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 plans for a universal digital passport.

The Everything Passport: DHS Outlines Digital ID Initiative

A recent headline: DHS Outlines Digital ID Initiative For “Travel, Immigration and Citizenship Status, Employment, Residency Status and More”. The article begins:

“The US Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) recent unveiling of a $1.7 million initiative to foster the development of digital wallets will raise eyebrows among privacy advocates. While DHS’s Science & Technology Directorate ostensibly presents this as the “Privacy Preserving Digital Credential Wallets & Verifiers” SVIP Topic Call, the devil will be in the details.

The plan is to use the system for “travel, immigration and citizenship status, employment, residency status and more.”

A look at the DHS’s announcement shows a particular emphasis on wallets that are compatible with World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Verifiable Credential Data Model (VCDM) and W3C Decentralized Identifiers (DID) standards. On the surface, this may appear as a step toward standardization. However, this type of centralization could create a monoculture that will also speed up the move towards centralized digital IDs – which could be the entire plan.”

U.S. Church Attendance Still Below Pre-Pandemic Levels

SurvivalaBlog reader D.S.V. spotted this, over at RedState: U.S. Church Attendance Still Below Pre-Pandemic Levels.

Is ‘Vaccine Science’ 5th Generation War Propaganda?

Jerome sent this substack link: Is ‘vaccine science’ 5th generation war propaganda? A pericope:

“Manipulating the public into believing whatever the invisible government wants them to believe, so that they voluntarily cooperate with its agenda, is actually far more efficient and far less costly than compelling them through the modern state’s monopoly on violence.”

U.C. Berkeley Faculty Hiring Ranked on DEI

Reader H.L. mentioned this, over at Jonathan Turley’s website: The Berkeley Files: Faculty Applicants Were Ranked on Their Support for DEI Policies and Practices.

Australian Government Going After “Disinformation”

Some misinformation on disinformation, over at the ostensibly unbiased TechXplore: Australia plans huge fines if big tech fails to tackle disinformation.  (Our thanks to blog reader C.B. for the link.) Here is how the article begins:

“Tech giants could face billions of dollars in fines for failing to tackle disinformation under proposed Australian laws, which a watchdog on Monday said would bring “mandatory” standards to the little-regulated sector.

Under the proposed legislation, the owners of platforms like Facebook, Google, Twitter, TikTok and podcasting services would face penalties worth up to five percent of annual global turnover—some of the highest proposed anywhere in the world.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority, a , would be granted a range of powers to force companies to prevent misinformation or from spreading and stop it from being monetised.”

A History Lesson: Roman Currency Debasement

Jeff Thomas of International Man posted this interesting historical parallel, on currency debasement: When in Rome.

Sweden Abandons Their “Renewable Energy Targets”

Sweden just scrapped their “Renewable Energy Targets”. Here’s why.  A quote:

“According to finance minister Elisabeth Svantesson, wind and solar power are simply not efficient or reliable enough to be trusted to produce the entire country’s energy supply.”

Weapons and Ammo Warehouse Destroyed in Bulgaria

Linked over at the Whatfinger.com news aggregation site: Footage of the detonation of a weapons and ammunition warehouse in Bulgaria. JWR’s Comment: This is one way that limited, localized wars can go “regional.”

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