truesee's Blog

http://www.wreg.com/news/nationworld/la-heb-hiv-kidney-transplant-20110317,0,2050165.story

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/mar/17/dc-man-get-18-years-in-600-drug-deal/

http://projects.ajc.com/gallery/view/metro/atlanta/moon-close-2011/

WASHINGTON — U.S. and British ships and submarines launched the first phase of a missile assault on Libyan air defenses Saturday and a senior American defense official said it was believed substantial damage was inflicted.

In the strikes, 112 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired at more than 20 coastal targets to clear the way for air patrols to ground Libya’s air force.

While U.S. defense officials cautioned that it was too early to fully gauge the impact of the onslaught, the official said that given the precision targeting of the Navy’s cruise missiles, they felt that Libya’s air defenses suffered a good deal of damage.

Explosions continued to rock the coastal cities, including Tripoli. Navy Vice Adm. Wiliam E. Gortney, director of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, would not discuss future operations But defense officials said military action was likely to continue.

The official spoke on grounds of anonymity because the ongoing mission.

In announcing the mission during a visit to Brazil, President Barack Obama said he was reluctant to resort to force but was convinced it was necessary to save the lives of civilians. He reiterated that he would not send American ground troops to Libya.

“We cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people there will be no mercy,” he said in Brasilia.

While U.S. defense officials said it was too early to gauge the impact of the onslaught, one senior official said that given the precision targeting of the Navy’s cruise missiles, they believe Libya’s air defenses suffered a good deal of damage.

It was clear the U.S. intended to limit its role in the Libya intervention, focusing first on disabling or otherwise silencing Libyan air defenses, and then leaving it to European and perhaps Arab countries to enforce a no-fly zone over the North African nation.

Gortney told reporters the cruise missile assault was the “leading edge” of a coalition campaign dubbed Operation Odyssey Dawn. Its aim: prevent Moammar Gadhafi’s forces from inflicting more violence on civilians -- particularly in and around the rebel stronghold of Benghazi -- and degrading the Libyan military’s ability to contest a no-fly zone.

“This is not an outcome the U.S. or any of our partners sought,” Obama said from Brazil, where he is starting a five-day visit to Latin America. “Our consensus was strong, and our resolve is clear. The people of Libya must be protected, and in the absence of an immediate end to the violence against civilians our coalition is prepared to act, and to act with urgency.”

A chief target of Saturday’s cruise missile attack was Libya’s SA-5 surface-to-air missiles, which are considered a moderate threat to some allied aircraft. Libya’s overall air defenses are based on older Soviet technology but Gortney called them capable and a potential threat to allied aircraft.

Also targeted: early warning radars and unspecified communications facilities, Gortney said. The U.S. military has extensive recent experience in such combat missions; U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft repeatedly attacked Iraq’s air defenses during the 1990s while enforcing a no-fly zone over Iraq’s Kurdish north.

Cruise missiles are the weapon of first choice in such campaigns; they do not put pilots at risk, and they use navigational technologies that provide good precision.

The first Tomahawk cruise missiles struck at 3 p.m. EDT, Gortney said, after a one-hour flight from the U.S. and British vessels on station in the Mediterranean.

They were fired from five U.S. ships — the guided-missile destroyers USS Stout and USS Barry, and three submarines, USS Providence, USS Scranton and USS Florida.

The U.S. has at least 11 naval vessels in the Mediterranean, including three submarines, two destroyers, two amphibious warfare ships and the USS Mount Whitney, a command-and-control vessel that is the flagship of the Navy’s 6th Fleet. Also in the area are Navy P-3 and EP-3 surveillance aircraft, officials said.

Gortney initially had said that it could take as long as 12 hours to assess the effectiveness of Saturday’s strikes. Then a high-altitude Global Hawk unmanned surveillance plane would overfly the target areas to get a more precise view, the admiral said. He would not say how long the attacks on Libyan air defenses would last, but he stressed that Saturday’s assault with cruise missiles was the first phase of a multi-stage mission.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in a statement late Saturday, said, “I support the actions taken today by our allies, with the support of several Arab countries, to prevent the tyrant Moammar Qaddafi from perpetrating further atrocities on the people of Libya.”

“And I support the president’s decision to deploy U.S. assets to help those allies to enforce a no-fly zone to protect Libyan civilians as laid out in the United Nations resolution,” the Nevada Democrat said. “This U.S. military action was not taken lightly, and it was done in concert with a broad international coalition.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was scheduled to fly to Russia on Saturday afternoon to begin a week-long overseas trip, postponed his departure for 24 hours. Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Gates decided he should remain in Washington to monitor developments in Libya at the outset of U.S. strikes.

Gates had been skeptical of getting involved in Libya’s civil war, telling Congress earlier this month that taking out Libya’s air defenses was tantamount to war. Others have worried that the mission could put the U.S. on a slippery slope to deeper involvement in yet another Muslim country — on top of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hours after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton attended an international conference in Paris that endorsed military action against Gadhafi, the U.S. and Britain kicked off their attacks.

At a news conference in Paris, Clinton said Gadhafi had left the world no choice but to intervene urgently and forcefully to protect further loss of civilian life.

“We have every reason to fear that, left unchecked, Gadhafi would commit unspeakable atrocities,” she told reporters.

Clinton said there was no evidence that Gadhafi’s forces were respecting an alleged cease-fire they proclaimed and the time for action was now.

“Our assessment is that the aggressive action by Gadhafi’s forces continues in many parts of the country,” she said. “We have seen no real effort on the part of the Gadhafi forces to abide by a cease-fire.”

In addition to the three submarines and two destroyers, the U.S. Navy ships in the Mediterranean include two amphibious warships, the USS Kearsarge and USS Ponce, and a command-and-control ship, the USS Mount Whitney.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/19/funniest-police-blotters-ever_n_837942.html#s255383&title=Well_That_Was

 

Watson/Getty

 

US President Barack Obama introduces his family as they arrive in Brasilia, Brazil, on Saturday.

The administration says the main goal of Obama's trip is to strengthen economic partnerships and foster job creation in the U.S.

"As we respond to these immediate crises abroad, we also will not let up in our efforts to tackle the pressing, ongoing challenges facing our country, including accelerating economic growth. That's why, over the weekend, I'll be in Latin America," Obama said in his weekly address.

Obama had his family in tow in Brasilia. First lady Michelle Obama,daughters Malia and Sasha, and the girls' grandmother and godmother went through the receiving line of Brazilian and American officials.

Fox & Friends' Steve Doocy ripped Obama's trip on Friday as a 'vacation," saying it's inappropriate for a president to go on such a jaunt while officials in Japan race to prevent a total nuclear meltdown, and Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy continues his assault on rebels, in spite of UN threats and his own promise of a ceasefire.

"What is happening with the president while all of this is going on in the United States and around the world?" Doocy said. "He's going on vacation. He's going to Rio. You've got to be kidding. Taking his family. It sounds like a vacation to me. Rio? Hello?"

The Washington Times ran an editorial this week titled 'Obama Couldn't Care Less," declaring 'the president parties while the world burns."

And conservative television commentator Monica Crowley told Fox Business Channel that 'Perception is reality. He's always shooting hoops, he's having Terry Bradshaw nights at the White House, he's in Rio. The world is aflame! Go to work!"

In Brazil, Obama will meet with President Dilma Rousseff and Brazilian business executives to discuss trade. He'll also head to Chile and El Salvador.

Brazil is the world's seventh largest economy, while Chile is the 24th largest trading partner with the U.S. El Salvador's economy is expected to grow 5.3% this year.

"Today, Brazil imports more goods from the United States than from any other nation. And I'll be meeting with business leaders from both countries to talk about how we can create even more jobs by deepening these economic ties," said the President.

The Obama Administration says there are over 300,000 jobs in the U.S. as a direct result of trade with the three countries.

LINK TO VIDEO:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2011/03/19/2011-03-19_president_obama_lands_in_brazil_while_conservatives_blast_trip_during_chaos_in_j.html

March 18, 2011 5:27 PM

Texas toddler found drunk on Four Loko, mother charged

Camille Mann 

Lashawnda Allen

(Credit: KHOU)

 

(CBS/KHOU) HOUSTON - A Houston mother was arrested and charged with child endangerment after her 20-month-old daughter was found drunk on Four Loko.

Police were called to Lashawnda Allen's apartment around 2 p.m. on Feb. 21 by Allen's roommate, who came home that afternoon to find Allen in the parking lot, talking to a neighbor while her children were inside their apartment unsupervised, reported CBS affiliate KHOU.

Allen told the roommate that the two kids were in the apartment and that her toddler was drunk. When the roommate rushed inside to check on the kids, she found Allen's 4-month-old baby hanging off the bed with the sheets tangled around her waist, turning blue. But, the 20-month-old was nowhere to be found, the station reported.

A neighbor told police she had found the toddler in the parking lot and the toddler appeared to be intoxicated. The roommate then called an ambulance, reports the station.

Allen admitted she'd been drinking Four Loko that day and had fallen asleep. When she woke up she said she saw the toddler on the floor with an empty Four Loko can, the station reports.

Allen told police she was afraid to call an ambulance because she didn't want to lose her kids, KHOU reports.

When the ambulance finally did arrive at Allen's home that day, the 20-month-old was taken to LBJ Hospital, where her blood alcohol level was found to be 0.09, court documents said.

Allen was being held Thursday in the Harris County Jail on $2,000 bond.

Attorney Damon Chase: Arrested a dozen times, now he's a prominent lawyer

His clients include ousted GOP Chairman Jim Greer

Rene Stutzman

Orlando Sentinel

11:38 PM EDT, March 18, 2011

Damon Chase, right, helped bail former Florida Republican Chairman Jim Greer, center, out of jail. Greer's wife, Lisa, is at left. (GEORGE SKENE, ORLANDO SENTINEL / June 2, 2010)

Damon Chase is one of the most prominent attorneys in Seminole County. His clients include Jim Greer, ousted chairman of the Florida GOP, and Rep. Chris Dorworth, the man slated to become Florida's House speaker in 2014.

But before Damon Chase became a lawyer with an office overlooking a golf course and 37-foot yacht, docked on the coast, he was a man with a different name and a long history of arrests — including armed robbery and fraud — that began when he was only 7.

When he was 24, he was arrested in Orlando for hitting his girlfriend. At 31, he beat up a man in a Gainesville bar during a fight over a World Series game.

His life story, said longtime friend Circuit Judge Nancy Alley, is one of redemption and hope.

"I'm quite ashamed of where I came from," said Chase, 44, of Winter Springs. "However, I am extremely proud of where I am."

For the first 31 years of his life, he was Floyd Lee Downs. He legally changed that in 1997, swearing to a Gainesville judge that he was not trying to hide his criminal past.

"I hated my name," Chase explained. He chose Damon Chase because it was unique and easy to spell.

By then, he had cleaned up his life, mostly. He was a full-time student at the University of Florida, working toward degrees in recreation and business and — his real goal — law school.

He disclosed to the UF college of law and the Florida Board of Bar Examiners — the group that decides whether one gets to be a lawyer — his whole life story.

For the bar examiners, it was not an easy sell. They treated him, for a time, like a criminal who could not be reformed. That's largely because of two criminal cases: Chase was arrested in Fort Lauderdale when he was 28, accused of using another man's Social Security card to try to get a fake drivers license.

And there was that Gainesville bar fight that left the other guy with a broken rib and a tooth knocked out.

In both instances, prosecutors decided there had been no crime.

Bar examiners reviewed copies of his arrest and court records, including those that showed he owed $20,000 in back child support and that during one six-year stretch, he hadn't filed federal tax returns.

Chase paid off the child support, filed his back taxes and, because the board demanded it, underwent a psychological evaluation and treatment. In 2003, one year after he passed the Bar exam, he was admitted to The Florida Bar at age 37.

He has not been arrested since nor disciplined by the Bar.

Rough early life

As a boy, he bounced between Louisville, Ky., where his mother lived, and South Florida, his father's home.He and his older brother had little adult supervision, he said.

He was first arrested at age 7, he says, for burglary, sneaking into and trashing a school on a Saturday.

He was arrested again at age 11, this time for armed robbery. He had tucked a crowbar inside his jacket and gone into a Louisville gas station with two older boys, according to Bar-examiner records. He demanded money from the clerk and then snatched more than $200 from the cash drawer.

His arrests sent him to foster homes, a juvenile-detention center, group homes and a work camp. At age 19, he married a woman who was expecting his child. They had a girl but separated a few months later. He was an ironworker at the time, drifting from job to job, state to state.

"I spent a lot of time in my early 20s just being homeless," he said.

He held a variety of jobs, mostly ironwork and bartender, he said, but he also tried to make it as lead guitarist in a heavy-metal band.

That last gig didn't work out, he joked,because although he had long, flowing hair — great heavy-metal hair — and looked really good dancing with a guitar, he has a lousy sense of rhythm.

He had scrapes with the law but was never convicted of a felony. One of his arrests came in Orange County in 1990, when he went to jail for hitting his girlfriend. He pleaded no contest and served a year of probation.

At age 29, living in a pay-by-the-week hotel in South Florida, he decided to turn his life around.

"I wanted to make money. I wanted to be a white-collar guy," he said.

His big break came from his grandmother, with whom he was not close, and Santa Fe Community College – now Santa Fe College -both in Gainesville.

She needed someone to take care of household chores and offered him a bedroom and an $8,500 college loan. The community college agreed to admit him, an eighth-grade dropout who had a GED.

His next big break came on the first day of law school, Jan. 3, 2000. That's the day he met and fell for another midlife law-school student, Melanie Freeman Carter, daughter of then-Circuit Judge Thomas G. Freeman, a politically powerful judge in Sanford.

"She's absolutely the best reward for changing my life," he said.

The following December, just after finals, they wed in a tiny ceremony at her family church, St. Mark's Presbyterian in Altamonte Springs.

Melanie Freeman Chase, 40, is his partner at the family firm, Chase Freeman in Lake Mary, which specializes in business law.

She has been his biggest advocate.

"In January, I watched him, in the pouring rain and wearing a suit and tie, stop to change a tire for an elderly couple on I-95," she wrote in a letter in 2003, urging the board to admit him to the Bar. "The truth is, the board would be hard pressed to find someone who has worked harder to overcome the mistakes of his or her youth. … He is an incredible success story."

Chase has two children, both now adults, from previous relationships.

'I was so proud of him'

To Martha Faircloth, a 76-year-old widow, Chase is a hero. One day six years ago she was pacing in her yard, upset because Seminole County wanted to condemn a 50-foot swath of land to widen a ditch that runs alongside her property west of Sanford. Bulldozers were going to destroy a dozen stately oak trees on her 4-acre lot, including one scientists said was 400 years old.

"This big black car pulled up in my yard, and a man stepped out in a black suit and white shirt," she said. It was Chase. He asked whether she had an attorney. "I said, 'No sir. I can't afford one.' He said, 'How'd you like to have a free one?' "

Chase then did something that's nearly unheard-of: He beat the government in an eminent-domain case. He saved her trees.

She breaks into tears as she tells the story.

"I was so proud of him," she said. "I had raked leaves and taken care of old people and cleaned their yards and things like that to pay for my corner lot. … He's a wonderful man."

Seminole County, which had sued her over the dispute, paid Chase's legal fees in her case.

Chase's most prominent client is Greer, the ousted chairman of the Florida GOP who awaits trial on grand-theft and conspiracy charges. On June 2, the day Greer was arrested, Chase was the lawyer who ran the gantlet of reporters and TV cameras outside the Seminole County Jail, helped post bail and then loaded Greer and his wife into his Range Rover and drove them away.

Two months earlier, Chase had sued the state party on Greer's behalf, accusing it of cheating Greer out of a $123,000 severance package. The suit has since been dismissed. Both men say they will refile once the criminal case is over.

"He's very aggressive, very meticulous," said Greer — and, most importantly, not afraid to take on an enormously powerful opponent: the state GOP.

Chase has a reputation for being generous and doing community work. He is president of the Seminole County Bar Association and a board member of an affiliated group, the Seminole County Legal Aid Society. In December, the society honored him for his pro bono work.

At that ceremony, he talked about having lived on the wrong side of the law. He did not go into detail.

Said friend and Altamonte Springs lawyer James DeKleva, "I don't know what he went through, but I can tell you, it's a remarkable change."

DeKleva called Chase a good lawyer, a good guy — a man who has transformed himself "like the phoenix rising from the ashes."

After a long, cold winter, Rita’s Italian Ice is predicting a “cool-ossal spring Ice storm.” On Sunday, the first day of spring, Rita’s Italian Ice will offer each customer one free, regular-sized (10 oz.) cup of Italian Ice in the available flavor of their choice. The deal will run from 12 p.m. to 9 p.m.

“For 19 years we’ve planned this annual, free event as a way to generate excitement for the season and to say ‘thank you’ to our loyal Rita’s Italian Ice lovers and the communities that support us year in and year out,” said Chief Executive Officer Jim Rudolph.

Nationwide, the company predicts it will scoop up more than 1.4 million cups of Ice. Last year, the number of people who visited a Rita’s Italian Ice location on the first day of spring totaled more than 30 times the average number of visitors to Disney World that the same day.

To find the location nearest you click the link below

http://www.ritasice.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0

The video got its first big promotion, perhaps not coincidentally, last Friday, when Comedy Central's Tosh.0 blog posted it under the headline "Songwriting Isn't For Everyone." And that was all it took. By the weekend's end, "Friday" had been Tumblr'd, Facebooked, blogged, and tweeted by countless baffled viewers--and dozens of covers and parodies had popped up on YouTube as well, including an amusingly Dylanesque one.

The virality of "Friday," a wannabe weekend-party anthem for the new generation, had nothing to with the song being any good, Rebecca being particularly attractive or gifted, or even with the fact that it was, well, the weekend. It's simply because it was so unbelievably BAD. ("A whole new level of bad," according to none other than Time magazine.) And it's because the song and video raised so many fascinating questions...such as:

Who the heck is this girl? How did she get a record deal? Why is she sitting at a bus stop, if her friends are picking her up in their car? Why is she so indecisive about whether to sit in the front or back seat? If the girl standing to her right is her friend, then is that girl on her left her frenemy? Did the general public REALLY need to be informed that Thursday comes before Friday, or that Sunday comes after Saturday? And, most importantly: Is this a real thing? Or is this an SNL Digital Short for which the Lonely Island are responsible?

Honestly, we're not sure if these questions will ever be properly answered. But we do know that "Friday" is the churned-out product of a Los Angeles-based company called the Ark Music Factory, which sends out casting calls looking for singers between the ages of 13 and 17 to record its songs and, if all goes well, become overnight YouTube stars (a la Justin Bieber). Rebecca Black's "Friday" is Ark's first major hit--and after this, we sincerely hope it's the company's last.

UPDATE: LINK TO BLACK'S RESPONSE TO CYBER BULLYING

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-03-17/rebecca-black-friday-and-cyberbullying/?cid=sexybeast:mainpromo1

The YouTube clip begins with a woman chowing down on spaghetti while trading barbs with another woman sitting across from her on a subway car.

The feud escalates a few minutes in when the middle-aged passenger asks the woman, "What kind of animals eat on the train?"

The diner responds, "What kind of fat ---- looks like you?"

After several more tense exchanges, the diner - with plate of food in hand - and her friend go face to face with the other woman, leading to the all-out brawl.

As onlookers try to calm the parties, the two women push each other, then start swinging - sending the spaghetti flying.

Multiple passengers eventually break up the fight, including a man who is scratched in the face as a result of his efforts.

"Y'all need to chill out!" he yells at one point.

"We the child, she grown," the passenger with the pasta responds.

"She need to chill out," she or her friend adds.

The clip was first reported Friday by NYC the Blog.

According to the user who uploaded the video, the incident took place on a Brooklyn train. No information was given on when it happened or whether anyone was arrested over the fight.

See the fight below (Warning: video contains offensive language)

http://www.nydailynews.com/video/index.html?eCode=1haDJ5Ohij8jJOnRkV5qeTMgTSGL7luj&dCode=Myc3JiMjq6uddeETrIg1zF-IXLU-NUK3

http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=69016&sitesection=ndnsubss&VID=23368587

Burlesque-Performing Professor Gets Fired

You learn something new everyday

http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=69016&sitesection=ndnsubss&VID=23369136

Weekend full moon the biggest in about 20 years

 

The full moon this weekend will look close enough to touch, but it will still be some 211,600 miles from Earth.

 

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The last full moon so big and close to Earth occurred in March of 1993
• Saturday's full moon will be the biggest in almost 20 years
• Saturday's full moon will still be 211,600 miles away
• This full moon will appear about 14% bigger and 30% brighter

(CNN)-- If the moon looks a little bit bigger and brighter this weekend, there's a reason for that. It is.

Saturday's full moon will be a super "perigee moon" -- the biggest in almost 20 years. This celestial event is far rarer than the famed blue moon, which happens once about every two-and-a-half years.

"The last full moon so big and close to Earth occurred in March of 1993," said Geoff Chester with the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington. "I'd say it's worth a look."

Full moons look different because of the elliptical shape of the moon's orbit. When it's at perigee, the moon is about 31,000 miles (50,000 km) closer to Earth than when it's at the farthest point of its orbit, also known as apogee.

"Nearby perigee moons are about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser moons that occur on the apogee side of the moon's orbit," the NASA website says.

This full moon will rise in the east at sunset and should look especially big at that time because of what's known as the "moon illusion."

"For reasons not fully understood by astronomers or psychologists, low-hanging moons look unnaturally large when they beam through trees, buildings and other foreground objects," according to NASA.

Even though it may look close enough to touch, Saturday's full moon will still be at a healthy distance -- some 211,600 miles (356,577 km) away.

As rare as it is, it may be worth a look. Miss it and you'll have to wait until 2029 to see it again.