Blackwater takes hundreds of US weapons by claiming to be Cartman

DON'T respect their authority




Employees of the CIA-connected private security corporation Blackwater diverted hundreds of weapons, including more than 500 AK-47 assault rifles, from a U.S. weapons bunker in Afghanistan intended to equip Afghan policemen, according to an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee. On at least one occasion, an individual claiming to work for the company evidently signed for a weapons shipment using the name of a “South Park” cartoon character. And Blackwater has yet to return hundreds of the guns to the military.

A Blackwater subsidiary known as Paravant that until recently operated in Afghanistan acquired the weapons for its employees’ “personal use,” according to committee staffers, as did other non-Paravant employees of Blackwater. Yet contractors in Afghanistan are not permitted to operate weapons without explicit permission from U.S. Central Command, something Blackwater never obtained. A November 2008 email from a Paravant vice president named Brian McCracken, obtained by the committee, nevertheless reads: “We have not received formal permission from the Army to carry weapons yet but I will take my chances.”

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RELATED: House Dems Want To Phase Out Armed Contractors

Did Peyton Manning Throw The Super Bowl?

Consider the evidence for the conspiracists: Manning was born and raised in New Orleans. And his father, Archie, is legendary around the Gulf Coast region. And the Mannings (which includes New York Giants quarterback Eli) knew as well as anybody before the game how much a world championship in New Orleans would brighten the souls of those still recovering from Hurricane Katrina. And Wayne, who possibly ran a shoddy route against Porter, also is from New Orleans.

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Naked Sledding Needs to be an Official Olympic sport NOW!!!

From homeless to Olympian

Again, will someday be a Disney movie starring Dennis Quaid for some reason




Vancouver, British Columbia (CNN) -- Many kids dream of being in the Olympics one day. When U.S. bobsledder Bill Schuffenhauer was a child in Salt Lake City, Utah, he had no idea the Olympics even existed.

All he knew was his parents were drug addicts, that his mother was a prostitute who was often beaten in front of him. He knew that if he was going to survive, he had to do whatever it took to make it.

He stole from people; he ate from garbage cans; he got locked up in juvenile detention for breaking into a bike shop when he was trying to get something he could sell for money so he could eat.

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ESPN suspends Kornheiser for comments on Hannah Storm's attire

But he was immediately hired to judge "Project Runway"




As ESPN's mob of personalities grows, incidents arise that help define ESPN's internal do's and don'ts. Tuesday, ESPN left no doubt about how to speak of fellow staffers: No badmouthing.

ESPN announced Tony Kornheiser, co-host of its weekday Pardon The Interruption, is on a two-week suspension that started Monday for comments about ESPN anchor Hannah Storm.

They were, said ESPN executive vice president John Skipper in a statement, "entirely inappropriate. Hurtful and personal comments such as these are not acceptable and have significant consequences."

Asked if the key was that Kornheiser was talking about a fellow staffer rather than specifically what he what said, spokesman Mike Soltys said: "Yes. Respect for colleagues is paramount!"

What Kornheiser said, on his weekday local radio show on ESPN's Washington, D.C. affiliate Friday, was that Storm was on-air in a "horrifying outfit" with "red go-go boots" and a skirt "way too short for somebody her age." He added the kicker: "She's what I would call a Holden Caulfield fantasy at this point."

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Toyota recalls won't 'totally' fix sudden surges

So have fun waiting around your Toyota recall-repair all day just to drive off the lot with the same problems you came in with




WASHINGTON – Massive recalls of popular Toyota cars and trucks still may "not totally" solve frightening problems of sudden, unintended acceleration, the company's American sales chief conceded Tuesday, a day before the Japanese president of the world's largest automaker must confront angry U.S. lawmakers.

House members listened in rapt silence Tuesday to the tearful testimony of a woman whose car unaccountably surged to 100 mph, then they pressed U.S. sales chief James Lentz on the company's efforts to find and fix the acceleration problems — actions many suggested were too late and too limited.

Lentz apologized repeatedly for safety defects that led to recalls of some 8.5 million Toyota cars and trucks, and he acknowledged the changes the company is making probably aren't the end of the story.


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Dog falls off cliff-- and Lives

Maybe he's secretly Underdog?




POPPY the Springer Spaniel lived up to her name after plummeting 300FT off a cliff — and SURVIVING after bouncing off a wave.

The dog bolted after seeing a seagull circling over the drop and leapt at it not realising the fall below.

But lucky Poppy was running so fast her momentum meant she cleared the rocks which would have killed her instantly and landed in the high tide.

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ACTA "internet enforcement" chapter leaks

Someone has uploaded a PDF to a Google Group that is claimed to be the proposal for Internet copyright enforcement that the USA has put forward for ACTA, the secret copyright treaty whose seventh round of negotiations just concluded in Guadalajara, Mexico. This reads like it probably is genuine treaty language, and if it is the real US proposal, it is the first time that this material has ever been visible to the public. According to my source, the US proposal is the current version of the treaty as of the conclusion of the Mexico round.

I've read it through a few times and it reads a lot like DMCA-plus. It contains, for example, a duty to technology firms to shut down infringement where they have "actual knowledge" that such is taking place. This argument was put forward in the Grokster case, and as Fred von Lohmann argued then, this is a potentially deadly burden to place on technology companies: in the offline world Xerox has "actual knowledge" that its technology is routinely used to infringe copyright at Kinko's outlets around the world -- should that create a duty to stop providing sales and service to Kinko's?

This also includes takedown procedures for trademark infringement, as well as the existing procedures against copyright infringement. Since trademark infringement is a lot harder for a service provider to adjudicate (and since things that might be trademark infringement take place every time you do something as innocuous as taking a photo of a street-scene that contains hundreds or thousands of trademarks), this sounds like a potential disaster to me.

This calls on all parties to ensure that "third party liability" (the idea that ISPs, web-hosts, application developers, mobile carriers, universities, apartment buildings, and other "third parties" to infringement are sometimes liable for their users' copyright infringements) is on the books in their countries. It doesn't spell out what that liability should be, beyond "knowingly and materially aiding" an infringement -- see the Kinko's point above for why this is potentially deadly.

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RELATED: Forget 'Net Neutrality': For Big Telecom, It's About Your Freedom and Your Money

We don't feel good about this...Flo the Progressive Insurance Girl

We're not the only ones, right?

Joe Stack: America's First Suicide Bomber?

Joseph Stack, frustrated American, flew his airplane into an Austin, Texas, office building. He was one of the 79-percent of Americans who have given up on "their" government.

The latest Rasmussen Poll indicates that the vast majority of Americans are convinced that "their" government is totally unresponsive to them, their concerns, and their needs. Rasmussen found that only 21-percent of the American population agree that the U.S. government has the consent of the governed, and that 21-percent is comprised of the political class itself and liberals. Rasmussen concludes that the gap between the American population and the politicians who rule them "may be as big today as the gap between the colonies and England during the 18th century."

Indications are that Joseph Stack was sane. Like Palestinians faced with Israeli jet fighters, helicopter gunships, tanks, missiles and poison gas, Stack realized that he was powerless. A suicide attack was the only weapon left to him.

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CoOlDiGgY celebrates Black History Month: Tracee Ellis Ross

You have to like the nerdy girls

VIDEO: Fears of humanitarian crisis in Marjah

Neveda Governor claims to not have sex in 15 years

Even we here at CoOlDiGgY have had sex in the past 15 years.
editor's note: Getting "it" stuck in your zipper would have to count




Embattled Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons was under oath this month to answer questions about the alleged assault and threatened rape of Las Vegas resident Chrissy Mazzeo in 2006. Although criminal charges were never pursued, Mazzeo's civil suit is ongoing -- and the information to come out of the deposition seems conflicted, to say the least. Today, the governor claimed in his sworn deposition that he hasn't had sex since 1995 -- with his wife or any other woman -- adding, "I'm living proof that you can survive without sex for that long," reports Las Vegas Now.

Mazzeo's alleged assault is not the only incident weighing down Gibbons's personal and political life, and his recent deposition reflected that turmoil. As LVN put it, "Mazzeo and her attorney Bob Kossack think the governor is lying, not only about events on the night in question but about his personal life."

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Did TV star Elena Skordelli murder the man who sacked her?

Sigma TV, the second-most-watched channel in Cyprus, is known for its lurid soap operas and equally lurid approach to the news. In a plot-line to fulfil the channel's wildest fictional, and non-fictional, dreams, a glamorous blonde television presenter is due to go on trial in Cyprus tomorrow accused of plotting the murder of the boss who sacked her. Unfortunately for Sigma, the victim was the channel's own boss, the media tycoon Andis Hadjicostis, 43.

The couple accused of ordering his shooting includes one of the most celebrated people in Cyprus, Sigma's former lifestyle and news presenter Elena Skordelli, 42. The second alleged mastermind is her brother, Tassos Krasopoulos, 37.


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America Just Declared The Recovery Over So You'd Better Get Ready For The Double Dip

What cardboard box is right for you?


Today's bleak consumer confidence number is undoubtedly bad news for the economy. The bigger than expected drop suggests that consumers have lost confidence in the recovery, which will drive down home prices and consumer spending.

Consumer confidence is typically our "first look" at the state of the economy. While most government aggregated data come out with a two-month lag, or more, consumer confidence hits with just a one month lag. Studies have shown that consumer confidence is a good predictor of consumer spending numbers. Basically, people surveyed seem to be good at accurately reading their own economic situation, and those surveyed accurately reflect the broader economy. When consumer confidence drops to such deep unexpected levels--today's were the worst in 27 years--then it is a flashing red-light about the economy.

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First Full-Body Scanners Will Be In Boston And Chicago, AP Source Says

Weird, it says right there in the summary that the "gives-you-cancer-while-seeing-you-and-your-wife-and-children-naked" machines were ordered last February. But we taught that they were in reaction to the Underwear Bomber. Interesting




WASHINGTON (AP) -- Government officials say the first of 150 new full-body scanners will be installed in airports in Boston and Chicago over the next two weeks.

A Homeland Security Department official said Tuesday all of the 150 new machines will be installed by the end of June. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement is not yet public.

The body-scanners were purchased with money from President Barack Obama's stimulus plan announced in February last year.

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LA meter readersuse your dog against you

It's your typical "Big Brother Bites Dog" story




The list helps meter readers, now it might help shrink the budget deficit.

In an effort to reduce its budget deficit, the city might turn to a database that lists households with dogs.

The Department of Water and Power created the list for meter readers. It allows them to take precautions when visiting homes at which dogs reside.

City Council President Eric Garcetti suggested using the list to track down unlicensed dogs, which would increase revenue from license fees. The city requires that all dogs -- and horses -- be licensed by the Department of Animal Services.

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6 Out of 10 'Underemployed' Not Hopeful About Finding Full-Time Work

You can always work for CoOlDiGgY where pay nothing and the rewards are even less




Sixty-one percent of the "underemployed" -- those who are either out of work or working part time and want full-time jobs -- are not hopeful they will find a job in the next four weeks, according to Gallup tracking polls conducted Jan. 2-31.

Sixty-eight percent of those working part time are not optimistic about finding a full-time job and 55 percent of those unemployed are not hopeful about their prospects.

Gallup says reasons for the difference in the outlook of the two "underemployed" categories are that those who are unemployed are actively searching for jobs while part-timers may have given up, and because the part-timers' obligations to their current jobs restrict their ability to look for new ones.

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Congress to Investigate Saudi Prince’s Stake in FOX?

With FOX's often unfounded cries of terrorism permeating their programs, the network's alliance with Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal necessarily led to questions about FOX's credibility on terrorism. Now it seems that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), a ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, might be open to further investigating the issue.

Among the many developments of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that seemed to portend disaster for the GOP, a reporter for Think Progress interviewed Rep. Issa and managed to have Issa agree, at least in theory, to looking into possible ethical issues with Al-Waleed's partial ownership of News Corporation, parent company of FOX News. Rep. Issa's other priorities at the moment include confronting Toyota President Akio Toyoda about the company's unintended acceleration problems, proving Issa certainly must investigate issues important to the nation.

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Lindsay Lohan Admits Cocaine Use, Three Rehab Visits

DUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!




Hollywood wild child Lindsay Lohan laid bare the extent of her drug addiction Monday, confessing that she came close to killing herself through a heady mix of alcohol and cocaine.

The bisexual actress, 23, who visited rehab three times and was jailed after being caught with cocaine, revealed she hit rock bottom and risked blowing her entire career via drug abuse.

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The little-told story of how the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition

It was Christmas Eve 1926, the streets aglitter with snow and lights, when the man afraid of Santa Claus stumbled into the emergency room at New York City's Bellevue Hospital. He was flushed, gasping with fear: Santa Claus, he kept telling the nurses, was just behind him, wielding a baseball bat.

Before hospital staff realized how sick he was—the alcohol-induced hallucination was just a symptom—the man died. So did another holiday partygoer. And another. As dusk fell on Christmas, the hospital staff tallied up more than 60 people made desperately ill by alcohol and eight dead from it. Within the next two days, yet another 23 people died in the city from celebrating the season.

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Dynamic duo Virtue, Moir make history

Think all of the sex positions (did we say that out loud?)
editor's note: yes, assholes




You can't fake this kind of chemistry.

The connection between ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir runs deep — beginning as a friendship forged in their childhood, progressing to a teenage romance, before finally blossoming into a dynamic duo of Olympic gold medallists Monday night.

They began skating together when she was seven and he was nine, at a skating club in Ilderton, Ont., a town of about 2,000 people just north of London.

From the beginning it has been a perfect match. The first time she laid eyes on her skating partner, Virtue said, she had a crush on him.

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US federal grand jury subpoenas Toyota

Toyota: the cars you actually drive better while drunk




Toyota has received a subpoena from a US federal grand jury over its handling of safety problems with its cars, in a development that opens the door to criminal prosecution and hefty fines for the Japanese company.

The world’s biggest carmaker said it had also received a subpoena from the Los Angeles office of the Securities and Exchange Commission asking it to produce documents relating to “unintended acceleration of Toyota vehicles and the company’s disclosure policy and practices”.

The subpoenas came ahead of two Congressional hearings this week on the company’s recall of more than 8.5m cars because of faulty accelerators, floor mats and brake problems. Akio Toyoda, the company’s chief executive, is due to testify on Wednesday as Toyota battles a crisis that threatens its reputation.

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VIDEO: Rihanna and a midget lapdance...

...our most confused sexual fantasy come true

New senator helps Democrats advance jobs bill

Will the other Republicans unFriend him on FaceBook?


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A modest job-creation bill advanced in the Senate on Monday as the chamber's newest Republican bucked his party and sided with Democrats on a $15 billion package of tax cuts and highway spending.

Republican Scott Brown joined four other Republicans, 55 Democrats and two independents to overcome a procedural hurdle that sets up a final vote later this week.

Brown was widely hailed as a conservative hero after his surprise victory in Massachusetts last month gave Republicans enough seats to block most Democratic legislation.

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Genuinely touching moment-Angelina and Dad, Jon Voight, together again

They've been estranged for years and here they are, hanging out in Italy. Are you keeping up on the important bonds in your life? Share your wisdom with us




The famous father/daughter duo were spotted getting off a taxi boat in Venice, along with Zahara and Brad Pitt (that's his right hand in the photo above).

Jolie and Voight have been estranged for years, but no one can fight when they're in Venice. Ciao!

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Breaking News: Mika Brzezinski is sexy

Lose that Joe guy and we'll talk