From outstandingly pretty “crop circles” to Carl Sagan to Roswell to secret government psuedo-Egyptian rituals, all in two pages. This is Richard Hoagland at his best.

Since the bombing of Afganistan, there have been massive pro-bin Ladin, anti-America protests all over Afganistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. I’m sure you’ve seen the coverage on all the news programs. The protesters, no matter where they are, are waving the same big banner showing bin Ladin in various poses. Here’s one photo of the poster that’s appearing on Yahoo’s news site. Do you recognize anyone beside the left ear of the big bin Ladin? How about on this view? Maybe this photo of the poster, appearing in a Dutch news site, is clearer. UPDATE: The Dutch site has cropped the photo, removing the other person.Here’s a screenshot, hosted by lindqvist.com. Don’t ever let anyone talk you out of culture jamming. Your effort might surface in the strangest of places. (Original source of this jam: this venerable site, which has been around almost as long as the internet itself. The original creator of the photo explains how he did it here.)

There are, of course, many conspiracy theories flying around in the wake of the September 11 attacks. This one involves people I know, who know me as well. According to these out-there theorists, my alma mater had a hand in bringing those building down. And, since I planned the electricity going to the mentioned anti-terrorism center as an engineer for the local electric cooperative, I guess I indirectly helped too. On the plus side, as chairman of the student government, I did fight the hiring of President Dan Lopez, who had his hand in the mix, so maybe that evens out my involvement karma.

The finances have been approved by all the financing bodies. There are still a few things to attend to that could derail the purchase (Real estate transactions are never finalized until closing.), such as the appraisal. That’ll happen in the next week or so, we we’re confidant that we’re buying this under what it’ll appraise at, so that shouldn’t be a problem. When this is all settled, expect a big Life Warming Party sometime in the early spring. You’re invited.

Hockey season starts tonight, and I’m ready. This year I’ve joined an on-line fantasy league along with a few other Metafilter readers. It looks like it’s going to be fun. I’ve never played in a fantasy league of any sort, unless you count the baseball computer games I used to play by myself, but the idea always intreagued me.

Over the weekend Chris and I put in an offer on a nice piece of property we’d been looking at. It was accepted. Assuming the bank gets things in gear soon, it’ll be ours by the end of the month. That’s a mighty big assumption, but I think everything will work out. Here’s the property on a 1970’s topo map, marked up thanks to equill. The red line is the property line – it’s not quite thirteen acres. It’s got 1000’ of river frontage on the Broad River, Georgia’s cleanest, most pristine river. Much of that frontage is beach-like. There’s a small pond, colored in blue. There’s a newish upper-high-end double-wide on a foundation at the top of the property, drawn in purple, and a concrete block shop near the river, also drawn in purple. The topo map shows it as wooded, but it’s mostly cleared pasture/scrub. It’ll need a serious bush hogging to get rid of the briars everywhere. Here’s an aerial photo, taken shortly before the new home was put in. More to come…

I mentioned Perceptions a while back. If you didn’t look then, look now, particularly at the Bush / bin Laden Instant Message transcript.

One month from today, I will be Mr. Eric Wagoner.

Someone got my dander up and so I had to write a letter to the editor, which was published today.

Since I am officially a farmer, I took some of my produce down to the county fair today for judging. I brought a quart of pickled beets and eggs and pints of pickled green beans, salsa verde, tomato sauce (made from the white Dr. Carolyn tomato), and apple butter. I’ll find out next weekend if my goods are ribbon-worthy. I think I’ll go to the fair next Saturday, wearin’ my overalls.