Off Hours

It’s ok to love America

Read the comments and quote tweets. There’s a tide shifting in this country. Men are done with the DEI, the lack of respect. The discrimination. The immigrants. The crime. The raceswapping and the gender swapping. It’s on all fronts and eventually, you get pushback

Jobs report comes out showing 98% of new jobs went to women The govt offers to give mothers $9000 They tax the men who do work to pay for those who don’t Then bird-brained women and apparently General Mike Flynn whine about not being able to find real men They simply hate white men

FOLLOW THE MINERALS Buckle up, because I have a geopolitical theory. I cannot prove it. But there are enough pieces on the board that it’s worth asking some questions. The United States is dramatically escalating its war against Latin American cartels. Today Colombia’s newly inaugurated president requested U.S. cooperation for joint military operations against narco-terrorist organizations. Colombia is also joining the U.S.-led Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition. At the same time, Washington has become increasingly explicit about reasserting American strategic power throughout the Western Hemisphere. So far, pretty straightforward. But zoom out. Because something else is happening at exactly the same time. America is scrambling for minerals. Lithium. Copper. Nickel. Cobalt. Graphite. Rare earth elements. The boring rocks that increasingly determine who controls the future. Why? AI. Semiconductors. Data centers. Power grids. Batteries. Robotics. Drones. Missiles. Advanced manufacturing. Basically everything America needs to win the technological and military competition of the next 30 years. And there’s one enormous problem. China controls critical portions of these supply chains. So Washington has made reducing dependence on China a national security priority and is actively pursuing critical-mineral agreements around the world. Now look south. Latin America produces roughly 40% of the world’s mined copper and around a quarter of its lithium. It also possesses substantial graphite, rare-earth and other strategic-mineral resources. And Colombia itself has significant mineral potential. Here’s where this gets interesting. Cartels and guerrilla organizations aren’t just cocaine traffickers. Illegal armed groups in Colombia have also been deeply involved in illegal GOLD mining, extortion of miners, territorial control and mineral trafficking. In other words, on parts of this map: Drugs, minerals, armed groups and territorial control overlap. Now consider the strategic incentives. America wants fewer cartels controlling territory. America wants friendly governments controlling their territory. America wants Western companies investing throughout the hemisphere. America wants secure mineral supply chains. America wants China OUT of strategically important infrastructure and resources. And America desperately needs enormous quantities of physical resources to build the AI, energy and defense infrastructure of the future. Suddenly the cartel war looks potentially bigger than cocaine. To be clear: I have seen ZERO evidence that America is attacking cartels specifically to seize lithium mines or steal Colombia’s resources. That’s where an interesting geopolitical hypothesis becomes a conspiracy theory without evidence. But America doesn’t need to steal anything. That’s the interesting part. Imagine U.S.-aligned governments regain control of territory currently dominated by cartels and guerrillas. Security improves. Infrastructure follows. Western capital arrives. Mining projects become viable. American companies sign contracts. Governments sign long-term mineral agreements. China loses influence. America gains reliable supply chains. Nobody needs to plant an American flag on a copper mine. That’s how modern geopolitical power works. And it isn’t just Colombia…

The internet rewards attractive people, strong people and wealthy people over people who solely have brilliant ideas. And it should. There’s no nobility in being right and fat while driving a Fiat.

I get why kids aren’t racing to get their driver’s licenses anymore. Cars are expensive. Insurance is absurd. Gas isn’t cheap. A trip through the Taco Bell drive-thru somehow requires a consultation with your financial advisor. But young bucks, listen to the millennial: You are massively overestimating how much money is required to have fun. We were broke too. We just had lower standards. Millennials would pile six people into a 1994 Toyota Previa with a check engine light that had achieved permanent residency. Someone knew a lake. Someone’s older brother knew how to acquire questionable booze. Someone had $11. Download every fast food app on your phone. Become a scholar of the value menu. Split gas. Buy a football. Find a swimming hole. Go fishing with equipment your dad hasn’t touched since 2004. Build a fire where you’re legally allowed to build a fire. Go to minor league baseball games. High school football games. Free concerts. County fairs. Hiking trails. Run a stupid 5K together. Get six friends and invent a competition so poorly organized someone nearly loses a shoe. Stop waiting for entertainment to be sold to you. That’s the trap. You think “going out” means spending $80 at a restaurant, buying $17 cocktails and paying $40 to park because that’s what adults on Instagram do. You’re 17. Your advantage is that nobody expects you to have any money. Get your license if you can. Get a shitty car. Find five good friends. Then go. The lake is still there. The woods are still there. The girls are still out there. Taco Bell still occasionally makes serious accounting errors on its app. Your youth is too valuable to spend complaining that fun got expensive. Become cheaper. Become more creative. Go make some stories. Just have one of you stay sober and drive the shitty van home.

54 days til real football

How female teachers look at you after you ask them to stop molesting underage boys at school

Nations don’t fix themselves. Men fix them. One rebuilt body, one set boundary, one hard conversation at a time. That’s the mission. That’s Make America Strong Again.

There’s something deeply honest about this image. An abandoned church in the Netherlands reborn as a gym. Stained glass still standing. Brick walls still carrying echoes. But now the ritual is iron, sweat, breath, and effort. This is worship at the house of iron. For centuries, churches were where men went to be reminded they were weak, sinful, small. Sit down. Be quiet. Confess. Wait to be saved. Now look at it. Men lying under the bar. Bearing weight. Confronting gravity. Choosing suffering instead of comfort. No sermons. No guilt. Just the cold truth of steel revealing who you are. The irony is thick, but it is also poetic. Modern Europe did not lose faith. It changed where faith is practiced. Because lifting is still a form of prayer. Every rep asks a question. Will you quit or will you rise? Every set demands humility. The bar does not care about your excuses, your politics, your feelings. It either moves or it crushes you. That is real accountability. A gym inside a church feels controversial only if you misunderstand both. The old churches taught transcendence through submission. The iron teaches transcendence through responsibility. Through discipline. Through voluntary hardship. One tells you to wait for salvation. The other demands you build it. Look at the arches. The stained glass. The sacred geometry. Men did not destroy the cathedral. They repurposed it. Same bones. New mission. From passive belief to active becoming. This is why the gym has replaced the church for so many men. Not because they hate God, but because they are starving for something that asks more of them. Strength is still sacred. Ritual still matters. Brotherhood still matters. Only now, the altar is a bench. The hymn is breath under strain. And redemption is earned one rep at a time. Welcome to the house of iron.