Oop, and another one
Also if you're writing about the optimistic prospects for Iraq this week, the phrase "Concorde Fallacy" might come in handy. It has two meanings.
One is just an evocative name for the sunk cost fallacy; the idea that already having spent a lot of money on a bad idea is a good reason for spending even more.
The other is the sense that I prefer to use, although Google reveals that it is less popular. In my mind, the "Concorde Fallacy" was the strange beatific feeling that one used to get while lying on the grass on a summer's day, watching the beautiful shape of Concorde flying overhead, and creating a bright clear space of about a millisecond in which you could almost believe that it wasn't a horrendous waste of money. I suspect that as we see the dawn of Iraqi democracy next week there will be a fair few Concorde moments.
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