In case you missed it | Caught on tape

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Caught on tape

While we have been among the first to point out the possible pitfalls of the city of Boulder’s municipalization initiative, to make sure that if we go forward we do it right, we are also the first to call out efforts that sidestep and cheat the democratic process.

So if you missed seeing the video of the antics of signature-gatherers that was put together by New Era Colorado this week, check out http://youtu.be/jf8bXrGNxhM.

The video, titled “How Xcel Energy Lied Their Way Onto the Ballot,” apparently shows petition circulators for the campaign to place a charter amendment on the ballot. The amendment would ask voters to approve debt limits and other measures that some say would kill the city’s municipalization effort.

The video shows some yahoo talking nonsense about losing teachers and libraries if municipalization goes forward, saying it’s going to cause “billions” of dollars of debt. He even calls Boulder’s elected leaders “shitheads.”

Now, we’ve always been critical of city council members when they deserve it, but we don’t recall ever claiming that their brains were made of poop.

The video goes on to show an elderly female signature-gatherer who is repeatedly asked, “Didn’t we already vote on this?” Her falsehood-filled replies include, “It didn’t go through,” “We have to vote on it again,” “It was too close for comfort” and “We’re reinforcing it.” This woman is then recorded doing what can only be guessed as filling out areas of petitions herself.

Meanwhile, Xcel is distancing itself from the petition effort. Company spokesperson Michelle Aguayo told us that not a dime of the approximately $3,000 Xcel has spent on the campaign was used for the signature-gathering effort. That initiative was funded by Voter Approval of Debt Limits, and Xcel has its own issue committee.

Aguayo says she will notify Xcel’s attorneys that New Era has wrongly attributed the questionable tactics to the company.

“We would like to not have our name associated with videos like this, but they need a bad guy,” she says. “That group might get a nice little letter from our attorneys.”

Potty mouth

Well here’s a new one. Scientists in China are proudly reporting that they have grown a human tooth using stem cells taken from urine.

Yes, this news was leaked. It’s been dribbling out. OK, sorry, we’ll stop.

The move has been heralded because apparently piss is a less controversial source of stem cells than human embryos.

Um, not sure about you, but if we got a tooth knocked out, pretty sure we’d rather just live with the gap than have some slightly yellow substitute grown from our pee.

Unsurprisingly, the practice has apparently run into some controversy, but not because of the source — it’s because it only has a 30 percent success rate, making it unreliable.

We can’t resist thinking of some other combinations that might be interesting.

How about using spit to grow toes so that you can say with confidence that someone is constantly drooling on the floor? Or using tears to grow lips so that you’re always crying in your beer? Maybe use some plasma to grow pupils so that you are assured of having bloodshot eyes?

The possibilities are endless. Just stay away from our stool samples, please. We really don’t want to go there.

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com