Some St. Patrick's Day news: Retailers in Colorado have been seeking the right to sell "full-strength" beer in convenience stores. They haven't been able to get the legislature in that state to sign off. The solution? A ballot initiative, perhaps, according to KMGH TV in Denver.

It appears that even those who believe in space aliens are optimistic about President Obama.

Readers of this blog know your blogger has been closely monitoring the effort to qualify a ballot initiative in the city of Denver to establish an extraterrestial commission. It's being pitched as a sort of civil defense thing--preparation for attack (and Denver is at some altitude, so the aliens would probably go their first).

Now the initiative's sponsor, Jeff Peckman, says he's putting the measure on hold. He tells the Rocky Mountain News that the initiative isn't needed because he's confident Obama will take the ET threat seriously. Perhaps this is part of the new Obama diplomatic strategy of engaging our adversaries.

I'm back in Denver today and tomorrow, to do a few reporting errands. (Word to the wise: don't be like your blogger, a Socal boy who is constitutionally incapable of checking reports, and pack a jacket when you visit the Mile High City. It's darn cold here). I'm also touching base with a variety of initiative sponsors here. In a lighter-than-expected year for ballot measures nationwide (with measures failing to make the ballot or being pulled in Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, etc.), Colorado is this year's ballot champion. Nineteen -- that's right, 19 -- measures will be on the November state ballot.

But as I talk to folks on both sides of these campaigns, I feel like I'm entering a time machine -- a time machine that takes me back to 2005 California. There, we saw Gov. Schwarzenegger and his business backers qualify a number of initiatives to the ballot. Labor then countered with a fierce "no" campaign and a few counter-measures of its own. Virtually the same thing has happened in Colorado this year, the one key difference being that Gov. Bill Ritter counseled both sides against going to war. There hasn't been much public polling. Private polling that I'm seeing shows some initiatives doing better than others, but all with serious vulnerabilities. It's quite likely that history will repeat itself here and voters will shoot down both the business initiatives and the labor counter-measures. And no one will emerge a winner after a big, multi-front, expensive campaign -- well, no one except the political consultants.

Jeff Peckman, the author of the municipal ballot initiative to establish an extraterrestrial commission in Denver, has revised his initiative. The commission will have seven members, not 11, and members no longer have to be Denver residents. In the interests of recruiting those with UFO expertise, the ET commissioners can be from "anywhere in the universe." Peckman tells the Rocky Mountain News: "We've set the bar higher for the people that would be on the commission." Yes, but it says here it's not enough. Wouldn't limiting the commission to just "people" deprive us of alien expertise. Perhaps another revision is in order, Mr. Peckman.

He's not. But expect the question to be asked during the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Jeff Peckman, the sponsor of the Denver ballot initiative to establish a city extraterrestrial commission, is already planning to address reporters during the week. It's a good idea. Conventions produce so little news that Peckman will draw a crowd. Peckman also suggests the aliens have surpassed us in the development of alternative fuels, and thus have something to teach us.

The initiative has not yet qualified for the ballot. Peckman says he's targeting the May 2009 city ballot.

One question he won't be able to answer: Who will the aliens endorse? That critical endorsement may go unreported this year. The Weekly World News, which usually reported on the presidential endorsements of space aliens, is dead.

This blog's favorite ballot initiative of the year -- the Denver measure to establish a city commission preparing for the city's defense against extraterrestial attack -- has legs. (Don't ask me how many legs). Its sponsor has called a press conference for Friday to unveil a video of a space alien. Your blogger wonders if the alien going to endorse one way or another on the initiative? Denver has such a low signature gathering threshhold -- less than 5,000 -- that this measure could make the ballot... One thought submitted by a reader. Perhaps Houston needs something similar. After all, it was the Texas city, not Denver, that was totally destroyed in the alien attack in the 1996 film Independence Day.

If you've seen many creature-from-outer-space movies, you know that elected officials and legislators simply aren't up to the task of dealing with attacks from other galaxies. Fortunately, mankind has evolved to the point where we've created the ballot initiative process. And one man in Denver has filed an initiative to create an 18-person city commission with the purpose of "dealing with issues related to the presence of extraterrestrial beings on Earth." Denver, being at altitude, is likely to be attacked first.