The Germans had an SS Cavalry Brigade in the same war which was used to hunt down Soviet partisans in the German occupied areas.

The Red Army in WW2 used them for reconnaissance and raids in subzero weather, when it was impossible for the Germans to get a tank engine started without lighting a fire under them and hoping they'd start before the Kossacks attacked.

We aren't. The SR71 Blackbird made them obsolete.

One of the problems with Annie was, it took about a whole day to set it up to fire. Once it was ready to go, the enemy might be out of range, considering how fast armies can move in the post-Blitzkrieg era.

I know! It should be hexadecimal.

I know! It should be hexadecimal.

If I'm not mistaken, those were called Steam Traction Engines, although this one might be more specialized, a steam-powered farm tractor. The diesel powered tractors of modern times are their descendants.

Orson Scott Card's "Empire" is about that, if I'm not mistaken.

There's a British YA dystopian series about a racist society. It's called Noughts and Crosses after the first book. I haven't read it yet, but it's noteworthy for addressing racism. Most dystopias don't.

This! ^ This! ^

Or 50 per cent. 50 per cent was a common figure before we figured out what the right hemisphere did.

That was my first thought too, but let's think for a minute. Maybe they just practiced universal miscegenation ("race mixing") until nobody cared any more.

That's pretty much what I expected a Persian (or Median) soldier to look like anyway.

Most fiction is read by women, so as a female author with two published novels to my credit and another on the way, I reckon I'll just stick to calling myself Betty Cross on my title pages.

I'm seeing a lot of Brutalism here. You can see similar behemoths dating from the same period in W. Europe and N. America too.

In that once scene with the riot in the first film, some of the farm laborers were white. So no, not every who's poor and struggling in District 11 is black, at least not in the movie version.

What a regressive society! 8-row cotton picking machines have been scrapped, so now it's once again done by hand. I thought this was 100 years in the future.

I'm seeing the same phenomenon with Hunger Games fans, even though I am one. Kids line up on Team Gale or Team Peeta as if that were the main point of the story, when the main point is (or should be) the struggle of the Panemmian (Panemese? Panemican?) people for their freedom.

If human beings were a type of jellyfish that went through a polyp-to-medusa life cycle, I'd be excited, but unfortunately, we're just a bunch of boring old mammals.

ren-us-MAY. It's french like valleymann said.

I was completely apolitical until I read 1984 at the tender age of 13. Suddenly I realized it matters who rules and how and that not having basic human rights has consequences.