Time Safaris are a serious problem in the upcoming election. Tired of shooting wolves from airplanes and moose from snowmachines, the time safari is the newest fad among America's hunting heroes.
The Bradbury Herald visited Time Safari, Inc. several days after the election and discussed politics with the customer and one of the employees, then sent the article back in time to today where I can quote from it-
"Hell and damn," Eckels breathed, the light of the Ma-
chine on his thin face. "A real Time Machine." He shook
his head. "Makes you think. If the election had gone badly
yesterday, I might be here now running away from the results.
Thank God Obama won. He'll make a fine President of the
United States."
"Yes," said the man behind the desk. "We're lucky. If
McCain had gotten in, we'd have the worst kind of dic-
tatorship. There's an anti-everything man for you, a mili-
tarist, anti-Christ, anti-human, anti-intellectual. People called
us up, you know, joking but not joking. Said if McCain
became President they wanted to go live in 1492. Of course
it's not our business to conduct Escapes, but to form Safaris.
Anyway, Obama's President now. All you got to worry about
is --"
"Shooting my dinosaur," Eckels finished it for him.
And then, off he went, to kill a dinosaur. The physics of the time machine are, of course, well-known. What is less well-known is the safety regulations involved once the dinosaur hunters reach the past.
When they go back, they must walk on the specially-made path Time Safari has set up. One of the guides discusses it in the article-
"And that," he said, "is the Path, laid by Time Safari for
your use. It floats six inches above the earth. Doesn't touch
so much as one grass blade, flower, or tree. It's an antigravity
metal. Its purpose is to keep you from touching this world
of the past in any way. Stay on the Path. Don't go off it.
I repeat. Don't go off. For any reason! If you fall off, there's
a penalty."
But when they say "penalty," what they mean is something much worse. You see, everything in this world operates on the principles of chaos.
In mathematics, chaos theory describes the behavior of certain dynamical systems – that is, systems whose state evolves with time – that may exhibit dynamics that are highly sensitive to initial conditions (popularly referred to as the butterfly effect). As a result of this sensitivity, which manifests itself as an exponential growth of perturbations in the initial conditions, the behavior of chaotic systems appears to be random. This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future dynamics are fully defined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos.
Chaotic behaviour is also observed in natural systems, such as the weather. This may be explained by a chaos-theoretical analysis of a mathematical model of such a system, embodying the laws of physics that are relevant for the natural system.
But to put it more simply, if you step on a butterfly in the past, McCain will win.
Make no mistake, the NRA is aware of this. They are working on supplying hunters with boots that have much less traction than they look like they have.
So please, if you or someone you know is going to go on a dinosaur safari, please show them this new ad from the Obama campaign-