SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods. This column is a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from JWR [1]. Our goal is to educate our readers, to help them to recognize emerging threats, and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. In today’s column: mutated bird flu viruses.
Bird Flu Mutations Cause Concern
Reader B.T. sent us this, from The New York Times: Bird Flu Viruses Raise Mounting Concerns Among Scientists [2]. The article begins:
“In the United States, the term bird flu has become synonymous with a particular virus that has devastated poultry and dairy farms over the past few years. But that virus, called H5N1, is not the only form of bird flu in circulation.
Concerned scientists are keeping a close eye on other types, including a fast-changing flu virus called H9N2.
In a study published in November [3], researchers in Hong Kong showed that over the last decade, this virus has acquired mutations that allow it to spread more efficiently among people and to cause more severe disease.
H9N2 is often discounted as a threat, because it causes only mild symptoms in poultry. But in people, especially children, the virus can cause more severe illness than the seasonal flu.
There have been fewer than 200 reported cases of H9N2 in humans since 1998, but the number has been rising sharply. China reported 29 human cases of H9N2 last year, compared with 11 in 2024.”
Trump Weighs Options on Supporting Iranian Popular Uprising
At the Whatfinger.com [4]news aggregation site: Trump on Iran: We’re looking at some very strong options… I’m getting an hourly report, and we’re going to make a determination very soon.” [5]
China Stages Drills to Encircle Taiwan
Reported in late December: China stages record drills designed to encircle Taiwan [6].
Trump Administration Quits Numerous UN Groups
Secretary of State’s News Release: Withdrawal from Wasteful, Ineffective, or Harmful International Organizations [7].
A Closer Look At The War in Ukraine
TabletMag: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Ukrainians [8]. Heree is a an excerpt:
“A December poll from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) found that 75% of Ukrainians considered a deal along the lines of the 28-point plan “completely unacceptable,” while 63% were willing to endure the war for as long as necessary.
Surrender, of the sort that many felt the United States was proposing, was not an option.
It was hard not to be impressed. Since the collapse of the Global War on Terror, it’s become common for Americans on both the left and the right to rail against “forever wars” in far-off locations—by which they mean the United States’ nation-building efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the failure of which was symbolized by the rapid collapse of the Afghan government in 2021. On large sections of the American right, Ukraine had become identified as an especially corrupt province of the “globalist” empire—Hunter Biden’s piggy bank, artificially kept afloat by the “neocons” and “warmongers” who allegedly profited from conflict with Russia.
This view was impossible to sustain upon contact with reality inside Ukraine. What I saw instead was, in terms of the morality of international conflicts, one of the more black-and-white situations I could imagine. The government of Ukraine may be corrupt, but ordinary Ukrainians saw themselves as—and were—fighting to defend their homes and their freedom against invasion by an external empire that appeared to have all the hallmarks of evil.”
10 New Ransomware Groups
From Cyble: 10 New Ransomware Groups of 2025 — And What to Expect Next in 2026 [9].
Chronic Lyme Disease is Confirmed
After Decades Of Dismissal, Chronic Lyme Disease Is Now Getting Recognized [10].
Buying Greenland Could Cost $700 Billion
From the leftist NBC News: Buying Greenland could cost as much as $700 billion [11]. JWR’s Comments: The math on this is pretty simple: There are only 57,000 Greenlanders. By including one-time cash payments of $2 million USD directly to every man, woman, and child in Greenland (costing $114 billion) as part of that $700 billion, I expect that most of the local objections would quietly evaporate. The Greenlanders would all get American passports. And our Second Amendment protections. (Read: No more pesky Danish gun registration and handgun restrictions.) Having both the means and opportunity to own a second home in a place like Florida will have broad appeal to most Greenlanders.
12,000+ Arrests in the UK Over Social Media Posts
Over at X: 12,000+ arrests in the United Kingdom over social media posts… the most on earth [12]. JWR’s Comment: “If it walks like a Dictatorship and quacks like a Dictatorship, then it is probably…”
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