Cyrill Vatomsky, Where All Politics Are Global

Back in the days of the USSR, we had a joke about socialism and communism..

First a little setup: that was the time when Russia was suffering chronic food shortages. I remember visiting a "bread basket" of Southern Russia, Gorbachev's own Stavropol in 1982. People there would receive "coupons" that would allow them to buy certain amount of butter, sugar, meat etc. per month.

So the joke was that if a real communist state is established in the area of the Sahara Desert, the end result will be shortages of sand.

And how prophetic. Although Russia is no longer socialist by name (still is by fundamentals) Russia, that globe's source of energy, that untapped supply of natural gas... will run out of natural gas for domestic use. Mind you, the gas is still there, and some will be pumped out, but most of it will be sold to the West so that Mr. Putin can rebuild more palaces and build more submarines to fight the war in Chechnya.

Oh, Mecry.