The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods:

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “JWR”.  Today, we look at the recent South American Blackout.

U.S. Put Malware In Russia’s Electrical Grid

G.P. sent this: U.S. Reportedly Planted Offensive Malware In Russia’s Electrical Grid. A quote:

“The New York Times reports that the Cyber Command has been able to infiltrate the electric grid of Russia and plant offensive malware. It’s unclear just how deep it has been able to infiltrate the grid and what this malware is capable of doing. However, it’s evident that this is meant to serve as a weapon should the situation between the United States and Russia reach a point where its use may seem warranted.”

Insider Blows Whistle at Google on 2020 Election Meddling

Reader S.H. sent this bombshell: Insider Blows Whistle & Exec Reveals Google Plan to Prevent “Trump situation” in 2020 on Hidden Cam

Huge South American Blackout

Courtesty of reader Tim J., here is a report from BBC: Argentina and Uruguay reel after massive power outage. This outage left 44 million people in the dark.  The grid failure was not attributed to malware, but rather to a physical problem with a grid inter-tie. Here is a pericope:

“Power has been restored to much of Argentina and Uruguay after a massive electrical failure left tens of millions of people in the dark.

Argentine President Mauricio Macri has promised a full investigation.

Argentine media said the power cut occurred shortly after 07:00 (10:00GMT) on Sunday, causing trains to be halted and failures with traffic signalling.

The blackout was prompted by a failure in an electrical grid that serves both Argentina and Uruguay.

The outage occurred as people in Argentina were preparing to go to the polls for local elections, delaying voting in several regional provinces.

Parts of Paraguay and Chile were also affected, a state energy company said.”

Oregon Senator: “Come Heavily Armed”:

Reader H.L. sent this at Zero Hedge: “Come Heavily Armed”: Oregon Senator Threatens Violence As Governor Hunts Down Lawmakers.

Saudi Arms Leaked to ISIS

Yemen and the global arms trade — DW Documentary (Arms Documentary). JWR’s Comments: The vast majority of weapons used in Yemen are of course ComBloc (AK, PKM, DSHK, etc.), but since this was produced by German journalists, they focused on the leakage of German, Austrian, and Belgian guns.  The HK G3 is a now largely obsolete German design, but still produced on HK tooling in Saudi Arabian and Pakistani factories. Overall, the journalists got their gun details right. However, at just past the 2-minute mark they misidentified footage of a Yugo Zastava M53 (an MG-42 clone) as a German MG3. This level of detail on small arms absolutely escapes most American journalists, who seem to identify photos “AK” and M16″ interchangeably. They are firearms ignorant!  Parts of this documentary will surely remind folks of the description of End User Certificates in my novel Land of Promise.

NZ Police Bemoan Lack of Gun Registration

By way of Whatfinger.com (my favorite daily news aggregation page), we read this: New Zealand police regret not having a nationwide gun registration because it’s making it too difficult to confiscate guns from everyone. JWR’s Comments: Amidst the rancorous debate over so-called “gun control” in the United States, I am incredibly thankful for the Second Amendment, the Tenth Amendment, and the rest of the Bill of Rights. Such explicit reservation of fundamental rights is something conspicuously absent in the government of most other nations. Parliamentary style governments all seem to proceed from the assumption that The State is paramount, and that “rights” are somehow mere privileges, and that they are granted by the All-Powerful State. But in our Constitutional Republic, the grounding assumption that We The People come first, that our rights are God-given,  and that government serves us, at our pleasure. And, most importantly, that we can withdraw The Consent Of The Governed, whenever we see fit. God Bless America!

TGC’s Fourth Anniversary

The Gun Collective (TGC) is celebrating their fourth anniversary.  If you haven’t already subscribed to Jon Patton’s TGC News vlog, then I highly recommend it. Definitely both informative and entertaining.

Christian School Raided in California

A hat tip to reader T.W. for spotting this collection of video updates: Christian School Raided By CA Gov’t. David Lynn Arrested. Christian Baker Sued A 3rd Time.

Midwest Farmers Throw Non-Planting Party

A CNBC report: ‘Everybody’s so down in the dumps’: Illinois farmers give up on planting after floods — and throw a party.

You can send your news tips to JWR. (Either via e-mail of via our Contact form.) Thanks!




21 Comments

  1. The people are the ultimate protector of our rights, because if we don’t know what they are, how would we know if they are being removed? Most folks today don’t know what their rights are, having been “educated” in government schools that intentionally left out that training. What you said is absolutely correct, though. Our Constitution recognizes the rights that we naturally possess.

  2. I find it interesting that the state of California chooses to raid a Christian school but apparently has no interest in raiding Islamic Madrassas (Islamic training schools), where anti American values are taught, I give you Barrack Obama as an example, a former student of an Islamic Madrassa.

    We are getting really tired of public funds being expended on illegal activities and defending them with public paid attorneys.

  3. Since the corn harvest this year is going to fall far short of the demand which will raise prices to the point that exports fall off and the poor of 3rd world nations will suffer hunger and starvation it is time to reevaluate our policies on non food uses.
    Things we can do without. 1. Ethanol alcohol in our gas, 2. A lot of high fructose sweeteners, 3. Corn used as fuel in stoves, 4. Many plastics derived from corn, and I am sure there is a lot of other things I missed.

    It isn’t very Christian when you pour somebodies mainstay for meals into your gas tank!

    1. This is some out-of-the-box thinking, Joe. While the MSM puts focus on the financial bottom line, you look at a spiritual bottom line. I applaud your compassion for people who are struggling just to have a meal.

      Carry on

    2. I read somewhere, mostly from reliable sources, that there are something like 4,000 different products made from corn and it’s by-products. There are a lot of things that could be made without the use of corn. Except maybe whiskey! Yeah, I know! But hey, you gotta draw the line somewhere!

    3. @Joe- so what would you do, ban the sale of corn to customers who want it for another use besides food ? What about those who feed the corn to livestock ? Does that meet with your approval ? I suppose that you would pass a law enforcing your preferences, right ? Do we not have the right to sell our private property to whomever we want ? For whatever reasons we want ? Excuse my frankness, but PRIVATE PROPERTY IS A RIGHT. [Some deleted by the Editor.]

      1. @ Hail – Have you considered doing any research on how corn is used, corn subsidies, and or ethanol? To keep it short, we might as well be talking about Iphone shortages, because we can eat those phones just as much as we can eat this corn.

        This corn is not edible without processing. I have also seen estimates that 90% of the corn produced goes to livestock. Talk with any sensible cattle farmer and you may find out corn is an issue for the health of cattle and only serves to fatten them up. The story of ethanol is that the very nature of it is political as to appeal to people at a point in our history to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. In reality, ethanol is a energy loser, we have increased our use of foreign oil since these polices were passed. There is absolutely more to the story of corn than what I have written here. The main point is, this corn is not of use to you or anyone else without extensive processing and subsidies. Yet, its framed daily in the news as a sign the end is near. Should the end be near, it surely isn’t due to corn.

        Once you study corn, consider bread, next. Bread since its inception has had 3 ingredients. Today, it has 31 or 32….why is that? We know that we only need 3 ingredients to make good and healthy bread. When 1 single ingredient, like corn has an issue, are we running out of bread? No….

        Let us consider reeling in the alarmist rhetoric that has over-taken survivalism? My read on survivalism is that is an ideology to reduce panic in certain situations through techniques (survival skills). Today, it seems to be more about panic and alarmist stories so we consume more products.

      2. Corn used for ethanol production is government mandated and subsidized by the tax payers. It is not necessary to put 10-15 % alcohol in gasoline. Yes, I choose feeding people over senseless government regulation, without this regulation the free market would be just fine. I agree with you completely about private property but what I am looking at here is government meddling. Also think about temporary measures to solve immediate problems, not long term sweeping changes. We will ship supplies to disaster victims to help them, this is only that type of relief until the next crops can be planted.

        1. Have you considered the fact that ethanol production would be all but eliminated if people stopped buying it ? It is NOT the only fuel available for use. The government does not mandate that people buy it…yet.

          1. Sure non ethanol based gas is available, but you have to search it out. Just as yes, there ARE alternatives to You Tube and Goggle, but they are limited and for now, small entities. Just as it always is, once someone climbs the ladder, they make damn sure to use political means to kick the ladder down to prevent others from making a similar climb and becoming their competitors.
            Just sayin’

  4. Re: Electrical Grid Malware

    I have read some interesting comments over time about the Stuxnet virus with which somebody took out Iranian centrifuges.

    Reportedly it was an excellent piece of code but it had one particular failure. It was supposed to propagate until it found the specific controllers it was designed to destroy and delete itself along the way leaving no trace. It did not in all cases delete itself which is in fact how it was discovered and later analyzed.

    This resulted in Stuxnet ending up being essentially public domain code. Many people and groups all over the world ended up with it. It was already good code and those that ended up with it made it even better code and have presumably redeployed it or at last can redeploy it for their own use.

    I suspect that is what all of this weaponized malware is like. Once deployed, I suspect it is very quickly adopted, altered, improved by people all over the world.

    I suppose all weapons are this way, but I think the proliferation of software weapons likely happens much faster than physical weapons.

    There is probably no way around this issue. Cyber Warfare is a reality that we will have to live with. But it is sobering that every time we launch an attack on another country, we are likely giving them the very same tools to attack us back in the same or worse manners with a turn around speed unheard of in previous times.

  5. Insider Blows Whistle at Google on 2020 Election Meddling
    They always project. What the Left means by “prevent election meddling” is to ensure that their own candidates win.

    U.S. Put Malware In Russia’s Electrical Grid
    The US has also used a cyber attack on Iran weapons systems.

    JWR said: “And, most importantly, that we can withdraw The Consent Of The Governed, whenever we see fit. God Bless America!”
    I’ve never heard of any individual or group withdrawing consent and not being jailed, financially ruined, or killed. Remember Lincoln? That was settled long ago. While I’m not defending parliamentarian government forms, the US Police State ain’t no better. Waco, anybody? See Christian School below for more context. Nobody is withdrawing from anything. You can have your country back only by force at arms.

    Christian School Raided in California
    The people of CA and indeed the entire US have made themselves and the State as some kind of god. They will have their god, good and hard.

  6. 2A issues getting trampled in WA, as the misbegotten I-1639 is implemented. WA State government is making up more rules as it fumbles along.

    Meanwhile, stores are selling out as we grim patriots are lined up getting our final critical purchases completed within the final handful of days before July 1st implementation. Next Monday, July the 1st, the State starts it’s own process of Gun Registration.

  7. Fred, regarding withdrawing consent of the governed: I can readily remember one, and only one, group that did so, and succeeded (though there may be others) – the American colonies that determined to break away from England’s rule. Our Constitution, and especially the Rill of Rights, remains as the implementation tools to keep the ‘consent of the governed’ a necessary support for our way of life. But it rests on an even more important foundation: the Declaration of Independence that assumes GOD-GIVEN rights (and the Bible behind that belief).

  8. Corn not being planted:

    Worse still, ethanol content in gasoline is going up to 15% from the current 10%. How stupid. For this one I blame Trump and the moronic Republicans, especially Chuck Grassley of Iowa. We’d be better off if they got rid of the ethanol content in gasoline entirely.

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