A couple weeks ago, one of these trei sori celebrated a birthday.  La mulţi ani, draguţa!

RIA Novosti reports

Russian gas supplies through Ukraine to Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, and Turkey have been halted… Gas deliveries to the Czech Republic have fallen by 75%…

Puţin has been responsible for advocating a policy of holding Europe hostage during the winter.  His current Russian puppet president is pulled by the same strings, lacking the testicular fortitude to act in the manner he is legally entitled to and thereby demonstrating to the world-at-large that Puţin remains Russia’s communist dictator.

Portfolio notes two more victims.

Gas deliveries from Ukraine to Hungary have stopped… Slovakia is prepared to declare a state of emergency…

Apparently, the Russian government believes itself clever. They’ll send out a slew of junior varsity spokespeople to tell various media outlets that, of course, Russia will honor its contractual obligations to provide gas to Europe and would never purposefully seek to kill Europeans in winter so European governments might bow down to Russia’s whimsical ego.

BBC discovered

The move [to cut gas to Europe] came after Mr Putin held talks with Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller.

Twitterbrains who watch TV shows like 24 or, say, Lombarzilor 8 might believe the talking heads who regurgitate press statements as fact.  Those of us who engage in a little critical thinking or favor investigative journalism might not have ever been fooled in the first place. Or so our egos allow us to muse.

Opening our eyes, you can see China View added another to the list of impacted countries.

Russian gas supplies to Croatia were completely cut off Tuesday… The underground storage and the gas produced by the INA cannot make up for the shortfall…

Contracts and obligations mean nothing to Puţin.  He runs roughshod over the Russian Constitution more disastrously than George Bush over the American Constitution, which defies imagination.  Puţin is throwing a temper tantrum over the lack of respect he commands from Europe by cutting off gas supplies that flow through Ukraine to Europe.

Reuters points out Russia is

…threatening disruption as far west as Italy and Germany…

Why?  Simple.

Russia still owns Belarus by the short hairs, but they lost control of Ukraine in 2004.  It was the Orange Revolution which brought some measure of real freedom to Ukraine.  That victory is equally important for Romania as well.

The political party formerly known as Communist now goes by the PSD — “Social Democrats” is their destept euphemism — and has had a corrupt choke-hold on Romania ever since they themselves deposed Ceausescu in order to propel themselves to power.

It so happens that in 2004 the legitimate winner of the Romanian presidential election was being railroaded into accepting a fictitious loss, but the protests in Ukraine brought unprecedented media coverage to the region.  Some of that spilled over into Romania.  Just barely enough international attention that Basescu was able to brush aside the hoţi and claim his rightful victory.

That brought huge changes to Romania.  In the past 4 years, the lives of average citizens all over the nation has changed dramatically for the better.

Russia is unlikely to control Romania again any time soon, but they do scare the world into letting Moldova remain prisoner.  Russia would very much like Ukraine back into its pocket and is quite upset that freedom continues in Ukraine despite the on-going internal political upheavals there.

The current tactic is to cut off gas supplies flowing through Ukraine, the major pipeline for natural gas delivered to Europe.  Puţin’s intent is for Europeans to suffer and die in the cold winter, so they’ll demand their government “do something” about the problem.

…the EU is reluctant to get involved in what it describes as a commercial dispute - reflecting Europe’s own deep divisions on how to respond to Russia.

Naturally, the Russian communists want Europe to become frustrated with Ukraine, to be disillusioned with Ukraine, to break faith with Ukraine, and to abandon Ukraine to stand alone in the cold, dark twilight of this early uncertain century.  They want Ukraine to collapse and return to horrors of soviet life.

The impact here in Bucureşti today?  No hot water as the nation tried to conserve gas for use that the centrala.  It’s the centrala which pumps hot water to residential radiators to keep them warm in the winter.  It appears other hot water uses are considered optional in the hierarchy of priorities.

A wise choice, if one has to make it.  However, Romania seems ill equipped to deal with the shortage.

Politicians need to ensure city administrators have proper plans and procedures in place to swiftly redirect energy supplies from well-established gas reserves when an event like this occurs.  It’s not as though this were completely unexpected.  Russia has been mumbling for quite some time, if anyone will listen.

In order for politicians to react, the people must not tolerate a loss of hot water.  It may be a typical side effect of life in an emerging nation such as Romania, but that does not mean we must suffer in silence.  Elected officials generally understand the need to serve the masses, so it is incumbent on the people to make rational voices heard loudly in demand for proper municipal governance.

One doesn’t want to ignorantly scream “do something” when that something could be just what Puţin hopes for.   Instead, complain about the lack of city energy planning and demand politicians properly direct their administrators to adequately establish reserve distribution procedures if they want your vote next election.

Constructive criticism will get positive results.  Romanians, you deserve better.

Tonight, for now, the hot water has been restored.  At least in the central part of Bucureşti.  I can only imagine half the city is scrambling to take a shower in case the water is out again tomorrow.

“Imports of Russian gas are now reduced by around 75 percent,” Transgaz director Ioan Rusu told Reuters by telephone. “But we can overcome this winter without problems.”

The economy ministry said in a statement that measures had been taken earlier in the day to ensure constant gas supplies to all Romanian consumers.

I’ll take this opportunity to explain to corporate shill Ioan Rusu, the fascist ministrul economiei şi finanţelor Varujan Vosganian, and their shady gaggle of pro-Russian cohorts who suddenly reverse their roles and undermine Romanian policy — no doubt in anticipation of making a large profit from the arrangement — how exactly it is that one determines whether there is a gas problem.

Hop into your tub or shower one Bucharest morning and crank on the hot water; if you suddenly feel as though you can relate to these Romans, well then you know the score, bubba.

I may begin to spin new regionalist theories on anthropomorphism as relates to modern Romanian culture, because the east central area of Bucureşti appears to be represented by the famous Christmas bear.

Apparently, in his early 20s, Jesus hired a few singing bears to lead the sideshow component of his magic performances.  Later, these pets turned into ticket salesmen then alms collectors.   Hence, their relevancy.

This guy apparently felt the need to step outside into the frosty air, wearing only a Romanian-colored track suit smothered in non-Romanian corporate logos and an expensive pair of super ice-grip boots, so that he might wash his windows.

It seemed to take him quite a while to get the job done.  My hunch is that his wet towel was freezing as he went along, thus slowing down progress.  Since there was no particular single spot he was interested in (such as a bird attack), the daring feat kept him occupied a good 30 to 40 minutes.

Personally, I know both you and I would trust our sure-footedness on that frosty slick rail of the rusted out plant hanger to keep us from plunging several meters onto the bouncy, soft pillow-top mattress waiting below.

Cue the circus acrobat music!

Et quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

There was a Halloween sugar overdose in late October.  A full month later came the unending amounts of turkey during Thanksgiving.  Then was a 30-day mad dash to put lights on the house and presents under the tree for Christmas.

Somewhere along the line, my perceptions improved.  Or the adeptness of soulless marketing shills.  Either way, I noticed that increasingly Christmas would “begin” immediately after Thanksgiving, as every shop in town immediately through up their decorations the very day after Thanksgiving as if to psychologically induce passers-by to empty their wallets for Christmas beginning immediately.

Later in life, I witnessed a change that was definitely new.  Some brazen store marketers would cross the line and beging putting up Christmas decorations a week or so before Thanksgiving, as a way of planting the seeds for the big After-Thanksgiving-Day Sale… which later became known as Black Friday (while a financial etymology, it nonetheless suggests the death of Xmas joy at the hands of blindingly overcommercialized saleshouting).

Last October, in Houston, Texas, I shook my head in disbelief as store after store rolled out the Christmas lights and other Santa-oriented decorations.  Before Thanksgiving.  Before Halloween. Yes, apparently, folks should be buying crap made in China for a full 3 months these days, just to keep up with the nonexistant Joneses of our TV-driven imagination.

But here in Romania, it’s the opposite situation.

Christmas is unable to be disturbed by Halloween or Thanksgiving, since they do not exist here.  And the merchants are only still at the beginning stages of overhyping the buying public into a comatose state of consumerism.

And yet, change creeps in.  Only, it is from the other direction, my friends.  Witness the encroachment found at a local grocery store in cartierul meu.

Uite.