Geological forces should know better than to compete with human sentiment. The Earth always loses -- no matter if it's only doin' what comes naturally. For a change mankind is guilt free; we didn't heat up the mantle layer with our greenhouse gases. Still, 120,000 deaths and counting cannot match the 250,000 rise in world population a day earlier -- owing to unsheathed whoopie in the third world and a lifespan free-for-all in the West, where nobody dies unless caught off guard. We'll have 250,000 more people living on the planet tomorrow, and even more the day after that. No stemming the tide there. But as the press reminds us with its remixed daily obituary: "We should be sad. Send money." We care about these people, unless they take our jobs. Also, at any given moment we might go to war with them. That's another irony of this region, on 24-hour terrorist watch but without a tidal warning system. So why the bad P.R.? Nature only woke up a little, then went back to sleep. We can continue to party.