Desperation more or less, from what I understand. The old system was terrible and they figured it can't be much worse if they don't opt to continue it.
That image, while not as bad as a touchscreen, is still a pretty poor design. So many uniform buttons so close still require most people to look. Buttons should be clustered and/or have slighty different shape so you can tell by touch which one you're about to press....
It's not a scam - it's a system older than 100 years that was built around different societal parameters that exist today. It worked well in its time, but society changed without anyone adapting the system to it. There would be also ways to make it (more) sustainable, but as usual implementing the solution was delayed so long it's very hard to do so now...
As for your 2nd point, really? It's so reaching I won't even bother with it.
Am not from the US, so I don't care a bit about Pelosi. Assange itself made it apparent he's on a russian payroll.
For one, when the Panama Papers came out, Assange was quick to critise it for badmouthing russians. To quote them:
#PanamaPapers Putin attack was produced by OCCRP which targets Russia & former USSR and was funded by USAID and Soros"
Hell, let's take Assange's words about why they never poke Russia?
In Russia, there are many vibrant publications, online blogs, and Kremlin critics such as Navalny are part of that spectrum. There are also newspapers like Novaya Gazeta, in which different parts of society in Moscow are permitted to critique each other and it is tolerated, generally, because it isn't a big TV channel that might have a mass popular effect, its audience is educated people in Moscow. So my interpretation is that in Russia there are competitors to WikiLeaks, and no WikiLeaks staff speak Russian, so for a strong culture which has its own language, you have to be seen as a local player.
Ruined Germany? More like created it. He also invented the social security we use in Europe until today, since he recognised social unequality as an issue. To quote him:
The social insecurity of the worker is the real cause of their being a peril to the state.
The whole matter centres in the question, Is it the duty of the State, or is it not, to provide for its helpless citizens? I maintain that it is its duty, that it is the duty not only of the “Christian State,” as I ventured once to call it when speaking of “practical Christianity,” but of every State.
Bismarck also wanted to avoid something like WW1. He was a strong believer in maintaining good relationship with the Tzarist Russia, because he was very concerned of Germany being encircled in a conflict.
I'm just thinking you're supposed to add it while cooking, not at the table.
It kinda depends. For example half my family likes things on the saltier side, while the other half likes things not very salty. Some after-salting helps a lot to make everyone happy. It doesn't fully replace proper salting while cooking, though.
I'm not OP, but I can certainly give you my story from Hungary. Not USSR in name, but USSR enough for the distinction to be moot.
Story starts with parents and grandparents. They were around when the soviets put Rákosi into power. He installed communism - everything belongs to the people! Including our fucking house. My grandparents often retold how police came one night, told them their house now belongs to another family, and they were told to get lost by morning. They could bring whatever they could carry with them, but they had to leave all the farming equipment, all the animals, pretty much all their belongings behind. The few hectars of land and our animals all belonged to the Producer's Union anyway, we lost all rights to them virtually overnight.
Not that it mattered. The things you produced? Since everything belongs to the people, police would come and take away whatever quota the party set that year. Even if we produced it, it's not ours after all. We may or may not got some of it back, depending on what the allocations were set. Usually not - famines got common, becuase noone cared too much about their work if it got taken away anyway. It got so bad that the good communist people people revolted against Rákosi.
Then came Kádár. I actually lived in that system. Shortages were commonplace. At the start things were strictly planned (later on they opened up to allowing people to work for their own benefit... strictly after they put in their required hours at their workplace, though). There were five year plans, though for what I know, those were mostly for propaganda. But since there wasn't a free market, the planning bureau would decide how many tractors, shoes, bread etc would be produced. Well, this never worked out well. If you wanted to buy fruits, toilet paper, anything, you would need someone to tell you when the shipment would come. Then you got in line early and hoped the stock wouldn't run out by the time you got your turn. And you bought whatever you could, because if you had excess toilet paper and your neighbour had none, you could barter for something you needed.
We wanted a car. So we applied at the state car dealership (Merkúr). We paid upfront, waited a year... and got a totally different brand of car in a different colour. We were furious, so we demanded our money back and purchased a second hand Lada Samara from someone in town. It still wasn't what we wanted, but I'd have rather burnt my money than give it to Merkúr at that point. Turns out the Lada Samara 1300S was a great car though, I shouldn't have sold it like twenty years later :(
We wanted to build a house. Only everything was in short order. We had to drive three-four towns away, buying bricks and ceramic tiles left and right until we had enough that we could start construction. We didn't build what we wanted; we could've paid for it, but we had to build whatever we managed to find in stock around.
Now I know people called us the "happiest barracks" because say Caucescu in Romania was way worse... but people who are so fond of actual socialism should remember that our people were risking getting shot to escape this system.
It's the Badgers...!