PHOENIX (AP) — An audio recording has surfaced of an Arizona sheriff playing his refusal to cooperate in a racial profiling investigation for laughs at a fundraiser for an anti-illegal immigration group in Texas. He ridicules politicians who sought the probe and displayed contempt toward federal authorities who were — and are still — investigating him on two fronts.

The dismissive comments in 2009 by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio came as the U.S. Justice Department had already launched a civil rights probe of his trademark immigration patrols and the FBI already was examining abuse-of-power allegations for the sheriff’s investigations of political foes.

In the September 2009 speech in Houston, Arpaio boasted that he arrested hundreds of illegal immigrants after politicians and federal investigators started to pick apart his patrols. He said he wouldn’t cooperate with the inquiry, but said he would tone down the patrols — if he was proven wrong.

“But I’m not. After they went after me, we arrested 500 more just for spite,” the self-proclaimed “America’s toughest sheriff” said, pausing for laughter and applause.

Read more here

We have crazy people. And we have crazy people being crazy about something: cars, football, golf, bicycles….or basketball. These people are crazy not just about Street Basketball, running around 3 vs 3; after the game having beer and smoking. They are into THE Basketball. It’s a culture, not a game. It’s even a religion, lifestyle, circle of acts and things you buy. It’s the reason you are happy or sad.

I would need to explain what I am talking about now: have you ever heard about small island next to the Baltic Sea, in Eastern part of Europe? During the Geografy Lessons you might find a name of ‘Lithuania’. That’s  the country where everyone is crazy about THE Basketball. That’s a country, that cannot buy expensive players…but they can find them. Prepare them. Raise them.

One of these talentative players is Jonas Valančiūnas (pron. J.Vallanchiu:nass). This young (19 years) player was chosin by NBA, Raptors. It might be a dream of lot’s of players in Europe, and here we go: we have a lucky one.

This movie will show all I’m talking about: starting THE Basketball in that small Baltic Island Lithuania, finishing with Big Guy from that small country.

Enjoy it.

Part1: Lithuania and THE Basketball

Part 2: Big Guy and his Mom

Part3: Big Guy’s Friends

Part4: “Raptors” about Him and LT

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — NASA’s Dawn spacecraft was captured into orbit around the massive asteroid Vesta after a 1.7 billion-mile journey and is preparing to begin a study of a surface that may date to the earliest era of the solar system, the space agency said Monday.
The entry into orbit occurred while the spacecraft’s antenna was pointed away from Earth, so mission controllers had to wait for Dawn to re-establish contact to confirm its success.
The capture was estimated to have occurred at 10 p.m. PDT Friday, when Dawn was 9,900 miles from Vesta and 117 million miles from Earth in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, according to a statement from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“We are beginning the study of arguably the oldest extant primordial surface in the solar system,” the mission’s principal investigator, Christopher Russell from the University of California, Los Angeles, said in the statement.
NASA said that after the orbital capture, Dawn sent an initial close-up image taken for navigation purposes. Before the Dawn mission, images of Vesta were obtained by ground- and space-based telescopes but did not show much surface detail.
Vesta, 330 miles in diameter, is the second-most massive object in the asteroid belt and is believed to be the source of many meteorites that fall to Earth.
Dawn will continue to approach Vesta over the next three weeks, search for possible moons and make more navigation images. It begins gathering science data in August. Vesta’s gravitational pull on Dawn will be measured to more accurately determine the asteroid’s mass.
The spacecraft will eventually get as close as 110 miles from the surface.
Dawn was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., in 2007 and used an ion propulsion system to reach Vesta. Ion engines provide gentle yet constant acceleration to achieve high speeds.
The spacecraft will study Vesta for a year and then continue on to the most massive object in the main asteroid belt, the “dwarf planet” Ceres. That encounter is scheduled to occur in February 2015.
JPL is managing the $466 million mission for NASA. UCLA is responsible for the mission’s science. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute also have roles in the mission.

Somali pirates may be terrorizing the waters off of East Africa, but maybe they should pick their targets a little more carefully and stop targeting European warships.

Earlier today, some Somali pirates got a little too greedy and attacked the Spanish warship serving as the flagship for the European Union’s fleet of ships carrying out a counter-piracy mission off of Somalia.

Somali pirates

Needless to say, it wasn’t a fair fight.

At first light Thursday, the Spanish warship ESPS Patino had just completed escorting a ship carrying food aid into the Somali capital of Mogadishu. In addition to a counter-piracy effort, the EU’s main mission is to escort freighters carrying food from the World Food Programme.

That’s when a skiff carrying six pirates sped towards the warship and the pirates began to fire their light-caliber weapons at the ship in an attemp to board it.

The Patino’s crew immediately began to fire back in self-defense and launched the ship’s helicopter.

The pirates realized they were outgunned and broke away from the attack, but eventually surrendered to the helicopter. But only after first throwing their weapons, ladder and fuel barrels overboard.

Somali pirates often dump their weapons into the ocean in an attempt to avoid detention.

Five of the pirates were injured and two required medical treatment on board the Patino. The crew of the Spanish warship is also looking into the pirates’ claim that another pirate was lost overboard during the attack.

Somali Pirates

Taking on a warship might sound like a unique event but, amazingly, this isn’t the first time that Somali pirates have taken on a warship.

In October 2009, a group of pirates attempted to take on the French warship BCR Somme about 250 miles off the coast of Somalia.

They met a similar fate to the pirates involved in today’s incident and were detained after their unsuccessful attack.

Politico
Judge blocks parts of South Carolina immigration law
Reuters – ‎2 hours ago‎

By Harriet McLeod | CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) – South Carolina is barred from enforcing several key parts of its new law aimed at curbing illegal immigration, a federal judge ruled on Thursday, making the state the latest to see such efforts …

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/22/us-southcarolina-immigration-idUSTRE7BL1E920111222

PHOENIX – Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Wednesday made a show of his detention officers turning in badges that came with their authorization to conduct federal immigration screenings in county jails.

Shawnee Mission East teen Emma Sullivan insulted Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback over Twitter while on a school field trip to the state capitol last week.

Emma Sullivan, the tweeting high school senior

“Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot,” she wrote to her 60 followers who tuned in to her sporadic updates about the Twilight films and Justin Bieber. In fact, Sullivan hadn’t said a word to the governor during his brief speech, and she now says the Twitter comment was just an “inside joke” among her high schol friends who were also on the Youth in Government field trip and disagreed with Brownback’s politics.

But the humor was lost on members of Brownback’s staff, who found the tweet while scouring social media sites for his name and alerted Sullivan’s high school principal. The principal reprimanded Sullivan and demanded she write an apology to the governor.

Sullivan says he better not hold his breath. After originally acquiescing to her principal’s request, the 18-year-old took her story to Kansas papers and news stations–and now to national outlets–and has changed her mind.

“He was very angry, right off the bat,” Sullivan said of her principal, Karl Krawitz. “He was extremely scared about it. He made it very clear that he wasn’t happy.”

Sullivan agreed to write the apology letter “to get it out of the way,” she says. “I didn’t want to deal with it because I’m in the process of applying to school and am trying to keep my reputation good.”

But she soon thought the better of it, after calling her older sister, Olivia, who is a political science major at Wichita State University and is now managing her flood of interview requests. “I wasn’t sorry for what I said because I meant it,” Sullivan says. She disagrees with Brownback, a Republican, on rights for gay couples and abortion rights, among other things.

And while Sullivan’s tweet is still rude, Brownback’s staff response makes him look thin-skinned and unable to take a joke. “I can’t believe they would prioritize that over other issues they have going on now,” Sullivan says. “I can’t believe they take time out of their day to look at social media and Twitter for his name.”

Hundreds of people have left negative comments on Brownback’s Facebook Thanksgiving message. “The imperial Gov needs to go to the school, apologize to the assembled students and then apologize in person to the young lady,” one person wrote.

In a comment to the Kansas City Star last week, Brownback’s communications director stood behind the decision to notify Sullivan’s principal. “That wasn’t respectful,” Sherriene Jones-Sontag told the paper. “In order to really have a constructive dialogue, there has to be mutual respect.”

But Brownback submitted a statement Monday afternoon to Yahoo! News

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback

apologizing to the teen. “My staff over-reacted to this tweet, and for that I apologize. Freedom of speech is among our most treasured freedoms,” he said. Jones-Sontag told Yahoo! that the governor has no plans to personally reach out to Sullivan.

Sullivan, who now has more than 9,000 Twitter followers and has begun quoting Gandhi, says she hopes the principal will accept her decision not write an apology letter. She says the incident has been a “reality check” to her and her friends that their comments on social media sites are not anonymous nor consequence-free.

“It would be nice to kind of talk to the governor and let him know where I’m at and say things, let my opinion be heard and tell him that he needs to listen to more people in Kansas,” Sullivan says. “There needs to be an open door for more people to speak their opinion and be heard by him.”

Update: Gov. Brownback’s statement apologizing to Sullivan has been added to this story. His full statement is below:

“My staff over-reacted to this tweet, and for that I apologize. Freedom of speech is among our most treasured freedoms. I enjoyed speaking to the more than 100 students who participated in the Youth in Government Program at the Kansas Capitol. They are our future. I also want to thank the thousands of Kansas educators who remind us daily of our liberties, as well as the values of civility and decorum. Again, I apologize for our over-reaction”

Isn´t it amazing how fast people try to resind the right of free speech when what you´re saying is uncomfortable or contrary to their beliefs or opinions. She was right to not apologize for her opinion.

The film “Paranormal Activity 3″ topped the North American theaters in its first weekend, according to Agence France-Presse. Pseudo-thriller about a poltergeist brought their creators $ 54 million.

The movie events happend  in 1988. After the two sisters decided to call the spirit of Bloody Mary, at their house begin to occur mysterious and frightening events. To understand what happening around them, the family decided to establish at home a video camera. The film is a prequel of the two previous parts of   ”Paranormal Activity”.

Rihanna presented her new music video for the song We Found Love, during the filming of which she had a funny story with an Irish farmer. In the new  video singer shot the former boxer Dudley O’Shaughnessy.

According to rumors, the couple started dating after working together. Between them is clearlyvisible ”chemistry” in the video. In the story, from kisses, hugs and love making the couple moved to the insult.

“We’ve never done such videos like this one. This is probably one of the deepest of my video. It’s all about love, I love to be like a drug,” – said the singer on her new job.