Like a good vetekrans, there's lots to unravel in your posts (apparently, you guys over there use the german name hefekranz for some reason).
So dane axe? As a swede, I feel compelled to say that we call it långyxa, long axe, just because of our ongoing sibling rivalry with the danes. I must ask, have you tried using a broad axe instead? The kind where the edge is basilled, beveled or chiseled, with a maybe up to 80cm curved haft. Used for planing logs for housebuilding, imagine what it does to meat. Takes real strength in you lower arm and wrist to use - first time you work with one for a day, you walk around with your hands locked in "gay hairdresser"-stance.
What men does in barracks? Tell tall tales, compare scars, pine for home, brag about conquests, compare acquaintances and ignore the loudmouth uncouth braggarts who confuse dominance for leadership - or put those in their place, verbally or not depending. Oh, and worry about spouse and kids.
As for doctor's appointment - only one I don't bring the wife for is prostate exam. Bad enough the doc sometimes has a trainee there. Second opinion from someone you know have your best interest at heart and who can ask all the awkward questions you forget because you are stressing over tests and bills and stuff - why not?
Taming land is a spiritual exercise, they say. I guess "they" is the kind of people who can sit on the porch sipping drinks while the hired hands does the job. Personally, I've discovered that nothing exterminates weeds and most everything else, like chickens and hens. I built a new coop and run on a piece of land this summer, figuring this will do nicely with an old lark for shade and cover, and lots of grass and moss and undergrowth to putter about in eating ants and other WEF-critters. Like **** they did. Eight weeks since they moved in, there's not a green molecule left on the ground, the hens are digging up the roots for, well everything but the tree and the juniper bushes. Daleks with feathers they are.
Would you believe, 15 years ago the lefties here were using the "melting pot"-fallacy as an argument. So I and several others connected through the net pulled up some of the actual rules from the 19th century. Enter the silence. The lefties didn't really respond all that well to their opponents saying publicly: "US rules for migration from the Exodus (we call the great wave of swedes going there that)? Sure, go for it!". Ignorance is strength, but knowledge is power and power trumps strength.
I always look forward to your replies to a new post.
I don't have the upper body strength to wield the broad axes I've tried effectively- even in the case of the dane axe I prefer the traditionally slightly shorter (3 foot haft) variant. Longer shafts or heavier-style heads, I cannot swing fast enough to be combat effective.
Pigs are absolutely the best land-clearers even compared to chickens because they will typically root up anything that isn't grass, and if given enough time will eradicate tall weeds more thoroughly and permanently than the damn Round-Up they use for everything here.
Coupe of years ago some neighbours of ours, originally from the Netherlands (durn migrunts! :) ) had to move back for a year due to family emergency, and asked us if we wanted to take over their chickens from them. The wife, being the impulsive one compared to my glacier-pace decision making, jumped on it. So we wound up with a bunch of cochins all of a sudden, leading to me - mr I'm-not-a-carpenter any way you slice it - having to hammer a coop together in a frenzy, as winter was coming. Good thing with the cochins is they lay all year round and can take down to -20C (though we always put in a heater when it looks like dorpping under -15C).
Then, hearing that we had chickens, a german expat living in the next village over asked if w wanted her remaining chickens, after a fox ahd been at the flock. Sure, why not. Turned out she being an ageing hippie had adopted battery hens (is it called that in the US, the ones used for industrial meat and egg production?), so we got two humungous Foghorn Leghorn look-alikes. With a temper. One of them insists on attacking my boots until I throw feed at her.
And then, we saw an ad in the local paper, chicken for sale, $1 each for each week of age. So we bought a handful, sadly half died on the way - don't know why but we kept the survivors separated for the rest for two months to rule out disease, seems to have worked. They look like the road runner - meep meep - but I don't know the kind.
And on top of all this, we managed to raise six of our own, crossbreeds between cochin rooster and battery hen mother. Plan is to let about at least half a dozen chickens reach maturity each year until we reach a skock: five dozens, it's an old timey word for 60 of something.
I wish we could afford to scale up to have goats and pigs too, but we haven't funds to get the land we'd need, let alone the rest of the stuff. The fee for handing in an application to be allowed to purchase land for keeping livestock on alone is about $500, and a piglet will cost about $150 without any taxes, vet's fees, etc. And you need all that stuff for the insurance.
It's simply too expensive an investment at present.
Roundup I avoid like the plague. I weed by hand, and by covering the lots that's resting with a tarp during spring and summer, and then turning the soil so the roots of the weeds are exposed to the frost.
You have a crazy smorgasbord of chickens rather like we had in NY in our backyard, before we moved- they were basically all rescues or strays.
The battery hens are most likely patent brands with very specific names like Lohmann, Bovan, Hyline, ISA Brown, Novagen, Dekalb, and H&N- typically named for the company that developed the line. At least in the US, they basically all started from two or three breeds that are now long gone (or maybe surviving in some small family flocks as heritage breeds). Purdue keeps an interesting line: https://corporate.perduefarms.com/responsibility/animal-care/meet-the-breeds/
Most of these breeds are bred to survive the really shitty conditions of battery farming without "dropping out" (which is a ridiculous corporate euphemism for dying). They often have mobility problems because they're bred to gain more weight than their legs can actually bear, and most broiler (meat) chickens end their lives on the battery floor having had two broken legs for a few days.
I'm very thankful that our part of the state we live in here in the U.S. more or less allows us to be "buyer beware" for livestock without fees or mandatory insurance or licensing. Our breeds of hog and cow are specialized in never needing a vet their entire lives, including supervising birth. So long as we can source our initial animals and not damage other people's property, we're more or less at our liberty- but this is not the case for people in many parts of the country.
When we got the rescues, they were timid and seemed shell-shocked from surviving a fox attack. Now, they rule the roost, the poor cochin rooster doing his level best despite being smaller than them. As they only have 12" drop to the floor the weight and such has never been an issue (didn't even think about that).
Fresh hay 3/4 of the year on the roosting board, a pole suspended crosswise for when they want to sleep that way, and sawdust on the floor.
Looked up regs for keeping chickens. Wouldn't you know, they're retardiculous. If you don't sell, you may keep up to 200 adults before having to register as a breeder. And the lowest mandatory floor area per adult hen is set to 30*30 cm, about a square foot each. An oudoors chicken run isn't required at all.
If you sell, even if it's just eggs, you have to register no matter the number of hens. Twice annually vet inspections, coop must be to code, blah blah blah - all the rules set up so that you'd need to have at least 4 000 hesn - a real operation - to break even at all.
But the rules for mopeds, tractors and slow-moving vehicles just take the cake and does 25 to life things to it.
Yeah...thats about all I got, being a complete simpleton.
Please tell Husbandmouth " Huzzah , and we'll done!" from me. Then explain I ain't right and tell him to ignore said comment and go about his life. Really tho...looking up!
A great set. We've missed you, but honestly, if you have to re-maim yourself , have a neurotic mom, and go DeepThroat voiced just to write a " been there done that " for us... I'll pass. I'd rather have ya a bit more mundane ...as long as we still get cogent commentary and barnyard antics. And cussing.
Wow! That was an awesome piece! You nailed it on so many levels, it's truly remarkable to find in a single place. TBH this is my first article as a free subscriber on your stack but it's really cool so far FWIW. Also, I didn't know you were a woman. That's really cool. I like women so much that I married one this past labor day. Of course, TBF, we'd been shacking up for quite some time and (you'll be surprised to hear this) she is better than most in every conceivable way.
You know, on the thing about "mass psychosis", people have strong opinions going both directions (e.g., totally THAT or NFW, that's impossible, etc.). Whereas I think that most people were already out of their fucken minds to begin with and were more/less just functioning schizophrenics as it was before covid hysteria.
IMO, the people that want to tell you about any of the various lunacies of the left with a straight face are irretrievably insane and have been for some time. I'm libertarian BTW and I have plenty to say about the worthless GOP but I'll save that for a future rant. TTYL! 😁
If you like a woman a lot, I strongly recommend marrying her if you haven't already. Congratulations.
I think the majority of our population is operating under a burden of legitimate mental illness at this point, or at the very least developmental deficits. I believe this is how the so-called first world ends- through organic and intentional idiocracy.
I wish libertarianism could make meaningful inroads into our political system instead of being a largely conceptual ideology. Maybe the independent-mindedness inherent to the ideology cripples it in that way. It's frustrating. Perhaps this is something we'll see in the near future, assuming we have anything like a right to appoint our leaders any longer.
Also, forgot to mention, sorry to hear about your knee. I hope you get that sorted out soon and without any major surgery, etc. A friend of mine just left Southern MD where I live and moved to VA and bought a farm. He and his wife now have goats, chickens, and a donkey! They're learning to do the farm, like retrieving the animals when they somehow escape!
Crazy time to be awake. Insomnia strikes again (for me). TTYL.
I never get a good night's sleep anymore. I hate it.
MRI is next week, where we'll find out if the injury is recoverable or permanent damage.
Your friends should learn to use electric fencing as early as possible. I wish we had started with it- we'd have saved a lot of money and back-breaking labor on traditional fencing.
Goats, chickens, and donkeys can all be safely broken to electric fences. It's so worth it.
I had this 1 1/2 years ago. I'm 74 so it was definitely age-related. Very painful. It took 2 months to heal enough so I could walk without much pain, and another month to walk pain-free. Ice packs and the knee brace helped a lot. Time did the rest. Good luck to you in solving this issue!
Love your writing!
I share your apprehensions about doctors these days, and I grew up with a doctor (an old fashioned one) for a father!
I'm definitely worried about a meniscus tear. I'm *hoping* that's not it, because my range of motion is generally very good and pain-free, but I just don't know. Your experience sounds a lot worse than mine currently is. I'm impressed you made a full recovery, despite it all!
Well, now you've done it. I'll never be able to keep any sort of rein on my inbox now. Have tried to keep my subs down to a manageable number and it ain't manageable anyway, and if I start reading yours I'll be here all day, every day, reading nothing else because there's just.so.much.content and all of it necessary to, like, think about. But never let anyone say I can't be right shamed into abandoning my wrong ways in an instant.
You did not tell me. I've been missing my runes lately, and think it might be time for a new set. It's been a long time. My old ones were smith's runes on metal scrap.
I got into this (a little bit) because my kid was given a "fortune telling" book with several systems, including a little set of plastic rune stones (they were pretty nice, really, for plastic...) and then I found Sunnyway's website (which seems to be defunct now/has "unsafe" MS warning).
I happened to be working a part-time job in a place where I could collect freshly-fallen wood esp. nice willow twigs/branches and anything naturally shaped into rune letters I'd sand and polish.
If the Lord would only sendeth me a nice garage workspace. Attached to the lakeside estate...
Love your writing. Interestingly, once upon a time leftists appear to be able to get to the heart of the matter (you, Sowell, Horowitz) in warp speed and with piercing clarity.
Like you, I grew up in a melting pot neighborhood (Philly, some 70 yrs. ago). Most of the pot’s runny cheese had better home lives than I did, and sought to protect me as best they could. Besides challenging the nuns I questioned the whole school year and bore the knuckle scars to prove it, living amongst the polychrome population gave me the best street education there is on human nature .
PS. I had to look up definition of Lumpenprole….good descriptor!
Thanks. The concept of 'lumpenproletariat' is, of course, from Marx.
Someone recently expressed to me that Marxist economic theory- divorced from any of its political baggage- is actually a very powerful and useful tool for analysis and understanding. This is something worth thinking about, as we undergo the massive cultural upheaval of our era- not throwing out the baby of actual accumulated civilizational knowledge with the bathwater of its cultural milieu that we may find ourselves revising or rejecting.
Some of the most brutal tyrants of history can teach us a lot about warfare. Some of the most devious criminals can teach us a lot about how markets and social contracts are subverted (or protected). And so on.
Marxist economic theory isn't nonsense- it is the transformation of a theory into an ideology that makes it into something we must morally evaluate and accept or reject based on our values: therefore, Marxism is odious and civilization-wrecking, just like effective strategic military command is neither good nor evil- and great to have when you need it- but genocide is.
For something to be a useful tool, we have to ask if it has observational (does it accurately report what we see?) and predictive (can we use the theory to accurately model the future?) validity. Tools are not and shouldn't be ideologies, religions, or philosophies.
RESIST. Exactly right. And speak truth always. Don't self-censor. Call out this climate BS with the same vehemence we attacked the covid narrative. Plant seed of doubt everywhere.
What a steal on the pistol. Any wrench will do to attach a compensator, but Wheeler makes a great set of AR tools, in case you get into building your own: https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1007363885?pid=491335 Using an upper receiver block and a vice will make it easier for you remove the flash hider and help you torque in the compensator, but I've seen a video of a guy wrapping his UR in towels and tightening it in a vice.
Apologies in advance, but if “some guy in some comment thread” helps produce this kind of thing, I’m going to start up some shit machines all over the places you lurk.
So please confirm whether it’s correlation or causation.
On the plus side, I’m looking into donating plasma. Or whoring out the kids.
Your account of growing up as a persecuted white minority in a metropolis parallels my own experiences in Atlanta-area public schools. Of course, complaining about it is a social faux paus, or at least that's what was drilled into me by my ultra-lib family whose ideology contradicted my "lived experience" (sorry for the phrase).
I wasn't implying you were complaining about it, for the record. Even pushing back against the narrative is evidence of one's evil white supremacy or whatever.
I'm wearing a knee brace atm, due to a 'clubbing injury' long ago (there's a piece of cartilage adrift that I'm too much of a pussy to get operated on) so I feel your pain. I'm planning fun in the mountains anyway, this next fortnight, where I am travelling. Also, I laughed at being described as an intelligent heavyweight but thank you anyway.
Here at The Gutter you may safely assume all compliments are at least partially sarcastic.
If they offer surgery, I'm going for it. I twisted last night while I was trying to lift a pallet out of the rabbit hutch and the pain put me on the ground. That said, I wouldn't mind wearing a brace the rest of my life if I could still do martial arts, but that seems unlikely.
I hate insomnia. It's 04:20 here and all I can do while waiting for mr Sandman is lurk the net and gripe. So why not try and score pity points?
Cloth-ear doesn't sound as a slur to my foreigner's ear. It sounds endearing, like the soft ears of some cuddly toy. Internet tells me its an irish phrase for hard of hearing/understanding. Here, we'd say "Har du snus i lurarna?" alt "Har du knäck i lurarna?" meaning "Do you have snuff/crack in you ears?".
Knäck is a Jul-time candy, made by boiling together heavy cream, sugar and golden syrup. Crack (as in the sound-effect of something breaking) is the literal translation. The candy when set is rock hard. Snus is of course the tobacco product, the soft mushy stuff that goes under your lip.
For someone slow of min, there's no dearth of slurs. A favourite one is "bad luck when thinking". "Slut i roten" is a good one too; literally it'd be "finished in the root", idiomatically "used up all your brains already". It plays on the tree of wisdom aspect, as when the root is gone, the tree falls.
Why am I hearing Fucic's March of the Gladiators?
Meanwhile, the dank and cold forest (its +2C and foggy outside) is full of hunters and the village is full of bucks and roes. Never fails. Every buck season, they move into the village. Viva la evolution or what? No I'm not drunk I'm just lack-of-sleep-deranged.
Meanwhile, Operation: Greta is running into problems here since it was revealed that she and her team and Xtinction Rebellion are bosom-buddies with violent jihadi groups. Incluing acting as purse-holders and fronts for them.
I had no idea about Greta! For some reason she's completely dropped off of American news, despite her name being invoked as a saint at least once a week by greens. Is her group LITERALLY funding and fronting Islamist groups? Are they in legal trouble?
Perhaps the deer are invading because it's time to celebrate the wild hunt? There are some neat articles about what the Chernobyl dogs did before the humans started resettling the surrounding area.
I'm sorry we both have a miserable time sleeping. It is a kind of slow and daily torture.
Greta & Co has handlers affiliated with swedish Antifa and their political branch EXPO (suit and tie Antifa), and these in turn collaborate with jihadis.
But, as Sweden was second only to Germany in exporting ISIL-volunteers and has also offered safe haven for said ISIL-soldiers both during the height of the fighting and now, including new identities and citizenship, don't hold your breath for any investigations at all.
Greta & Co also has ties via national socialist party* affiliated "NGOs" to the Socialist Democrat party, and moslems make up half of their voters so... yay, democracy.
It is a tangled web to be sure.
According a neighbour, hunter of some 45+ years, the deers increasingly venture into villages and towns come hunting season. His hypothesis is, they have simply learned to recognise the signs of impending hunt, and adapted.
Another neighbour sent a photo today which may offer an alternative: wolf. Passing through the village on its way north-east. Big one too, trotting along in full daylight beside the main road, wearing the kind of tongue-lolling shit-eating grin you sometimes see from certain dogs.
Edit: *not national socialist as in nazi, but as in the national party of the socialist persuasion. They have a lot of dirt on them, but no need for me to dilute the word nazi, eh?
I'd have to concur with your first neighbor referenced.
I live a couple hundred yards from 25,000+ acres of State Game Lands and could pretty much fill multiple freezers using a bow from my deck come whitetail season were I so inclined, as they're all here on opening day. Especially the wise old big-uns.
Yeah about an hour after that first tab is when things seem the brightest; then it's all "where the hell are we now?" and "man I could really go for some OJ" from here on out.
Like a good vetekrans, there's lots to unravel in your posts (apparently, you guys over there use the german name hefekranz for some reason).
So dane axe? As a swede, I feel compelled to say that we call it långyxa, long axe, just because of our ongoing sibling rivalry with the danes. I must ask, have you tried using a broad axe instead? The kind where the edge is basilled, beveled or chiseled, with a maybe up to 80cm curved haft. Used for planing logs for housebuilding, imagine what it does to meat. Takes real strength in you lower arm and wrist to use - first time you work with one for a day, you walk around with your hands locked in "gay hairdresser"-stance.
What men does in barracks? Tell tall tales, compare scars, pine for home, brag about conquests, compare acquaintances and ignore the loudmouth uncouth braggarts who confuse dominance for leadership - or put those in their place, verbally or not depending. Oh, and worry about spouse and kids.
As for doctor's appointment - only one I don't bring the wife for is prostate exam. Bad enough the doc sometimes has a trainee there. Second opinion from someone you know have your best interest at heart and who can ask all the awkward questions you forget because you are stressing over tests and bills and stuff - why not?
Taming land is a spiritual exercise, they say. I guess "they" is the kind of people who can sit on the porch sipping drinks while the hired hands does the job. Personally, I've discovered that nothing exterminates weeds and most everything else, like chickens and hens. I built a new coop and run on a piece of land this summer, figuring this will do nicely with an old lark for shade and cover, and lots of grass and moss and undergrowth to putter about in eating ants and other WEF-critters. Like **** they did. Eight weeks since they moved in, there's not a green molecule left on the ground, the hens are digging up the roots for, well everything but the tree and the juniper bushes. Daleks with feathers they are.
Would you believe, 15 years ago the lefties here were using the "melting pot"-fallacy as an argument. So I and several others connected through the net pulled up some of the actual rules from the 19th century. Enter the silence. The lefties didn't really respond all that well to their opponents saying publicly: "US rules for migration from the Exodus (we call the great wave of swedes going there that)? Sure, go for it!". Ignorance is strength, but knowledge is power and power trumps strength.
Do be careful of your knee.
I always look forward to your replies to a new post.
I don't have the upper body strength to wield the broad axes I've tried effectively- even in the case of the dane axe I prefer the traditionally slightly shorter (3 foot haft) variant. Longer shafts or heavier-style heads, I cannot swing fast enough to be combat effective.
Pigs are absolutely the best land-clearers even compared to chickens because they will typically root up anything that isn't grass, and if given enough time will eradicate tall weeds more thoroughly and permanently than the damn Round-Up they use for everything here.
What sort of chickens have you got?
Chickens, well it's like this:
Coupe of years ago some neighbours of ours, originally from the Netherlands (durn migrunts! :) ) had to move back for a year due to family emergency, and asked us if we wanted to take over their chickens from them. The wife, being the impulsive one compared to my glacier-pace decision making, jumped on it. So we wound up with a bunch of cochins all of a sudden, leading to me - mr I'm-not-a-carpenter any way you slice it - having to hammer a coop together in a frenzy, as winter was coming. Good thing with the cochins is they lay all year round and can take down to -20C (though we always put in a heater when it looks like dorpping under -15C).
Then, hearing that we had chickens, a german expat living in the next village over asked if w wanted her remaining chickens, after a fox ahd been at the flock. Sure, why not. Turned out she being an ageing hippie had adopted battery hens (is it called that in the US, the ones used for industrial meat and egg production?), so we got two humungous Foghorn Leghorn look-alikes. With a temper. One of them insists on attacking my boots until I throw feed at her.
And then, we saw an ad in the local paper, chicken for sale, $1 each for each week of age. So we bought a handful, sadly half died on the way - don't know why but we kept the survivors separated for the rest for two months to rule out disease, seems to have worked. They look like the road runner - meep meep - but I don't know the kind.
And on top of all this, we managed to raise six of our own, crossbreeds between cochin rooster and battery hen mother. Plan is to let about at least half a dozen chickens reach maturity each year until we reach a skock: five dozens, it's an old timey word for 60 of something.
I wish we could afford to scale up to have goats and pigs too, but we haven't funds to get the land we'd need, let alone the rest of the stuff. The fee for handing in an application to be allowed to purchase land for keeping livestock on alone is about $500, and a piglet will cost about $150 without any taxes, vet's fees, etc. And you need all that stuff for the insurance.
It's simply too expensive an investment at present.
Roundup I avoid like the plague. I weed by hand, and by covering the lots that's resting with a tarp during spring and summer, and then turning the soil so the roots of the weeds are exposed to the frost.
And I always look forward to you posts.
You have a crazy smorgasbord of chickens rather like we had in NY in our backyard, before we moved- they were basically all rescues or strays.
The battery hens are most likely patent brands with very specific names like Lohmann, Bovan, Hyline, ISA Brown, Novagen, Dekalb, and H&N- typically named for the company that developed the line. At least in the US, they basically all started from two or three breeds that are now long gone (or maybe surviving in some small family flocks as heritage breeds). Purdue keeps an interesting line: https://corporate.perduefarms.com/responsibility/animal-care/meet-the-breeds/
Most of these breeds are bred to survive the really shitty conditions of battery farming without "dropping out" (which is a ridiculous corporate euphemism for dying). They often have mobility problems because they're bred to gain more weight than their legs can actually bear, and most broiler (meat) chickens end their lives on the battery floor having had two broken legs for a few days.
I'm very thankful that our part of the state we live in here in the U.S. more or less allows us to be "buyer beware" for livestock without fees or mandatory insurance or licensing. Our breeds of hog and cow are specialized in never needing a vet their entire lives, including supervising birth. So long as we can source our initial animals and not damage other people's property, we're more or less at our liberty- but this is not the case for people in many parts of the country.
When we got the rescues, they were timid and seemed shell-shocked from surviving a fox attack. Now, they rule the roost, the poor cochin rooster doing his level best despite being smaller than them. As they only have 12" drop to the floor the weight and such has never been an issue (didn't even think about that).
Fresh hay 3/4 of the year on the roosting board, a pole suspended crosswise for when they want to sleep that way, and sawdust on the floor.
Looked up regs for keeping chickens. Wouldn't you know, they're retardiculous. If you don't sell, you may keep up to 200 adults before having to register as a breeder. And the lowest mandatory floor area per adult hen is set to 30*30 cm, about a square foot each. An oudoors chicken run isn't required at all.
If you sell, even if it's just eggs, you have to register no matter the number of hens. Twice annually vet inspections, coop must be to code, blah blah blah - all the rules set up so that you'd need to have at least 4 000 hesn - a real operation - to break even at all.
But the rules for mopeds, tractors and slow-moving vehicles just take the cake and does 25 to life things to it.
Doggone, woman...
Yeah...thats about all I got, being a complete simpleton.
Please tell Husbandmouth " Huzzah , and we'll done!" from me. Then explain I ain't right and tell him to ignore said comment and go about his life. Really tho...looking up!
A great set. We've missed you, but honestly, if you have to re-maim yourself , have a neurotic mom, and go DeepThroat voiced just to write a " been there done that " for us... I'll pass. I'd rather have ya a bit more mundane ...as long as we still get cogent commentary and barnyard antics. And cussing.
Did I mention being simple minded? 😂
Wow! That was an awesome piece! You nailed it on so many levels, it's truly remarkable to find in a single place. TBH this is my first article as a free subscriber on your stack but it's really cool so far FWIW. Also, I didn't know you were a woman. That's really cool. I like women so much that I married one this past labor day. Of course, TBF, we'd been shacking up for quite some time and (you'll be surprised to hear this) she is better than most in every conceivable way.
You know, on the thing about "mass psychosis", people have strong opinions going both directions (e.g., totally THAT or NFW, that's impossible, etc.). Whereas I think that most people were already out of their fucken minds to begin with and were more/less just functioning schizophrenics as it was before covid hysteria.
IMO, the people that want to tell you about any of the various lunacies of the left with a straight face are irretrievably insane and have been for some time. I'm libertarian BTW and I have plenty to say about the worthless GOP but I'll save that for a future rant. TTYL! 😁
If you like a woman a lot, I strongly recommend marrying her if you haven't already. Congratulations.
I think the majority of our population is operating under a burden of legitimate mental illness at this point, or at the very least developmental deficits. I believe this is how the so-called first world ends- through organic and intentional idiocracy.
I wish libertarianism could make meaningful inroads into our political system instead of being a largely conceptual ideology. Maybe the independent-mindedness inherent to the ideology cripples it in that way. It's frustrating. Perhaps this is something we'll see in the near future, assuming we have anything like a right to appoint our leaders any longer.
Also, forgot to mention, sorry to hear about your knee. I hope you get that sorted out soon and without any major surgery, etc. A friend of mine just left Southern MD where I live and moved to VA and bought a farm. He and his wife now have goats, chickens, and a donkey! They're learning to do the farm, like retrieving the animals when they somehow escape!
Crazy time to be awake. Insomnia strikes again (for me). TTYL.
I never get a good night's sleep anymore. I hate it.
MRI is next week, where we'll find out if the injury is recoverable or permanent damage.
Your friends should learn to use electric fencing as early as possible. I wish we had started with it- we'd have saved a lot of money and back-breaking labor on traditional fencing.
Goats, chickens, and donkeys can all be safely broken to electric fences. It's so worth it.
A possibility for your knee problem:
https://www.howardluksmd.com/posterior-horn-medial-meniscus-tears/
I had this 1 1/2 years ago. I'm 74 so it was definitely age-related. Very painful. It took 2 months to heal enough so I could walk without much pain, and another month to walk pain-free. Ice packs and the knee brace helped a lot. Time did the rest. Good luck to you in solving this issue!
Love your writing!
I share your apprehensions about doctors these days, and I grew up with a doctor (an old fashioned one) for a father!
I'm definitely worried about a meniscus tear. I'm *hoping* that's not it, because my range of motion is generally very good and pain-free, but I just don't know. Your experience sounds a lot worse than mine currently is. I'm impressed you made a full recovery, despite it all!
Well, now you've done it. I'll never be able to keep any sort of rein on my inbox now. Have tried to keep my subs down to a manageable number and it ain't manageable anyway, and if I start reading yours I'll be here all day, every day, reading nothing else because there's just.so.much.content and all of it necessary to, like, think about. But never let anyone say I can't be right shamed into abandoning my wrong ways in an instant.
Hey, SCA, try some aged cheddar with all that whine.
May I show you the contents of my fridge?
Also, did I ever tell you about my rune sticks? I like wood crafts too...
You did not tell me. I've been missing my runes lately, and think it might be time for a new set. It's been a long time. My old ones were smith's runes on metal scrap.
I got into this (a little bit) because my kid was given a "fortune telling" book with several systems, including a little set of plastic rune stones (they were pretty nice, really, for plastic...) and then I found Sunnyway's website (which seems to be defunct now/has "unsafe" MS warning).
I happened to be working a part-time job in a place where I could collect freshly-fallen wood esp. nice willow twigs/branches and anything naturally shaped into rune letters I'd sand and polish.
If the Lord would only sendeth me a nice garage workspace. Attached to the lakeside estate...
...within range of a pond for the horses to drink from while you work?
Can I stick to a very large dog?
Love your writing. Interestingly, once upon a time leftists appear to be able to get to the heart of the matter (you, Sowell, Horowitz) in warp speed and with piercing clarity.
Like you, I grew up in a melting pot neighborhood (Philly, some 70 yrs. ago). Most of the pot’s runny cheese had better home lives than I did, and sought to protect me as best they could. Besides challenging the nuns I questioned the whole school year and bore the knuckle scars to prove it, living amongst the polychrome population gave me the best street education there is on human nature .
PS. I had to look up definition of Lumpenprole….good descriptor!
Thanks. The concept of 'lumpenproletariat' is, of course, from Marx.
Someone recently expressed to me that Marxist economic theory- divorced from any of its political baggage- is actually a very powerful and useful tool for analysis and understanding. This is something worth thinking about, as we undergo the massive cultural upheaval of our era- not throwing out the baby of actual accumulated civilizational knowledge with the bathwater of its cultural milieu that we may find ourselves revising or rejecting.
Some of the most brutal tyrants of history can teach us a lot about warfare. Some of the most devious criminals can teach us a lot about how markets and social contracts are subverted (or protected). And so on.
Marxist economic theory isn't nonsense- it is the transformation of a theory into an ideology that makes it into something we must morally evaluate and accept or reject based on our values: therefore, Marxism is odious and civilization-wrecking, just like effective strategic military command is neither good nor evil- and great to have when you need it- but genocide is.
For something to be a useful tool, we have to ask if it has observational (does it accurately report what we see?) and predictive (can we use the theory to accurately model the future?) validity. Tools are not and shouldn't be ideologies, religions, or philosophies.
RESIST. Exactly right. And speak truth always. Don't self-censor. Call out this climate BS with the same vehemence we attacked the covid narrative. Plant seed of doubt everywhere.
What a steal on the pistol. Any wrench will do to attach a compensator, but Wheeler makes a great set of AR tools, in case you get into building your own: https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1007363885?pid=491335 Using an upper receiver block and a vice will make it easier for you remove the flash hider and help you torque in the compensator, but I've seen a video of a guy wrapping his UR in towels and tightening it in a vice.
Braces: https://www.pewpewtactical.com/best-ar-pistol-braces/
This is a real nice red dot for your pistol: https://www.primaryarms.com/holosun-hs510c-hud-solar-powered-red-dot-sight-with-circle-dot-reticle It has a quick disconnect, shake-awake function (turns off and on automatically when moved/idle), 3 settings, and will work even when battery dies. Primary Arms runs 12% off sales every 3-4 weeks, but here is a good website for finding deals:https://gun.deals/
Hopefully you'll just have lots of fun at the range with it. ARs are unbelievably accurate. Enjoy!
I already threw an Aim Sports Warfare Edition RDS on it that I pulled off my old SKS, but I really like the features you listed on that Holosun.
Brothermouth tried exactly what you described- vising the flash hider in a towel- but no love.
My friend has extensive AR tools and I expect he'll get the compensator and brace up and running in a jiffy.
I'm very eager to take it out to play. After years of nothing but AKs I expect will feel like luxury.
Your farm sounds crazy and fun. You were missed xo
It really is. I'm blessed to have a fruitful place to put my energies.
Apologies in advance, but if “some guy in some comment thread” helps produce this kind of thing, I’m going to start up some shit machines all over the places you lurk.
So please confirm whether it’s correlation or causation.
On the plus side, I’m looking into donating plasma. Or whoring out the kids.
Thanks for the chuckles.
He's not responsible for this post. Under normal circumstances I do these every week.
But it was such an interesting personal attack I felt like reclaiming it as a trophy, because one of the rules here at the Gutter is we <3 haters.
Your account of growing up as a persecuted white minority in a metropolis parallels my own experiences in Atlanta-area public schools. Of course, complaining about it is a social faux paus, or at least that's what was drilled into me by my ultra-lib family whose ideology contradicted my "lived experience" (sorry for the phrase).
I wouldn't say I'm "complaining," really, just pushing back against the narrative that such a thing doesn't exist or is the original sin of whites.
I wasn't implying you were complaining about it, for the record. Even pushing back against the narrative is evidence of one's evil white supremacy or whatever.
It's all good.
I'm wearing a knee brace atm, due to a 'clubbing injury' long ago (there's a piece of cartilage adrift that I'm too much of a pussy to get operated on) so I feel your pain. I'm planning fun in the mountains anyway, this next fortnight, where I am travelling. Also, I laughed at being described as an intelligent heavyweight but thank you anyway.
Here at The Gutter you may safely assume all compliments are at least partially sarcastic.
If they offer surgery, I'm going for it. I twisted last night while I was trying to lift a pallet out of the rabbit hutch and the pain put me on the ground. That said, I wouldn't mind wearing a brace the rest of my life if I could still do martial arts, but that seems unlikely.
I hate insomnia. It's 04:20 here and all I can do while waiting for mr Sandman is lurk the net and gripe. So why not try and score pity points?
Cloth-ear doesn't sound as a slur to my foreigner's ear. It sounds endearing, like the soft ears of some cuddly toy. Internet tells me its an irish phrase for hard of hearing/understanding. Here, we'd say "Har du snus i lurarna?" alt "Har du knäck i lurarna?" meaning "Do you have snuff/crack in you ears?".
Knäck is a Jul-time candy, made by boiling together heavy cream, sugar and golden syrup. Crack (as in the sound-effect of something breaking) is the literal translation. The candy when set is rock hard. Snus is of course the tobacco product, the soft mushy stuff that goes under your lip.
For someone slow of min, there's no dearth of slurs. A favourite one is "bad luck when thinking". "Slut i roten" is a good one too; literally it'd be "finished in the root", idiomatically "used up all your brains already". It plays on the tree of wisdom aspect, as when the root is gone, the tree falls.
Why am I hearing Fucic's March of the Gladiators?
Meanwhile, the dank and cold forest (its +2C and foggy outside) is full of hunters and the village is full of bucks and roes. Never fails. Every buck season, they move into the village. Viva la evolution or what? No I'm not drunk I'm just lack-of-sleep-deranged.
Meanwhile, Operation: Greta is running into problems here since it was revealed that she and her team and Xtinction Rebellion are bosom-buddies with violent jihadi groups. Incluing acting as purse-holders and fronts for them.
To sleep, perchance to dream.
I had no idea about Greta! For some reason she's completely dropped off of American news, despite her name being invoked as a saint at least once a week by greens. Is her group LITERALLY funding and fronting Islamist groups? Are they in legal trouble?
Perhaps the deer are invading because it's time to celebrate the wild hunt? There are some neat articles about what the Chernobyl dogs did before the humans started resettling the surrounding area.
I'm sorry we both have a miserable time sleeping. It is a kind of slow and daily torture.
Greta & Co has handlers affiliated with swedish Antifa and their political branch EXPO (suit and tie Antifa), and these in turn collaborate with jihadis.
But, as Sweden was second only to Germany in exporting ISIL-volunteers and has also offered safe haven for said ISIL-soldiers both during the height of the fighting and now, including new identities and citizenship, don't hold your breath for any investigations at all.
Greta & Co also has ties via national socialist party* affiliated "NGOs" to the Socialist Democrat party, and moslems make up half of their voters so... yay, democracy.
It is a tangled web to be sure.
According a neighbour, hunter of some 45+ years, the deers increasingly venture into villages and towns come hunting season. His hypothesis is, they have simply learned to recognise the signs of impending hunt, and adapted.
Another neighbour sent a photo today which may offer an alternative: wolf. Passing through the village on its way north-east. Big one too, trotting along in full daylight beside the main road, wearing the kind of tongue-lolling shit-eating grin you sometimes see from certain dogs.
Edit: *not national socialist as in nazi, but as in the national party of the socialist persuasion. They have a lot of dirt on them, but no need for me to dilute the word nazi, eh?
I'd have to concur with your first neighbor referenced.
I live a couple hundred yards from 25,000+ acres of State Game Lands and could pretty much fill multiple freezers using a bow from my deck come whitetail season were I so inclined, as they're all here on opening day. Especially the wise old big-uns.
I'd like to contribute, but leary of using traceable credit card
I also accept cowry shells.
Isn't that the saddest thing ever?
You're welcome.
Yeah about an hour after that first tab is when things seem the brightest; then it's all "where the hell are we now?" and "man I could really go for some OJ" from here on out.