Legal Commentary

From the Times, here's the story of an amateur astronomer who discovered "a new hole the size of the Earth in Jupiter?s atmosphere, apparently showing that the planet was hit by something large in recent days."  Here's a picture:

The amateur astronomer is quoted as having said: ?If anything like that had hit the Earth it would have been curtains for us, so we can feel very happy that Jupiter is doing its vacuum-cleaner job and hoovering up all these large pieces before they come for us.?  Agreed.  Thank you, Jupiter -- we didn't get you anything!  Although I am seriously hoping that, when more detailed pictures are available, they don't show that the spot is made up of a swarm of self-replicating monoliths.  I think we can all agree that the last thing anyone needs is some infantile busybody telling us to leave Europa alone.