When I was growing up, my best friend’s grandmother, Mrs. C.S., would show up to church every Sunday, decked out in fine, elegant clothes and flaming red hair.  That’s me.  I said to myself.  That’s how I want to be.  I want to have red hair until the day I die.  And, so, here we are.  I’ll be 74 in March, and I have flaming red hair, long, almost the same haircut I had in high school.  And, I have a temperament to go with it. I just have just enough rage to send along…

LIFE AND NEWS NOTES FROM AN ELDERLY CAT LADY IN THE MINISTRY OF SNARK

WEDNESDAY 1 JANUARY 2025

Culture of Violence

• While people were celebrating New Year’s in New Orleans, a pickup truck drove into a crowd on Bourbon Street.  The driver got out of the truck and started shooting at people, the people he hadn’t managed to get with the truck.  He is dead as are an estimated ten people.  Happy New Year (NYT).
• Merrick F…ing Garland, issued a statement that his “heart was broken.”  My heart is f…ing broken for a country that has descended to this level of violence and hatred in part because Merrick F…ing Garland refused to prosecute the powerful and wealthy.  They, consequently, have been allowed to spread their perversions and delusions.  Thanks there Merrick
• Ukraine
• Ukraine has finally refused to renew the transit of Russian gas through its territory.  (Note: Yipeeeeeeee).  Russia has refrained from bombing the pipeline up until now.  Slovakia one of the European countries that most relies on the Russian gas, threatened retaliation against Ukraine (NYT).
• Hungary, Austria and several Balkan countries are also affected, as is Moldova.  In December, Moldova declared a state of emergency amid fears of an end to supplies of gas.  On Wednesday (1/1/25) the energy company in Transnistria told its customers it would stop providing heating gas for private houses.  There are Russian troops in Transnistria (NYT, 1/1/25).
• Russia had spent more than fifty years expanding its share of the European gas market.  The main conduit was the Soviet-era Urengoy-Pomary/Uzhgorod pipeline from Siberia to Ukraine’s border with Slovakia.[1]  It brings gas via the town of Sudzha, now under the control of Ukraine, in Russia’s Kursk region.  At its peak, Russia supplied nearly 40% of imported gas consumed in Europe.  Europe had cut back so much since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine that this pipeline in December only accounted for 5% of the European Union’s gas imports (NYT, 1/1/25).
• However, Slovakia threatened to cut Ukraine off from “vital energy supplies…to sustain its battered power grid.”  This grid relies on power imported from the EU to function after “years of Russian bombardment,” (NYT, 1/1/25).
• President of Ukraine, Zelensky, said: “We are fighting for our lives, Fico is fighting for money.” (NYT, 1/1/25).
• The move is a blow to the Kremlin-controlled gas company, Gazprom, which lost $7 billion in 2023 largely as a “result of being driven out of EU gas markets.” (NYT, 1/1/25)

Syria

• Research: Situation with the Kurds in Northeastern Syria. 
• (Note: Even if the various rebel groups join together, there is still the problem of the Kurds (guarding ISIS fighters), the IS extremists who are controlling parts of central Syria an the remnants of Assad’s security forces (NYT, 1/1/25). 

Podcast: Real Dictators “Benito Mussolini Part 3: Murder in Broad Daylight. (12/31/24)

This is a good podcast.  If you ever thought Trump’s “assassination” attempt was staged, try listening to this episode and the description of the way in which Mussolini used an assassination attempt to mobilize the populace.  He even showed up the next day on a balcony sporting an enormous bandage.

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[1] Slovakia’s Prime Minister, Robert Fico, traveled to Moscow in December of 2024.  The trip was a “blow to European unity…” (NYT, 1/1/25).