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. 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, Tulsi Gabbarrd’s big biolabs data declassification announcement.
‘Never Before Seen’ Intelligence on Biolabs is Released
Via Forbes: Tulsi Gabbard Announces Release Of ‘Never Before Seen’ Intelligence On Biolabs. “In a social media post on Friday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard previewed ‘intelligence’ on U.S. biolabs.” Here is an excerpt from the transcript of her video post:
“…this release today breaks new ground as the information surrounding the existence, history, locations, and funding of these US-funded biolabs has been intentionally covered up by very powerful people who falsely claimed that these biolabs didn’t exist. Now, they accuse anyone who says otherwise to be foreign assets and traitors to America. Now, [the] ODNI and I will continue working closely with partners across the US government to identify exactly where these labs are and what pathogens they contain to end dangerous gain of function research that threatens the health and well-being of the American people and people around the world.”
The U.S. European Force Drawdown
At Task & Purpose: US to cut fighters, warships from NATO mission in Europe.
PPI Acid Reflux Drugs Could Increase Dementia Risk
Reader C.B,. flagged this in The Mirror, by way of MSN: Drug taken by millions found to increase dementia risk by 33 per cent. JWR Adds: The article failed to include a list of Proton Pump Inhibitor (PPI) drugs. Some PPIs available in the U.S. include: Dexlansoprazole (Dexilant), Esomeprazole (Nexium), Lansoprazole (Prevacid), Omeprazole (Prilosec), Omeprazole and sodium bicarbonate (Zegerid), Pantoprazole (Protonix), and Rabeprazole (Aciphex).
Why Leftists in the UK Are in a Pickle
I found this linked over at the Whatfinger.com news aggregation site: Why Leftists in the UK Are in a Pickle.
The Fragile Iran War Peace Deal
Iran extracts last-minute peace deal concession from Trump. The UK Telegraph article begins:
“Iran will charge fees for vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz after inserting an eleventh-hour amendment into its peace deal with the US.
In what appears to be a concession by Donald Trump to get the memorandum of understanding (MoU) over the line, Iran and Oman will be recognised as sole authorities over the crucial waterway, Iran’s Fars news agency reported.
For the next 60 days Tehran will guarantee free passage through the strait, but after that period vessels will be required to pay tolls to cover security, navigation, environmental and insurance services.”
Some Creepy Cops are Using Flock to Stalk People
Over at 404 Media: Cops Keep Getting Arrested for Using Flock to Stalk People.
A Clever Way to Catch AI Trickery
In Smithsonian: Scientists Invented a Disease to Test Whether A.I. Knew It Was Fake. Then, Chatbots Started Saying It Was Real. Here is a pericope:
“The illness was invented by Almira Osmanovic Thunström, a medical researcher at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, and her team. They conjured up the condition to see whether LLMs, which are trained on vast amounts of data, often scraped from the web, could filter out misinformation.
The idea struck Osmanovic Thunström when she was teaching students about LLMs and explaining where their training data came from.”
College Students Are Losing the Ability to Read
And lastly, over at Futurism: College Students Are Rapidly Losing the Ability to Read. JWR’s Comments: Even back in the early 1980s when I attended San Jose State University, I was surprised to see how few students used the main library. One evening at the library, when I requested a couple of books via inter-library loan, I surprised the librarian when she saw on my penned request card that under “Reason Needed”, I had checked “Other” and that I was requesting books “For my own study enrichment”, (rather than the expected: “Term paper research”). She said that this was the first time she’d ever received such a request. She had to refer a senior librarian to see if that was allowable. Those books, by the way, were English translations of The Centurions and The Praetorians, both by Jean Larteguy.
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