"Soviet scientists, under intense government pressure, had essentially made their rocket out of spit and band aids, and hurried to hide their work as soon as their worldwide demonstration was complete"

HOLY SHIT! Based Soviet Union defeated the evil empire with spit and band aids.

Might be a hot take, but Mass Effect 2.

I love Mass effect, despite its flaws, but Mass Effect 2 was the game that derailed the series and basically forced Mass Effect 3 to have an unsatisfactory ending. So many concepts from Mass Effect 1 like the cipher, visions, Virgil, the Thorian were completely abandoned in favor of one giant video game length side mission. Sure the suicide mission was kind of cool, but at the end of Mass Effect 2 we learned almost nothing about the reapers from the last game.

But Cerberus is by far the worst mistake. From Shepard's POV, they literally witnessed Cerberus do grotesque, inhumane experiments throughout ME1 only a month before game start but the writers forced us to join these space Nazis. Cerberus is comically evil and is constantly doing cartoon villain experiments. Also, the space Nazis somehow have it in their hearts to spend billions of credits so that Shepard can save humanity.

Serious question, but why aren't we doing the for Ebrahim Raisi? Sure he was against the west and the Iranian revolution was preferable to the western puppet king. But he was deeply right wing and murdered communists during the Revolution.

You are obviously funded by Count Dooku, tankie.

Also, I find it funny how he completely absolves America's role in all of this. This piece is written as if us Russians are all Asiatic hordes that want to destroy the West because they have shiny new technology that our Slavic brainpans are to primitive to create.

Kotkin is one of the very few liberal historians who doesn't completely regurgitate batshit insane takes about the Soviet Union from the Cold War era (For instance he acknowledges that Lenin's testament was a hoax).

However, his takes on politics are so utterly naïve that one might think he's some kind of Harvard MBA failson rather than an actual historian. I remember during a conversation a couple of years ago where he basically states that America will win the new Cold War because they have the capability of "self correction" that China does not. Because choosing between two demented racists in an election is apparently "self correction". This article is more of the same. The Russia-Chinese vassal theory is literally believed by no one and is ludicrous when you consider that America literally controls Europe's foreign policy. Everything else sounds like it came from redditors in early 2022.

I was watching some clips from the 2016 election period and I'm genuinely baffled by how anyone could stand listening to her voice. Hillary is so utterly insufferably uncharismatic and is a husk of a human being. My 2016 self was probably still too much into my lib phase to really notice. At least Biden has that senile grampa persona and Obama is a faux progressive.

Left of Bernie is far too generous. I've seen Trumpsters and even other liberals called tankies by internet libs for not supporting nuking Russia. More like left of Reagan, Thatcher, and Himmler.

Anyone have any updates on Ukraine shooting down 2 Russian spy planes over Azov? I've seen claims that the Russian military acknowledged it, but I can't seem to find anything recent.

I find it funny how just a couple of years ago I was terrified of Ron DeSantis because he had the potential to be an actually competent fascist president, but then he blows up his own political career by going against Like he could have just waited until 2028 to run against AOC or gruesome Newsom and have a decent shot at nomination.

What do you mean by very undesirable changes?

Can someone explain what's going on with Ecuador? I thought the Brits were gluttons for punishment and humiliation by electing comically corrupt Tory's over and over again, but lately Ecuador has been giving them a run for their money. They keep electing right wingers like Lasso who utterly shit the bed and sabotage the country from within. Even America still manages to kick turds like Clinton to the curb every once in a while.