From The Comfort Of Their Living Rooms....

In between our last two posts I went to Drudge to see what was happening in the world. The lead story was about a ship disaster in the Red Sea. From the headline picture, it looked like a cruise ship. I therefore assumed that some people very much like the Americans I went cruising with last year were the victims. I went to the news story. A couple of sentences in, I learned that the ship was in fact a ferry, the victims all Egyptians. I lost interest at once, and stopped reading. I don't care about Egyptians.

John Derbyshire, National Review, 2/3/06


ATTN: SUPERDOME RESIDENTS
I think it's time to face facts. That place is going to be a Mad Max/thunderdome Waterworld/Lord of the Flies horror show within the next few hours. My advice is to prepare yourself now. Hoard weapons, grow gills and learn to communicate with serpents. While you're working on that, find the biggest guy you can and when he's not expecting it beat him senseless. Gather young fighters around you and tell the womenfolk you will feed and protect any female who agrees to participate without question in your plans to repopulate the earth with a race of gilled-supermen. It's never too soon to be prepared.

Jonah Goldberg, National Review, 8/29/05, just before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans


I believe an important part of what we define broadly as "progress" is the way technology allows and encourages people to think beyond their immediate clans, tribes, families, and towns. In that way, technology and empathy are linked, and it's a powerful dynamic that helps promote capitalism, free trade, and democracy. Some don't understand that, reject it, or have been left untouched by it. As the above examples indicate, that includes some members of the standard-bearing Titular Right. As long as the pizza is delivered hot and the remote control works, all's well in the world. Right, guys?