Checkmate
on 01/02/2006 at 12:46 PM
It doesn’t look like the Europeans will have any better luck heating their homes this winter than they have had keeping them cool enough to promote life in the elderly populations the past few years. I’m so glad they are able to take time from busy schedule to lecture us in the proper way to do things.
I just don’t understand why we should take advice in the War on Terror from a populace that has lost the War on Body Hair/Odor.
If memory serves, the Ukraine was traditionally Russia’s breadbasket, growing far and away the greatest percentage of Russia’s grains, and I assume that this is still so. If so, the Ukraine should fight gas with wheat. It isn’t easy to be comfortable at any temperature if you’re starving.
From a British perspective this is very alarming. Skipper the chances of Russia joining the EU are as likely as the next Pope being a Protestant. There are just too many obstacles. Not least the idea that the Russians would be giving up their sovereignty. In any case Russia for all intents and purposes is finished. They are in a demographic death spiral.
In Britain we have been somewhat insulated from this nonsense because of an independant gas supply from the North Sea. However thanks to our government short sighted approach and their willingness to meet the Kyoto targets the gas has been used to generate electricity. In the future we may come to rely on Russian gas.
The problem for the Ukrainians is less than half of them want to be associciated with Europe. The rest are happy with the status quo. I can see the Ukraine breaking up into two states. In the meantime I think we need to take a strong line with Putin and tell him straight that civilised countries do not resort to blackmail. The problem there is no country in Europe has an army that’s worth a crap. We come back to the old chestnut that the Europeans can “talk the talk” but are unable to “walk the walk” without US assistance.
01/03/2006 at 05:36 AM
