See this guy "Ivan"? Ivan's standing at the wheel of a Russian natural-gas pipeline.
This guy Ivan can shut off the heating to my Belgrade apartment pretty much any time he pleases.
Ivan's boss, Mr Putin, is a petrocrat. If the winter gets cold this year, hey, all bets are off! However: it's mid-November, and it was balmy, springlike greenhouse weather in Belgrade today. Would have felt quite lovely, except that the notoriously unstable Pancevo chemical plant blew up outside Belgrade yesterday, emitting benzene fumes thither and yon.
A man's gotta believe in something in these dark, unstable times;
like most of the population, I believe I'll have a shot of booze.
