1. I sat and watched ARD (German public TV, Channel One) last night for the late news. They had a fair amount of video from Russia. So here was a bus....loading reservists for 'action'....to which I gazed at the line of twenty-odd Russian guys.....ages 20 to 40. The problem I noticed right away....at least a quarter of them were in what I'd call the 'fat-boy' program....meaning they were fairly overweight....maybe thirty pounds.....maybe seventy pounds. From this day forward? They'd get marginal daily rations, and if they survived the war....come back in a year having lost the seventy-odd pounds.
Then ARD went to locations in Finland and Georgia....where young men arrived to escape the war and the activation of the reservists. Some refused to talk. Some admitted that they might not be coming back for a decade (figuring Putin might survive that long). Numbers? It's hard to say, but it's obvious that more than a couple of thousand left Russia or have some plan underway.
What this evolves into, if 100,000 up and leave Russia? Well....they performed tasks or worked at jobs. So come Monday morning when the boss is looking for Ivan and Andrei to handle some aircraft maintenance issue....he'll find them gone. The electrical grid guys of Moscow? They might find forty of their electricians no longer in-country.
It simply invites a long-term problem in handling minor issues around the country.
2. Focus brought up this interesting story on electricity calculations.
There's this German guy from Dusseldorf who got a letter from his electrical company. It was supposed to help him figure his rate of usage.
He put the picture of the letter up, with it's mathematical layout.
First, it was stuff that you'd do for a first-year college class, and if you were the typical average German.....this was way beyond your normal math capability.
Second, it made me wonder if management at the utility company even gazed at the document before releasing it.
3. Under WELT this AM, there's an interesting piece written by Diana Pieper, who examines the transformation of the 'Fridays-For-The-Future' kids....who appear now to be highly enthusiastic about anti-capitalism.
Not really a shock.....I saw this in the summer of 2021 with the group. Whoever is leading the kids....has a political agenda at heart.
If you can find the paper....look for the article....worth a read.
4. There are five games in 2024's European Soccer championship series to be played in Frankfurt. Cost to the city? Well....they finally came to admit this issue yesterday....the city will have to cough up thirty million Euro. It's a fair chunk of money, but you can figure at least 40,000 people showing up for each game, and probably spending at least 200 Euro for their 'experience'.
5. Somewhere yesterday in this Russia-Ukraine prisoner exchange....around 100-odd Ukrainian fighters were released. Shock came up because they were believed to be neo-Nazis.....so the Putin 'gimmick' of the conflict....was to kill neo-Nazis, and instead....they were released back to the Ukraine. Propaganda-wise, it was a unsettling moment for Putin.
6. Via N-TV reporting....four Icelandic young guys were arrested for planning a terror attack on the isle. Yeah, pretty strange.
Guns and ammo were found on them. Reasons for the planning? Cops don't say much.
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