I recently attended a demonstration of an email software package (the type designed to send all those bulletins and newsletters you sign up for, then routinely delete without reading). Although we were using the current vendor anyway, we weren't satisfied with them and they were pitching their new product in the hope we'd extend our contract.
It looked very nice, but it slowly emerged that it hadn't been finished: what we were looking at was not a finished product but some nicley-done mock-up pages. In effect they were fishing for what we'd like to see and promising to write it in further down the line.
You'd think it was just a sleazy business tactic to ty and sell someone a dolled-up wishlist as the final product, but see what George Bush has been doing recently:
Bush tells of foiled LA Tower plot
It strikes me terribly fortunate that ol' George can pull these successful anti-terror operations out of his arse right when he needs to prop up support for his Patriot Act and the ability to invade and spy on his own people.
How soon before Blair copies him (as usual) and tries to claim that several fantastical operations were spoiled by the very fact we shelled out millions of pounds on ID cards?
If you haven't seen it, give Spurious George a read. Meanwhile Metro pictures George gawping vacantly at a bust that the Texas Air National Guard have erected. Incidentally proving that chimps don't always recognise their own reflection, it's a fantastic metaphorical counterpoint to his brash announcement: George was there for America during the 9/11 crisis in precisely the same fashion in which he skived off protecting Texas from Vietcong air attack.