Did aliens -- and we do mean aliens -- affect the NY primary?
Our colleague Ashley Powers, the Times' Las Vegas bureau chief, spotted an item on the agenda Monday of a weeklong Laughlin, Nev., conference (beginning Saturday) that may be of interest to political junkies: "UFOs and the 2008 Election."
We've all heard the Dennis Kucinich jokes (in fact, we've made one or two ourselves) but a whole seminar devoted to UFOs and the election sets up a lot of possible punchlines. These folks are serious, though, so we'll be serious, too, which brings us to a later session on Monday that bears looking into.
In a seminar called "Confessions of a Turkish Ufologist," Farah Yurdozu will discuss the extraterrestrials who founded Turkey 5,000 years ago and who now live in New York City, obviously a key voting bloc there (and it would go a long way toward explaining Kramer, pre-meltdown). Topics include "how the aliens are watching and affecting the seat of world turmoil -- the Mid East -- right now, just as they have for thousands of years ... [and] evidence of how governments and institutions openly acknowledge our ties to a race from the star Sirius." Here we thought that was just a satellite radio company.
Yes, we mock, and we shouldn't. But we have to. If you go to the seminar at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, you'll probably learn why (something many of Ron Paul's Paulistas already believe): "Journalist and New York Times best-selling author Jim Marrs will bring conspiracy theories right up to date with compelling information about some of the greatest conspiracies prevalent today. Learn the inside scoop about the plots and intrigues that affect us all."
Nanu, nanu.
-- Scott Martelle
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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Speaking of Aliens there is another Amnesty being worked out. Check with Numbers USA.
Posted by: Flo | February 22, 2008 at 04:29 PM
Damn New Yorkers....I always thought they talked funny.
Posted by: Tombstone Realty | February 22, 2008 at 06:49 PM
Well, I have talked with three green aliens from Mars!
My mother typed the scripts for Orson Welles' Mercury Theater radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds". For weeks she had told us daily about typing the script, over and over using multiple pieces of carbon paper, because they kept changing it. When it was broadcast, she was in the studio and my father was home listening intently to the radio. We were living in a Manhattan top floor apartment (The Chrysler Building was visible from the living room window) and I could see commotion in the streets below. I tried to get my father to the window to look. Instead he pulled me on his lap to listen.
For months afterwards I would talk with three green Martians as they appeared in the apartment ceiling. They spoke gibberish but we understood each other clearly. They let me see the instrument panel in their space ship. For months afterward my father would take me up to the roof of the apartment building to show me that they had left. I was five years old at the time.
Posted by: Carol Rottger | February 23, 2008 at 07:08 AM
You have stolen my attention with your talk of conspiracies
Conspiracies have a touch of 'New Religion' about it, all the connectedness of everything.
We are experiencing population consciousness changes/awakenings with increasing rapidity. Old religious beliefs have been long surpassed with ethical acceptances/beliefs more appropriate to our universal understandings and sophistications. These being shared by such an available mass of ingenuity and ability..... it's all going to come to a head on 2012 at the end of the mayan calendar.
About that time the answers to life the universe and everything will be part of the collective human experience and ummmm endgame i spose.
Oh and the alien shapeshifers will declare us part of the universe and show us how to create our own, free! with any fatass meal if you want.
Or course for now I'm more concerned that someone with a sensible mind becomes president of the free world.
And I haven't lost hope... Go Ron Paul.
(Thanks for being so observant--and loyal, Tony.)
Posted by: tony angel | February 24, 2008 at 06:43 AM
I can almost feel sorry for Scott Martelle.
Here he is continuing the snickering and sanctimonious disrepecting of the UFO issue so prevelant in the mass media which has gone along with the Goverment-instituted denial and ridicule policy of the past 60 years, not realizing that the policy has recently changed with more and more credible UFO information reaching more and more thinking people. That tired old ridicule rug is being pulled out from under him.
I can almost feel sorry for him.... but nah!
Jim Marrs
Posted by: Jim Marrs | February 26, 2008 at 09:20 PM