A military wins or falls on the strength of its logistics

My Sunday movie was Young Royals on Netflix, season 2, episodes 1 and 2. I had finished season 1 back in April and season 2 was released a couple weeks ago. This is the story of Wilhelm, prince of Sweden who falls in love with Simon, a commoner. Part of this story is revenge for the betrayal that happened at the end of season 1. Wilhelm and Simon are trying to recover from it. And Wilhelm, though acting like a teenager, is beginning to stand up to his mother the queen. In thinking about episode 2 I realized something that surprised me. Wilhelm, Simon, and August are all on the rowing team. The surprise is there is no adult coach. One of the senior members puts the others through their training paces. And, by a vote of the others, can be replaced. Yes, that’s a factor in the story. The series is filmed in Sweden and this American version is dubbed in English. As I noted for season 1 it can be jarring to see the lips not in sync with the English I hear. And that seems to be more pronounced this time. Simon is a decent singer and his songs are in Swedish as are his words when he speaks to his mother. That makes me think the actors on screen also did the English dubbing – and mostly without accents. The Netflix credits show other names for the versions in other languages. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a couple days old Kos of Daily Kos has said several times a country’s military wins or falls on the strength of its logistics and Russian logistics are sorely lacking. That is again true for the liberation of Kherson, though this time Ukraine helped. Ukraine damaged the bridges across the Dnipro River, they lobbed rockets at every Russian command center and supply depot, and they attacked the Kerch bridge that supplies Crimea (the bridge’s rail line is still out). Ukraine also declared the liberation of Kherson was next. The prompted Russia to shift troops to the region, leaving the Kharkiv region with too little defense and allowing Ukraine to sweep through. But by then Russia didn’t have a way to sufficiently supply all those troops it had shifted to Kherson. Catherine Cortez Masto has been declared the winner in the Nevada race for senator. She keeps her seat and Democrats now have 50 seats. Yet to come is the Georgia runoff which, if Warnock is reelected, will lessen the power Sen. Joe Manchin has over the Democrat’s agenda. Aldous Pennyfarthing of Kos discussed an article in the Washington Post that says Democratic operatives goaded the nasty guy to help nominate Republican candidates that were more easily defeated. One way they did this was to hint the better candidate had criticized the nasty guy. He then endorsed the primary opponent. Bill in Portland, Maine, in a Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted late night commentary. Here’s one entry.

It’s Day One following the 2022 midterm elections. While the GOP did make modest gains, the massive victory they predicted never materialized. This morning's headlines said it best: 'The vaunted red wave never hit the shore in midterm elections' … 'That's not a red wave' ... and 'The red wave was more like a pink splash.' Yes—a pink splash. It was a salmon drizzle. A rosy wash that's like what happens when you accidentally wash your Klan robes with your MAGA hat. —Stephen Colbert