It's like "Revenge of the Nerds," only with al Qaeda as the Alpha Betas

Looking to prevent the next terrorist attack, the Homeland Security Department is tapping into the wild imaginations of a group of self-described "deviant" thinkers: science-fiction writers.

"We spend our entire careers living in the future," says author Arlan Andrews, one of a handful of writers the government brought to Washington this month to attend a Homeland Security conference on science and technology. (USA Today)

Sigh. Goodbye, tax dollars.

I'd like us to remember two things. First, 9/11 happened largely because of box cutters. There wasn't some super, high-tech plot, worthy of a Bond villain. It was box cutters. Fucking box cutters. Not exactly Hugo Drax trying to wipe out humanity by unleashing a virus on Earth from a space shuttle, or Dr. Kananga trying to use voodoo to run his drug operation. Box cutters.

Second, if you look at most sci-fi from even just a couple of decades ago, a lot of writers thought we'd have jet packs, moon colonies, and robot slaves by now. So I'm not sure how much faith I'd put in their prognostication skills.

Frankly, if we're going to take notes from writers, I'd feel a lot better if we put guys like Tom Clancy, Vince Flynn, or Brad Thor in a room together, and let them go nuts. I think we'd get more valuable insight from them, than the guy who wrote an essay about why Superman and Lois Lane can't have sex.

Or we could just fucking catch bin Laden, already. I guess that would work, too.