All the president has done is to give prominence to ideas about alternative fuels and new technologies that were mere afterthoughts in the 2001 Cheney energy report.

In such a place the food is very often a mere afterthought, the perfunctory, tolerated grill to some bar.

In baseball, with a 162-game schedule, games played in April are mere afterthoughts in September.

Vala was a mere afterthought, one even Galaeron would have forsaken for a slight increase in their chances of success.

Their owner coming out of the house packing a gun with a double load of buckshot was a mere afterthought.

Having open hearings in order to avoid gerrymandering is a mere afterthought at this point.

With food stalls galore and roaming vendors out in full force, a sit-down meal often becomes a mere afterthought.

'We'd still want you to discount our bills over that time,' John warned, as if it were a mere afterthought.

It had been the merest afterthought.

Issues such as these can determine elections, transforming the more "basic" questions of taxes and budgets into mere afterthoughts.