Miscellany 7/2/06

Work has been the source of much fatigue, thus the paucity of entries. That said, I've had my eyes fixated on the prevalent stories of the day, none of which make me particularly amused. So....here's my take on all, or at least, most of 'em.

• So the liberals on the Supreme Court think that al Qaeda is now a signatory on the Geneva Conventions, even though they're not a sovereign nation, have no uniform/rank/serial number, and adhere to none of the statutes....yet the United States has to treat them as such. Mark Steyn delves into this ridiculousness here. About the only saving grace regarding this ruling is that it leaves open the prospect that the president can force through legislation giving himself the already existing right to put these rabid animals through the military tribunal process. Make no mistake, folks. The left want this country to lose in every way, on every level.

• The New York Times once again can't stop their preternatural tendency towards treason, this time revealing that terrorist international bank transactions are being monitored by a central hub in Belgium called SWIFT. Despite the fact that the Times itself has said that the program is legal, editor Bill Keller wrote that the secrecy of the program was outweighed by the public's "right to know". Keller's default position since this outrage has been that, "...hundreds, if not thousands, of people know about this," and thus publishing what was already widely known was no big deal. Well, if that's the case, why did James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, the authors of the SWIFT story, say the "[SWIFT program] was a closely held secret"? Sounds like they haven't gotten their stories straight. Look....I work in finance. I know that transactions are closely monitored, and were monitored even before 9/11. I clearly remember attending a lecture by a federal district attorney where she said flat out that she would prosecute any one of us if it was proven that we had facilited an act of money laundering, even if unknowingly. The problem with the Times piece, then, is that it gave away the particulars of the SWIFT system and how it is used. Everyone might've known that banking transactions were monitored....they just didn't know HOW. In 1944, everyone knew that there would be an invasion of the Western Europe by the Allies, they just didn't know where or when. Giving up those particulars wouldn't be defensible by claiming that everyone knew it was coming. Axis Sally and Tokyo Rose were convicted for less than what the Times is clearly guilty of.

• Boy, the Finnish sure make awful music. But their choreography is tops. See here.

• There's a new documentary out called "Who Killed the Electric Car?" Of course, the guilty parties are big oil, Republicans, and various other greedy, unethical capitalists. One problem that the electric car had that the documentarians didn't get into was that it takes four hours to recharge the battery per 100 miles driven. That's problematic, no? Read all about the real reason the electric car got "killed" here.