It’s saved by Castle Rat, obviously.

They’re a nobrainer anywhere they’re allowed, yes.

Homodomor?

It’s been over 20 years, but I do remember the acupuncture was beneficial. The physical therapy exercises helped with a shoulder injury, and it was accessible for a laborer without insurance.

I should also mention they were also religious and gave you a pocket bible every visit. It was a very different time and location in my life.

Yeah I think he also said he fixed a deaf janitors hearing by popping a neck vertebrae into alignment, if I remember the lore. This was ‘drink heroin for medicine’ era too.

Yeah I was using common nomenclature. I don’t recall if they were licensed dietitians or not.

The one sold supplements and vitamin tinctures his wife made, so they weren’t far off from the unlicensed category. But they were both also licensed/certified physical therapists and masseuses. He had done some kind of sports medicine if I recall correctly before starting his business.

The other guy was really into the whole gambit of chinese herbology and such, but he kept himself grounded with physical therapy regimens and promoting tai chi every other sentence.

I mean, that’s kind of the implication.

I used to work nights until around 2015. Used to game with a lot of eastern europeans. (And American friends in the military deployed across the globe.)

Two guys I knew, one in Svestopol and the other Kiev both signed off in 2014. I am 90% sure the Kiev guy moved to the UK since they were going there for a degree, but the guy in Svestopol just went radio silent.

I have known a few chiropractors. Two were decent naturopaths who were also nutritionists, physical therapists, and masseuses. Whole body and nervous system health. Never cracked or popped a joint.

The third charges $35 bucks, no insurance needed, and just pops your middle back and gropes you. Absolute worst and he bought the business from one of the first.

Good chiros are about nervous systems. Bad chiros, the vast majority, are witch doctors selling bunk cures.

Anyone today who still needs convincing Bibi is not a rational actor is likely far too gone. So much so even pursuing them alone is a risk to yourself.

It’s about what happened with leadership of fascist imperialist movements. Do you know about Puyi? (Or Nuremberg?)

But if you want to build that connection though, of all things, that’d be your effort. That’s on you.

So this often comes up and there’s a lot of opinions. I often reference the Nuremberg Trials as an example of how a society expresses the consequences of not changing behavior and ideology. You know, if the failure of their war, and the craven suicide of their fuhrer hadn’t already.

But, probably the best example is Pu-Yi and how the CCP handled the Chinese emperor that collaborated with the Japanese.

In short: education and work. Teach them the right way and make them work a job that satisfies the material conditions of a common citizen.

How does one get five MGS games deep and then decide to make a stand about Quiet?

I wouldn’t really be able to know what they’re on about without interacting with them, quite frankly. But I can’t say I really approve of the worship of political figures, historical or not.

I try to approach historical figures as a part of the context in which they existed. It does sound like this person was into theory, so I’d wager their interest in Stalin was more academic than a celebration of the ills that occurred in 20th century Eurasia. But if this person was advocating for Lysenkoism or someshit then you’ve got a grade A idiot.

Like, I find Stalin to be fascinating and the balance of power that he operated both inside and outside the USSR to be remarkable. He can be a very symbolic figure for a kind of struggle against overwhelming odds, which resonates at least on some level with a lot of people, Marxist or not. People get really into things like mob bosses and Scarface so I would try to slate someone’s fandom of Stalin against that, too.

Also, if American, we go over eight decades of rabid anti-communism so sometimes people throw up things like hammers and sickles just as a fuck-you to (Neo)McCarthyism.

It’s more that some people don’t actively condemn him to the satisfaction of others.

The USSR under Stalin defeated Nazi Germany. Idle denunciation of Stalin in 2026 is the classic and most trusted pivot for (crypto)fascists to focus on when cornered or feeling insecure.

That’s the primary scenario that people are accused of ‘defending Stalin’. There’s always a nazi all too willing to spearhead this conversation, 70 years on after his death. Usually can’t even bring up Khrushchev and De-Stalinization usually since it’s not focusing on Stalin enough.

Hey they got movie theatre money out of me for that. It is everyone else who didn’t see it that is clearly at fault for that blunder.

The problem stems from the term ‘GenAI’. These systems use math to predict things. There are a lot of valid mathmatical calculations to predict out there. Rendering lighting is one of them.

Human language and imagery isn’t one of them, which is what idiots have been trying to funnel through these models.

Yeah but it’s this FBI.

“Grok, is evidence of a crime?”

I can note war is bipartisan due to the long tradition of using it to maintain hegemony, if that’s spicy enough.

They’re too different though. Even in some insane scenario where all things were otherwise exactly the same, down to bombing the girls’ school: Harris would still have more support in attacking Iran. EU would probably be joining in too.

Charge by the toe.