Best Decade Ever?

The past 10 years have gotten a bad rap as the "Naughty Aughties" -- and deservedly so, it seems, for a decade that began with 9/11 and the Enron scandal and closed with the global financial crisis and the Haiti earthquake. But these horrific events, though mortal and economic catastrophes for many millions, don't sum up the decade as experienced by most of the planet's 6-billion-plus people. For all its problems, the first 10 years of the 21st century were in fact humanity's finest.