Hearing a talk this morning about transforming coal into gasoline and other important products sent Philoneist back through time, to the New York Times of Sept. 12, 1948, when that technology had already been the hope of the future for many years. An eyebrow-raising date, that autumn Sunday came a day after a Bizarro-World attack on New York's tallest skyscraper. Everything in history happens twice, the saying goes, first as tragedy, then as farce. Clearly, the reverse is sometimes true.