It’s been a strange world for a while now. Talk about living in interesting times 
Ah, the Russian version of The Men That Stare At Goats. 
Vodka laced with LSD would explain the tactics used by the Russians.
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I’ve been quite interested in the V2 since childhood, probably since I read Hergé’s Destination Moon. I’ve visited the d’Éperlecques V2 site and Peenemünde where it all really started and the factory at Mittelbau-Dora where rusting V2 bits are still evident.
I once saw the space race being described as the German scientists that the US had captured competing with the German scientists the Russians captured to get to the Moon.
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And what NASA kept very quiet was that nearly all early data on the effects of low atmospheric pressure, low oxygen levels and extremes of temperature came from SS doctors experimenting on concentration camp inmates.
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Yes, I do, and in particular re the US.
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Yes, Dachau if I remember correctly.
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That and whatever meds Putin is currently on.
Reawakening of Rasputin.
You know that’s not true. What should they do, desert and get shot? I don’t think I’d have the courage to do that faced with despotic commanders and the risk to my family back home.
Here’s a letter from one war hero who did have the courage to stand up and be counted 
Lt. Siegfried Sassoon
3rd Batt: Royal Welsh Fusiliers
July, 1917.
I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that the war upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of agression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them and that had this been done the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.
I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.
On behalf of those who are suffering now, I make this protest against the deception which is being practised upon them; also I believe it may help to destroy the callous complacency with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share and which they have not enough imagination to realise.
Siegfried Sassoon.
Hopefully the savages that have committed these atrocities will be caught and punished, but armies are armies and soldiers are soldiers and the best way to avoid such dreadful things is to avoid war, isn’t it?
I loved that film
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The Zimmermann Telegram is another good read.
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One of my favorite War poets
Well Putin grabbed Crimea nearly nine years ago, and presumably must have done a bit of planning beforehand! Will that do?
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All of her books really. The first one I read was A Distant Mirror and I was enthralled.
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“Hopefully the savages that have committed these atrocities will be caught and punished, but armies are armies and soldiers are soldiers and the best way to avoid such dreadful things is to avoid war, isn’t it?”
Having spent 12 years of my life in the Army.I agree with what you say above.
But to appease a despot and sit around while he wilfully bombs civilian populations intentionally will only embolden him to escalate, by then we will be on the verge of a new world war. I dont think anyone has any hatred towards the Russian people, but I believe that the sooner Putin is assassinated the better it will be for world peace. As for the musings of the poet
Siegfreid Sassoon I much preferred Rudyard Kipling’s - Barrack Room Ballard’s, Tommy Atkins in particular.
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No 
Highly unlikely to happen, digitracker. If it could have it would have, already.
Plus I would not wish a successor unless I was sure they wouldn’t be worse. Which does seem a risk.
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How sick is that…it’s late night approaching midnight and I’m getting a big ad “16 000 Ukrainian girls want to date you” with a very voluptuous lady.
How sick that commercial interests will promote anything out of misery. Digital really needs to be brought under control… and taxed.
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I am frequently bemused by the ads of voluptuous ladies fed to me, which shows no specific targeting of my sexual preferences 
. Also ads for things relating to the prostate gland by Google, I must have read an article about it once.
Chaps defaulting on alimony payments are top of the list for forced enlistment it would seem. Are those types likely to report for duty, though? Meanwhile, a deadly bunfight carries on in the background for a replacement for Evil Dobby: