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, renewed war drums, in Europe.
A NATO-Russia Hot War Could Be Coming?
I found this Independent Sentinel article linked over at the Whatfinger.com [2]news aggregation site: A NATO-Russia Hot War Could Be Coming? [3]
Europe on the Brink of War?
From the center-right (anti-EU) Brussels Signal: On the brink of war? Europe’s leaders press on towards confrontation with Russia.
Are Britons Ready For Wartime?
BBC: War may be coming. Are we psychologically ready? [4]
“Escalation is Inevitable”, Experts Warn
And from Around Prague: “Escalation is inevitable”: experts warn Russia is already testing NATO [5]. Here is a pericope:
“Michal Koudelka, head of the Czech Security Information Service (BIS), and other heads of European intelligence agencies have warned that Russia could test NATO’s resilience within months rather than years — potentially even through a limited invasion of one of the alliance’s member states. The warning comes from a fresh assessment by European intelligence officials, which American agencies have also joined.
According to American intelligence reports that surfaced in the media in August, Moscow could launch a “limited invasion” within months to test NATO’s resolve. But experts note that testing the alliance doesn’t necessarily mean a classic military attack — Russia is capable of acting through sabotage, cyberattacks, airspace violations and operations whose authorship cannot be immediately proven.”
McDonald’s Implements AI-Driven Pricing
Over at CNBC: Inside McDonald’s push to have AI price your Big Mac [6]. The article begins:
“Walmart is aiming to assuage customers’ fears about its new pricing technology as it rolls out digital price labels at its stores.
In a statement [7] posted on the company’s website, Walmart Inc.’s CEO John Furner vowed that the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer isn’t using personal information like income, shopping history or a customer’s willingness to pay to set prices, and it won’t be doing so in the future either.”
Walmart Denies Use of Targeted Digital Pricing
From the Associated Press: Walmart says it’s not using personal information to set prices as it expands digital shelf labels [8].
Woman Spends 86 Hours In Solitary — Due to Flock Camera Error
“Spike Protein Was Designed to Kill…”
SurvivalBlog staffer Tom Christianson sent this, from The Economic Times: ‘Spike protein was designed to kill…’: Dr McCullough drops chilling COVID vax claim [10].
There is No Easy Fix for One of America’s Scariest Roads
A lengthy and quite interesting article about Colorado by the talented writer Peter Hessler [11], in The New Yorker: Why Doesn’t Anyone Want to Fix One of America’s Scariest Roads? [12]
The Next Wave of Censorship Won’t Look Like Censorship
Another warning on emerging AI technology, over at the Sayer Ji substack: The Next Wave of Censorship Won’t Look Like Censorship [13]. Here is an excerpt:
“Open your phone. Look at the last email you sent. Was any of it drafted by autocomplete? Autocomplete used to be five letters at the end of a word. Now, in Gmail, in Outlook, in iMessage, in every major writing app, it is entire sentences, entire paragraphs, entire replies — offered before you have finished thinking. You accept some and ignore others, but the ones you accept are now, in a real and measurable sense, not fully yours.
Open your browser. Type any question into the search bar. Google no longer returns ten blue links. It returns an “AI Overview” — a single confident paragraph, generated by Google’s model, that answers the question directly. Most people never scroll past it. The links are still there. Almost nobody looks at them.
Now imagine — because it is not imagination, it is what is being pilot-tested at every major tech company this year — the same layer inside your text messages, your therapy apps, your kid’s homework helper, your car’s voice assistant, your smart speaker, your video calls. Not autocomplete. Not search. Everywhere.”
USSF: Space Threat Fact Sheet
And lastly, I found this mid-2026 summary at the US Space Force website: Space Threat Fact Sheet [14].
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