Day: June 20, 2007

In 1999, Arthur C. Clarke predicted that by this time, we’d have seen the first human clone, renewed interest in space exploration, and the end of the fossil-fuel age. The man is definitely a cockeyed optimist, but I think this further proof (if any was needed) that science fiction writers are just as lousy as anybody else at predicting the future. Good science fiction isn’t about predicting the future. Good science fiction, like any good fiction, is about the here and the now.

Via Cynical-C.

I really shouldn’t be surprised, but apparently Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia can’t tell fact from fiction:

The conservative jurist stuck up for Agent Bauer [of the television show 24], arguing that fictional or not, federal agents require latitude in times of great crisis. “Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. … He saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” Judge Scalia said.Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent’s rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand.

“Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?” Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. “Say that criminal law is against him? ‘You have the right to a jury trial?’ Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don’t think so.

“So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes.”

Via Gerry Canavan, who rightly points out that “[k]nowing the difference between escapist TV fantasy and real life ought to be a litmus test for being under 24-hour psychiatric care, much less being a supreme court justice.”