Speaking of Extraterrestrials...

JK just posted this, um, interesting news tidbit over at Fanbytes, and there's no way I could possibly resist passing it on. Apparently my adopted home state of New Mexico is proposing instituting a state-wide day of celebration honoring extraterrestrial visitors. I am not making this up. Some representantive from Roswell came up with the idea. He wants to call it Extraterrestrial Culture Day and hold it on the second Thursday of February. Now, as cool as I think it is to have a statewide holiday honoring E.T. and Mr. Spock and all our other illustrious alien visitors, I'm really of two minds about this whole thing. Roswell's made a great deal of money out of this silly crashed-saucer thing, and the rest of New Mexico may be understandably eager to capitalize on it, but the truth is the whole thing's a complete sham, and I really hate to encourage people to take it seriously. (If you're looking for an excellent expose-type book on the subject which explains just why the "Roswell incident" wasn't really much of an incident, I recommend Philip Klass' The Real Roswell Crashed-Saucer Coverup.) On the other hand, Extraterrestrial Culture Day does have a fun ring to it, I have to admit...