Tiw's Day Thing: 9/28/22

Passing gas, the Fascist Game, and lazy liars

The crazies demanding to shut out the daylight
Soldiers are dancing on rotting empires
TV disease is making us tired
Death struts the streets,
He's high on the bile
Do you fear for your child?
- My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, "Do You Fear For Your Child?"

Heimdallr is sharing Tyr’s name-day mead this week as acknowledgement for his continuing gifts of vigilance that have served me especially well lately. Vigilance is something that’s been on my mind a lot lately as I try to make sense of recent events. In the old poem, Odin sends out his ravens each day to scout the world and tell him all they see. He worries that they won’t come back each day, because to Odin, not knowing is the worst, most vulnerable kind of darkness. They are parts of him, and losing either one is a partial death of the self. Without knowing, Odin cannot plan, and without plans…

For a certain kind of person (me and a lot of us here), knowing is extremely important to us. We equate it- rightly or wrongly- with having a greater degree of control over our situations than not knowing, and perhaps this is why it worries Odin so much (because of all the Aesir, perhaps none fear a lack of control more than the All-Father, who insists against the cosmos on attempting to master his fate). In our modern era, we can become a little obsessed with knowing for knowing’s sake, and feel in less control if we don’t stay “informed,” even if we don’t have any more control over the situation as a result.

Anyway. In exercising my usual plotter’s brain in trying to make sense of many recent things, I’ve found myself focused on a particular thought: being especially mindful of what I don’t know and what I can’t know, and accepting that my interpretations, predictions, and hypothesis are going to be limited by these gaps as a result.

It doesn’t mean I stop trying to interpret or come to working conclusions or guesses, it means I spend a little more time considering the sorts of things I might end up being surprised about, or need a contingency if I’m wrong about. It’s a mindset that isn’t simply about accepting limitations or liabilities, it’s about building them into my thinking. It’s something I’m working on.

Anyway. Let’s cover some news, personal and otherwise.

• I finally got my MRI today, nearly a full month after my knee blowing out for the second time, with a long course of steroids and a brace that I’m still wearing. I have only had one instance of truly awful, arresting pain that brought me to the ground- torquing my leg when my foot sank in soft mud while gathering food for the rabbits- since [what I assume is] the initial injury at Viking Combat that based on the video was a twist. I’ve had lots of daily aches and throbs on days I do a lot of work with it, and weird “that isn’t supposed to move that way” uncomfortable feelings, but I wasn’t ordered to stay off of it. It is a constant awareness that I am less able, and a small fear that it will be permanently so, which is not something I’m prepared to accept. I have to wait another 10 days to see a doctor for the results, barring anything disastrous (“according to this your kneecap has been replaced with a chicken pot pie”) that they see immediately. I want a prognosis.

• Fathermouth arrived today having completed the sale of his house in NC. He’ll be living with us through the end of this year and hopefully moving into his new home- next door- on Jan 1. When he arrived it was very clear how starved he was for human interaction, and there have been some frustrating moments when it was impossible to focus on getting things done or interacting with anyone but him because of his continuous need for attention. I hope he will focus on building some kind of a social existence for himself here, since this is where he’s decided to (likely) spend the rest of his life; I love him but simply cannot be a full-time companion. For now, it’s fine; he needs some time to turn this page in his life and figure out what he does next, and having him close will be a good development for everyone involved.

• Brothermouth and I finished a (roughly) .7 mile electric fence enclosure meant to open a large new pasture to the livestock. There are massive areas of the property that are just overgrowth and desperately need clearing and rehab from rotational grazing. This was a long job that got quite tedious and time consuming, as we were frequently limited by the weather and now shortening daylight hours, but we successfully tested the electric yesterday, patted ourselves on the back, opened the corral to let cows out, watched for a while, and called it done.

  • However, after resting inside for about an hour watching TV, I got obsessed with an intuition that something was wrong and pestered Brothermouth to go out and check the fenceline with me now instead of in the morning. Sure enough, there was a broken line at the far end, and all but one of the cows were out. Thankfully, in the complete darkness of night at that point, they were mostly milling around directionless, looking around with concern for the lone stay-behind who was mooing worriedly for them to come back. To my great fortune, the stay-behind happened to be the boss cow, who I managed to get lassoed, lead out the gate, and lead the herd behind her in a long circle back into a secure enclosure.

  • So, the fence isn’t done, after all that work. It was the bull that made the break, no question, but the system isn’t useless or a failure, it just isn’t enough. We’re going to add two more electric lines (there are presently three at shoulder, waist, and knee height) and run a woven-wire fence behind it to serve both as a more visible obstacle (I suspect the bull blundered right through the wire in the dark and broke it too quickly to ever notice the current) and to slow any attempt to fuck with the fencing long enough for whoever’s doing it to get shocked. This will, of course, more than double the work required to finish this and probably add another 50% or so to the cost, which is all extremely frustrating. I would really, really like to get these animals loose in this space before everything edible in there is dead for the year already. We just don’t have the hands and the time to do anything quickly around here.

• Husbandmouth has started driving with his training buddy until he goes away for Trucker Camp sometime… eventually. He’s on this guy’s schedule, which is currently a 3AM or 5AM start every day, which has played complete havoc on Husbandmouth’s sleep until he figures things out. He has basically been passing out the moment he gets home, waking up for maybe an hour or so, and then going back to sleep for the night. We have maybe 15-30 minutes of lucid interaction a day. It kind of sucks.

How about that big, wide world, huh? What a fucking week!

• Like every other person with an internet platform, regardless of size or specialization, I should probably weigh in with an Important Opinion about the Fart Heard ‘Round the Baltic.

  

  Can’t stand it. I know you planned it.

  I hope I don’t end up disappointing everyone expecting (*chortles hysterically*) high-quality analysis or intelligent reporting by saying that, like many other intelligent voices on substack likely in our shared circles, I believe this was most likely an intentional act of sabotage by the United States. I think there’s room for a bit of nuance within that statement, but I’m sorry for being unimaginative here: it’s far and away the most likely and parsimonious explanation. (For you fellow forecasters, I am 92% certain.

  Here’s some nuance and weird-ass speculation I can add to the obvious and probably correct call that all the cool kids are also making:

  • I don’t think the US acted unilaterally, and this is the part where there’s room for interesting speculation. This development fucks Germany hard, and burns the bridge to reconcile with Russia behind them, which is something they are absolutely under pressure to do: Germany is the bully boss of the EU, and where goes their green energy suicide pact, so goes the other member nations. Supposedly the CIA “warned Germany” that “something might happen,” implicating Russia.

    • Europe should be furious at Brandon und Freunden. It would be great if all this shit hastened the breakup of the EU, which seems all but inevitable now.

  • If I were Putin, the logical and (generally accepted in realpolitik as) appropriate response to this is to hit back as quickly as possible to show it won’t be tolerated. So if Putin doesn’t, that will be very telling- it will likely confuse US and allies. Putin may already be thinking ahead to post-Ukraine and whatever form the partnership with China takes, and may be thinking this isn’t super important.

  • The US hasn’t publicly denied the attack. Publicly taking credit (or not) for something is always a calculated move, whether or not you did a thing, and it is done completely independently of what is known by insiders. Terror organizations take credit for terror attacks to increase their brand prestige. States are (normally) quick to deny actions that will make them unpopular unless it is virtually impossible to hide guilt (again, even when the reality is well-understood in non-public channels). Given that this was done quietly, almost certainly with submersible drones that are now gone, there will likely never be definitive evidence that the US did this, so why not get out in front of the story and deny it? All Jean-Pierre did was babble about how this simply hastens our journey towards “clean energy.” Gee. I wonder how all the marine life being simultaneously suffocated and poisoned to death feels about all this sustainability. That the US isn’t immediately denying something everyone is privately blaming them for says to me that A) they know that they will eventually be nailed for it or B) they anticipate a time in the near future where it may be beneficial to their brand to take credit and want to leave that door open as long as possible.

  • Poland has been furious about Nord Stream from the beginning as a strategic threat, and is likely quite frustrated at this point by the impact of the Ukraine war dragging on with all its knock-on effects on Poland with energy, a ridiculous number of refugees, and a lot of expensive military buildup on Poland’s part. (It is also worth mentioning that there is absolutely historical bad blood, some dark shit, between Poland and Ukraine that has NOT gone away even if Poland is required to make nice with its EU sister.)

  • Poland is a critical staging point for NATO and US men and materiel (such as it is) into Ukraine. We’ve been spending so much time coordinating with them since we started intervening in Ukraine, maybe Poland is/feels it should be the heir apparent for EU Girlboss after Germany commits suicide to end global warming.

  • Poland opened a new pipeline on the SAME DAY as the attack which would allow them to buy NG directly from Scandinavia without passing Gorky, without collecting 200 rubles. So. I’ll just leave that there.

  • Speaking of the burgeoning RUS/PRC partnership I mentioned earlier, which no one should be happy about, forcing Russia’s further isolation at a time when Russia is probably moving towards proposing reconciliation and keeping its captured territory with the referendum would drive them further into China’s arms. This would only be the three billionth time China has directly sabotaged or committed cyber- or infrastructure terrorism on neutral countries. There’s a lot of precedent. They put pee-pee in your Coke, for example.

  I could spend a looooong time crazy-boarding this, but let’s move on. The important part? No one reading this is going to benefit from the consequences of this, and a lot of us are probably going to suffer for it in the form of further energy torture and likely escalation of military tensions that no one asked for. It is increasingly difficult to spin antagonizing Russia as a righteous act by good guys against bad guys. Meanwhile, China, which is a phrase worth repeating every single day they’re not in the news as the #1 existential threat to the West.

• Italy elected a fascist by an overwhelming margin. Just kidding. Speaking of Germany being the tyrant canker boss of the EU, German Tyrant Lady (no, the other one) threatened Italy not to exercise democracy too hard.

  

  “We have tools”

  I’m enjoying seeing Giorgia Meloni drive the globalists batshit crazy for saying outrageous things like “family is really important” and “the enemy wants you to be consumerist slaves” in the same way I enjoy seeing Trump make people melt down, and I think the collective resistance is absolutely entitled to take a quick victory lap for giving the middle finger to unelected dictators threatening sovereign nations. Like Trump, she appears a lot more mundane than her wildest enemies or fans make her out to be: a smart, basically center-right woman in a nationalist party with an extremely normal nationalist agenda. She’s a little too religiously conservative for my tastes, but I find about 85% of her stated platform something that would be incredibly palatable for the United States.

  Enjoy the victory lap, but see if she actually follows through. If so, she could be another domino pushing Europe away from the globalists.

• The “bivalent booster,” aka “the mouse shot” or “the fuck you, we don’t test drugs anymore shot” came out a full month ago. Uptake in the United States remains at about 2%. To the best of my knowledge (please be my Hunin and Munin on this), the new jabs have not been rolled into existing mandates by tyrannical universities, companies, or healthcare providers. Useless, unpopular, expensive jab rotting on the shelf. No mandates, no hugely coordinated media push to get them.

  What’s all that about?

See you tomorrow, most likely- got some stuff in the works!