\'Black box\' for cars a surprise

Washington Times July 2 2003

No one disputes that Michelle Zimmermann lost control of her 2002 GMC Yukon as she drove on a two-lane highway in Massachusetts one snowy afternoon last January. Her friend died after the sport utility vehicle slammed into a tree.

Miss Zimmermann said she was driving within the posted 40 mph speed limit, but like millions of other Americans the 33-year-old didn\'t know that her vehicle had a \"black box.\" Monitoring her driving, it recorded the last few seconds before the crash.

Bolstered by data they say indicates Miss Zimmermann was driving well above the speed limit, prosecutors have charged the Beverly, Mass., woman with negligent vehicular homicide. She has pleaded not guilty and faces up to 2½ years in jail if convicted.

An estimated 25 million automobiles in the United States now have event data recorders, a scaled-down version of the devices that monitor cockpit activity in airplanes. Like aviation recorders, automobile black boxes mainly receive attention after an accident.

The devices\' primary function is to monitor various sensors and decide whether to fire air bags. Since the 1998 model year, all new cars from all manufacturers have been required to have air bags and so most such recent-model cars have the devices. But secondary and more recently installed features in many recorders store data from a few seconds before a crash.

Though capabilities vary widely among carmakers, most recorders store only limited information on speed, seat-belt use, physical forces, brakes and other factors. Voices are not recorded.

But the devices are finding its way into courtrooms as evidence in criminal and civil cases, leading some privacy advocates to question how the recorders came to be installed so widely with so little public notice or debate.

\"It\'s like having a government agent driving around in the back seat of your car,\" said Bob Weiner, Miss Zimmermann\'s defense attorney and a former prosecutor. \"I think it\'s a tremendous invasion of privacy.\"

...

http://www.prisonplanet.com/070203satellite.html

Shia cleric challenges Bush plan for Iraq

Jonathan Steele in Baghdad
Wednesday July 2, 2003
The Guardian

Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq\'s leading Shia cleric, has condemned as \"fundamentally unacceptable\" US plans to appoint rather than elect the Iraqis who will begin drafting a new constitution.

His fatwa, published in Baghdad newspapers yesterday, carries enormous moral weight for the majority Shia community which has been excluded from political power for decades. It also complicates the efforts of Paul Bremer, the US-imposed administrator, who intends to name a hand-picked \"governing council\" of about 30 members in a fortnight.

Ayatollah Sistani is seen as a moderate leader who believes that religious leaders should remain aloof from politics.

\"The occupation officials do not enjoy the authority to appoint the members of a council that would write the constitution\", Ayatollah Sistani said in the fatwa. \"There is no guarantee that this council would grant a constitution that accorded with the highest interests of the Iraqi people and would express their national identity, among the pillars of which is the foundation of the pure religion of Islam and noble social virtues,\" he added.

He called for a general election \"so that every eligible Iraqi can choose someone to represent him at the constitutional convention that will write the constitution. Then there must be a public referendum. It is incumbent upon all believers to demand the realisation of this important matter, and to join together in achieving it,\" he said.

...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,989364,00.html

Bureaucrash / About

Welcome to Bureaucrash!

Bureaucrash is an international network of activists of all political persuasions who believe that bloated, sprawling governments and the bureaucrats and politicians who control them ought to be mocked. Mercilessly.

Why? Because when governments grow, our freedom to live our lives as we see fit shrinks. Every time a new law is passed, some bureaucrat squirreled away in a cubicle somewhere gets more power to make decisions for us. And because the vast majority of people have no idea of the lives and freedoms crushed every time the government’s power grows.

We believe that, only by spreading information about this absurd arrangement can the sprawling bureaucracy be leashed and our fundamental freedoms restored.

On this site you’ll find four types of resources to help you do Bureaucrash style activism. Each of these types has a symbol associated it for easy navigation:

http://bureaucrash.com/

USA kvůli ICC zmrazily vojenskou pomoc 35 státům

Kvůli sporu o vydávání Američanů nově ustavenému Mezinárodnímu trestnímu soudu (ICC) zastavily USA od 1. července vojenskou pomoc 35 státům. Oznámil to podle agentury DPA mluvčí amerického ministerstva zahraniční Richard Boucher. Mezi zeměmi, jež zůstaly bez pomoci, je také všech šest východoevropských uchazečů o členství v NATO.

...

http://www.novinky.cz/01/07/89.html

a dalsi DARPA projekt... falcon technology for global dominance

US-based missiles to have global reach

Allies to become less important as new generation of weapons enables America to strike anywhere from its own territory

Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday July 1, 2003
The Guardian

The Pentagon is planning a new generation of weapons, including huge hypersonic drones and bombs dropped from space, that will allow the US to strike its enemies at lightning speed from its own territory.

Over the next 25 years, the new technology would free the US from dependence on forward bases and the cooperation of regional allies, part of the drive towards self-suffi ciency spurred by the difficulties of gaining international cooperation for the invasion of Iraq.

The new weapons are being developed under a programme codenamed Falcon (Force Application and Launch from the Continental US).

A US defence website has invited bids from contractors to develop the technology and the current edition of Jane\'s Defence Weekly reports that the first flight tests are scheduled to take place within three years.

According to the website run by the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) the programme is aimed at fulfilling \"the government\'s vision of an ultimate prompt global reach capability (circa 2025 and beyond)\".

The Falcon technology would \"free the US military from reliance on forward basing to enable it to react promptly and decisively to destabilising or threatening actions by hostile countries and terrorist organisations\", according to the Darpa invitation for bids. The ultimate goal would be a \"reusable hypersonic cruise vehicle (HCV) ... capable of taking off from a conventional military runway and striking targets 9,000 nautical miles distant in less than two hours\".

...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,988612,00.html

Americky gulag pro neposlusne deti

Bush \'Indicted\' Over War Crimes

7-1-3

A group of Japanese lawyers unveiled documents Monday \"indicting\" U.S. President George W. Bush for war crimes allegedly committed against the Afghan people since the United States-led coalition began its antiterrorism campaign in Afghanistan in October 2001.

\"This is an act that breaks international rules, such as the idea of (honoring) human rights, that have been formed over so many years,\" said Koken Tsuchiya, former president of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations and head of the 11-member prosecutors\' team in the tribunal. \"We decided this case has sufficient reason to be brought to court.\"

A civic tribunal will be held in Tokyo, with the first hearing scheduled for July 21.

The charges against Bush, according to the indictment, include aggression, attacks against civilians and nonmilitary facilities and the torturing and execution of prisoners.

They said the indictment will be handed to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo next week.

The tribunal is being organized by Tokyo Zokei University professor Akira Maeda and others.

© Copyright 2003 The Japan Times

book

Michael Ledeen: The War Against the Terror Masters

...

Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone. They cannot feel secure so long as we are there, for our very existence—our existence, not our politics—threatens their legitimacy. They must attack us in order to survive, just as we must destroy them to advance our historic mission.

...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
This occasionally simplistic polemic calls for a \"revolutionary war\" on the \"coherent terror network\" organized by the governments of Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the \"driving force behind international terrorism,\" Iran. Ledeen, a member of the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute and a former National Security Council consultant, persuasively details the links between these regimes and terrorist groups, and castigates previous presidents (particularly the \"corrupt\" and \"self-indulgent\" Bill Clinton) for discounting the terrorist threat and tolerating the complacency and bungling of U. S. intelligence agencies. His unnuanced theory of terrorism, however-the \"terror masters\" are \"tyrants\" who loathe America because of its mere \"existence\" as a symbol of freedom-downplays political complexities and ignores America\'s tarnished record in the Middle East. And while Ledeen urges the United States to help the citizens of terrorist states overthrow their despotic rulers, he warns that to do so-i.e., to be ready for war-Americans must give up their faith in \"radical egalitarianism\" and \"the perfectibility of man\" in favor of Machiavellian principles (\"The only important thing is winning\"; \"It is better to be feared than loved\"). Some readers will applaud Ledeen\'s hard-nosed demand to \"reconcile our democratic values with the necessity of imposing our will,\" but others may think the compromise too great.

Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/031230644X/qid=1057135548/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-2729586-5675955?v=glance&s=books

clanek o knize, autorovi a neokonzervatismu napsany konzervativcem:

Flirting with Fascism

Neocon theorist Michael Ledeen draws more from Italian fascism than from the American Right.

By John Laughland / Copyright © 2003 The American Conservative

http://amconmag.com/06_30_03/feature.html