Occupied City Documentary. Pebtagon's Lessons From the Ukraine War.

The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods

James Wesley Rawles February 29, 2024 February 25, 2024

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, we look at the Dutch documentary Occupied City.

Occupied City Documentary

Yes, it is four hours long, but this documentary is worth watching: Occupied City. The filmmakers parallel the Nazi occupation of Holland with the recent COVID lockdowns — showing many of the same locations in Amsterdam, and the events at each. In a strange echo, the early 2020s parallel the early 1940s at several addresses. This film illustrates how willingly some people relinquish their freedom and betray their neighbors. And there are plenty of descriptions of police “just following orders.” This is a powerful and thought-provoking documentary.

The Pentagon’s Lessons From the Ukraine War

From the left-leaning Washington Post: What the Pentagon has learned from two years of war in Ukraine. A pericope:

“The Russian and Ukrainian militaries each flood the sky with one-way attack drones that are inexpensive and able to skirt detection. Their prolific use has forced American military leaders to consider where there are gaps in their capabilities.

Whereas recent U.S. conflicts featured big, expensive drones employed for missions orchestrated at very senior levels of command, in Ukraine leaders have put powerful surveillance and attack capabilities in the hands of individual soldiers — a degree of autonomy for small units that the U.S. military is only recently trying to emulate.

The technology’s proliferation has also created a new urgency at the Pentagon to develop and field better counter-drone systems. In Jordan last month, three U.S. soldiers were killed after a one-way drone, which officials have said likely went undetected, crashed into their living quarters.”

How Do Democrats & Republicans Feel About Certain US Industries

H.L. sent this, over at Zero Hedge: How Do Democrats & Republicans Feel About Certain US Industries.

FBI Reportedly Harvesting Publicly Available “Weapon” Info

Reader C.B. sent us this: FBI Reportedly Harvesting Publicly Available “Weapon” Info. Here is a quote:

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is initiating Project Tyr, an effort in its infancy to employ Amazon’s artificial intelligence-driven Rekognition cloud service to identify firearms—among other things—and the people associated with them. According to the bureau’s description (on the last page) the software “… offers pre trained and customizable computer vision (CV) capabilities to extract information and insights from lawfully acquired images and videos. Currently in initiation phase to customize to review and identify items containing nudity, weapons, explosives, and other identifying information.”

Russia to Annex Transnistria?

From The Daily Mail: Putin ‘on brink of new land grab’ to defy West with possible announcement imminent on annexing breakaway Moldovan region Transnistria.

China Experiencing an Extremely Cold Winter

Linked over at the Whatfinger.com news aggregation site: China is experiencing one of its coldest Winters in living memory. JWR’s Comment: Hmmm… Another news story to file under: “Global Warming.”