This is the last Friday of the year. I hope you all have something excellent planned for New Year’s Eve, which is the biggest fraud of a holiday. Who has energy after the Christmas hangover. This is why it always sucks even if you have a good thing planned. You probably have a cold or a flu. It is a time to pause. The coming turnover of the year is like a threshold and as Goethe wrote, the threshold is the place to pause.

Think of your 2018. Mine was incredibly full and wild. There was change and many new things. Did you hit your goals? Did you even make any? My lift bros and I all set goals for 2018. I hit one of my two goals (hit: 225 x 3 on bench, missed 1 x bodyweight on OHP). I am going to work on that missed goal and add a new one for 2019. I like to set goals for myself to keep the challenge going.

Goals are powerful because you have a metric. You know if you hit or missed it. Everyone has that friend who tries new diets, new workout routines, new supplements or new jobs and within thirty days is onto something else.  He cannot stick to it. It is embarrassing after a while. Look for the pattern. He undoubtedly enters these new schemes with no goal. He just wants to get jacked, lean, smart, smooth, etc. To his credit, he is trying and attacks these new ideas or routines with enthusiasm, which is more than we can say about so many people. Set goals because if you hit it, you get that satisfaction and when you miss, you know where you need to work.

It is easy to get set in a rut. It is easy to settle into a steady cruise control. The urbanites settle into theirs but because they eat Thai once a month or do tavern trivia on Thursdays, they do not see it for the routine that it is. They do not have zest or live with thumos just because the food’s recipes originate elsewhere. That is a mask for them being bugmen. Maybe 2018 was awesome for you. Maybe 2018 was not the best year ever. Some forces are beyond our control, and some are beyond our influence. What you can control and what you can influence, you should attack with zest. Have a good 2019. On to the links…

We Lost The Cold War – The globalists have lost it. They are forgetting how in ’09-’12 they discussed how maybe Obama was America’s Gorbachev as it declined or became just one of many nations. They supported not looking at America as a unique power or believe in American exceptionalism. Trump may roll the empire back further. All US presidents are Gorbachev from here on out with regards to the empire.

Bibi Was Right – A nervous Jewish gentleman writes how Netanyahu correctly saw nationalism rising and he did not. This is entertaining for the nebbish vibe one can feel radiate from the screen. I am surprised more people do not make comparisons to America and the late Ottoman Empire or Austro-Hungarian Empire. The delusional view the cosmopolitan class had about unity and cohesion was just as strong then and there as it is here and now.

Astronaut Rips NASA – Most space posting is a form of civilization cope where people want to pretend everything is working fine but it is not. Astronaut Bill ANders calls NASA and that entire scam out for what it is. Entertaining as it appears it is elaborate theater to make us all feel that technology will save us.

Florida 2040 Policing – Brazil is piloting a license to kill police policy. This is the course Brazil is being forced to take just to make streets walkable. One thing to be on the lookout for is US cities that rework zoning to allow tiny houses. If they do, those same relaxed rules would allow for favela shacks. Now replace the SWPLs and bugmen with Third Worlders. Easy to see those cities that take the tiny house plunge become favela zones.

Huawei Is Special – This is an old read from ’14. Check out the back and forth actions between NSA and Huawei. If the new Cold War is here, then we must start acting like antagonists would act.