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Haiti Mayor Says He Plans to Clear People Out of One of Country's Biggest Earthquake Camps


The Washington Post
Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:00 UTC
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© Reuters / Carlos BarriaA boy stands at an open area camp in Port-au-Prince where people are staying following Haiti's major earthquake.
Thousands of Haitians living in one of the biggest tent camps created after last year's earthquake could soon have a new home: the mountains north of Port-au-Prince.

City officials plan to relocate the almost 20,000 people living on the 42-acre (17-hectare) Champs de Mars plaza across the street from the crumbled National Palace if the central government approves, Port-au-Prince Mayor Jean Yves Jason said Wednesday.

Patrick Rouzier, a housing and reconstruction adviser for the government, acknowledged the plan in a text message. He said Jason wants to move the families to Morne Cabrit, a mountain north of the capital, and house them in temporary shelters.

The government has reservations about the approach, Rouzier added, but he did not elaborate. He said he was traveling with President Michel Martelly.

Jason cited an "act of banditry" in the public square as a reason for officials wanting to clear away the camp, which has become a shantytown complete with barber shops, boutiques and restaurants and is a symbol of Haiti's post-quake misery.
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Briefcase

US: Man arrested by TSA with 4th Amendment on chest says constitutional rights violated

Reed Williams
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Thu, 11 Aug 2011 21:09 UTC
Aaron Tobey
© Richmond International AirportAaron B. Tobey is suing federal official and Richmond International Airport officials over his detainment in December 2010.

Authorities involved in the arrest of a protester who removed his shirt and pants at a security checkpoint at Richmond International Airport were doing their jobs and acted appropriately, a government attorney argued Wednesday in Richmond federal court.

Carlotta P. Wells, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, argued in favor of a motion to dismiss Aaron B. Tobey's lawsuit, which claims his constitutional rights were violated. Wells said Tobey had made his point by removing his shirt to display words from the Fourth Amendment written on his torso but went too far when he disobeyed a command to pass through a security scanner.

But Anand Agneshwar, an attorney representing Tobey in his lawsuit against airport and federal officials, said the 21-year-old Charlottesville man obeyed the commands of authorities. Agneshwar said it was the authorities who went too far by detaining Tobey for 90 minutes or longer with his hands cuffed behind his back.
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2 + 2 = 4

New Zealand: Shocking Skeleton Discovery at Far North School


New Zealand Herald
Thu, 11 Aug 2011 11:32 UTC
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© ThinkStockA Northland school has discovered that a skeleton thought to have been plastic was actually real.
Teachers at a Northland school have made the macabre discovery that a skeleton thought to have been plastic was actually real.

The skeleton, made up of a skull and one side of the body, had been used as a teaching aide at Totara North School in Kaeo, the Northern Advocate reported.

Principal Bastienne Kruger was about to use it in a lesson showing how the human skeleton fitted together when she realised it was not plastic after all.

"When we realised it was real we wanted to do right by this poor person, but we didn't know how - so we phoned the hospital, and they suggested we bring it to the police."
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Handcuffs

US: Warren Jeffs, polygamist sect leader, gets life in jail


BBC
Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:12 UTC
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© ReutersReligious head Warren Jeffs received maximum sentences on both counts
Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs has been sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting two underage followers he took as brides.

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints leader was handed the maximum sentence possible.

Last Thursday, the 55-year-old was found guilty of forcing two girls into "spiritual marriages" and fathering a child with one of them.

The charges followed a raid on a remote west Texas ranch in 2008.
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Handcuffs

South Carolina, US: Teen gets prison time for planned Columbine-style attack

Harriet McLeod
Reuters
Thu, 11 Aug 2011 15:03 UTC
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© The Sun NewsConvicted: Christian Helms pleaded guilty to adult charges of attempted murder and carrying pipe bombs to a school in Socastee, near Myrtle Beach
A 15-year-old in South Carolina was sentenced on Wednesday to serve six years in prison for charges connected to a Columbine-style attack authorities said he had intended to carry out at his school.

Christian Helms pleaded guilty to adult charges of attempted murder and carrying pipe bombs to a school in Socastee, near Myrtle Beach.

Evidence showed that the then 14-year-old Helms brought a .38-caliber revolver to school last September and fired it at a school police officer, wounding him, Horry County Assistant Solicitor Alicia Richardson said.
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People

Poll: 79 Percent of Americans Dissatisfied with U.S. Political System

Eric W. Dolan
Raw Story
Wed, 10 Aug 2011 22:24 UTC
US capitol flag
© n/a
Poll after poll has found that Americans are extremely disillusioned with the federal government, regardless of their political affiliation, after the president signed an agreement over the federal debt ceiling and budget deficit.

According to a Washington Post poll released on Wednesday, just 21 percent of Americans are satisfied with the way the country's political system is working, down 17 points from November 2009. Forty-five percent of Americans now consider themselves "very dissatisfied" and 33 percent consider themselves "mostly dissatisfied."

Additionally, just 26 percent of Americans believe that the federal government can actually solve the country's economic problems, down 21 points from October 2010 and down 37 points from February 2002.

President Barack Obama signed a debt ceiling deal into law in the beginning of August. The legislation raised the debt ceiling until 2013 and cut the federal deficit by about $2.1 trillion over a 10-year period. The two-stage agreement, which was criticized by both tea party lawmakers and progressive Democrats, passed by a vote of 269 to 161 in the House and a vote of 74 to 26 in the Senate.
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Nuke

Citizen Group Tracks Down Japan's Radiation

Dahr Jamail
Al Jazeera
Wed, 10 Aug 2011 21:29 UTC
Protesters march in an anti-nuclear rally
© EPAProtesters march in an anti-nuclear rally in Tokyo after the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant
The aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis has been marked by an outcry in Japan over radiation leaks, contaminated food and a government unable to put the public's fears to rest.

Perhaps the most worrying aspect of the meltdown that resulted from March's earthquake - triggered disaster, activists and citizens have said, is the uncertainty that has ensued.

In the months since the catastrophe, the Japanese government, its nuclear watchdogs and Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), have provided differing, confusing, and at times contradictory, information on critical health issues.

Fed up with indefinite data, a group of 50 volunteers decided to take matters, and Geiger counters, into their own hands.
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Question

Is Insect-Eating Really the Future of Food?

Justin Rohrlich
Minyanville
Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:33 UTC
Insect as Food
© MinyanvilleThat's not chicken!

When the collective conversation turns to how we will feed the planet in the years to come, the subject of entomophagy invariably comes up.

In this week's New Yorker, Dana Goodyear delves deep into the past, present, and future of bug eating, which are "now appearing on the menus of high-end restaurants in North America and in grocery stores in the Netherlands" as "a growing number of scientists, entrepreneurs, and chefs are arguing that they represent a sustainable, humane source of protein that we'd be foolish to overlook."

"Food preferences are highly local, often irrational, and defining: a Frenchman is a frog because he considers their legs food and the person who calls him one does not," she writes. "In Santa Maria Atzompa, a community in Oaxaca where grasshoppers toasted with garlic, chile, and lime are a favorite treat, locals have traditionally found shrimp repulsive."

"They would say, 'some people' eat it, meaning 'the coastal people,'" anthropologist Ramona Perez tells Goodyear, before pointing out that "when she made a scampi for a family there, they were appalled."
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Handcuffs

US: 'Dougherty Gang' siblings in custody after high-speed chase


MSNBC /Associated Press
Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:50 UTC
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© Colorado State Patrol via APColorado State Patrol troopers investigate the scene where three fugitive siblings wanted in a crime spree in Florida and Georgia were captured Wednesday, in Walsenburg, Colo., after firing shots at officers during a high-speed chase and crashing their car into a highway barrier, authorities said.
The three siblings on the run from authorities are now in custody in Colorado following a high-speed chase that ended in a crash and shootout, officials said Wednesday.

According to Colorado State Patrol, 21-year-old Ryan Edward Dougherty, 26-year-old Dylan Dougherty Stanley and 29-year-old Lee Grace Dougherty will be booked into Pueblo County Jail.

Pueblo County Sheriff Sheriff Kirk Taylor told NBC News all three were being treated at Spanish Peaks Regional Hospital in Walsenberg, Colo., first. Two were injured in the crash, the third was shot.

They had been sought since Aug. 2, when they allegedly fired 20 shots at a Florida officer during a high-speed chase and later became suspects in a Georgia bank robbery.

The Wednesday vehicle chase started after authorities received a report that the suspects were at a campground near Colorado City, the Colorado State Patrol said in a statement obtained by NBC News.
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Wolf

Boat Owners Call BP's Cleanup Program a Corrupt Conspiracy

Sabrina Canfield
Courthouse News Service
Wed, 10 Aug 2011 08:48 UTC
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Mobile, Alabama - Nearly 100 Gulf Coast boat owners who let BP hire their ships for its "Vessels of Opportunity" oil spill cleanup say BP's program was a corrupt conspiracy that left "thousands of participants ... holding the bag for millions of dollars of unpaid services, equipment, materials, repairs and decontaminations" - and that BP intended it that way.

The 94 individual plaintiffs say BP touted its Vessels of Opportunity (VoO) program for public relations purposes, but the program "was marred by mismanagement, corruption and broken promises," and that BP and its co-conspirators "intended to underpay VoO participants."

Lead plaintiff Clyde Crawford says BP promised the plaintiffs $1,200 to $3,000 a day to use their boats during the cleanup.
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