DutchEnery

According to BBC News a Florida town has decided to pay some half a million quid to hackers who had made their systems unusable. If this is true and not ‘fake’ news purportedly put on the web by some friendly Russian or Chinese web manipulators, it shows an incredible lack of cyber management. One could easily say – Hey what happened to the back-ups then? Not backups that are attached to your mainframe but kept separate? Even I do that. I backup all the time but use a single USB drive that is kept somewhere else, away from the main system. On top of that I will have access to four separate backup dates at all times. Once a month I keep the latest on yet another drive. Yes I know I am paranoid but it works. To heck with ransomware, if it comes, hello just re-install the OS and use one of the backups for all your precious personal data! I know it works because I have had to use it a few times due to my own mistakes. So, sorry Florida town if you did not bother to use the simplest of wo...

It sure is funny how people react to men ushering out ladies from a meeting to which I suppose they were not invited. Yes, this is about reports of an ecology protester infiltrating a meeting at which the Chancellor of the Exchequer was the speaker. It is funny to read the lady now complains about being manhandled, widely now shown on the media. TV, newspapers.. Yeah, sure she would be, dragging this out (sorry about the pun here!) for maximum effect to whatever her cause is. Indeed, I do believe we should be more assertive about the need for environmental issues to be highlighted. After all it concerns every living being, plants, or animals on this planet! But she was not invited and therefore ejected. Yep, with some force. She must have expected that, surely. Let’s be fair, if you march in anywhere to which you are not invited or even welcome, you can expect to be asked to leave in no uncertain terms. You cannot really complain. So, why would the man apologise, the lady appeared to...

Well, well, well, the reports in the media now tell us that many politicians have taken drugs in their youth. No, really? It seems endemic with the ruling classes and not to forget the rich upper middle classes who sent their children to those private schools where drugs are so common that they are now are thinking to build hospitals close by so that collapsed noses can be repaired quickly and without fuss. I have always believed from well into my youth in the Dutch capital that drugs were NOT OK! Frankly it shows very clearly the degenerative effect. Taking drugs in your youth will make you a politician in later life. It is becoming clear, isn’t it, that there is a rule for us clodhoppers and a different rule for the ‘hoi-polloi’. I am sorry but drug-taking to me is an affront to society and the world. It may have escaped your notice but drugs in all forms and yes that includes tobacco, are detrimental to health. Alcohol is slightly different, in large quantities it acts as a drug a...

The rumblings about our waste plastic are getting louder! A BBC programme with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall – Monday 10/6/2019 named War on Plastic was an absolute eye-opener as to what is really happening with our waste plastic. It is NOT recycled at all. It is just baled and shipped over to Asia, in this case Malaysia. A plastic bag that I use every week, every day to collect our household’s plastic milk bottles, glass and all other plastic waste was shown. Locally it is Rhondda Cynon Taf council, supplying plastic bags for our plastic waste to be collected because WE RECYCLE IT it says. No it shows they do not, they sell it on to a company or companies that ship it far away. I have often thought – what do they do with all these empty containers, left empty after Chinese goods, mostly all made of plastic, have been unloaded here to feed our insatiable appetite for trash? Ah, I begin to understand – some entrepreneur found a way – ship these bales of plastic waste in emp...

It was reported (on national BBC’s Teletext) that Ann Widdecombe had some of her theatre appearances cancelled as a result of her ‘homophobic’ comments. In this case her opinion on homosexuality meaning that in the far distant future a medicine could be found, made, discovered that would ‘heal’ homosexuality. Rather an interesting viewpoint and ripe for a very long TV discussion, me thinks. There are however a few things to consider here, firstly – what about freedom of speech? Are we now going to pander to the opinions held by smallish pressure groups? Or the liberal soft middle-class elite? I think perhaps it is time to define ‘freedom’. Secondly we need to have a good look at the whole PC issue. The trouble with political correctness is that instead it working for the good of all, it only works for a very few. Ann, we all know her cherished religious views, is a most outspoken person I know with some very interesting viewpoints that command some  respect. A lot of people inc...

Just wondering at the moment whether we actually have sane politicians in this country? I mean the continual snide remarks levelled at the American president. OK, you might not like the man but he is a serving Head of State and not just any old state at that! He is not my favourite person either but if I had to talk to him or about him I would remember that to negotiate a successful outcome to a problem or situation, I might have to forego one or more cherished opinions. However, when I hear the wonderful UK politicians like Bercow and Khan performing, what it is they try to achieve? It all smacks of a total misjudgement of political nous. Perhaps it would be better if Bercow was made to resign forthwith as I cannot see how and why a serving Head of State is not allowed to speak in that hallowed rat-infested building. Moreover Mr Khan should take the President’s words to heart, London has a big violent crime problem and unfortunately for him, he is in charge. So get on with it Khan a...

Whoa, I was hoping to have a nice easy Friday at the end of this month of May. But then I bought the Daily Express (a UK tabloid newspaper) and read Frederick Forsyth’s article. To say the FF is a Brexiteer is probably an understatement but nevertheless it made interesting reading because he was right. You might be a Remainer but the facts are correct, Theresa May has been a bumbling premier having made some atrocious judgements and mistakes. For myself I am asking – where do we get these people from? Eton? What are they teaching at Eton? At Oxford University? Even so, her ‘negotiations’ with Brussels must go down in history as an example of how NOT to negotiate. They obviously do not teach that at Oxford. Actually I just wonder why she bothered at all. The problem now is how to catch up with all the things in the UK that need sorting out but have been put on the shelf because madame was too busy trying to come up with more fudges to her ‘deal’. Who were her advisers? As FF pointed o...