Belated Easter

In my last post, originally published on May 8, 2008 (Edit: Now deleted), I said that I "don’t even want to think about 2014".

Well, here we are. To kick off this unholy resurrection, let me jot down two things I learned in passing over the last few days:

1.) The term "iron curtain" was once used to refer to Vauban's chain of fortresses built to protect new French conquests in the Spanish Netherlands in the late 17th/early 18th century.

2.) During the Cold War, some pithy jokers decided that the Soviet, British, and French nuclear equivalents of the United States' "bang for the buck" should be "rubble for the ruble", "pounding for the pound", and "frappe for the franc".

By extension, I suppose the Chinese look for marginal benefits in "yowl for the yuan", the Pakistanis and Indians "ruination for the rupee", and the Israelis "sickle for the shekel". Naturally, the North Koreans get more "win for the won".

Hypothetically, if this year's P5+1 (or, if you're from Europe, EU3+3) talks with Iran were to fail, the rest of the world might have to face up to some "reality for the rial".