“There are nightmares of the future from which a fortunate collision with some wandering star, reducing the Earth to incandescent gas, might be a merciful deliverance.”
Winston Churchill made that observation in December 1931. At the time, many probably discarded it as the fatalistic musing of a cantankerous politician. In 2010, one reads that statement and gets chills. Today Churchill’s “nightmares of the future” are becoming grim reality. Whether we admit it or not, mankind is nearing the point where a catastrophic collision between Earth and some “wandering star” would indeed be a “merciful deliverance” from the inconceivable horrors now hovering over us.
