I designed the logo -- glad everyone likes it! We're not sure if we'll be printing shirts any time soon, but people are free to take the graphic and have their own made -- either via silkscreen or cafepress or whatever.

Here's the link:

http://www.eff.org/nsa/graphics

H.

The first video is no longer available!

Here's an explanation for that amazing crop circle, Elisianartist: It was made by some very talented and very determined pranksters who wanted to fool gullible individuals such as yourself. Looks like they pulled it off!

I love crop circles because they are beautiful. They're a weird combination of 1970s earth art with 90s sci-fi pranksterism, with a big dose of ancient geometric art principles thrown in for good measure.

I'm always amazed at how many people believe humans could not possibly create such perfect art. It's a testament to the genius of the artists -- and their willingness to work in the shadows!

This reminds me of another artist who works with balloons, Jason Hackenworth:
http://www.siteprojects.org/hackenwerth/index.html

I've read a bunch of stuff about this story, and I'm pretty skeptical. Here's a couple points to consider:

* the entire story rests on the testimony of one man, Smedley Butler, who provided no evidence but his first-hand recollections of an offer from shady characters (one of whom emerged in the McCarthy era as an unreliable witness)

* Butler would have been an odd choice to lead a fascist coup. He was a populist and a pacifist, and a supporter of Roosevelt. Here's a quote from Butler: "I spent 33 years in the Marines. Most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.”

It's possible that Butler fabricated the story for his own purposes. By all accounts he enjoyed the media spotlight. And by telling this story he was able to advance his own populist argument about Washington being run by Wall Street.

That said, it is certainly true that there were right wing financiers who were sympathetic to fascism and Germany, and might have considered actions like this. But I think there would be more evidence that would have emerged after all this time if the coup were a substantial threat.

Here's a good wikipedia page on the the alleged plot:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

Cynthia Plastercaster made plaster casts of rock stars -- she casted Jimi, and supposedly he was her biggest customer.
http://www.cynthiaplastercaster.com/html/longandshort.html

I was wrong -- the cult referenced in "Commune" was called Shiva Lila. Can't find any info about them online except reference to the film.

I think this group is referenced in the film "Commune", which is about a hippy commune north of San Francisco which was founded by the scrappy radical group the Diggers (one of which is the actor Peter Coyote). Their happy commune was totally disrupted by another communal group with creepy anti-family brainwashing techniques which I think was The Source. You can find "Commune" online or through netflix -- it's a really honest document and worth watching.

I used to do illustrations for the cover of Paranoia. Once they tried to get me to illustrate a story that used the word "genocide" to describe what has supposedly happened to the world's faerie population. I balked -- just couldn't go there, and I haven't done anything for them since.

The book Phantoms in the Brain by VS Ramachandran has a great chapter on this. I think it's called Charles Bonnet syndrome. There are some people who lose vision in the bottom half of their sight, and in that "blind" area, they see incredibly vivid cartoons (!) dancing randomly around.

As far as visual diseases, that one sounds like it wouldn't be all bad.

The Spielberg homage to Kurbrick (AI) was mostly a travesty -- but the scenes featuring humans torturing their human-like creations are probably an accurate prediction.

Will we need to have a movement demanding human rights for AI?

I can't agree with you more, Hirudo! Who are these artists who think anyone cares what they have to say about a subject as important as WAR? I mean, don't they know enough to leave it to the professional politicians? 1968 ended on January 1, 1969 -- and not a moment too soon IMHO!

H.