The future has already been written, thanks to AP's magical mystical time machine

Okay, checking the clock now, it's 2:42 p.m. Central time, September 30. Tonight's debate is still hours away, and the Associated Press already has an article on the wires speaking of the debate IN THE PAST TENSE. Here's how the story begins (Began? Begun? I can never get those time-travel verb tenses right.):

After a deluge of campaign speeches and hostile television ads, President Bush and challenger John Kerry got their chance to face each other directly Thursday night before an audience of tens of millions of voters in a high-stakes debate about terrorism, the Iraq war and the bloody aftermath.

The 90-minute encounter was particularly crucial for Kerry, trailing slightly in the polls and struggling for momentum less than five weeks before the election. The Democratic candidate faced the challenge of presenting himself as a credible commander in chief after a torrent of Republican criticism that he was prone to changing his positions.

UPDATE: Well, that didn't last long. The article has been retracted, so the above link no longer works. All is not lost, though! The entire article has been preserved here.