The NRA has responded to the Mike Bloomberg-backed Mayors Against Illegal Guns by casting doubts on whether or not the "curious" man in the group's latest pro-background checks ad is who he says he is—or AN ACTOR. Despite MAIG's insistence that he's a real West Virginia gun owner, one blog has offered $500 for anyone who can prove he is (or isn't).

One of the NRA's key questions is how a real gun owner would have such terrible "trigger discipline," meaning, placing a finger on the trigger at any time before the exact second a shot is to be taken. "The NRA recommends Mayor Bloomberg use some [...]

Despite that we just told you how to write the Great American Novel, also we should tell you the opposite: don't ever write a book. The loon mail never stops. Exhibit A: mail received by Jodi Kantor, at home, due to her book The Obamas. Writing a book is an invitation to hear everyone's thoughts on the matter at hand, which undoubtedly they have not spent the better part of two-to-eighteen years writing about. At least authors have the Twitter to keep them warm now.

Winston Churchill reportedly ordered a cover-up of two RAF pilots' report of a close encounter with a mysterious silver disc in the skies over the northwestern coast of England during World War II. So said the grandson of an eyewitness, one of Churchill's bodyguards at the time, in a 1999 document that Britain's national archives made public today as a part of the declassification all their UFO files. "Mr Churchill," wrote the grandson, a software designer who specialized in spacecraft thermal engineering, in a letter to the Ministry of Defense, "is reported to have made a declaration to the effect of the following: 'This event should be [...]

The reliably enlightening Vigilant Citizen has some very interesting theories about the new Jay-Z video "On to the Next One." Apparently, as illustrated by all the crows, blood drinking and ram's horns in the clip, Jay is deeply involved in an occult conspiracy to put humanity under the control of the goat-headed dark lord Baphomet. This was also illustrated in the "Run This Town" video, and also, presumably, by his taking part in the MTV video awards show in September.

The best time to get involved in a conspiracy theory is in media res. A really good conspiracy needs years to pile up the evil plans and secret knowledge into a baroque edifice worth caring about. At its beginning, it's just a bunch of people with some sinister ideas, and where's the fun in that?

So I think I got really enthusiastic about "The X-Files" and its ongoing storyline of a human-alien conspiracy precisely because I came into it in the middle. I had seen an episode or two of the first few seasons, enough to get the general gist of the show; but it was only after I moved [...]

If you're like me, you've spent the past 24 hours unable to think about anything other than the fourth puzzle of Kryptos—the encryption sculpture that stands on the lawn at C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Cryptographers all over the world have been obsessed with deciphering the messages hidden in the 865-character text since it was erected twenty years ago. The first three sections were solved in 1999. They say stuff about illusion and buried secrets and the excavation of King Tut's tomb. But the last part, the final 97-character puzzle, has remained a mystery, confounding some of the world's greatest minds. Author Dan Brown referenced Kryptos in his [...]

Earlier this month, I wrote about Erykah Badu's performance of her new song "Window Seat" on the Jimmy Fallon show. In it, I noted that she was wearing an unorthodox outfit that revealed more of the shape of a woman's body than we usually see on network television. (For the record, I'm very much pro the shape of Badu's body; honestly, I like to see as much of it as I can.) As we learned over the weekend, we hadn't seen nothin' yet.

Huh. Just when you thought all the controversy surrounding Lana Del Rey might be dying down, turns out she was involved in the Kennedy assassination.

From the inbox: "Perhaps it's my inner conspiracy theorist, but I noticed a curious addition to the new iPad commercial. It includes, among other things, a cover of Time magazine featuring Jonathan Franzen on the cover. Now, I wouldn't think too much of this except that Franzen's new book, 'Freedom,' includes a lengthy diatribe against the iPod and the way in which music has become so commercialized (and thus intrinsically a part of the capitalist society against which so many bands 'supposedly' stand in opposition). Knowing how vindictive Steve Jobs can be, I can't help but think he intended the commercial to be a fuck you to Franzen, and [...]

Jay-Z just topped Forbes list of "Hollywood's Top-Earning Couples," pulling in a cool $122 million with wife Beyonce from June 2008 to June 2009. He so totally sold his soul to the devil!

Actually, the vigilant citizens at Rap Radar have collected denials from the principals involved with the video, for Jay's new single "On To the Next One," that got all those crazy Illuminati theories buzzing.