A Survivalist’s Look at the Issues of the Day

I was a survivalist well before “prepper” was a common term. Some think they mean the same thing, but I think survivalist is more hardcore. Many survivalists are preppers, but not all preppers are survivalists. For example, I think a survivalist will fare better in the wild without his or her preps. I’m not trying to disparage preppers; prepping is important and I encourage it. We just need to be willing to try to survive even if our preps are wiped out or a thousand miles away.

Monday’s article on nuclear winter made me think of this. Survivalists don’t capitulate. We die fighting.

Hanta Virus

Lots of alarmists are wringing their hands about the Hanta virus, and a few are leveraging it to sell prepping products. I am not worried about it, at least not yet, because only around one in every 30 million Americans has been exposed. Not anywhere near my worry level.

Keep in mind that around 40,000 people died from the flu in the 2024/25 season and a similar number of deaths were attributed to COVID-19 in 2025. So while a virus that kills somewhere between a third and half of everyone who gets it is scary, the odds of you or I getting infected are low. At least for the time being. If my position changes, I’ll let you know.

If you want to think back to the initial panic of COVID and stock up on some things, go for it. My feeling is you should always be stocking up on things, new threat or not. But I’m not sure hand sanitizer will help.

I remember the toilet paper shortage panic early in COVID and how my oldest daughter had to scrounge to find six rolls. We just opened an enormous package of toilet paper dated June 2022. I still have unopened packages from 2023, 24, and 25. I guess that means we have a four-year supply—unless more people bug out here.

The Iran War

While the Hanta virus is unlikely to sweep the country, it seems pretty obvious that the war in Iran is going to start up again. The question is: When? I would not be surprised if it starts a couple of hours after Trump clears Chinese airspace. It’s either that, or he’ll hold off until Israeli intelligence officials find a good opportunity to take out the new leaders in a surprise attack.

Have you read that the UAE attacked Iran? They did it before the ceasefire, and no one knew because they fly U.S.-made jets. I expect they will join the U.S. and Israel in attacking Iran. Saudi Arabia may too, assuming they haven’t already.

The U.S. has avoided hitting Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil terminal, because they don’t want to spook the oil markets. Too late, the oil market is spooked. Gas was $4.11 to $4.19, that’s up $15 since before the war. If I were in charge, I would drop so many incendiary bombs on Kharg Island that the flames could be seen on the other side of the strait and nothing would be left but ash and twisted metal. The oil-fueled explosions would be so big Iranians on the mainland would worry that it was a nuke.

You think the blockade is causing economic problems? This would show the leaders of Iran (and the world) that we are willing to take it to another level.

Sure, we need to target the IRGC leadership and any missile launchers first, followed by their “fast boats,” but let’s go after their oil infrastructure until they cry uncle. The lack of income will also delay their ability to build more missiles and refine more uranium.

Trump’s China Trip

Knocking out the ability for Iran’s oil to reach the market also pisses off China—but who cares? They do plenty to piss us off. If this war was supposed to be a shot across China’s bow, then destroying Kharg Island and knocking out 12 to 15 percent of their oil is going to put China on notice. At the same time, it benefits the UAE and Saudi Arabia; both allied countries want to pump more oil.

I’m not sure why Trump wants to go to China. Supposedly to talk trade, but do you remember the story from his first term about how he threatened to nuke Moscow if Putin treated him like he treated Obama? He might plan to have a similar chat with Xi. Sure, we pretend to be ambiguous about Taiwan, but everyone knows that’s just an act.

Think how interesting it would be if Trump handed Xi a map and said, “This is where your Type 094 nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarines were this morning. Do you know where ours are? No? This is why you don’t want to mess with us.” Let Xi and his leaders stew about that and the implied threat for a while.

I’ll be watching the news coverage, but I won’t be believing everything I hear. All that spinning will net us nothing but a big ball of yarn. The thing to do is to read what Trump says, read what China says, and figure the truth is somewhere in the middle.

More Magazines

I just received two more 15-round magazines for my Kimber CDS9 in the mail. I have to test them out for feeding reliability, but I now have enough spare magazines to have one everywhere I can think of, and one or two tucked away as spares in case I lose or break one. Because nothing sucks more than owning a gun with a 15-round capacity and turning it into a single shot five eyars after the SHTF because your last mag broke.

It’s ironic that Glock came out with 15-round metal magazines for the Glock 43x and the 48 not long after I switched over to a new gun. Part of the reason for my switch was the higher capacity. Even if I had half a dozen of the 15-round magazines for my Glock 48, I would still opt to carry the Kimber because it has a better trigger and the external safety. I still like Glocks; I just shoot the 1911 or 2011-style weapons platform more accurately.

That said, if I am on a nationwide trip and the possibility exists that the gun might get confiscated by an aggressive and ill-informed lawman somewhere like Maryland or New Jersey, I’d bring the Glock and still feel well-armed.

The Drought Contines

The drought continues, and in fact grows worse. Not just here in my area, but across much of the U.S. This could have as much or more to do with the rising cost of food in 2026/27 as the war in Iran.

Check out this article on the drought hitting the country’s bread basket. It reports the U.S. could have the smallest wheat crop in 54 years. Keep in mind that a great deal of grain goes to feed cows, chickens, pigs and other sources of animal protein. Well, maybe we can just feed them some of the soybeans the Chinese don’t buy.

When the El Nino to hits in late summer it should increase moisture in my area. We just have to make it another three months. Of course, that doesn’t help the “breadbasket.” An El Nino won’t bring them rain. But it may help cattle ranchers in Texas.

Survival Blog

Survival Blog just announced that it is cutting back publication to once a week, effective in early June. While Jim didn’t write every article, he had to edit, collate, and organize all of it. It’s tough to sustain that kind of a schedule. I used to publish daily, but I have dropped to Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, although once in a while I either miss one or pop in an extra. Doing it every day was too much like a job.

There are days when I sit down at my computer and have no idea what to write about. Only occasionally do I have a story pre-written, and when I do, I’m never more than one story ahead. There are also days when I think I’ve already said it all, written about it all, and anything I say will just be redundant. Then I realize most of my audience hasn’t been around for four or five years, so I try to put a current spin on it. But how many times can I write about the Iran War or the Ukraine War? Maybe I should have started a homestead blog or a beekeeper blog. That’s where the action is around here. We can only do so much prepping.

In its heyday, Survival Blog had an active comment section, and I know that took time and effort to moderate. We have open comments, but very few are legitimate. For example, today there were four comments trying to sell cryptocurrency and one from a business in New Jersey spamming us. At least their IP address was in New Jersey instead of Eastern Europe. Of course, with VPNs, you can appear to be anywhere you want. I often post from Nashville, Miami, Atlanta, or Texas without leaving my house. I probably need to add “crypto” and “Ether” to our banned word list to keep the spam down.

Speaking of VPNs…

I’ve been using NordVPN for more than five years, and it just got better. They used to have about 20 U.S. cities on their list, but now they have 55. So I can have an IP address in Anchorage, Cheyenne, Des Moines, or Milwaukee instead of only major cities like New York, Miami, Dallas, and Los Angeles. It makes it easier to scatter my digital footprint. It also makes it easier to watch NFL games! If you want your IP address to appear to be outside the U.S., they have at least 130 other countries you can select.

Back in the day, I picked Nord because they were not owned by Russians, were free of U.S. government control, and didn’t sell your info. So far, so good.

Is a VPN the be-all and end-all of online security? No, but that and a good virus scanner are good starting points. And yes, this is a promotional post, so if you sign up with NordVPN using this link, you’ll help this site make a few dollars.