That old saw about a problem shared being a problem halved? Damnable lie. A problem shared is a problem doubled. - Ian McDonald

I do not trust the memory. Imaginings too easily become memories, memories imaginings.

He had sworn on his father's honour, his mother's life, his brother's masculinity, his sister's purity and his prophet's beard that he would never set foot there again. God, knowing people, thinks little of honour or purity or even life, but vows made on his prophet he loves to confound.

At some point it will inevitably crash again: as weapons of mass destruction go, unrestricted market economies are among the more subtle but sure.