GOP candidate dressed up like Nazi on weekends.

From the NY Daily News:

Nazi or nerd?

That's the question hovering over GOP congressional candidate Rich Iott, after a photo of him posing in a Nazi uniform surfaced online this weekend.

Iott, a Tea Party favorite who is running for a seat in Ohio's ninth district, says he is not a Nazi sympathizer but a history buff who liked participating in historical re-enactments.

"It's purely historical interest in World War II," Iott told The Atlantic after the magazine discovered the photo.

But Eric Cantor, House Republican Whip (R.-Va), slammed Iott, telling Fox News Sunday, "I would absolutely repudiate that and do not support an individual who would do something like that."

Iott has admitted being involved with the WWII historical re-enactment society Wiking for many years, and the organization’s rosters reportedly show him being a member as early as 2003. He said he joined "as a father-son bonding thing" but quit in 2007 when his son was no longer interested.

The society models itself on the Wiking division of the SS, Hitler’s Nazi military force. In the controversial photo, Iott grins while wearing a Waffen-SS uniform.

Iott says his interest in the group came not from Nazi leanings but from a respect for their tactical accomplishments during WWII. “They took over most of Europe and Russia, and it really took the combined effort of the free world to defeat them,” he told the Atlantic. "From a purely historical military point of view that's incredible."

He chose the Wiking unit, he said, because the real-life division fought against the Russian Army, not American or British soldiers.

Historians, however, take issue with this version of events.

"The entire German war effort in the East was a racial crusade to rid the world of 'subhumans,'" military historian Rob Citino told the Atlantic. "The multimillion Jewish population of Eastern Europe was going to be exterminated altogether…It sends a shiver up my spine to think that people want to dress up and play SS on the weekend."

South Korea facing kimchi crisis.

Thanks Jen! From the LA Times:

Freakish fall weather has resulted in a national kimchi crisis, causing South Korean consumers to clutch at their purses, hearts and stomachs as they seek to deal with a shortage of the oblong-shaped cabbage used to make the ubiquitous spicy dish.

With heavy September rains ruining much of the Napa, or Chinese, cabbage crop, prices have jumped fourfold to more than $10 a head.

In response, the federal government last week announced a temporary reduction in tariffs on Chinese-imported cabbage and radishes in a plan to rush an additional 100 tons of the staples into stores this month.

And on Monday, the Seoul city government began a kimchi bailout program, in which it is absorbing 30% of the cost of about 300,000 heads of cabbage it has purchased from rural farmers so it can be sold for less to consumers.

Depriving Koreans of their kimchi, many say, is like forcing Italians to forgo pasta or taking all the tea from China. The dish of fermented cabbage, radish and chile paste has such iconic status here that there is a museum dedicated to kimchi in Seoul, and portions of it were blasted into space with the country's first astronaut in 2008.

Coozer-Bits.

Sad: Study finds foreclosure crisis was highly racialized.

D'oh: US sues American Express for anti-competitive policies.

D'oh: Looking to head off FCC probe, Verizon to refund $90 million to subscribers.

Health: Sleep loss limits fat loss.

Travel: Liquids might soon be allowed back on planes.

Music: 10 bands from the 90s that aren't reuniting (thankfully).

Sad: 1 in 8 parents can't afford pediatrician care, even if insured.

Ancient Colorado river flowed backwards.

From EurekAlert:

Geologists have found evidence that some 55 million years ago a river as big as the modern Colorado flowed through Arizona into Utah in the opposite direction from the present-day river. Writing in the October issue of the journal Geology, they have named this ancient northeastward-flowing river the California River, after its inferred source in the Mojave region of southern California.

Lead author Steven Davis, a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution, and his colleagues* discovered the ancient river system by comparing sedimentary deposits in Utah and southwest Arizona. By analyzing the uranium and lead isotopes in sand grains made of the mineral zircon, the researchers were able to determine that the sand at both localities came from the same source -- igneous bedrock in the Mojave region of southern California.

The river deposits in Utah, called the Colton Formation by geologists, formed a delta where the river emptied into a large lake. They are more than 400 miles (700 kilometers) to the northeast of their source in California. "The river was on a very similar scale to the modern Colorado-Green River system," says Davis, "but it flowed in the opposite direction." The modern Colorado River's headwaters are in the Rocky Mountains, flowing southeast to the river's mouth in the Gulf of California.

The deposits of the Colton Formation are approximately 55 million years old. Recently, other researchers have speculated that rivers older than the Colorado River may have carved an ancestral or "proto" Grand Canyon around this time, long before Colorado began eroding the present canyon less than 20 million years ago. But Davis sees no evidence of this. "The Grand Canyon would have been on the river's route as it flowed from the Mojave to Utah, he says. "It stands to reason that if there was major erosion of a canyon going on we would see lots of zircon grains from that area, but we don't."

The mighty California River likely met its end as the Rocky Mountains rose and the northern Colorado Plateau tilted, reversing the slope of the land surface and the direction of the river's flow to create the present Colorado-Green River system. Davis and his colleagues have not determined precisely when the change occurred, however. "The river could have persisted for as long as 20 million years before the topography shifted enough to reverse its flow," he says.

Census of Marine Life reveals extent of ocean mystery.

From New Scientist:

The first global picture of life in the oceans is released today, with the completion of the decade-long Census of Marine Life.

But despite its 2700 scientists spending over 9000 days at sea, the Census has only scratched the surface of the ocean's biodiversity. In all, some 250,000 marine plant and animal species have now been formally described, out of the 1 million thought to exist. "There are three to four unknown species for every known," says Paul Snelgrove of Memorial University of Newfoundland in St John's, Canada.

The Census has so far added 1200 new species to the tally, though that is likely to rise as over 5000 more organisms that were collected have yet to be studied or named. The new species include several that were thought to have disappeared, such as the "Jurassic shrimp", which was believed to have died out 50 million years ago.

The Census was also able to identify those regions that are richest in diversity, which include the Gulf of Mexico and the Australian coastline. The Galapagos Islands, meanwhile, turned out to have less biodiversity than the chilly South Orkney Islands, in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica.

However, plant and animal diversity looks insignificant compared to the sea's micro-organisms, which may number 1 billion. Their diversity is "spectacular", Snelgrove says.

The Census also assessed threats to marine life. "Fishing and exploitation is the single biggest problem," says Ron O'Dor, one of the Census's senior scientists based at The Consortium for Ocean Leadership in Washington DC. Despite its incompleteness, O'Dor says the Census will be essential for conservation efforts because it provides a baseline standard for diversity in the oceans.

Brazil votes illiterate clown into Congress.

Item!

Voters the world over complain about having clowns for politicians, but Brazilians embraced the idea on Sunday by sending a real one to Congress with more votes than any other candidate.

Francisco Everardo Oliveira Silva, better known by his clown name Tiririca, received more than 1.3 million votes in Sao Paulo state in Brazil's presidential and congressional elections.

That was more than double the votes of the second-placed candidate in Brazil's most populous state.

Tiririca caught the attention of disillusioned voters by asking for their support with the humorous slogan: "It can't get any worse" and a promise to do nothing more in Congress than report back to them on how politicians spend their time.

"What does a congressman do? The truth is I don't know, but vote for me and I'll tell you," the 45-year-old said in his campaign advertisements.

The clown, whose stage name means "grumpy," usually appears in public wearing a blond wig, a red hat and a garish outfit. He survived a last-minute attempt by public prosecutors to bar him from running because of evidence that he is illiterate.

His candidacy may not have been as spontaneous or innocent as it might appear.

Tiririca's well-financed campaign will help elect other politicians because under Brazil's election rules he can pass his substantial excess votes on to other candidates in his coalition, which includes the ruling Workers' Party.

NYC ordered to change every street sign.

From the NY Daily News:

The city will change the lettering on every single street sign - at an estimated cost of about $27.5 million - because the feds don't like the font.

Street names will change from all capital letters to a combination of upper and lower case on roads across the country thanks to the pricey federal regulation, officials said Wednesday.

By 2018, MADISON AVE. will become Madison Ave. and will be printed in a font called Clearview, the city Department of Transportation says.

The Federal Highway Administration says the switch will improve safety because drivers identify the words more quickly when they're displayed that way - and can sooner return their eyes to the road.

Still, several city residents were OUTRAGED.

"That's ridiculous," said James Sullivan, 34, a bike messenger from Queens. "They might as well just burn the damn money."

Construction worker Joseph Cain, 49, of Manhattan, reacted with sarcasm, saying, "I see my tax dollars are hard at work."

The city has about 250,000 signs, and it costs about $110 to replace one, the DOT says. Officials said the new signs will have improved reflectivity and clarity for nighttime drivers.

The changes are among many in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices that regularly changes to improve road safety, highway administration spokesman Doug Hecox said. The mixed upper- and lowercase rule was adopted in 2003, but municipalities were given until 2018 to comply completely, Hecox said.

"If it's such a pressing safety issue, why won't it be done until 2018? I may not even be driving by then," said Paul Kelly, 66, a retired Manhattan resident.

Millionaires collect unemployment benefits.

Thanks Jen! From the NY Observer:

A look through IRS tax data reveals that 2,840 households with annual income in excess of a million dollars collected unemployment benefits, taking in a total of $18.6 million in aid. That's about $6550 per millionaire household. Among the millionaires who went on the dole, 806 made $2 million or more a year, and 17 nitwits with incomes above $10 million collected unemployment.

On one hand, it sucks to lose your job no matter how much money you had been making, and everyone pays for unemployment benefits. Or, as one expert told Bloomberg:

"Getting an insurance payment doesn't depend on need but only on suffering an insured loss," said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow and expert on tax policy at the Urban Institute, another Washington policy research organization. "We don't say that your homeowners' policy shouldn't pay off if you're a millionaire."

On the other hand, what kind of bonehead who made more than $10 million — ever, in his or her life — can mentally justify collecting the $360 or so a week Uncle Sam hands out? What do they do with that money?

Charity phone number on cereal box leads to sex hotline.

From the Chronicle of Philanthropy:

A misprinted phone number cereal boxes meant to lead consumers to a phone number where they can donate to charity connects them instead to a phone-sex business, ESPN reports.

The phone number was printed on boxes of cereal that bore the name and image of the Cincinnati Bengals football player Chad Ochocinco.

The phone number was printed on the boxes to connect callers to Feed the Children, a charity that benefits from sales of the cereal. But because the box has the wrong toll-free prefix, callers hoping to donate to the charity instead hear a sultry woman's voice making suggestive comments and then requesting the caller's credit-card number.

Apologizing to the public for the mixup on his popular Twitter page yesterday, Mr. Ochocinco wrote, "Awe man I'm bummed about the cereal number mixup on the cereal, trying to do good and got messed up, of all numbers why that one!!! Sorry."

Titanium foam builds Wolverine bones.

From New Scientist:

Eat your heart out, Wolverine. The X-Men superhero won't be the only one with metal fused into his skeleton if a new titanium foam proves suitable for replacing and strengthening damaged bones.

Bone implants are typically made of solid metal – usually titanium. Though well tolerated by the body, such implants are significantly stiffer than bone.

This means that an implant may end up carrying a far higher load than the bone it is placed next to, according to Peter Quadbeck of the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials Research in Dresden, Germany. In a worst-case scenario, the decrease in stress placed on the bone means it will deteriorate, while the implant loosens and needs to be replaced.

Now Quadbeck and colleagues have created a titanium implant with a foam-like structure, inspired by the spongy nature of bone. The titanium foam does a better job than solid metal when it comes to matching the mechanical properties of bone, such as flexibility, and this encourages more effective bone regrowth.

What's more, the foam is porous, so the bone can grow around and within it, truly integrating the implant with the skeleton.

The titanium foam is made by saturating polyurethane foam with a solution of titanium powder and binding agents. The titanium clings to the polyurethane matrix, which is then vaporised away along with the binding agents. This results in a titanium lattice which is finally heat-treated to harden it.

Segway tycoon killed in accidental scooter plunge off cliff.

From the Yorkshire Post:

Tributes have been paid to a "remarkably selfless" Yorkshire millionaire and philanthropist who died while out riding a two-wheeled electric Segway scooter which plunged off a 30ft cliff and into a river.

Jimi Heselden, a former miner turned wealthy entrepreneur who owned the Segway company, was found in the river Wharfe at Boston Spa, near Wetherby, not far from his home in Thorp Arch.

Police said there were no suspicious circumstances and Mr Heselden had died at the scene.

A Segway, believed to be an off-road version of the electric scooter, was found close by.

It is understood a member of the public saw him riding the Segway and was watching as both he and the machine toppled over the edge of Jackdaw Crag, which has a sheer drop of up to 40ft.

A police spokesman said 62-year-old Mr Heselden was pulled from the river near to Leys Lane at about 11.40am on Sunday. He was pronounced dead by paramedics.

Joey Ramone street sign most stolen in city.

From NY Post:

Nine years after his death, punk legend Joey Ramone has gone to an even higher place.

The ceremonial street sign placed in his honor at the corner of Bowery and East Second Street had to be raised a full eight feet because thieving fans kept snatching it, city officials told The Post.

"Joey Ramone Place" is perhaps the most stolen of the 250,900 street signs in New York, according to the Department of Transportation, which recently asked contractors to install the sign for the fourth time since 2003.

He would have appreciated the distinction, said the group's longtime drummer, Marky Ramone, sole survivor of the Ramones' longest-running lineup.

"But maybe they should find a better way to attach it," he said. "Now you have to be an NBA player to see it."

Although most street signs are about 12 to 14 feet off the ground, Joey Ramone Place was raised to 20 feet, an oddity first noted on the blog EV Grieve.

Though he wasn't aware so many thieves had given the sign the "Hey Ho," Marky said he can't think of a better tribute.

"Every time I turn down Second Street, I look up and say, 'Hey Joey, you belong up there,' " he said.

The Bowery has become much more sedate since the death of the original three Ramones. And with CBGB -- the Bowery venue where the Ramones, and punk, started -- closed for good, the sign has become a crucial reminder of the corner's role in music history, Marky said.

"It's a really nice tribute to a frontman who started the genre we call punk rock," he added.

The other highly sought after street sign souvenirs are a little less edgy: Broadway, Wall Street, and Love Lane, DOT spokesman Seth Solomonow said.

Colorado ghost town marks 100th anniversary.

From the Denver Post:

DEARFIELD — All that remains of the house where Albert Groves once lived is a pile of weathered lumber close to the still- standing home of the man who founded this long-dead African-American farming community.

"I learned to drive a car up and down this dirt road," Groves, 83, told a small group of people who came to help celebrate the ghost town's 100th anniversary.

On Sunday, re-enactors dressed as Buffalo Soldiers — African-American soldiers who served in the Southwest and the Great Plains during the Indian Wars — assembled at the settlement to help unveil a granite marker in honor of its history.

Though Groves' home has been destroyed, at least three of the buildings that remain have been stabilized. Some restoration work has been done on the home of founder Oliver Toussaint "O.T." Jackson, said Bill Garcia, chairman of the Dearfield Centennial Committee.

The committee — composed of representatives from the Black American West Museum, the city of Greeley, the Greeley Museums, Weld County, Colorado Preservation Inc. and others — has worked to illuminate Dearfield's history.

The Black American West Museum has been working to stabilize and restore the few remaining structures in the town, which sits about 30 miles east of Greeley off U.S. 34.

Six buildings still stand, Garcia said.

Jackson filed a homestead claim for 320 acres in Weld County in 1910. Dr. J.H.P Westbrook named the colony Dearfield, saying the fields and homes "will be very dear to us."

The first settlers arrived in 1911. By 1920, as many as 300 people lived in the area.

The population began to dwindle after World War I, when men who went off to fight chose to move to larger cities rather than return home.

The Great Depression and the drought that created the Dust Bowl in the nation's heartland dealt the death blow.

Gifted children are just as likely to fail in life.

Ha! Take that, kids who are smarter and more talented than me! Or should I say... LOSERS! Item!

Exceptionally talented children are just as likely to fail in life as succeed according to a new study.

In one of the most extensive studies carried out, research found that out of 210 gifted children followed into later life, only three per cent were found to fulfil their early promise.

Professor Joan Freeman, said that of 210 children in her study, 'maybe only half a dozen might have been what we might consider conventionally successful.'

'At the age of six or seven, the gifted child has potential for amazing things, but many of them are caught in situations where their potentials is handicapped.'

Professor Freeman tracked the development of children who had exceptional ability in fields such as maths, art or music from 1974 to the present day.

Many of those who failed to excel did so because the 'gifted' children were treated and in some cases robbed of their childhood, the study found.

In some cases pushy parents put the children under too much pressure, or they were separated from their peer group, so they ended up having few friends.

UFOs have been deactivating nuclear missile sites.

So... are the aliens destroying our defenses or saving us from ourselves? From the Daily Mail:

It may sound like a Spielberg movie plot, but if senior U.S. airmen are to be believed, this scenario is not science fiction.

They claim that since 1948, aliens have been hovering over UK and U.S. nuclear missile sites and deactivating the weapons– once even landing in a British base.

Furthermore, they warn, our governments are hushing the activity up.

Captain Robert Salas, who, along with six others is to break his silence on the subject, said: ‘We’re talking about unidentified flying objects, as simple as that.

‘They’re often known as UFOs, you could call them that.

‘The U.S. Air Force is lying about the national security implications of unidentified aerial objects at nuclear bases and we can prove it,’ he said.

The former officer said he witnessed such an event first-hand on March 16, 1967, at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana.

‘I was on duty when an object came over and hovered directly over the site.

‘The missiles shut down – ten Minuteman [nuclear] missiles. And the same thing happened at another site a week later. There’s a strong interest in our missiles by these objects, wherever they come from. I personally think they’re not from planet Earth.’

Man convicted in karaoke bar murder.

Once again, karaoke causing havoc. From the Orange County Register:

A 24-year-old man was convicted Friday of second-degree murder for the shooting death of an Orange County man who tried to intervene in a fight outside a Koreatown karaoke bar.

A Los Angeles Superior County jury found Louis Woo Lee guilty of the June 7, 2009 slaying of Michael Kim, 36, outside M2 Café & Karaoke Bar, along with assault with a firearm involving another man who suffered a head wound.

Kim was an innocent bystander who was shot once in the head after trying to intervene in the fight, according to Deputy District Attorney Kennes Ma.

Authorities believe the shot was aimed at the second victim, not at Kim, said Ma.

According to the prosecutor, Lee had gone to the bar to back up his friends, who had been involved in an earlier verbal dispute that escalated to a physical fight outside, the prosecutor said.

Judge Craig E. Veals ordered Lee — who had been out of jail — to be taken into custody immediately after the jury's verdict.

Lee is facing 55 years to life in state prison, with sentencing set for Oct. 13.

Karaoke World Champion takes home 1 million dumplings.

I wonder if he sang Sweet's "Ballroom Blintz." From The Epoch Times:

The Karaoke World Championships were held last week and the most unusual prize, a million Russian dumplings, was taken home by US resident Edward Pimentel.

Pimentel, a telephone company engineer from Albuquerque, New Mexico, was named the audience favorite, and took home the food prize, according to the CBC.

If he were to eat 100 of the dumplings a day, he wouldn't be able to exhaust the supply in 27 years, experts say.

The judges didn't favor him but he gained audience support in his rendition of R&B classics.

"You have to be like the artist, but you have to put your two cents in," Pimentel said on the ABC show. In the final round, Pimental did a rendition of Usher's "DJ's Got Us Fallin' In Love."

The intensively competitive annual event kicked off in 2003, and has attracted singers from around the world.

Finnish resident Sam Moudden got first place in the men's competition. Maria Saarimaa-Ylitalo, also Finnish, took home the top prize in the women's competition. They both were awarded karaoke machines.

DC overrun with stink bugs.

I remember when they used to be called "congressmen." From NBC:

Smelly, pesky bugs known as stink bugs have been swarming the Washington, D.C. area -- and when you try to kill them, they just smell worse.

"When you try to kill them, before death, they stink," said Michael Raupp, an entomology professor at the University of Maryland. "They want to find a place to chill out for the winter. They're not coming in for warmth, they're coming in for refuge.

"They'll invade your attack and come in for the winter time. But on a nice warm day in February, they're going to say, 'Oh, spring,' and come down and be all over your windows and your baseboards and things like that."

Some frustrated area residents have gone as far as using their vacuum cleaners to combat these stinky critters. Scientists call their kind halyomorpha halys. They smell so badly because when threatened, they release a smelly defensive chemical.

Bush team obsessed with Iraq from the start.

Almost 5,000 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq. From Raw Story:

Former president George W. Bush's advisers focused on toppling Saddam Hussein's regime as soon as he took office and discussed how to justify a war in Iraq shortly after invading Afghanistan in 2001, official documents showed Wednesday.

A few hours after the September 11 attacks in 2001, then defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke of attacking Iraq as well as Osama bin Laden, according to notes of a meeting on that day, newly declassified papers show.

Rumsfeld told a Pentagon lawyer to go to his deputy to get "support" showing a supposed link between the Iraqi regime and Al-Qaeda's founder, according to the papers posted by the Washington-based National Security Archive, an independent research institute.

The US government has since acknowledged that Saddam's regime had no role in the 9/11 attacks.

In June and July of 2001, senior administration officials seized on intercepted aluminum tubes as proof that Iraq was pursuing nuclear weapons, even before a preliminary assessment of the tubes, according to two State Department memos to then secretary of state Colin Powell.

One memo states the US government's interest in "publicizing the interdiction to our advantage" and "getting the right story out" about the tubes, which were soon found to have no nuclear connection.

Confronting Iraq was also the focus of a July 2001 memo to the national security adviser at the time, Condoleezza Rice, with Rumsfeld urging a high-level meeting on policy towards Baghdad.

Voicing concern that sanctions were proving a failure and that Iraq's air defenses were improving, Rumsfeld warned: "Within a few years the US will undoubtedly have to confront a Saddam armed with nuclear weapons."

Forecasting an optimistic outcome far from the result the Iraq war produced, Rumsfeld said that Washington's image in the region and the world would benefit from toppling Saddam.

"If Saddam's regime were ousted, we would have a much-improved position in the region and elsewhere," he wrote. "A major success in Iraq would enhance US credibility and influence throughout the region."

Another document shows Rumsfeld discussing war plans for Iraq just two months after the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan.

In a meeting with the then head of US Central Command, General Tommy Franks, the defense chief tells him to ready forces for the "decapitation" of the Iraqi regime.

In talking points dated November 27, Rumsfeld lists possible triggers the Bush administration could use to start a war, including Iraqi military action against the US-protected enclave in northern Iraq, discovery of ties between Saddam and 9/11 or recent anthrax attacks and disputes with UN weapons inspections.

In a December 18, 2001 memo, the State Department's analytical unit warns that France and Germany will likely oppose an invasion of Iraq without concrete proof that Baghdad was behind the 9/11 attacks.

The same memo warns that British support for a US war would come at a political cost for the prime minister, Tony Blair, and could trigger a backlash from the country's Muslim population.

Backing the US war "could bring a radicalization of British Muslims, the great majority of whom opposed the September 11 attacks but are increasingly restive about what they see as an anti-Islamic campaign," the memo states.

The documents posted Wednesday were released under a Freedom of Information request.

Rampant drug use, random gunfire at Blackwater's Baghdad parties.

From Raw Story:

Blackwater employees in Baghdad held wild parties featuring large amounts of cocaine and hash, where armed personnel would sometimes fire randomly at nearby buildings housing Iraqi civilians, says a former contractor for the security company.

Howard Lowry, a Texas businessman who worked in Iraq from 2003 to 2009, made the allegations in testimony he gave in a whistleblower trial aimed at Xe Services, the company formerly known as Blackwater.

"I feel that numerous families of individuals of Blackwater employees that have been killed on the job are not getting the true story," Lowry said in the deposition, which was obtained by The Nation's Jeremy Scahill.

Scahill reports that Lowry alleges he bought at least 100 AK47 machine guns for Blackwater guards on Baghdad's black market, as well as large quantities of steroids.

Lowry says some of the steroids he purchased went to guards protecting L. Paul Bremer, the man the Bush administration appointed to run Iraq's provisional government following the invasion in 2003.

"The use of steroids and human growth hormone, testosterone, were pretty endemic to them and almost company-wide," Lowry said.

"Not only did I purchase the pharmaceuticals, but I was also given money and asked to acquire syringes and other forms or modes of injection as well," Lowry stated in his deposition. He alleges the drugs were purchased with Blackwater money.

Lowry described Blackwater guards' parties at Baghdad's al-Hamra Hotel as a "frat party gone wild." He says he saw copious amounts of cocaine and hashish at the events.

"One of the suites would be absolutely packed with gentlemen running around with either no clothes on, no shirt on. It was like a frat party gone wild. Drug use was rampant. There was cocaine all on the tables. There were blocks of hash, and you could smell it in the air...walking up to the door," Lowry said in his deposition.

On occasion, Blackwater personnel at these parties would go out on the balcony with machine guns and "would just spray the building next door, which housed Iraqi civilians," Lowry alleges.