Crisis What Crisis? Is my friend over doing the stockpiling and am I too? Continuation thread (2)

[RedToothBrush]

Continuation of the AIBU to think my friend is overdoing emergency stockpiling thread for discussion about the government advice to stockpile for an imminent emergency and what the heck that emergency might actually be.

I'm moving it over to chat from AIBU as it makes a bit more sense to be there at this point.

Previous thread
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5576816-aibu-to-think-my-friend-is-overdoing-emergency-stockpiling?page=1

Spoiler: it's more of a perfect storm of lots of factors coming together to potentially form one great clusterfuck from economic woes, global energy shortages (mainly diesel), potential food shortages, war and madmen to crazy weather patterns rather than a clear identifiable singular thread.

This is a practical thread and a bit of a handhold thread to make sense of events and how they may affect you. This is not an end of the world thread.

We are however going through a period where various governments throughout Europe think there is an elevated risk of some kind of problem due to global instability and we should start to get our heads around the possibility of needing to be ready for anything.

Remember an emergency can range from a temporary unexpected event to a much longer crisis but the underlying principles generally stay the same.

So this is for everything from tips and considerations about what might be a good idea to do /save minimise potential risks to just straight old political bollocks talk about how things are developing.

This is the official government information and advice, if you want further details on what the actual recommendations are:
https://prepare.campaign.gov.uk/get-prepared-for-emergencies/

This does actually explicitly say to write a personalised plan for your household which everyone knows and understands and to talk about the issues you may face to help you be able mobilise for any situation which might arise. Which is exactly what this thread is ultimately for.

@Natsku I wonder if the unrest will come here too.
I never went to Uni, but when I was young we used to protest about issues such as nuclear proliferation and apartheid in SA.
From memory I think riots here have been in response to specific police actions and the poll tax.
I think here we are more likely to face disruptive civil disobedience than violent scenes.
Interesting that in some places the riots are happening, the police are more notoriously heavy handed, with the use of tear gas etc. You would think this would make people less likely to engage in violent disorder.

FT
Netanyahu, wants to attack Iran before the election on the 27th Oct to get his supporter to the polls (he needs the Iranians to bomb Israel to help him win the election!). The was going to do it the weekend of the 10th but Trump opposed him.

Trump doesn't want to start the conflict again before 3rd November for exactly the opposite reason. This would damage his election chances.

So Netanyahu and Trump are directly at odds with each other over it.

Netanyahu is still considering whether to defy Trump and go it alone apparently.

Well there are protests planned in London and Manchester for 20th November, so possibly. Let's hope it pours with rain!

@PoisedGoldBiscuit that list looks very sensible.

I have herbs growing on my windowsill and have plenty of dried herbs and spices. I have learned that peanut butter on rice cakes is too tasty for my stash. They will need to go in a box in the loft I think!

I agree about antibiotics @Natsku I hope you feel better soon. I have plenty of otc medication here and I'm attempting to build up an extra month's supply of my hrt.

Here's someone doing it properly/differently
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6n9r5dl3zpno

I think violence breeds violence so the more severely the police respond, the more violent protests will get.

I'm having a quick look at Israel and the elections. I confuse to knowing nothing about Israeli politics so if someone knows better it'd be good to have some incite.

By all accounts some candidates are even more hard-line than Netanyahu. But the main opposition is a guy called Gadi Eisenkot. He's an Israeli General who has lost a son fighting in Gaza since 2023.

Interestingly his priority is dealing with domestic polarisation which he sees as a significant threat. He wants to deal with the exemptions for military service given to ultra-orthodox men (who notably tend to be the hardest line on Iran). There's a growing divide in Israel between the people who fight the wars and the people who support the wars most because of ultra-orthodox views. Basically the religious zealots send the moderators to war whilst being unwilling to put their own lives on the line and unsurprisingly it's a massive source of internal tension.

He is quoted as saying that he thinks Netanyahu is unfit for office and is unaware of any “critical” development that would justify an immediate US-Israeli strike on Iran.

But it's still Israel and being more moderate is relative... He's voiced the idea of a 'kill zone' around suspected nuclear sites in Iran triggered by any changes in those areas. To be run by the US primarily. Instead of missile attacks elsewhere (which get blow back from similar attacks on Israel) he favours cover Mossad operations. Eisenkot thinks that the Syrian president is a jihadist, so is deeply concerned about Syria.

Where he differs particularly is in that he wants to restore Israeli institutions and be more accountable/democratic that Netanyahu. And he wants to work on diplomatic relations with France, Britain, Germany, and Italy even if they criticise Israel some time as they are critical allies. He sees France particularly important due to it's relationship with Lebanon. And he wants to work on tourism and business to bring them back and to reduce the anti-israel sentiment particularly with countries like Ireland and Spain. The Jerusalem Post explicitly states he might be kidding himself on some of these points particularly the last ones given the damage that recent action in Gaza has done to public attitudes being a lot deeper than he gives credit for.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-election-2026/article-907531
For more.

Whether Netanyahu will a) genuinely lose by enough for it to be decisive and accept it b) win by rigging or provoking another war c) lose and not accept or it be exceptionally close and there's potential for a coalition with another party (potentially an even more extreme one) d) this bloke doesn't quite get enough and has to do a deal remains to be seen

But by the 28th Oct - just a few days before the US Midterms there could a different leader and approach in Israel which might change policy and potentially what Trump decides to do next.

Trumps dementia dependent.

The Green Party are having a bit of a meltdown today about Jackdaw but the problem with all the Green washing is it doesn't talk about how depends isn't reducing and that what we need to work on and that domestic gas production is less carbon emitting than if we import it. Weirdly the critism is that it will break our commitments to carbon output in the Paris Accord. Despite the fact our consumption will produce less carbon as a result of getting it domestically rather than importing it and we'll have more tax revenue which we could use to help to support more green initiatives and cost of living generally. These carbon targets are a fucking farce in the way they have just shifted emissions to other countries rather than looking at the whole chain.

I'm glad they have given it the go ahead, but I am a little confused when they say it will be for the domestic market.
I thought it has to go on to the international markets to be sold to the highest bidder?

My first thought there is that mice will love both the rice cakes and the peanut butter if they get even a hint of a smell from them. I have been caught out by mice finding things before and now keep only tins where there's a chance a mouse might wander in.

You might just have to keep re-buying and eating the rice cakes and peanut butter. Oh well.

@GentleSheep I 'm hoping that by 20th November the European riots will have well and truly fizzled out and make it less likely for things to go ugly here 🤞

It's November in the UK. The 20th November.

A LOT can happen between now and then.

I'm not looking a lot beyond 14th at this point in terms of where we might be politically until the Great Shit of the Israeli and US elections have played out.

Let's get over those and do the next reassessment beyond critical infrastructure issues.

To be honest, looking at the extended range weather models, I'm not too worried about November 20th - I think any rioting could be drowned off.

note after reading that back - its not a specific forecast for 20/11! Just a general comment that November could be very wet.

Prep note - check you have airbrick covers, etc

We've now got an Amber warning for Storm Austen for Friday, mainly affecting Cornwall/Devon, yellow further north, but looks very, very windy indeed.

Hope you feel better soon.

Your post brought that it home to me. I don't need regular medication, but have had pneumonia twice - on top of lungs hurting, I struggled to get enough air in, couldn't get warm butvwas clammy, so shattered I couldn't cope with getting in bath. That's just one condition. So many people will be out there with other conditions.

Simon Nixon (previously WSJ currently Times)
Now we know why Trump suddenly turned on Ukraine just when it seemed to be winning. If Germany, or any other NATO member invoked Article 5, that would kill the Trump syndicate’s plans for lucrative deals with Putin

This how close we have got to Article 5 in recent months.

I have to take thyroxine every day but I get 3 months supply at once so its alright so long as nothing happens near the end of the 3 months. Also have asthma and thinking I will pick up another blue inhaler next time I'm at the pharmacy, just in case.

Very bad news.

Government websites go dark after AI-discovered flaw sparks security scramble.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/eu-agency-warns-websites-may-need-be-taken-offline-php-prepares-patches-2026-10-21/

That is worrying news

There's a lot of websites down tonight.

Including Class Charts which means there's a shed load of kids who will be given the perfect excuse not to do any homework.

Sadly for DS, I knew what he had to do before it went down so he still had to do it!

Derek Devicemanager AT IT_Unhinged
Security called me at 6:12 AM today.
"Patch every PHP server immediately."

I asked what happened.

"Two critical vulnerabilities. Remote code execution. No authentication required."

Cool.

How many PHP servers do we have?

According to inventory: 12
According to reality:
Nobody knows.

We found one running WordPress.
Three running old internal tools.
One under someone's desk.
Two inside vendor appliances.
A forgotten employee directory from 2016.
And a server named:
PHP-OLD-DO-NOT-TOUCH
Naturally, that one runs payroll exports.

Then we found a PHP 5.6 box.
I asked who owned it.
The documentation said:
BRIAN.
Brian left in 2019.
We called Brian.
He said:
"Oh wow, that's still running?"
Excellent.

By 8 AM, leadership joined the incident call.
CEO:
"Can hackers actually get in?"
Security:
"Potentially yes."
CEO:
"Without a password?"
Security:
"Yes."
CEO:
"Then why do WE need passwords?"
Not the lesson.

Finance asked if we could wait until the weekend to patch because downtime affects revenue.

Security explained that the alternative was letting strangers execute code on our servers.

Finance asked for a cost comparison.

At 9:17, someone suggested temporarily taking the vulnerable websites offline.

Marketing refused.

"Our campaign is live."

So for the next hour, the company officially decided maintaining a landing page for 20% off webinar registration was more important than preventing remote server takeover.

We finally patched everything we could find.
Then our scanner discovered another PHP server.

Hostname:
TEMP-PHP-2014
Uptime:
4,512 days.
Nobody knows what it does.
Nobody owns it.
Nobody can shut it down.
But every time we block network access, the warehouse stops printing shipping labels.

Security has classified it as critical infrastructure.
It is running PHP 5.4.
The vulnerability has existed longer than half our employees.

The emergency patch took four hours.
Finding out what PHP actually runs took eleven.
The internet isn't held together with code.

It's held together with servers everyone is afraid to turn off.

When chatting about Class charts and PHP to DH this evening, his response was "LOL"

There are huge parts of various systems he's come across multiple industries which are essentially held up by something that was written decades ago and next to no one can still maintain.

It's amazing things still run.

Meanwhile in the Middle East there's some Willy Waving going on.

Following on from Trump talking about dropping the Mother of All Bombs on Pickaxe Mountain, Iran is now talking about how they have developed the Father of All Bombs.

Earlier today Netanyahu had said that they had received information that Iran had decided to move forward with developing nuclear weapons and "the only way to eliminate this threat once and for all is to topple the Iranian regime". He has instructed Mossad and the IDF to "act accordingly".

Neither of these pieces of information sound particularly great, and it doesn't sound like Netanyahu will wait until after the Midterms from this.

Timour Azhari (Chief Saudi Correspondent for Reuters)
US STATE DEPT IS PREPARING TO ISSUE AN ORDERED DEPARTURE OF SOME PERSONNEL AND FAMILY MEMBERS AT US EMBASSIES ACROSS THE GULF - US OFFICIALS
https://x.com/timourazhari/status/2112979236378321123

Oh good grief, these men. 😡