Predicting innovation is something of a self-canceling exercise: the most probable innovations are probably the least innovative.

Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history, mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadow about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy the whores are us.

When a thing defies physical law, there's usually politics involved.

Then Saturday Night Live spawns... well, everything right down to American Pie 9, where all humor has to be irrelevant, which can get a little tiring.

You can learn all about the human condition from covering the crime beat in a big city - you don't need to go to Beirut for that - but a foreign correspondent begins to understand poverty from a different perspective.

I rarely meet a politician that I don't like personally. They are generally well endowed with charm. Therein lies the danger.

Violence is interesting. This is a great obstacle to world peace and also to more thoughtful television programming.