from an alien-fearing Gerard Henderson...

Imagine the media reaction if the atheist Julia Gillard or the Christian Tony Abbott raised the possibility, in a major address, of extraterrestrial life on one or more planets beyond Earth.

At the very least, they would have been ridiculed. There may even have been calls for a retirement on medical grounds.

Yet this is what the Greens leader, Senator Bob Brown, did when delivering the third annual Green Oration in the Hobart Town Hall on Friday, March 23.

Early in his speech to those he called "Fellow Earthians", Brown raised the issue, "why has no one from elsewhere in the cosmos contacted us?" After claiming that "surely some people-like animals have evolved elsewhere", he asked: "Why aren't the intergalactic phones ringing?"

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/medias-soft-treatment-of-brown-opens-door-to-the-little-greens-men-20120402-1w8pk.html#ixzz1qvc2BtEg

Not a single funny bone in Gerard, is there? What Senator Brown is rightly speaking about is that as a rampaging species we (homo imbecilus) have become custodian of our little planet by default and nothing else is stopping us in this destructive and modifying path. AND WE ALL ARE IN IT... whether we like it or not...

Possibly I missed the point that it was April fool's on Sunday and the pranks started early, that Henderson wrote his artilce on Sunday and the joke carried on till tuesday when it was published.