"If your interested..." [sic] in higher education, Representative Woods, you might want to find a prufereeder for your facebook postings. But to the substance of your announcement I would advise you to look to the University of Utah's unabashed promotion of cold fusion back in the 1990s for an example of how such scientifically "pre-born" theories can make fools of their promoters, and of the institutions that bank on them for their own promotional objectives.

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Proof that time travel backwards can't happen (more than nanoseconds that is) is that it hasn't.

If it EVER could, we would already have proof of it already occuring. (Someone would have traveled back before 2012 and we would know about it)

Time travel forward makes no sense because how far would you need to go to make doing it worth it?

You get heart cancer, you want to be cured. How far do you go forward to insure it has been cured without accidentally going too far and pass civilization's colapse and thus not being cured either.

And we have already proved backwards travel has never been successful so if you overshoot, tough luck.

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Explorations into advanced physics are never a waste of time. History is littered with things that were supposedly impossible.

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"I've sent him a note asking about who's underwriting the cost of his visiting lecturer and who's participating in the time machine construction project."

I can't wait to hear about his answer. "I've asked the U of A to fly down Theoretical Physicist Dr. Ronald Mallett from the University of Connecticut..." - really, just like that? Can I do that too? "We are looking at building the worlds first time machine on campus in Fayetteville..." - We? Are looking? To make fun of the UA?

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While I'd be much more interested in traveling back in time, it would be great if we could get messages from someone living in the year 2112. They'd be able to tell us what happened during President Romney's 2 disastrous terms in office.

They could tell us where to move to avoid the giant fracking earthquake of 2023. They could let us know that in 2094 it was discovered that underarm deodorant use was found to be the single cause of cancer. They could tell us how bionic Dick Cheney was doing in the 22nd century. We'd know the real truth about Mark Pryor by then. And what about this mole on my left arm?

I do so love the past, but I have an interest in the future too. Wow...what a profound statement I just made! I shall follow it up with the bold statement that oxygen is good! In science I trust!

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A lack of visitors from the future doesn't disprove the possibility of time travel. The Mayans could be right. There may not be a future.

Another possibility is that futurites would be advanced enough to know better than to backwards time travel because of all the disastrous butterfly effects their visit could cause. But I sort of doubt that because we went to the moon 40 years ago and we're still pretty stupid.

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Maybe we could send Jon Woods into the future, say 1,000 years?

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It is to laugh, were it not so pitiful.

Grizlee Bear is right.

It's one thing to make mistakes -- grammar, spelling, punctuation -- typing off the cuff on a blog post. Quite another, as a professional, to make them in venues purporting to represent one's profession.

Jon Woods is a "marketing grad" now running for the Senate.

His misuse of "your" for "you're" on his Facebook page raises valid questions, like it or not.

1) He's ignorant of the difference.

2) He's sloppy.

3) Doesn't care.

4) Turns in shoddy work.

5) Is an amateur.

Over twice the commenters (so far) "dislike" Grizlee pointing it out.

The question, in more competitive professional markets would be: "If this 'marketing grad' doesn't know the difference between 'your' and 'you're,' and demonstrates ignorant and /or careless communications skills in a public release on Facebook, combined with an inability to maintain a team of professionals around him (who presumably would have caught and corrected the mistake) what on earth qualifies him for the complexities of being a Senator?"

(Of course, Senator Mark Pryor believes in a talking snake, so there's that.)

Then, the Beauty Part.

Grizlee misspells "proofreader."

And Arkansans still blame "outsiders" for "saddling" the state with its backwards uneducated third-rate rep.

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"The question, in more competitive professional markets would be: "If this 'marketing grad' doesn't know the difference between 'your' and 'you're,' and demonstrates ignorant and /or careless communications skills in a public release on Facebook, combined with an inability to maintain a team of professionals around him (who presumably would have caught and corrected the mistake) what on earth qualifies him for the complexities of being a Senator?""

First of all, Norma, the guy is a State Rep., not a U.S. Rep. These guys don't have "teams of professionals" around them. They don't have a single staffer. They're out there on their own and sometimes make simple mistakes. And it's on Facebook, which, like Twitter, is typically way more casual than, say, a press release. It's just a conversational blurb. So he made a small typing error, likely from an iPhone, and didn't catch it before posting. Cut the guy some slack. He's a Republican who's excited about advanced science--how often do you encounter that?

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Sorry, Little Rocker. Seminars are given 'round the country on professionals and the importance of social media like Facebook in building and furthering careers.

If Woods (and you) don't know or appreciate that . . . , oh, well: a whole other can of worms.

Why would anybody hire (or vote for) somebody who doesn't know what they're doing when there are plenty of other job candidates who DO?

Or perhaps that's the problem there . . . .

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I'm planning a rally for the proper use of 'you're' and 'your' at the gates of our swell new electricity plant at McNab. A 10% discount on drinks for UA alums who display actual written communication skills -- printing or cursive.
The great thing is that you can buy one beer. Drink it. Turn on the time machine, and go back and drink it again. Whoa! Talk about good times and real savings!
I'm wondering if we can go back and make that kid scoop up the ball and we beat The Ohio State University.

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Bugey points out a flaw in my no-time-travel theory. I did not consider that humans may wipe civilization out before HUMANS develope time travel.

So my adjustment to my now fine tuned hypothesis is that there is proof HUMANS will never develope time travel.

Might be because it is not possible or humans can't because we are not smart enough to do in the time we have remaining. (days or eons)

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Norma, I think "prufreeder" was snark.

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I wondered too, Outlier. Trouble is, one cannot tell from the context. 'Tis the writer's job to make intentions clear (why sarcasm is notoriously difficult online; you have to know what your doing.)

Oh, wait . . . .

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Now, on to grammar.

I read Summer of 42 back in the 70's and the copy I read was dirty, smudged and falling apart from being passed around most of the Catholic High freshman class. It was great.

I have since read (or begun reading) many new and pristine books that were a waste of trees to print.

I would much rather read genius with poor punctuation than our buddy BlueFriction with perfect sentance structure.

Another thing. Many commentors are not sitting ergonomically correct at QWERTY keyboards with excellent lighting to post. What if one of our resident experts is posting from an airport layover and has something pertinent to add? Such as legal input from a lawyer, medical clarification from an MD.

Do we prefer they not contribute unless spell check and grammar check is on and satisfied?

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Citizen --

ANOTHER favorite tactic: change the subject, erect a straw man, so to speak, and "argue" with that instead.

We're talking about a "marketing grad" posing as a professional who's aiming for a career in politics. Not . . . whatever it is you're talking about.

Typos and misspellings are a given on blogs and rarely if ever worth noting except by attention-starved bloggers with nothing substantive to say and a burning desire to say it.

Professionally? Another story.

See Mr. Brantley's sharing Michele Bachmann's "press aide" and "spokeswoman" Alice Stewart's (who bills herself as a "media consultant" and "journalist") first Tweet as Ms. Bachmann's "communications director."

Ms. Stewart's initial Tweet regarding Michele Bachmann, which went viral and elicited national derision, misspelled her employer's name as "Michelle."

She can't even get the first W in journalism's famous Five Ws (Who, What, When, Where, Why) right.

As I said, "Why would anybody hire (or vote for) somebody who doesn't know what they're doing when there are plenty of other job candidates who DO?

"Or perhaps that's the problem there . . . ."

Of course, in Michele's case, as in Sarah Palin's, the answer is obvious.

Like attracts like.

Same with those who defend, hire and vote for these thin-skinned amateur wannabes.

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Norma

As often, you are right. I was more lumping the above grammar rant with the grammar rants concerning run of the mill posters.

I wasn't putting much in the UA mkg degree since individuals with various finance degrees from high end schools are claiming that cutting taxes to job creators will create jobs even though we have 8 plus years of real time data to see the W cuts should have us importing workers by now.

My mkg classes were much less strenuous than my finance ones.

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Louie should know about communication, or the lack thereof. As a newspaper publisher, I am sure he has experienced both, along with the typos and grammatical booboos that inevitably find their way into print. His discount on beer, though, really doesn't amount to much.

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Remember that this is the same Jon Woods who was on the list of early supporters of that tower of intelligence-Rick Perry. He seems to have missed on that one from the beginning.

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So, a Republican decides to embrace science, and he manages to pick a guy whose time-travel theory has already been shown to have several massive flaws, any one of which would make building a time machine at U of A (or anywhere) based on this theory impossible?

Why am I not surprised?

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