The first thing to do, if you want to cut the number of refugees from Africa and the Middle East dying while trying to cross the Mediterranean, is to drop leaflets all along the Libyan coast teaching them about ship stability.
''Killer robots'' is a dreadful name, don't you think? It reminds you of the killing machines in the Terminator series and the ''Battle Droids'' of Star Wars.
''The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable,'' said John Kenneth Galbraith, the wisest American economist of his generation. (''A paltry honour,'' he would have murmured.)
''I think, once a dictator, always a dictator,'' said Sonnie Ekwowusi, a columnist for Nigeria's This Day newspaper.
Midway through the election campaign, Israel's leading satirical TV show, Eretz Nehederet, came up with a new take on the man who has dominated the country's politics for the past 20 years.
If he just had the flu, why didn't they say that he just had the flu? We'd all have sent him get-well cards, and that would have been the end of it.
It's often a good idea, when faced with a really frightening situation, to model the ''worst case'' outcome and see how bad it could get.
,'' Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov said recently, ''she gives me a talking-to: 'When will you stop being rude about Putin? He'll kill you'.''
The first round of the battle for the euro is over, and Germany has won. The whole European Union won, really, but the Germans set the strategy.
Angela Merkel grew up under communist rule in the old East Germany.
Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was in London last week, telling the Western media how helpful Ankara was being in the struggle against the terrorist ''Islamic State'' in northern Syria and Iraq.
Everybody knows where the population explosion came from.
After Ahmed Merabet, a French policeman, was killed outside the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris last week, his brother Malek said: ''My brother was Muslim and he was killed by two terrorists, by two false Muslims. Islam is a religion of peace and love.''
The language of the immigration debate in Germany has become harsh and extreme.
''Did you know there's an oil war? And the war has an objective: to destroy Russia,'' said Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a live television speech last week.
Saint Nicholas (also known as Santa Claus, Kris Kringle or Father Christmas) has had to put up with a lot over the years. After the latest blow, he may not show up at all this week.
The experts run the whole gamut from A to B, and they're practically unanimous: artificial intelligence is going to destroy human civilisation.
''We will not be cowed by these sick terrorists,'' said British Prime Minister David Cameron after Islamic State (IS) produced a grisly video of the mass beheading of Syrian captives by foreign jihadis who allegedly included British fighters.
This is what former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, subsequently driven from office by mass protests in Kiev, said to German Chancellor Angela Merkel just one year ago, at the start of the crisis.
''I need to hear the voice of the people,'' Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.