This will pull "field1" from table "myTable" where the DATETIME column "targetDate" is older than 12 hours.
$hardcodedHours = 12;
$sql = "SELECT field1 FROM myTable WHERE targetDate <= '" . date('Y-m-d H:i:s', strtotime("-$hardcodedHours hours")) . "'";
$result = mysql_query($sql);
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