                • Man, you KHTML nutters really get torqued about my sig.

                  Apple could have chosen some other implementation, some other fork, some other project with a different license.

                  Be happy that Apple chose it - that choice made it a popular standard and now it has become ubiquitous across all major phone browsers.

          • Hey illegal immigration worked great for the Roman Empire and it worked great for the American Indians, I don't see what the USA has to worry about.

        • That's not a given, actually. Apart from the possibility of a straight descent, there is also a limit to how high up and down property rights extend. Can't be bothered to go looking for it, though.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by geekoid ( 135745 )

            On a spinning globe, it's highly unlikely you can approach earth without crossing borders. Even the Apollo astronaut had to file paperwork, including declaring the moon rocks, to return into the US.

            • True, but the number of borders you cross will be strongly dependant on how high up property rights are valid, and it can't be infinite exactly because of the spinning globe :-)

              On the other hand, even if the aliens are aware of borders and associated issues, the question remains whether they care.

    • Illegal aliens, if caught, are subjected to a cavity search.

      These aliens, OTOH, if they catch you they'll perform an anal probing on you.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Yvan256 ( 722131 )

      There you go, pushing your commercial agenda on us again.

      Who's to say they wouldn't prefer an interplanetary mastercard?

  • I was so going to send them a resume. I'd be so overqualified they'd put me in charge, and I'd officially rename it the Fringe Division.

    I was *THIS* close to being in charge of the Fringe Division! DAMN YOU, COLORADO VOTERS!!!!

    • Oblig. Simpsons (Score:5, Funny)

      by delinear ( 991444 ) on Wednesday November 03, 2010 @12:36PM (#34113506)
      Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.

      • Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.

        "The revolution is successful. But survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society. Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore, I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered, signed Kodos, Governor of Tarsus IV."

  • Whew! (Score:3, Funny)

    by 2names ( 531755 ) on Wednesday November 03, 2010 @12:28PM (#34113382)
    Boy, I dodged a bullet there. Now I can remain anony...oh shit.
  • I felt tracking aliens was a serious attack on their privacy, I saw the ads against the measure cleverly titled Skyline, they spoke to me. I know what would happen if it passed...

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by eln ( 21727 )
      Yeah, nice attempt at rationalizing your anti-American stance, commie. Now that you aren't tracking UFOs, Denver is destined to become a sanctuary city for aliens. We'll see who's laughing when anal-probe-related crime skyrockets.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Skater ( 41976 )

      I was on a cruise ship in the Atlantic last week, and for some reason the network affiliates we got on TV aboard were Denver stations. HOLY CRAP you guys had some nasty campaign ads. And we live in the DC area - I thought ours were bad! You have my sympathy.

      I don't remember seeing any ads for this issue, though, but I did know about it because I saw it mentioned on CNN under "oddball initiatives" or something like that.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pspahn ( 1175617 )
        Yeah, Hickenlooper was at least a breath of fresh air, even though I didn't vote for him. I would approve of his job as mayor, though, except for the goddamn parking enforcement. You, Mayor John, are a parking Nazi. There is no good reason I should be ticketed for parking in front of my own house.

  • Finally! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by headhot ( 137860 ) on Wednesday November 03, 2010 @12:34PM (#34113484) Homepage

    Something R's and D's can come together and not support. UFO research!

  • They'll sing a different tune once the first Chestbursters show up.

  • The aliens have technology to travel several lightyears and have nothing better to do than jerk around screwing with peoples heads? I say don't track the useless bastards. Just let them keep flying around and doing nothing.

  • The ghosthunters opposed this (Score:5, Informative)

    by smellsofbikes ( 890263 ) on Wednesday November 03, 2010 @12:55PM (#34113830) Journal
    No, seriously. The Rocky Mountain Paranormal Society [rockymount...normal.com] was a leading opponent to this [rockymount...normal.com] because they felt it was embarrassing [washingtonpost.com] and people should keep looking for, y'know, ghosts, rather than aliens.

    In any case, it was to be funded by donations rather than taxes.

    • If it was funded by donations, why did the city need to be involved?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by smellsofbikes ( 890263 )
        Presumably, to give some official sanction to the shenanigans. If some guy walked up to you and asked you for a donation to the contact-the-aliens fund, you'd think he was going to use the money to go get drunk. In contrast, if some guy walked up to you and provided you with official City Of Denver contact-the-aliens literature and explained how the voters had passed a resolution to ... well, do whatever it is they were going to do, you'd at least know that your money wasn't going to be used to get that g

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gtall ( 79522 )

          I tend to think it would be much better to fund the fellow who looks like he'd get drunk on the money; he'd have a better chance of seeing aliens.

          • To quote some lyrics from Lazyboy's brilliant song Underwear Goes Inside The Pants [lyricstop.com]

            "This homeless guy asked me for money the other day.

            I was about to give it to him and then I thought he was going to use it on drugs or alcohol.

            And then I thought, that's what I'm going to use it on.

            Why am I judging this poor bastard."

    • And still, 20,000 people voted FOR the proposal...

  • What I would like to know more about, in Georgia there was a proposed amendment that would somehow strengthen non-compete employment agreements (I regret I don't fully understand it, I could not find as much info as I would like about it in the time available to me). What bugs me about it was the wording on the ballot made it sound almost like the voters would be killing kittens if they didn't vote for it.

    Unsurprisingly, it looks like it got voted in but I have not heard much in the media about it so far.

    I

    • Nothing to see here... ooh, look over there! Aliens!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )
      I did really like the part in that Proposition where it basically says "we'll make Georgia more economically competitive by not allowing people to compete!"

  • How do you get a proposition on the ballot? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Wednesday November 03, 2010 @01:09PM (#34114034)

    Don't you need to collect a number of signatures, or can you just propose something wacky, and it gets on? This one seems so ridiculous, that I'm surprised that it even needed to be voted on. So, how many folks in Denver signed, and thought that the city really needs this. I guess I would sign, just because the idea is such a hoot and a half.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pspahn ( 1175617 )
      Likely because Denver tends to get pretty politically active. I would imagine that whoever was out collecting signatures (you only need 800 to get on the ballot for US Congress for Colorado District 1, which is over 600,000 people) was just getting people to sign because it's "cool to sign petitions". I have no idea what the signature requirement was for this, however. Either way, "sign my petition!" and a lot of the transplanted Denver youth do so blindly.
  • Since the U.N. already named an Alien Ambassador [wired.co.uk] it seems logical that there should be some sort of organization to track all the visitors - besides the Men in Black, that is.
  • From TFA:

    The Denver man who proposed the measure, Jeff Peckman, says the government is tracking alien sightings but refuses to make the reports public. Peckman is a meditation instructor and promoter of new technology, including something he says reduces the "chaos of electromagnetic fields."

    And his evidence for any of this is...? Maybe the voters rejected this because, after 60 or so years of the modern UFO "movement" we are no closer to any hard evidence than when it started. In that time real science has landed men on the Moon, conquered the atom and used computers to connect the world. I think the lesson here is that science works: it produces real, tangible results. Pseudoscience produces nothing, save the false sense of superiority in those that practice it. People that beli

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Maritz ( 1829006 )
      Agree completely. UFO proponents always have that slightly smug sense that somehow they've 'seen behind the curtain' and that skeptics are being naive. The point I think it boils down to is 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence' and some blurry photos or blocky footage are not compelling. With all the cameras around nowadays, many of which can take excellent pictures and footage, there should be good evidence IF there are alien spacecraft around. So basically there aren't. Would be awesome i
  • Sorry to post just to complain about spelling: when you breathe, you take a breath of fresh air. I have seen "breathe" written as "breath" so often that I almost doubt myself- I'm making the point to complain because I think a lot of people honestly don't know the difference.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by miserere nobis ( 1332335 )
      Yes, once you see spelling errors of that sort enough times, you start to loose the ability to differentiate between the right and wrong version of the word.

      • Yes, once you see spelling errors of that sort enough times, you start two loose the ability too differentiate between the right and left version of the word.

        FTFY

  • THE STEALTH BLIMP (Score:1, Insightful)

    by kraemer ( 637938 )
    For Christ sake, lets declassify stuff like this FIRST and THEN see if people still see UFO's??? OK???? http://www.thestealthblimp.com/ [thestealthblimp.com]

  • And Denver thought they said " Illegal alien" and signed up.

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