[conspire] What it's like being an ICU nurse right now

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Dire Red (deirdre at deirdre.net):

> I wasn’t talking modern Norway. It was, at that point, in union with
> Sweden, but not the Kalmar Union. The combined area is less coastal
> than Italy/Greece, which is why I excluded it.

We're both quibbling shamelessly, here.  Norway was in _personal_ union 
with Sweden under Magnus Eriksson (Magnus IV) -- but a personal union 
(in contrast to a real union) is an arrangement of two countries having
the same monarch but distinct boundaries, laws, and state institutions.
I.e., no shared government, no unified armed forces, different privy
councils or equiv., etc.  In this case, also not even a shared language.

This was the mediaeval, feudal period, so large unified states were
totally out of the question anyway.