Thursday, September 1, 2022

Five German News Stories

 1.  Gas prices, since the 3-month discount ended last night at midnight?  E-10 fuel this morning is 2.04 Euro per liter (it would have been 1.74 Euro up until last night).

A fair number of stations are currently out of fuel, and if you were hoping to fuel up today.....you might have to go to two or three places before you find a station with fuel.

2.  Lufthansa pilots on strike tomorrow?  Yes, confirmed this morning in the AM news.

3.  Chatter started up this AM of a major Russian military exercise in eastern Russia.  The number of Russian troops quoted in participating?  50,000.  It's reported that China, India and Mongolia are also participating in this episode.

Speculation?  Well....they may say 50,000 Conscripts are participating, but it might not be a true number.  I'd also be curious what tanks they are using and if this is mostly a infantry exercise.

4.  That flight (last week) to Canada with Chancellor Scholz, and Economy Minister Habeck? Well....tons of image/video of them in the plane (while in the air) without Covid masks on (despite a government regulation that mandates it).  The comeback was that the German Air Force doesn't mandate it for their flights.

Well....folks heard this, and then went straight to state prosecutors...lodging complaints that it wasn't legal.  The prosecutors?  They simply say they are reviewing things.  

5.  This effort to lower federal voting age to 16?  The SPD and Greens are hyped up and want the law to pass.  So far, neither the FDP or CDU/CSU folks will agree to this.

Shortly after WW II....the voting age in Germany (1950) was lowered to 18 (from 21) for federal voting.

This is a mixed bag.  Some people believe that if you lowered it to 16, there would be another point or two for either the SPD or Greens.   Some have said if this is legal, then legal age drinking should also be set to 16, and that the driver's license should be set at this level.

Odds of this passing in 2022?  I'd give it a zero percent chance.  

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