Looking back

Anguished liberal columnist Ellen Goodman alerts us to the best speech of last year:

Since this is the list-making time of year, allow me to add a tiny trophy to Al Gore's very full shelf: the prize for the most elegant speech of 2007.

I wasn't sure how the politician-turned-environmentalist fit the profile for a Nobel Peace Prize, but his acceptance speech connected the dots. "Without realizing it," Gore said, "we have begun to wage war on the Earth itself. Now, we and the Earth's climate are locked in a relationship familiar to war planners: mutually assured destruction."

Has war on the Earth really been declared? If so, it’s about damn time. Using a range of methods, from earthquake to sinkhole, from volcano to mudslide, over the course of history the Earth has murdered millions of people. It’s nearly certain that right now the Earth is crushing someone, somewhere with a giant boulder. So far the Earth has completely gotten away with her crimes against humanity - we’ll see how the big dirtglobe reacts when she finds herself on the receiving end of some well deserved return fire.

Once the War on the Earth is won we can launch a much needed pre-emptive strike on mankind’s second greatest enemy: the moon.