One of the ground rules for time travel is that the time tourist can not change the past. Thus, if some of the people who believe in time travel were to travel back to Honolulu on Saturday December 6, 1941, (we are still working on the column about snapshot collecting and might have some nifty photos to run with that column), they could not go to Pearl Harbor and warn them about what will happen the next morning.
There does not seem to be a great deal of information about the practical application of time travel for contemporary espionage purposes. What if, hypothetically, an American were able to travel back in time a week or two and while cloaked in invisibility this spy were able to look and listen in on a meeting of Hosni Mubarak and his advisors? Would that modern Mata Hare be able to come back to his mission handlers and tell them what was being said, so that the future could be anticipated and the proper strategy devised?
Some writers assert that Democrats prefer science fiction and that conservatives are the main audience for mysteries. The Democrats, they say, are not afraid to envision alternative futures. Filled with extensive licentious debauchery? The Conservatives find reassurance (and a "softer side moment"?) in the world of hardboiled detectives where truth, justice and the American way will (always or usually?) prevail. This columnist doesn't have any scientific evidence to back those contentions, but what good is it to use scientific studies for fact finding? Those kooks believe in global warming and (sniff snivel and tears?) the immanent demise of the polar bears (Ursus Maritimus).
Reality is so boring. George W. Bush envisioned a wave of democracy sweeping over the Middle East and now that his successor has a chance to bring Egypt into the Democracy tent, it looks like the current U. S. President is going to urge the Egyptian leader to reach out to the other side. Yeah, he'll reach out and give them a back hand slap just as cavalierly as if he were a P. I. (private investigator) who was dealing out a business card.
Could it be that hard fisted conservatives in one U. S. intelligence agency are urging on the Egyptian rebels while the "let's talk this out" American President is backing the dictator? Has Egypt become the chess board where two diverse American political factions are locked in a high stakes squabble about the philosophy for the course of domestic American security?
Speaking of tourism, isn't it a wonder that the American Teabaggers aren't flocking to Cairo to see how low maintenance government works when it is put into play?
Herbert George Wells wrote: "Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." What do you think that dope thought about the scientists' fairy tale about global warming?
Now the disk jockey will play "Thanks for the Memory," "Change Partners," and "The Cowboy and the Lady" (all three were nominated for the 1938 Best Song Oscar). We have to go check the listings for the time for this Thursday's showing of "Back to the Future" as part of the Berkeley 7 Flashback film series. Have a "'tis a far, far better thing I do" type week.
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