STORY 1: Mandatory ‘Big Brother’ Black Boxes In All New Cars From 2015:

Provision is part of controversial MAP-21 bill expected to pass House.

A bill already passed by the Senate and set to be rubber stamped by the House would make it mandatory for all new cars in the United States to be fitted with black box data recorders from 2015 onwards.

Section 31406 of Senate Bill 1813 (known as MAP-21), calls for “Mandatory Event Data Recorders” to be installed in all new automobiles and legislates for civil penalties to be imposed against individuals for failing to do so.

“Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall revise part 563 of title 49, Code of Federal Regulations, to require, beginning with model year 2015, that new passenger motor vehicles sold in the United States be equipped with an event data recorder that meets the requirements under that part,” states the bill.

Although the text of legislation states that such data would remain the property of the owner of the vehicle, the government would have the power to access it in a number of circumstances, including by court order, if the owner consents to make it available, and pursuant to an investigation or inspection conducted by the Secretary of Transportation.

Given the innumerable examples of both government and industry illegally using supposedly privacy-protected information to spy on individuals, this represents the slippery slope to total Big Brother surveillance of every American’s transport habits and location data.

The legislation, which has been given the Orwellian title ‘Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act’, sailed through the Senate after being heavily promoted by Democrats Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer and is also expected to pass the Republican-controlled House.

Given the fact that the same bill also includes a controversial provision that would empower the IRS to revoke passports of citizens merely accused of owing over $50,000 in back taxes, stripping them of their mobility rights, could the mandatory black boxes or a similar technology be used for the same purpose?

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

STORY 2: Your Car Set To Become Part of ‘The Internet of Things’:

Transportation bill orders implementation of ‘Vehicle to Infrastructure Communication System’.

A bill already passed by the Senate and set to be ratified by the House not only mandates black box tracking devices in all new cars, it also orders the deployment of ‘vehicle to infrastructure’ communication systems, in other words your vehicle will become part of ‘the Internet of things’ and will be open to constant real-time tracking, eavesdropping and surveillance.

However, the bill is stuffed full of nightmare big government regulations, includingempowering the IRS to revoke passports of accused tax delinquents as well as mandating the installation of black box tracking devices, eventually designed to be used in a tax-by-the-mile system, in all new vehicles from 2015.

Yet another Big Brother measure that is contained deep within the bill appears in Section 53006 – the “Vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications systems deployment.”

‘(a) In General- Not later than 3 years after the date of enactment of this section, the Secretary shall submit a report to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate, the Committee on Environment and Public Works of the Senate, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the House of Representatives, and the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of Representatives that–

‘(1) defines a recommended implementation path for dedicated short-range communications technology and applications;

‘(2) includes guidance on the relationship of the proposed deployment of dedicated short-range communications to the National ITS Architecture and ITS Standards; and

‘(3) ensures competition by not preferencing the use of any particular frequency for vehicle to infrastructure operations.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

Everyone jabbers on about an Apple iCar, but what if Microsoft built a car? You’d get this — a 1967 Mustang body on a 2012 Mustang with blazing lights, Windows Phone controls, an Xbox 360, and tablets everywhere. Called “Project Detroit,” it’s actually the Windows Vista of Mustangs.

Designed by the occasionally clever/usually tacky team at West Coast Custom and filled with tech by Microsoft at the behest of the software giant, the Project Detroit Mustang is an interesting blend of good, bad, and ridiculous.

On the good side, the grafting of (we assume) one of Ford’s reproduced Mustang bodies onto the 2012 Ford Mustang GT platform appears thoughtfully crafted. The interior trim matches up quite well and the matte black body is banging. The alpine blue LED lights in the grille with a Windows logo is a nice KITT-like touch.

Unfortunately, the inclusion of unnecessarily large wheels with built-in lights screams tasteless casemod and ruins what could have been a stellar stance. It’s how you know it’s a WCC job.

Microsoft provided the ridiculous with the addition of a Best Buy airport kiosk’s worth of Microsoft electronics communicating through a built-in WiFi network. The car can be located, unlocked, and remotely started from a Nokia Windows Phone (like you’ve been able to do on an iPhone for years).

The gauge cluster has been replaced with a touchscreen and a Windows tablet adorns the passenger-side dashboard. From there the passenger can surf the web or, more importantly, send messages to others via a display in the rear windshield. They can also play not-at-all-distracting Xbox games.

There are Kinects embedded throughout the car that allow live audio/video streaming between the car and a Windows Phone or the on-board screens.

Because that’s totally necessary.

As expected from a Microsoft project, there are a lot of interesting ideas and a few awful ones thrown into one package.

Source: Jalopnik.

This video purportedly from Sharana, Afghanistan shows a pilot in an Apache AH-64 helicopter flying close enough to the ground to cause soldiers witnessing the incident to scream “Oh my God” before the helicopter hits the surface, nearly cutting into numerous soldiers before it spins wildly out of control. Supposedly, everyone survived. UPDATE.

There are conflicting reports as to whether or not this was negligent showboating or an accident caused by doing a return to target maneuver during high altitude practice.

But, all reports seem to agree that everyone somehow survived.

UPDATE: If this is Forward Operating Base Sharana in the Paktika Province of Afghanistan (compare to photos of the base) then this pilot was likely from the 1st Battalion 227th Aviation Regiment. We’re trying to confirm the condition and unit.

UPDATE 2: Danger Room places the crash at an outpost in Marzak also in the Paktika region.

UPDATE 3: A military spokesperson confirms the incident happened on February 8th, tellingABC News no one was killed and that the issue was under investigation.

Source: Jalopnik.

For 27 years, the Concorde provided its passengers with a rare luxury: time saved. For a pricey fare, the sleek supersonic jet ferried its ticketholders from New York to Paris in a mere three-and-a-half hours — just enough time for a nap and an aperitif. Over the years, expensive tickets, high fuel costs, limited seating and noise disruption from the jet’s sonic boom slowed interest and ticket sales. On Nov. 26, 2003, the Concorde — and commercial supersonic travel — retired from service.

Since then, a number of groups have been working on designs for the next generation of supersonic jets. Now an MIT researcher has come up with a concept that may solve many of the problems that grounded the Concorde. Qiqi Wang, an assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics, says the solution, in principle, is simple: Instead of flying with one wing to a side, why not two?

Wang and his colleagues Rui Hu, a postdoc in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Antony Jameson, a professor of engineering at Stanford University, have shown through a computer model that a modified biplane can, in fact, produce significantly less drag than a conventional single-wing aircraft at supersonic cruise speeds. The group will publish their results in the Journal of Aircraft.

This decreased drag, according to Wang, means the plane would require less fuel to fly. It also means the plane would produce less of a sonic boom.

“The sonic boom is really the shock waves created by the supersonic airplanes, propagated to the ground,” Wang says. “It’s like hearing gunfire. It’s so annoying that supersonic jets were not allowed to fly over land.”

Double the wings, double the fun

With Wang’s design, a jet with two wings — one positioned above the other — would cancel out the shock waves produced from either wing alone. Wang credits German engineer Adolf Busemann for the original concept. In the 1950s, Busemann came up with a biplane design that essentially eliminates shock waves at supersonic speeds.

Normally, as a conventional jet nears the speed of sound, air starts to compress at the front and back of the jet. As the plane reaches and surpasses the speed of sound, or Mach 1, the sudden increase in air pressure creates two huge shock waves that radiate out at both ends of the plane, producing a sonic boom.

Through calculations, Busemann found that a biplane design could essentially do away with shock waves. Each wing of the design, when seen from the side, is shaped like a flattened triangle, with the top and bottom wings pointing toward each other. The configuration, according to his calculations, cancels out shock waves produced by each wing alone.

However, the design lacks lift: The two wings create a very narrow channel through which only a limited amount of air can flow. When transitioning to supersonic speeds, the channel, Wang says, could essentially “choke,” creating incredible drag. While the design could work beautifully at supersonic speeds, it can’t overcome the drag to reach those speeds.

Giving lift to a grounded theory

To address the drag issue, Wang, Hu and Jameson designed a computer model to simulate the performance of Busemann’s biplane at various speeds. At a given speed, the model determined the optimal wing shape to minimize drag. The researchers then aggregated the results from a dozen different speeds and 700 wing configurations to come up with an optimal shape for each wing.

They found that smoothing out the inner surface of each wing slightly created a wider channel through which air could flow. The researchers also found that by bumping out the top edge of the higher wing, and the bottom edge of the lower wing, the conceptual plane was able to fly at supersonic speeds, with half the drag of conventional supersonic jets such as the Concorde. Wang says this kind of performance could potentially cut the amount of fuel required to fly the plane by more than half. …

CONTINUED at Science Daily.

Richard Hammond is in South Africa to test the Marauder – a ten-ton military vehicle so tough it can withstand high explosives. Great HD clip from Series 17 of Top Gear.

Subscribe to see all the reviews, races and challenges: http://bit.ly/ymYlZc

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Police in London have been accused of excessive force in their efforts to clear out Occupy demonstrators. Protesters stood together last night as officers broke down the doors to their camps. RT’s Laura Smith has more on the London based battle between occupiers and officers.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

I’m not going to sit here and type up some bullshit scare piece about how American society is ripping apart at the seams. However, I am going to point to the fact that the actions of our military and the words of several of our political elite in this country have come off as pretty disgusting the last few days. This has been a weird week full of strange happenings and none of it really paints a positive picture as to where this is all going. Tensions in Iran are at an all-time high and the truth is, we are at war, it just hasn’t been declared yet. I mean, between drone attacks, assassinations and secret sabotage attempts, what else would someone call it? Over in Afghanistan, tensions are also pretty high, if not even higher than they were a few days ago.

You see, two incidents have happened recently that are a bit unsettling. The first incident involves United States Marines pulling their dicks out and pissing on dead Taliban soldiers. Now while I understand that these dead men are pretty much dead dogs and terrorists, it doesn’t excuse this immature and classless act. A lot of people are really upset about this and there are also a good amount who are praising these servicemen for emptying their bladders on these slain bastards. Now while I am not a person who is easily offended by things, I do find this to be disturbing because of the message it sends.

Now I understand that war is hell and outsiders can’t necessarily put themselves in the mind frame of a soldier in the heat of battle but regardless of that, this is still inexcusable. When a man or woman wears that uniform they are representing all of us and to partake in such actions makes our country, as a whole, look like a bunch of assholes. It’s also going to just piss the Taliban off even more, as their dead are being disrespected. Granted, I could care less about showing them any respect but what this incident really does is it disrespects the United States and what it is we are supposed to stand for. This sort of behavior just paints a really clear picture of reality, that we are an evil empire toppling regimes and milking resources all over the globe. It’s obvious that this isn’t about fighting terrorism anymore considering that the guy we went in there to get, we got. Realistically, even though we just snuffed Osama bin Laden last year, it doesn’t mean that we didn’t lose sight of our purpose before that. In all honesty, I think our leaders were completely dishonest about the real reason as to why we went over there to begin with.

As for the soldiers pissing on dead people, I understand that they may have been high on adrenaline and disgusted by the evil fucksacks that they had just killed but if they are incapable of maintaining the behavior and decorum of an American man in uniform, then they need to be dealt with. In this case, they obviously weren’t able to do the right thing and not succumb to their sophomore antics. What these soldiers failed to understand, in the heat of the moment, is that America needs to be the country setting the example across the globe. If we’re going to preach all the things we preach to people, then what are they going to think when they see our military personal pissing all over their fresh kills. Just because the Taliban beheads dead American soldiers and parades them around in the streets, doesn’t make it right for us to disrespect them in a tasteless fashion. Truthfully, if you were to commit an act like this, you shouldn’t take pictures or video for fuck’s sake! On stupidity alone these guys should be court marshaled.

Needless to say, the Pentagon is pissed. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said:

I have seen the footage, and I find the behavior depicted in it utterly deplorable. Those found to have engaged in such conduct will be held accountable to the fullest extent.

Former Marine and U.S. Congressman Michael Grimm said:

This actually hurts me. This is painful. There’s no excuse for this ever happening. They were trained, and they know better, and they disgraced their country.

Former Army lieutenant colonel and U.S. Congressman Allen West said this in a letter to the Weekly Standard:

I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah.

All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq?

The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.

I agree with West, for a change, but do find myself at odds with his last sentence. The people don’t need to shut their mouth, they need to hold their leaders and their military accountable for their actions, whether he thinks that we can wrap our heads around war or not.

The point of all this is that when you are in the military you take an oath to serve and protect this country. With that oath comes the responsibility of carrying yourself in a certain manner, with a certain attitude and a certain set of principles. These four men who urinated on these dead Taliban soldiers did not carry themselves in such a way and should be punished for their actions. The world already sees us as a giant bully and now we’ve given them more reason to think that. In fact, we’ve probably ignited even more hatred within the hearts of our enemies and the repercussions of that could just be more of our servicemen sent back home in body bags as we continue on this pointless conquest.

All the pundits praising these guys are assholes. Then again, those same pundits want perpetual war in an effort to combat this fictitious “War on Terror”. These pundits are even praising the assassination of Iranian scientists as well, which brings me to my next point.

Just yesterday, an Iranian scientist was assassinated when men on motorcycles put a magnetic bomb on his car and detonated it. Several other people, besides this scientist, were injured in the blast. Now it is suspected that Israel was behind the attack, which means that the United States was involved or most likely knew about it. So, why was the scientist killed? Well, he was working on Iran’s nuclear program. Apparently, just because of that, he deserved to be murdered and the innocent people around him deserved to be maimed.

Now this attack wasn’t the first one like this. A similar assassination happened a few months back and that one took the lives of two people. Of course, the American mainstream media praised the attack and completely ignored the reality of the situation. With this latest attack, the mainstream media followed the exact same formula and condoned this action as well.

In fact, Sean Hannity on his radio show, just after the attacks, said:

Whoever is involved in the killing of these Iranian nuclear scientists, God bless them.. ..I wish we were involved.

You can hear him for yourself at this link.

So not only is Hannity condoning murder, he is condoning terrorism, YES terrorism. I guess where Mr. Hannity sits it is only terrorism when it is someone else doing it to us. How would he react if the roles were reversed and Iranians killed either Israeli or American scientists, not to mention innocent bystanders? Hannity and every mainstream shitcock like him would be outraged and calling for war! Hell, we’d hear about how the dead scientists were just patriots doing their duty for their country and now their children have to grow up without their mom or dad. When you flip the fucking coin, this bullshit is absolutely transparent and it is sickening! To steal an old overused cliché adage: what has America become?

I can’t just point the gun of reason at Sean Hannity, I’ve also got to point it at my favorite punching bag, the big bag of dicks himself.. Rick Santourm! Of course this piece of crap asshole had to open his mouth in regards to all this. Here’s what the bastard said:

On occasion, scientists working on the nuclear program in Iran turn up dead. I think that’s a wonderful thing, candidly. I think we should send a very clear message that if you are a scientist from Russia, North Korea, or from Iran and you are going to work on a nuclear program to develop a bomb for Iran, you are not safe. And people say ‘well, you can’t go out and assassinate people.’ Well tell that to al-Awlaki. Okay, we’ve done it. We’ve done it to an American citizen, so we can certainly do it to someone who is producing a nuclear bomb that can be dropped in the state of Israel or provides a nuclear shield for a country which spreads terrorism with impunity and changes the face of the world.

Hey, here’s the video!

God, I hate this guy. Santorum is so quick to fight abortion yet so quick to murder anyone he can paint as a fucking boogeyman and he does it while carrying the cross. This sanctimonious fucksack is the worst kind of evil and the fact that people would vote for this guy just blows my goddamned mind! The fact that the people in the room when he said this didn’t throw the closest objects they had next to themselves at Santorum’s head is a fucking travesty. Guys like Santorum, with comments like that, are just terrorists themselves. Rick Santorum will never let the crusades end, he won’t stop until he drowns in the blood of Islam as he is blinded by faith in a God he thinks he understands. The difference between Rick Santorum and the crusaders of the past is that Mr. Santorum is a fucking coward. He would never fight this perceived evil himself, he’d rather just send countless kids over there to die for his archaic vision and just like Sean Hannity, he would condone all acts of terrorism by our guys and our allies because we are on the right side of this bullshit holy war.

So while condoning all these evil deeds, these guys keep trying to sell us on the idea that Iran is either building a bomb or already has one. Funny, considering Leon Panetta was caught on tape admitting that Iran has no immediate plan for nuclear weapons. That came directly from the mouth of our Defense Secretary yet these establishment conservative cockpuppets continue to ignore facts and preach insanity. These are the same vile dickbags that are high-fiving each other over soldiers pissing on terrorists, even if they don’t publicly support that action. The fact is, we’re a nation lead by and preached to by cowards who would never pick up arms themselves. Fuck these cockroaches.

To be frank, America’s behavior is becoming deplorable in the realm of the military, politics and the media. At least there are us sane people that can see through this sort of bullshit and not succumb to its influence. Then again, guys like O’Reilly and Hannity have consistently high ratings and the attendance at patriotic organizations like Tea Party events has been overtaken by Fox News drones and Newt Gingrich supporters instead of real constitutional conservatives and libertarians who are willing to look passed party politics and promote liberty. I guess I have to wait for that third group to emerge that bridges the gap between the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement and is strictly made up of the best from both groups not the joiners and sycophants. I don’t think this country can wait on that however.

Now I know that this is probably coming off as negative but I do think that there are enough of us that see the forest for the trees. In fact, I know that our numbers grow by the day and even if we have to ride out this storm awhile longer, we are still going to come to a point where enough is enough and the sort of actions and rhetoric that taint the image of our unique society will no longer be effective. The mainstream media and the horrible politicians and the bully military will no longer have a hold on the free minds of the public and they will lose their power. “Live free or die” used to mean something and even if it seems like some overused throwaway slogan from a few hundred years ago, the truth in those words will mean something incredibly significant again.

TEHRAN, Iran — Two assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to the car of an Iranian university professor working at a key nuclear facility, killing him and wounding two people on Wednesday, a semiofficial news agency reported.

The attack in Tehran bore a strong resemblance to earlier killings of scientists working on the Iranian nuclear program. It is certain to reinforce authorities’ claims of widening clandestine operations by Western powers and allies to try to cripple nuclear advancements.

The bomb killed Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a chemistry expert and a director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported. Natanz is Iran’s main enrichment site, but officials claimed earlier this week that they are expanding some operations to an underground site south of Tehran with more advanced equipment.

Witnesses told Reuters they had seen two people on the motorcycle fix a bomb to the car.

“The bomb was a magnetic one and the same as the ones previously used for the assassination of the scientists, and is the work of the (Israelis),” Fars quoted Tehran’s Deputy Governor Safarali Baratloo as saying. “The terrorist attack is a conspiracy to undermine the (March 2) parliamentary elections.”

‘Our path is irreversible’
Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said the country’s nuclear path would not change despite the killing, which it branded a “heinous act”.

CONTINUED at MSNBC.

The National Transportation Safety Board recommended a nationwide ban on driver use of personal electronic devices Tuesday, following its investigation into a deadly accident last year in Missouri.

NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman discussed the recommendations during a press conference after a meeting on that accident.

“According to [the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration], more than 3,000 people lost their lives last year in distraction-related accidents,”she said. “It is time for all of us to stand up for safety by turning off electronic devices when driving.”

While the NTSB investigates transportation and pipeline accidents and makes recommendations on safety rules and regulations, it has no power to implement them.

The NTSB’s recommendations urge all 50 states and the District ”to ban the nonemergency use of portable electronic devices (other than those designed to support the driving task).” According to theGovernors Highway Safety Association, 35 states, including Maryland and Virginia, and the District ban texting while driving.

The NTSB has been investigating a deadly crash in Gray Summit, Missouri last year. A 19-year-old pickup driver sent 11 texts in the 11 minutes before before the accident, according to the NTSB, including one “right before impact.” The accident killed two people and injured 38.

“We will never know whether the driver was typing, reaching for the phone, or reading a text when his pickup ran into the truck in front of him without warning,”Herman said in her opening statement.

“But, we do know he had been distracted — cognitively, manually, and visually — while driving.

“Driving was not his only priority.”

CONTINUED at the Washington Post.

*Taken from Business Insider.

According to The Daily, the Tampa police produced this vehicle to deal with some protesters.

Overkill, much?

(As many folks have observed on Twitter, these sorts of responses are playing right into the protesters’ hands.)

UPDATE: It’s not actually a “tank,” of course, though it certainly looks like one. It’s a “12-ton armored personnel carrier.” It is supposedly for “rescue” operations, though why it needs to be armored to do that is not clear.

CONTINUED..