The Panic That Wasn't

Jesse Walker writes in Reason Magazine about the media panic over the "panic":

The Time story offers thin gruel. It tells us that many Mexicans donned facemasks, as recommended by their government; that stores quickly sold out of masks and vitamin supplements; that schools in Mexico City shut down; that some people left the city and others stayed put. In other words, it tells us that ordinary Mexicans were taking ordinary precautions. The Bild report merely informs us that a few schools in New York had closed and that many children displaying flu-like symptoms were sent home. The Guardian timeline includes a series of links to Mexican photographs that allegedly "capture the sense of panic everywhere." Click through, and you'll see pictures of people calmly going about their business while wearing masks.

He quotes a "disaster researcher" who hints at the causes of the panic about panic, noting the perception driven by popular books and movies that any given group under stress is in grave danger of succumbing to blind panic. It's just not true, though. The sight of a planeload of travelers calmly filing out onto the wings of a jet slowly sinking into the Hudson a few months ago was a good reminder of how false that perception is.

Well, There's One Way to Look at Things

On the bright side, the end of civilization should be good for the Republicans.

So what do I propose for a Republican Party that will be relevant in the future? I’m thinking we need to work towards becoming a loose confederation of warlords. In the post-apocalyptic wasteland, resources will be scarce and the strong will crush the weak — and frankly, those are conditions in which Republicans should thrive. The Republican Party will need to cement its rule through force, destroy the weak, and take their resources. Back to basics for the party, really.

Google Becomes Self-Aware, Declares Entire Internet "Harmful"

That's about the only way I can take this story.  I mean, it's the only thing that makes sense.

Best Thing Ever (Yet): Best Headline Ever

Scientists Not So Sure 'Doomsday Machine' Won't Destroy World

The Pledge

Wow. This would be hilarious if it weren't so terrifying.

Are we so deaf to the echoes of history as to let the line "I pledge allegiance to the folk" get past the editors? Seriously?

"I pledge to be a servant to our president, and all mankind." I'm bound by oath to obey the President's orders, and proudly so, all politics aside. But you won't find me pledging to be his servant.

An Unlikely Event

So I used to think all the talk of "in the unlikely event of a water landing your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device" was just hooey to placate the irrationally paranoid. Actually, I thought the whole "water landing" idea was in the same category. Apparently not:

NEW YORK (AP) - A US Airways plane crashed into the frigid Hudson River on Thursday afternoon after striking a bird that disabled two engines, sending 150 on board scrambling onto rescue boats, authorities say. No deaths or serious injuries were immediately reported.

God be praised for that. And those pilots had better get a promotion.

Strange Days: British Atheist Calls for Evangelization of Africa

British writer and former MP Matthew Parris shares a reluctant conclusion: despite his own atheism, he has become convinced that Africa needs Christianity if it is to have any hope of development:

Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good. [...]

There's long been a fashion among Western academic sociologists for placing tribal value systems within a ring fence, beyond critiques founded in our own culture: “theirs” and therefore best for “them”; authentic and of intrinsically equal worth to ours. I don't follow this. I observe that tribal belief is no more peaceable than ours; and that it suppresses individuality. [...]

Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete.

I particularly applaud Parris's rejection of the forced equivalence of "traditional" African culture and Western civilization. Since Decolonization, nothing has done more to keep Africa in the dark than the indefensible claim that cultures based on collectivist groupthink, corrosive jealousy, and brutal misogyny are intrinsically valid and deserving not just of respect but of proactive protection and encouragement.

Strange Days: "Diversity" Madness

From First Things:

So, less than a month after the election of the first African-American president of the United States, less than a month after over 70 percent of African Americans support Proposition 8... a high ranking black woman at an American university gets fired by a white guy because she doesn’t think that gay rights is morally or legally equivalent to the long struggle of black Americans for civil rights.

Strange days, indeed.