Since the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, the puditocracy and blogosphere has not been able to resist drawing analogies between present world events and the June 1914 assassination — in Sarajevo, not Belgrade — of Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand that sparked the First World War. The latest perpetrator of this weak analogy is none other than Thomas Friedman of the New York Times.

Matthew Yglesias **rightly **insisted on some historical and geographical accuracy a couple of days ago. This might be a good place to start a refresher of your high school history lessons.