Four Things You Notice

 1.  Last night on the public forum show 'Maischberger' (ARD, late)....they did a interview session with Chancellor Scholz (him alone....with the moderator).  You can view it here (about an hour).

I'd say you got three things out of it: First, blah-blah-blah-the-coalition-running-perfect. Second, some insight into the Putin war (as if you didn't have insight already), and third...selling the home-heating-and-heat-pump agenda.

I'm not going to say it was a success or failure, but someone in the government needs to stand up and sell whatever the coalition is doing....as a success.  The public TV guys are doing a crappy job at selling this, and presently....I'd suggest that more than a third of the public just laughs over the gimmicks being presented.

The fact that Scholz isn't a great salesman?  Well.....everyone knew this prior to the 2021 election.  It's nothing news.

2.  The French cops shooting that 17-year-old kid?  I'd say on a scale of one-to-ten.....it's probably a twelve on my scale of stupidity.

3.  N-TV this AM (commercial news network in Germany) had a piece where they interviewed some political expert....saying one way to halt the AfD success in eastern Germany...is to have the CDU Party (Merkel's old right-of-center party) partner up with the Linke Party (far left).

I sat there and contemplated this.  If you attempted any such gimmick....probably at least a quarter of all CDU voters across the country would walk out and quit the party.  I couldn't believe that the expert contemplated this type of solution.

4.  I noticed this off N-TV in the AM......the German mineral/bubbly water folks have grown their business ten times over....in the past 50 years.

I sat and contemplated my own water drinking for the past decade....it's probably 98-percent from some bottle that I bought at the grocery.  Other than using tap water for making coffee or tea....I don't use it.  

I admit the switch, but will also admit.....bottled water has a better taste than from the tap.  

Just in the local grocery, I bet there are at least sixty different water variations on the shelf at present.  Some come all the way from southern France and central Italy.