Daily Archives: November 12, 2004

CIA’s “Anonymous” author hits the talk shows

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This prior post reviewed one of the books by the CIA counterterrorism agent who authored two books under the alias “Anonymous” that were highly critical of the Bush Administration’s approach to battling the radical Islamic fascists.
Now, Michael Scheuer, who turns out to be Anonymous, has decided to resign from the CIA and violate the trench-coat oath by going public with his criticism of the government?s war against the radical Islamic fascists. His views are interesting, but made less credible by his decision to cash in on them at the expense of the trench-coat oath.

Interesting developments in aviation

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This BBC News article describes something that Houston’s Katy Freeway commuters would support enthusiastically:

Commuters could soon be taking flying taxis to work instead of waiting in line for a street cab, experts suggest. British developers Avcen say Jetpods would enable quick, quiet and cheap travel to and from major cities.
The futuristic machines will undergo proof-of-concept flight tests in 2006 and could be ready for action by 2010.
As well as taxis, which would use a network of specially-built mini runways, there are military, medical and personal jet versions as well.
London-based Avcen say Jetpods would be able to travel the 24 miles from Woking, Surrey, to central London in just four minutes.
And because it could make so many trips, fares for a journey from Heathrow to central London could cost about £40 or £50.

Meanwhile, this Washington Post article reviews ongoing research into scramjet technology, which is already achieving incredible speed levels:

Next week, NASA plans to break the aircraft speed record for the second time in 7 1/2 months by flying its rocket-assisted X-43A scramjet craft 110,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean at speeds close to Mach 10 — about 7,200 mph, or 10 times the speed of sound.
The flight will last perhaps 10 seconds and end with the pilotless aircraft plunging to a watery grave 850 miles off the California coast. But even if the X-43A doesn’t set the record, it has already proved that the 40-year-old dream of “hypersonic” flight — using air-breathing engines to reach speeds above Mach 5 (3,800 mph) — has become reality.

Under NASA’s $250 million Hyper-X program, engineers at Langley Research Center here and the Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., designed and built three aluminum scramjet aircraft, each one 12 feet long and weighing about 2,800 pounds. . .
[The second scamjet flight] on March 24, reached Mach 6.83 (5,200 mph), shattering the world speed record for air-breathing, non-rocket aircraft, previously held by a jet-powered missile. The highest speeds by manned aircraft were achieved by SR-71, the U.S. spy plane known as the “Blackbird,” capable of flying in excess of Mach 3 (2,300 mph).

Why are there so many corporate crime laws?

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If corporations are so big and powerful, then why are there so many corporate crime laws? Doesn’t it make more sense that corporations would lobby to restrict enactment of such laws?
Maybe not, according to University of Michigan law professor Vikramaditya S. Khanna. In this interesting paper (download required), Professor Khanna argues that corporate executives may reasonably believe that consenting to enactment of corporate crime laws is the least risky course:

One of the fundamental puzzles of corporate crime legislation is how does so much of it get enacted given that it targets corporations that are considered some of the most powerful and effective (if not the most powerful and effective) lobbyists in the country. My analysis suggests that corporate crime legislation may grow because it is a preferred response for corporate interests when some congressional action is inevitable. Corporate criminal liability?s growth could then be explained by the following: Some degree of ?punishment? is necessary, as a political matter, to satisfy public desires during recessions when revelations of corporate wrongdoing are numerous, and corporate crime legislation achieves that while imposing lower costs on business interests relative to other measures that could be undertaken (e.g., increasing corporate civil liability or managerial criminal sanctions).
The normative implications depend on one?s priors about the world and on which political account(s) one finds persuasive. However, one thing appears clear regardless of the preferred political account(s): If we start with the notion that corporate wrongdoing is under-deterred, then we would want to argue for curtailing corporate criminal liability and increasing the focus on corporate civil liability and managerial liability. That raises serious questions about how we regulate this area.