For example, as in “Star Trek:TNG”
Captain Piccard: “Mr. Data, how much longer before we intersect with the time horizon?”
or alternatively
The time horizon would be where the Doctor’s Tardis would appear at!

Who do you think you’re fooling?

If there were oil vouchers waiting for him there, you could be sure Galloway would be on the next flight to Baghdad.

Alan Ji:

American reality is that it has a far smaller military capacity than it once did in the days when military service was required of all able bodied males. That little reality may have influenced the number of troops committed as much as incompetence in the Bush administration. If anyone is to be faulted, it’s those members of the UN security council who voted to leave Saddam in place because they were making favourable oil deals with him instead of committing troops to removing him and securing the peace against the Sunni and Shia Islamists who were looking to take power after Saddam.

It’s so easy to cast blame on the US, but this weekend’s Globe & Mail carried an article about an encampment on the French coast filled with Iraqis and Afghans hoping to cross over to the UK where they believe they have a chance of receiving assistance because unlike the French and German governments, the Brits are looked upon as having cared enough to get rid of Saddam.

A stray copy of “USA today” gave me the distinct impression that the “US troop surge” was Nouri Al-Malaki’s policy, although it hadn’t started then, every bit as much as it was George W Bush’s policy.

It has worked because it is based on Iraqi realities, not on the ignorant rubbish of people who thought they could invade a country without a scenario or a plan for what was to come next.

Priceless.

Or indeed,

Wow, Samir Kuntar says something so it must be true

Try that for size.

I could indeed, provided we were discussing a hypothetical Northern Ireland where massive bombs explode every week, central government’s grip on power is solely maintained by billions of dollars of American aid and military might and exists only as far as sectarian militias are prepared to co-operate, and where the threat of a return to horrific bloodshed is merely one assassination, bombing or political disagreement away.

…would you prefer no settlement and the factions on the streets?

That depends whether you mean the question from a moral or a political standpoint. Obviously, as a human being, I’m in favour of more politics and less violence, even if that means that anything I might’ve said in the past about the horrors of communalist politics or doing deals with killers makes my current celebrations of Iraqi democracy look a bit, well, hypocritical.

Politically speaking, it doesn’t really matter – if one’s sole interest is trash-talking non-entities like Galloway, it makes no difference whether Iraq more closely resembles Geneva or Mogadishu. There ain’t much easier than harshing on hate figures, and it’s lots more fun than casting a critical eye over the current state of Iraq, isn’t it?