Today I'm Watching...Russian Gas

Disputes over Natural Gas supplies have been a simmering issue between Russia and Ukraine for a while, but today they finally boiled over...and the giant Russia's state-controlled gas monoply, Gazprom, totally shut off the gas supply to Ukraine. Unfortunately, the Ukrainian pipeline is also a primary route by which Russian enters Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Croatia, Turkey, Slovakia, Hungary, etc. Now, I'm not going to get into the debate over who wronged who in the dispute, and frankly I don't care. I am, however, going to say that somebody needs to figure something out quickly...because shutting off the gas to most of Eastern Europe in the middle of winter is a very bad idea. To add insult to injury, Eastern Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas tomorrow...I'm guessing that the holiday cheer will be dampened somewhat by the fact that they are all shivering with no heat.