1. Last night, I watched a German video piece of the meeting between Turkey's Erdogan and Russia's Putin. At the end of the meeting....Erdogan went to his limo and left....with Putin in the landscape waving 'good-bye' (looked good for image).
The thing was....here are four steps for Putin to step down. He stepped in an awkward way....as if trying very hard not to stumble. He was using his arms in some way to balance himself on the steps....swinging them.
Physically? Either he has bad vision....or his sense of movement is limited by something.
2. Focus had a piece this AM.....talking about the financial aspects of Russia....with the European sanctions in place. The hype here? This was a management and economics group from Harvard University.
I'd recommend a read of this....interesting review.
I'll just say this.....anyone thinking long-term that Russia will survive against the sanctions....is betting on the 'wrong horse'.
One thing they brought up....car sales (per month) are about a quarter of what they were before. If you were buying a new Russian-made car....you can likely expect zero airbags, and no ABS technology. Looking for a new Russian-made car with automatic transmission....don't worry, they won't be found.
3. The follow-up to the June-July-August 9-Euro Bahn (railway) ticket? So far, a week into August....nothing solid has come up.
The ticket was a fairly decent deal....you travel anywhere in Germany by bus or rail...paying nine Euro for one monthly ticket. You can't ride via the inner-city fast rail or ICE high-speed trains.
To make this work....several billion Euro was thrown into the system by the federal government.
What I expect? Around the end of August....a solution will be found...in the range of 70 Euro per month for the same ticket. I don't think it will be as successful, and maybe that's a good thing (trains were absolutely packed during the past two months).
4. Some odd episode appears to be unfolding with a former member of the SPD Party (Scholz's group), and a bag of money (200,000 Euro). Investigation is underway.
It would appear either he was doing some money-laundering, or paid for some bribe.
5. The amount of natural gas for homes to 'trim-back'? This week, what is being suggested by the government for this winter.....to successfully survive....is a 20-percent cut over 2021 usage.
Yeah, that's a good bit. Maybe if we trimmed the thermostat down to 18 C (64 F), took heated baths only every other day, and never used any heated water in the kitchen sink....we might save that 20-percent.
6. Some study was brought up via N-TV this AM....about the affects of long-Covid. What the numbers say? One out of every eight Germans who had Covid.....in the end....have suffered from long-Covid.
7. Grunewald fire (outside of Berlin) has finally been brought under control. Region is still under a drought condition, and this police storage bunker site is only marginally under control.
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