All posts by Rand Simberg

Pet Peeve

Two, actually. Voicemail systems for credit cards that insist you use voice, and don’t offer a keypad option.

But this one also bugged me. After giving me the confirmation number, it asks “Can I repeat that for you?”

The answer is obviously “yes,” and never going to be “no,” but that obvious grammatical logic would put me in an infinite loop. It irks me as a pedant. I wish it would ask instead “should I repeat that for you?” If it were a human, I would joke with it, saying, of course you can, but you don’t need to. But with a machine, it’s simply irritating.

Dogs And Cats Living Together

Martin Bright says that “the left” can take a few lessons from “the right“:

…the Foreign Office seems determined to press ahead with courting radical Islamists. Just this month, the British government paid for Yusuf al-Qaradawi to attend a conference in Turkey to discuss the future of European Islam. At home, it funded two Islamist youth organisations, the Federation of Islamic Student Societies and Young Muslim Organisation, to help run a roadshow of Muslim scholars to tour the country. Fosis and YMO, while condemning violence, are ideological allies of the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-i-Islami. It is ironic that conservative thinkers categorise these organisations accurately as part of an Islamist extreme right, while many on the left continue, wrongly, to see them as part of some wider international Muslim liberation movement.

While this situation remains, there is no shame for those on the left opposed to the rise of radical Islam to build alliances with conservatives prepared to call fascism by its real name.

Yes. Like (finally) George Bush.

I’m Getting Thirsty Already

The new security procedures mean that the airlines are going to have to provide a lot more water, if you’re not allowed to bring your own.

[Update a little later, with a few more thoughts]

Women are going to get hit harder by this than men. They’re more likely to want to take their special liquids (shampoos, conditioners, etc.) that won’t necessarily be purchasable at the destination, in a carry on for a short trip. For the men, standard shampoo and toothpaste will be purchasable at the other end.

I predict that this is going to mean a lot more checked baggage. I wonder if they’ll be able to handle it?

I also think that as it gets more and more of a PITA to fly, at some point people are going to rebel, and demand that we adopt the Israeli approach–to start looking for terrorists, instead of weapons. Now that Mineta’s gone, the opposition to profiling may be reduced. It will be interesting in light of the Hamdan decision what the Supreme Court will have to say about it if it occurs and (as will be inevitable from the CAIR lawsuits) it hears a case.

Oh, and did you notice Bush’s speech today? He didn’t say we’re at war with terror. He said we’re at war with “Islamic fascists.” That’s a big improvement.

[Evening update]

I think that the new airline security policies are idiotic. I’ll explain why in a TCSDaily column. Probably Monday.

I’m Getting Thirsty Already

The new security procedures mean that the airlines are going to have to provide a lot more water, if you’re not allowed to bring your own.

[Update a little later, with a few more thoughts]

Women are going to get hit harder by this than men. They’re more likely to want to take their special liquids (shampoos, conditioners, etc.) that won’t necessarily be purchasable at the destination, in a carry on for a short trip. For the men, standard shampoo and toothpaste will be purchasable at the other end.

I predict that this is going to mean a lot more checked baggage. I wonder if they’ll be able to handle it?

I also think that as it gets more and more of a PITA to fly, at some point people are going to rebel, and demand that we adopt the Israeli approach–to start looking for terrorists, instead of weapons. Now that Mineta’s gone, the opposition to profiling may be reduced. It will be interesting in light of the Hamdan decision what the Supreme Court will have to say about it if it occurs and (as will be inevitable from the CAIR lawsuits) it hears a case.

Oh, and did you notice Bush’s speech today? He didn’t say we’re at war with terror. He said we’re at war with “Islamic fascists.” That’s a big improvement.

[Evening update]

I think that the new airline security policies are idiotic. I’ll explain why in a TCSDaily column. Probably Monday.

I’m Getting Thirsty Already

The new security procedures mean that the airlines are going to have to provide a lot more water, if you’re not allowed to bring your own.

[Update a little later, with a few more thoughts]

Women are going to get hit harder by this than men. They’re more likely to want to take their special liquids (shampoos, conditioners, etc.) that won’t necessarily be purchasable at the destination, in a carry on for a short trip. For the men, standard shampoo and toothpaste will be purchasable at the other end.

I predict that this is going to mean a lot more checked baggage. I wonder if they’ll be able to handle it?

I also think that as it gets more and more of a PITA to fly, at some point people are going to rebel, and demand that we adopt the Israeli approach–to start looking for terrorists, instead of weapons. Now that Mineta’s gone, the opposition to profiling may be reduced. It will be interesting in light of the Hamdan decision what the Supreme Court will have to say about it if it occurs and (as will be inevitable from the CAIR lawsuits) it hears a case.

Oh, and did you notice Bush’s speech today? He didn’t say we’re at war with terror. He said we’re at war with “Islamic fascists.” That’s a big improvement.

[Evening update]

I think that the new airline security policies are idiotic. I’ll explain why in a TCSDaily column. Probably Monday.

Deja Vu

Why is America waiting to be attacked by Tehran?

What is the explanation for America’s willful fiction that the United Nations Security Council can engineer an accommodation in Lebanon, when it is vivid to every member state that this is a replay of September 1938, when Europe fed Hitler the Sudetenland as the U.N. now wants to feed the jihadists the sovereignty of Israel?

As the author points out, as is often the case, we won’t start this war, but as usual, we’ll have to finish it.

[Update]

Listening to Sky News describing British Muslims who claim that they are Muslims first, and British citizens second. Sounds like it’s time to deport some folks.