Fear of the Internet
Originally from: Farmtalking
Fear of the Internet is common and really quite unnecessary if one is engaged in honest and legal persist!
I have published my name, address, contacts and details about me on the World Wide Web since 2001. Not only on 'Farmtalking.org' but also on other web sites too! Many details and references to me, what I do and have done, can be found on all the major search engines.
I also use 'on-line' banking for as many bills and invoices as possible. I can make individual payments to others, settle accounts and set-up, cancel and control my Direct Debits/Standing Orders on-line myself.
I also receive payments the same way without any difficulty.
If of interest to anyone I use the Eudora e-mail software and have an excellent virus checker and firewall and I use SpyBot daily. You can find out more about them here ¡V
„h Eudora – http://www.eudora.com/index
„h Grisoft's AVG – http://www.grisoft.com/doc/5/lng/us/tpl/tpl01
„h Kerio firewall – http://www.kerio.com/kpf_home.html
„h SpyBot – http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
All are all compatible and Eudora filters all my messages – in and out – including the Junk/Spam e-mails which get automatically deleted. I never delete any of my other e-mails as Eudora also has an excellent ¡¥Search¡¦ facility and info in e-mails can be found easily if it¡¦s there!
I have to be sensible and obey a few 'rules' such as ¡V
„h Make sure my virus checker and firewall are running when I¡¦m on-line, which is automatic, unless I switch them off! „h Both are set receive automatic updates immediately
„h Run Spy Bot daily and check for updates regularly.
„h Never open an e-mail message unless I¡¦m sure who sent it.
„h Never type my personal details into any e-mail that arrives and invites me to do so, even if it appears to come from my bank, e-Bay, PayPal or Nochex! „h Never ¡¥un-subscribe¡¦ to junk e-mails even if invited to do so.
Accidents do happen and Hard Drives fail so I use Orlogix to back-up my PC ¡V „h Orlogix – http://www.orlogix.com/index.php
Which reminds me¡K I better do it now!
It may have taken me time to learn but by using my PC and the Internet safely, it was certainly worth it, saving me time, petrol and postage!
I hope this is helpful and maybe will encourage others to enjoy using the Internet too.
Originally from: mark purdey
Dear All,
I do not feel that having confrontations on chat sites is necessarily a bad thing, providing the criticism is accurate and does not become 'personal'.
In this respect, I feel that I have had every right to defend my true position whenever I have been false accused over the last few days. Inaccurate and personal comments should be debarred from posting at the start, then no childish stupidity is going to ensue.
The core of my issue is not about my own subjective grievances over the refusal of BCMS to grant a calf passport to me and whether I am prepared to use the internet to communicate, but it is about the far more serious and far reachingdemise of the smaller farmer and the misguided New Labour policy to 'restructure agriculture' and 'depopulate livestock' as Nick Brown himself had stated. Any opportunity for the seemingly legitimate slaughter of livestock has been grasped since New labour have come to power – TB , BSE cohorts, the national scrapie plan ( or whatever it is called ) and now those late passport application animals get committed to the slaughter squad. 170 cows a day are being slaughtered at bridgewater abbattoir for TB alone – yet nobody is trying to identify the true cause – which would put us in a better position to curb the outbreak of the disease – same issue with BSE too.
As i have said before, this is an appalling waste of food resources when we have so many in the world short of food.
Some of you may have read John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, where the US gov literally bulldoze out whole swaths of farmers who could not pay their rent, etc. Today we have a similar situation , except it is an insidious metaphysical bureaucratic bulldozer that is undermining the very cornerstones of our businesses and driving us beyond breaking point. No one considers the psychological stress that one endures whilst trying to keep the everyday activities of the farm going, yet simultaneously having to deal with all of this government contrived mandatory hype. Almost 75% of the farmers have got divorced in my area since foot and mouth.
It is all designed to wear us down , until we throw up the towel. It is breaking the best of us.
I started up farming with one acre in the mid 1970s, and have worked for every penny I own. I am passionately attached to the small farming lifestyle, and am therefore experiencing chronic emotional pain at having to witness the current state of affairs and the hopeless prospects for our future under New Labour and their multinational corporate paymasters. Whilst it might be the 50–150 acre farms which they want gone today, it will be the 1000 acre folks that get targeted tomorrow.
Best,
Originally from: coleen
Hi Everyone,
I think it is no bad thing to be able to defend and put across a 'view' point on a message board. This thread has not degenerated into bad language. Surely those people on here who know how the system in questions operates can make their own minds up – as to who is being accurate in their postings. Prior to this thread, their was very little being posted anyway (at the moment).
I feel that this thread has once again opened up just how much anger there still is out there inrespect of DEFRA! and the total lack of trust given to them.
I would like to ask George (is it)? What first hand experience of Defra he has? Where in all of this (apart from being a farmer) are you coming from. Do you own your own farm? What do you farm. Please give us an insight into your daily work. You perhaps have the advantage over Mark, as you have read all about him (and he keeps no secrets)..yet (unless I have missed your posting) tell us very little.
I really do not think that anyone who posts on here – has any fear of the Internet in whatever capacity they use it for.
Coleen
Originally from: mark purdey
Yes, I totally agree with you Colleen. Farmers are isolated geographically and often too knackered to go and visit friends at the end of the day to have a good exchange, so problems which you feel powerless to resolve can literally build up to explosive level if you do not have any outlet. So airing these issues on Jane's farmtalking chat site can be very therapeutic for all of us , I feel.
Since I do not have any credibility to maintain , I have nothing to loose in telling you that, in order to get it all out of my system, I literally have to go outside into the mud and rain on my own and start screaming out my anger about the current state of affairs to the hills. Its a pathetic state of affairs really, but one has to laugh at it , I suppose.
Yesterday, a friend from wales told me of one of his farmer colleagues who had started smashing his head against the concrete wall of his milking parlour ( mid-milking ) until he fell unconscious. he had apparently just flipped under the pressure, which I can totally understand. Maybe if he had had some outlet for his grievances ( farmtalking ? ) he would never have inflicted this on himself.
I think people have got to realise that the farming community is not a bunch of paranoiac conspiracy theorists, but we really are being subjected to a series of government mandated schemes that are designed to corner us all into a no win cul-de-sac. There really would be an outcry if this pressure was being applied in such a blatant way that the public could see that we were clearly being bullied out of business, but by doing it in an insidious subtle manner – eg; under the guise of safeguarding animal health – the government are going to get away with achieving what Nick Brown had laid out ; livestock depopulation and the restructuring of Agriculture.
Its like if Blair and Bush had blatantly gone into Iraq to get the oil, then they could have never succeeded in palming off the critiques who were claiming it was "all for the oil" as conspiracy theorists. But becuase they feed us the line that they attacked Iraq on humanity grounds to free the Iraqi people of evil Saddam ( which we are all going to agree with ) then they can get away with palming off those who claim "it was for the oil" as the lunatic fringe conspiracy theory brigade.
Best,
mark
Originally from: Farmtalking
Hi Coleen!
I note your points but...if I remember correctly, there were some posts on the previous thread indicating some dislike and mistrust of of 'on-line' payments which failed and the CTS 'on-line' scheme.
I was hoping to re-assure anyone who had doubts that it can work and work wel!
I have learnt that just because some people can join a message board and post e-mails does not necessarily mean they are completely IT 'savvy'!
Even those among us, like myself, who spend most of our days at the computer don't 'know it all' and are still learning!
If passing on a little info of how we do it and manage to protect ourselves, can help others and give them confidence – surely that's no bad thing!
Jane
Originally from: gee
A little background,
A mixed farm part owned part tenanted, comprising of Sucker cows,Beef fattening cattle Sheep, Pedigree Sheep and Arable.
Part of a family farming business started about 110 years ago by my Grandfather who was a Shepherd.
Exactly the same experience of DEFRA as every other farmer involved in these sectors.
I must emphasise that I am very much hands on.
Just an ordinary farmer with a healthy interest in seeing our industry prosper and a healthy disregard for those that attempt to drag it down. It must be remembered that we have to start from where we are! and not from where we would like to be.
Gee
PS every time my spell checker looks at BCMS it pronounces that it should read "BUMS".
;-)
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