The people who run the world are NOT stupid. Start from that basis and so much falls into place.

OK, Ill grant you, many of them appear to be stupid and some of their underlings are employed primarily because they are incompetent at what they do. But thats the idea. There is no more affective way of advancing a hidden agenda than to persuade people that those making the key decisions are idiots and to have a few genuine ones around helps this myth to no end. But those who are really in control are NOT stupid. No, no no.

I can give you a wonderful example of that from Europe. Some years ago the media was full of stories about the "beef mountains", "butter mountains", "grain mountains" and "wine lakes". These were the vast stockpiles of food and wine caused by massive overproduction by farmers in the European community (now Union) which could not be sold. The bureaucrats of Brussels were condemned as incompetent and stupid and therefore the true agenda was obscured. Now look at what was really happening:

The farmers overproduced because the bureaucrats said they would buy (the taxpayer would buy) whatever they produced at an agreed price no matter what. The farmers were enticed into this trap by greed and naiveti. It is amazing how naove people can become when they see dollar signs before their eyes. The next stage was to encourage public hostility to the food mountains and the policy that was making farming a license to print money.

In "response" to this "public concern", the same bureaucrats changed the policy and stopped the no-questions-asked subsidies. Now the smaller farmers were faced with vastly reduced subsidies and the need to sell their produce on the "open market  a market in which prices had plummeted because of the surpluses all across Europe caused by bureaucrats policies. So what happened? Enormous numbers of smaller farmers went out of business. And what was the result of that? The major transnational corporations moved in, bought their farms at knockdown prices or allowed them to disappear, and the grip on world food production from soil to plate was increased dramatically.

But people didnt see that agenda. They saw what they thought was incompetence. Which brings me to Y2K.

There are only two digits on most computerized systems to count the passing of the years. 1999 to a computer is 99. This means that when they click to the year 2000, the computer will register 00. The question then arises; will the computer take this to be the year 2000 or the year 1900? If it picks 1900 the system it controls will fail, be it energy, banking, whatever. Does anyone believe that such lack of foresight, given the possible consequences, was just incompetence? Well, heres one who doesnt for a start.

I have written in my books and emphasized in my talks the technique I call problem-reaction-solution. This is when you covertly create a problem and blame someone else for it. You then encourage people to demand that "something must be done" about the problem and this gives you the opportunity to offer the solution  the policy you wanted to introduce all along.

This is why chaos is a wonderful means of control, indeed essential to it on a mass scale. Chaos always divides people (every man for himself) and chaos always leads to a demand to restore order  "something must be done". It is not without reason that the Freemasonic motto "Ordo Ab Chao" translates as order out of chaos. In other wordsproblem, reaction, solution.

The agenda for the Millenium years is to introduce a world government, central bank, currency, army, and a micro chipped population linked to a global computer. Anyone with an activated brain cell can see this unfolding before our eyes every day. However, if you want the quick road to this global fascist structure, you need a massive global problem (global chaos) to which you can offer a global solution. And nothing fits the bill better than a collapse of the computer system on which the world economy and daily life now depends (on purpose).

It really doesnt matter if the effects of Y2K are as bad as we are led to believe with power failures, food shortages, money chaos, and the like, or whether they are being overblown. The fact is that the Y2K propaganda means they have an excuse to collapse the computer system which people will accept is the result of Y2K, whether it is or not. The collapse of the money system and the value of currencies will open the way to a global electronic currency to solve the "problem". The chaos will "justify" the imposition of global martial law and rule by the military.

If you think thats far fetched I can tell you that every country I have been to recently, including the UK, Australia, and the United States, is officially talking about the need to have troops on the streets in the wake of the Y2K computer collapse. And what happens when you introduce martial law or a state of emergency? All freedoms (what is left of them) are suspended. Let me give you the example of the United States and if you look you will see the same situation is true of your own country. It certainly is of the United Kingdom.

Most Americans dont realize that the US has been officially in a state of emergency since March 9th, 1933, when it was introduced by the puppet president (and they all are), Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This state of emergency, justified by a manipulated financial "crisis" has never been revoked and in truth, the Constitution of the United States has been suspended since then. This has allowed endless anti-constitutional policies to be introduced quite legally. But, of course, the global hierarchy I call the Brotherhood does not want to use this situation openly because the scam will be exposed. Instead they are planning to create chaos to justify the official introduction of a state of emergency and Y2K fits the bill perfectly.

When the state of emergency is announced by the President (or rather those who control him) a series of Executive Orders are activated into law. Executive Orders are whenever there is a state of national emergency. In truth, they have been law from the moment they were written. Since March 9th, 1933.

George Washington signed the first Executive Order or "EO" in 1789 and they were consolidated as one by President Clinton on June 3rd, 1994 as Executive Order 12919. Here are just a few of the powers that will become law when the Y2K "state of emergency" is introduced:

EO 10995: Allows the President to "amend, modify or revoke frequency assignments". In other words to take control of all radio, television, and telecommunications.

EO 10997: Gives the executive government the right to take over all energy production and distribution, including electrical power, fuel for transport, solid fuels and minerals.

EO 10998: Puts all food resources under the control of the Secretary of Agriculture

EO 10999: Gives the control over ALL transportation, public and private, to the Secretary of Commerce

EO 11000 Wait for this one. It gives power to the government to dictate where people will live, where they will work, and what they are paid  if anything. Families can be broken up, quite legally and children taken from their parents with no legal appeal possible for at least six months.

EO 11002 Allows FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to order the registration of all citizens to control their movement and relocation. FEMA itself was created by an Executive Order (12148) signed by President Carter.

FEMA also controls the establishment and administration of concentration camps, yes concentration camps, across the United States where the dissidents will be taken unless we wake up fast. Videos of these places exist. This puts into perspective the statement by General Frank Salzedo, FEMAs former civil security chief, who said that FEMAs responsibility included the "prevention of dissident groups from gaining access to US opinion or a global audience in times of crisis".

When the state of emergency is introduced, the power of Congress, what there is of it, will be suspended and they cannot overturn or challenge any of these Executive Orders for at least six months after they become laws. By which time there would be no Congress. If you dont live in the United States, that doesnt matter. Your country will have exactly the same laws waiting for a national emergency to activate them. And who decides what is a national emergency? The very people who created the laws.

Ladies and gentlemen. This is no longer some prediction for the future. We are on the brink of this now. It is happening around you and we all have a choice. We can sit around and continue to be victims of this global agenda or we can get off our arse, stand up and be counted.

We have the opportunity in the next 18 months to change the world or be imprisoned by it. It is a crossroads, a turning point, we are being offered here in our eternal journey to true love and enlightenment. Are we going to go quietly into mental, emotional, and physical enslavement? Or are we going to open our lungs and scream

FRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE DDDDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM?

I know what I am going to do. Excuse me while I take a very deep breath.

David Icke, January 1999

Link at

David Icke Home Page

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), February 11, 1999

Answers

If David Icke was not highlighted in the Time cover story he missed a great opportunity.

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), February 11, 1999.

The nice thing about being paranoid is you only has to be right once.

I agree with the general premise that we are in the process of losing our liberties. However, I don't believe the it is necessarily a grand scheme dating back to 1933.

If the people do not control the government it will eventually control them. We have systematically givem up our rights bit by bit for over 100 years.

Even though we are a Democratic Republic, it is always the nature of the State to want to perpetuate itself. Any State finds itself in conflict with the governed to varying degrees. The beauty of our Founding Fathers, and the Constitution was they managed to develope a system were the State was forced to compete against itself, thus its power was limited.

This worked as long as the people were inteligent enough to jealously guard their rights. Since, the beginning of this century, technology, global conflicts, and a loss of faith in our country have resulted in the people granting more and more power to the government.

It could be under the guise of "National Security", Natural Disaster Relief, Crime, you name it and we bought it. "Just give us the power and we will make you safe, protect your money ect.

Now we are rapidly approaching a time when those few liberties we actually have left can be easily snatched away. Y2K may be the triggering event, but it just as easily could have been a nuclear exchange. The goverment today is just waiting for the excuse.

Low voter turnout, 70% rating for the likes of Clinton, we are a nation of sheep. Not everyone, but it is strange that no one questions these executive orders. No one in power fears this? Well, the were some coutries in Europe in the thirties that feel asleep. We saved them, who will save us? Particularly since we have sat on our well fed butts and watched it happen.

USA TODAY- Roughly 70% believe Clinton is a perjuror and obstructed justice. 68% want him to stay in office anyway. Enough Said

-- Archemedes (robin@icubed.com), February 11, 1999.

Well put. Well said.

I think the truth is bits and pieces of what Mr. Ickes wrote, and what everyone has been contributing to in this forum. If we could all take it all in and look at the big picture....

...we are in very big trouble.

Especially when the last great experiment in freedom's citizens are fast, fast asleep and don't care.

To all our peril.

-- INVAR (gundark@aol.com), February 11, 1999.

To: David Icke and others who like to pretend that Executive Orders somehow have magic powers --

If Mr. Icke had actually done basic fact-checking before publishing his article quoted at the head of this thread, he would have found that six of the EOs he lists as "powers that will become law when the Y2K 'state of emergency' is introduced" were actually revoked by President Nixon.

Yes, _Nixon_. It's been more than a quarter of a century since EOs 10995, 10997-11000, and 11002 had any legal effect. Nixon revoked them in 1969 and 1970. This information is readily available on the Internet -- look it up if you don't believe me.

Did Icke simply copy what someone else wrote without checking it? I've seen this list of EOs and alleged effects before. Who started it? Why has everyone who's copied it and passed it on failed to check its factual accuracy? Could it be that factual accuracy is not important to comspiracy theorists?

(As I've speculated before in another discussion of erroneous assertions about EOs: What if ... the list was originated by some liberal who, fully knowing that it was factually unsound, wanted to see how far it would get in making the rounds among conservative conspiracists? Sort of a conspiracists' IQ test? And someone's laughing his/her head off every time he/she sees another incarnation of it?)

Now please don't come back with something like "But the powers in EO such-and-such were resurrected in EO so-and-so after EO such-and-such was revoked." The response will be along the lines of "Then why didn't Icke get the facts straight by listing EO so-and-so instead of EO such-and-such? He didn't even mention EO so-and-so. This carelessness with facts might well lead one to suspect that Icke doesn't even understand the content, meaning, or effects of the EOs he cites."

Icke has revealed himself to be blatantly careless with facts that could have been checked out in only a few minutes. What does that say about the mental discipline guiding the rest of what he wrote?

-- No Spam Please (anon@ymous.com), February 12, 1999.

(continued)

Oh, damn ...

I was going to do a bit on the irony of the article's title, vis-a-vis the factual incompetency within it. Oh, botheration ....

-- No Spam Please (anon@ymous.com), February 12, 1999.

My preceding two posts are to be taken in a spirit of entertainment. :-)

As is the article quoted. :-D

-- No Spam Please (anon@ymous.com), February 12, 1999.

To Anon:

As you seem to know something about EO's.

Could not any President simply issue EO's similar to those rescinded?

What are the checks and balances on EO'S

For example can not the President declare A national emergency and suspend the Constitution? Declare Martial Law thru FEMA ect.

-- Archemedes (robin@icubed.com), February 12, 1999.

The EOs mentioned by 'No Spam' were cancelled by Nixon. However, they were cancelled by replacement, not repeal. I suggest you read the fine print in EOs signed by Clinton. The major problem is that under martial law, it is not necessary for Bill to expose himself (sorry) by issuing a "proclamation" when an Executive Directive (not Order) will do just as well AND not be public. I submit for your learned response that it makes not a whit of difference which he uses, the results will be the same. BAA BAA BAA We, the sheeple, ....

-- Lobo (hiding@woods.com), February 12, 1999.

Archemedes (robin@icubed.com),

EOs are Executive Orders. As in: the President (the chief executive) of the United States carries out his duties by, among other things, issuing orders. "Executive Orders" are a certain category of Presidential order which survives the term of the President who issued it. That is, an Executive Order remains in effect until amended or revoked by the same or subsequent President.

Though I have not served in the armed forces, it seems to me that EOs are analogous to military "standing orders". I may be mistaken about this.

>Could not any President simply issue EO's similar to those rescinded?

Yes. So? It is a well established phenomenon that whenever a new President is of different political views than his predecessor, he promptly changes stuff established by the predecessor with which he disagrees. Then when another President taking office is of similar political view to the first one, he would probably reverse those changes, back to similar to what they were before. EOs are a non-magical part of this process.

Sorry about repeating the bit about "magic", but a lot of Clinton opponents seem to have developed and promoted the idea that EOs have properties above and beyond the bounds of our governmental and legal system. Every President has issued EOs. There is nothing particularly special about Clinton's issuance of EOs, even though Clinton opponents sometimes protray EOs as sinister. (Ask them if Republican Presidents' EOs were sinister. :-)

Analogously, Congress can simply pass laws similar to those which have been repealed, as might happen when the majority passes from one party to the other, then back again.

>What are the checks and balances on EO'S

The same as the checks and balances on any other order of a President. EOs are orders of the President, authorized by the Constitutional authority of the Presidency. No magic.

>For example can not the President declare A national emergency

Yes...

>and suspend the Constitution?

No -- The authority of the Presidency derives from the Constitution. The President, other federal officials, Congressmen, and so on take an oath to support the Constitution, not the President.

Now, there are issues like suspension of habeas corpus or other particular rights during wartime. Issues like that are important, but it would make no difference whether such an order were an EO or a non-EO (except that, as I described above, an EO continues to be in effect until the same or subsequent President amends or revokes it -- but that doesn't give the orders contained within an EO any special status).

If it is proper for a President to suspend habeas corpus, it makes no difference whether he does so via EO or non-EO. If such suspension is improper, it makes no difference whether he does so via EO or non-EO.

>Declare Martial Law thru FEMA ect.

The matter of possibility of martial law is one for serious discussion.

I think it's possible that Y2k problems may temporarily disable some functions of some levels of government. These situations could concievably be unprecedented in our lifetimes. It could be that the National Guard could be called into action in several areas of the United States due to Y2k problems. Some people argue that the regular military may become involved.

I am lightly informed about FEMA, and so will not speculate about it.

Potential Y2k-caused problems differ significantly from any disasters we've ever experienced. It's a new kind of problem.

Many aspects of this can be debated. The likelihood of violation of civil liberties can be debated. I support the maintenance of all civil liberties for all of the U.S. at all times.

Some people contend that Y2k problems will be used as an excuse for actions which exceed those needed to cope with those problems within Constitutional bounds. While I grant that the probability of such is nonzero, I think that if Y2k-knowledgable people continue to speak out about the many potential consequences of Y2k which lie outside our "ordinary" experience of the past few decades, this danger and others will be adequately coped with by our societal and governmental systems. That is, it is necessary to guard against them, but I predict that such dangers will not come to pass.

Guarding against improper actions by our government can be accomplished without vilifying the current President.

I think it is vitally important for anyone who warns about extreme possibilities to keep their facts and logical thinking straight. Sloppy thinking, use of factually-incorrect arguments, or politically-motivated vilification will damage the credibility of those using them, and cannot be helpful to either side of discussion of the important issues lying ahead for our country in the next couple of years.

-- No Spam Please (anon@ymous.com), February 12, 1999.

I believe David Icke is essentially right. The two digit v four digit scenario can be explained below - however the point David Icke is making is that essentially the Government, here and elsewhere COULD cause just the type of chaos that y2k would have caused anyway - just look at last nights 20/20 show on EMP warfare, consider the recent announcements about cyber-terrorism and y2k, how the alphabet agencies are all busily preparing - work it all out for yourselves folks.

The techies amongst us, myself included, think, no way, this cannot possibly be true, how can "they" have planned that the absence of two didgits would cause world-wide chaos at the stroke of midnight 2000...

Or could "they"...?

Consider these two factoids...

1. The history of this date standard is very very murky. Essentially what happened back in the 60's, a committee was formed to make recommendations - one of which was that a 4 digit year field was to become the norm. This took over THREE years to thrash out, and guess what, IT WAS OVERRULED BY THE PENTAGON!!!, specifically THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE... curiouser and curiouser....... That shockingly short-sighted decree essentially sealed our fate. Thenceforth we layered software over software and we are now in this mess with time having run out world-wide. All this is explained in great detail in the Vanity Fair article.

And I quote...

"Among them was Robert Bemer, an IBM wizard who had invented the "Escape" key, and was one of the creators of "ASCII," the language that enabled different computer systems to "talk" to one another. During the 50s, Bemer also developed a feature that permitted COBOL programmers to use either two or four digit year dates. A passionate proponent of the latter, in 1960 Bemer joined with 47 other industry and government specialists to come up with universally accepted computer standards. The wrangling, however, stretched out for years- too many years for the White House, which, in 1967, ordered the National Bureau of Standards to settle the matter. In so doing, the bureau was to gather input from various federal agencies, some of which were using two-digit years, others four. As a practical matter, the only opinion that counted was that of the Department of Defense, the largest computer operator on earth. For bigger-bang-for-the-buck reasons, it was unshakable on the subject of year dates: no 19s. "They wouldn't listen to anything else," says Harry White, a D.O.D. computer-code specialist and Bemer ally. "They were more occupied with ... Vietnam."

After years of losing fights, White transferred to the Standards Bureau. Hardly had he arrived when the bureau succumbed to Pentagon pressure and announced that two digit years would become the preferred option for federal agencies, starting January 1, 1970. Hoping for presidential intervention, White and Bemer rounded up 86 technical societies and asked Richard Nixon to declare 1970 "The National Computer Year." When D.O.D. lobbying kept that appeal from reaching the Oval Office, Bemer recruited the presidential science advisor, Edward E. David, to plead the case in person. Nixon listened, then asked for help fixing his TV set."

Vanity Fair Article - Essential Reading!

2. We all on this Forum are aghast at the way Y2K is, essentially, being IGNORED by the Clinton administration.

I repeat, IGNORED. Look at the State Of The Union Speech - a passing reference raised a few titters, with one lone Senator standing up to be counted. Look at the state of non-compliance of ALL US agencies. Now if you really want to get conspiratorial, just take a look at Europe, home of the Illuminati if you will - just look at the abject remediation state of England, France, Germany and Italy. Ask yourself the question - WHY?

Consider the above two factoids and Mr. Icke's thesis makes a little more sense, far-fetched as it admittedly sounds. Watch how things play out and bear in mind what you've read here.

Andy

Two digits. One mechanism. The smallest mistake.

"The conveniences and comforts of humanity in general will be linked up by one mechanism, which will produce comforts and conveniences beyond human imagination. But the smallest mistake will bring the whole mechanism to a certain collapse. In this way the end of the world will be brought about."

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan, 1922 (Sufi Prophet)

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), February 12, 1999.

off

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), February 12, 1999.

3rd time lucky (blush...) I believe David Icke is essentially right. The two digit v four digit scenario can be explained below - however the point David Icke is making is that essentially the Government, here and elsewhere COULD cause just the type of chaos that y2k would have caused anyway - just look at last nights 20/20 show on EMP warfare, consider the recent announcements about cyber-terrorism and y2k, how the alphabet agencies are all busily preparing - work it all out for yourselves folks.

The techies amongst us, myself included, think, no way, this cannot possibly be true, how can "they" have planned that the absence of two didgits would cause world-wide chaos at the stroke of midnight 2000...

Or could "they"...?

Consider these two factoids...

1. The history of this date standard is very very murky. Essentially what happened back in the 60's, a committee was formed to make recommendations - one of which was that a 4 digit year field was to become the norm. This took over THREE years to thrash out, and guess what, IT WAS OVERRULED BY THE PENTAGON!!!, specifically THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE... curiouser and curiouser....... That shockingly short-sighted decree essentially sealed our fate. Thenceforth we layered software over software and we are now in this mess with time having run out world-wide. All this is explained in great detail in the Vanity Fair article.

And I quote...

"Among them was Robert Bemer, an IBM wizard who had invented the "Escape" key, and was one of the creators of "ASCII," the language that enabled different computer systems to "talk" to one another. During the 50s, Bemer also developed a feature that permitted COBOL programmers to use either two or four digit year dates. A passionate proponent of the latter, in 1960 Bemer joined with 47 other industry and government specialists to come up with universally accepted computer standards. The wrangling, however, stretched out for years- too many years for the White House, which, in 1967, ordered the National Bureau of Standards to settle the matter. In so doing, the bureau was to gather input from various federal agencies, some of which were using two-digit years, others four. As a practical matter, the only opinion that counted was that of the Department of Defense, the largest computer operator on earth. For bigger-bang-for-the-buck reasons, it was unshakable on the subject of year dates: no 19s. "They wouldn't listen to anything else," says Harry White, a D.O.D. computer-code specialist and Bemer ally. "They were more occupied with ... Vietnam."

After years of losing fights, White transferred to the Standards Bureau. Hardly had he arrived when the bureau succumbed to Pentagon pressure and announced that two digit years would become the preferred option for federal agencies, starting January 1, 1970. Hoping for presidential intervention, White and Bemer rounded up 86 technical societies and asked Richard Nixon to declare 1970 "The National Computer Year." When D.O.D. lobbying kept that appeal from reaching the Oval Office, Bemer recruited the presidential science advisor, Edward E. David, to plead the case in person. Nixon listened, then asked for help fixing his TV set."

Vanity Fair Article - Essential Reading!

2. We all on this Forum are aghast at the way Y2K is, essentially, being IGNORED by the Clinton administration.

I repeat, IGNORED. Look at the State Of The Union Speech - a passing reference raised a few titters, with one lone Senator standing up to be counted. Look at the state of non-compliance of ALL US agencies. Now if you really want to get conspiratorial, just take a look at Europe, home of the Illuminati if you will - just look at the abject remediation state of England, France, Germany and Italy. Ask yourself the question - WHY?

Consider the above two factoids and Mr. Icke's thesis makes a little more sense, far-fetched as it admittedly sounds. Watch how things play out and bear in mind what you've read here.

Andy

Two digits. One mechanism. The smallest mistake.

"The conveniences and comforts of humanity in general will be linked up by one mechanism, which will produce comforts and conveniences beyond human imagination. But the smallest mistake will bring the whole mechanism to a certain collapse. In this way the end of the world will be brought about."

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan, 1922 (Sufi Prophet)

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), February 12, 1999.

i give up

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), February 12, 1999.

Lobo (hiding@woods.com),

>However, they were cancelled by replacement, not repeal. I suggest you read the fine print in EOs signed by Clinton.

You suggest that to me? Apparently you haven't read many of my previous postings about EOs.

I have repeatedly recommended that people discussing Clinton's EOs read the actual texts rather than depending on the oft-biased summaries presented by critics. Because it is late and I am tired, I am tempted to skip what I have done so often before in other threads, providing hot links, but I will persevere...

Federal Register - List of Executive Orders at http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/eo.html provides information about EOs (such as their history of issuance, amendment, revocation, and so on), but not the actual texts.

Sear ch Executive Orders at http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/search/executive-orders.html allows one to search Clinton's EOs by keyword and see the full texts. (If you want to look up a particular EO by number, use its number as the keyword.)

The National Archives and Records Administration site at http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/index.html provides access to the Federal Register (in which EOs, among other things, are published) and other federal publications. Take a look. Lots of stuff here.

(Why didn't you do the work to provide us a hot link or two to Clinton's EOs in this thread, Lobo, if you're truly an advocate of reading fine print?)

-- No Spam Please (anon@ymous.com), February 12, 1999.

Andy,

If Icke or others of similar view wish to persuade me, they'd better drop the factual sloppiness. Why should I be persuaded that Clinton EOs are sinister when he references quarter-century-out-of-date EOs instead? I'm not inclined to do his homework for him.

-- No Spam Please (anon@ymous.com), February 12, 1999.

Andy, Icke, others:

As I have mentioned before in other threads, I once conducted my own survey of the date-writing habits of people I met in everyday life. For several months I watched to see how people wrote the year number in situations other than filling out forms with preformatted fields.

Result: Exactly _one_ person in all that time wrote all four digits of the year when not forced to. _Everyone else_ wrote the year as a two-digit abbreviation.

Historical documents show that the habit of abbreviating years to two digits existed long before the invention of the electronic computer.

This practice was carried into computer programming when it started.

Esoteric theories are completely unnecessary to explain Y2k.

If sincere, those who insist that Y2k cannot have been the unplanned result of ordinary human behavior must be unfamiliar with the latter.

If insincere, they do a great disservice to humanity.

-- No Spam Please (anon@ymous.com), February 12, 1999.

No Spam - I agree with you, we all shorten a date to two digits, the class of '69 etc. Human nature.

Yes its is far-fetched, the possibility that this was orchestrated. However it bothers me that the DOD insisted on 2 digits after 4 years of wrangling with a 4 digit reccommendation. And it bothers me that Western Government is not taking the problem seriously from what I can see.

As for the EO's I am no expert. I know that the FED is a sham and came in illegally. I know that many patriots in the USA are deeply fearfull of these EO's and coming martial law.

"A handful were more foresighted. Among them was Robert Bemer, an IBM wizard who had invented the "Escape" key, and was one of the creators of "ASCII," the language that enabled different computer systems to "talk" to one another. During the 50s, Bemer also developed a feature that permitted COBOL programmers to use either two or four digit year dates. A passionate proponent of the latter, in 1960 Bemer joined with 47 other industry and government specialists to come up with universally accepted computer standards. The wrangling, however, stretched out for years-too many years for the White House, which, in 1967, ordered the National Bureau of Standards to settle the matter. In so doing, the bureau was to gather input from various federal agencies, some of which were using two-digit years, others four. As a practical matter, the only opinion that counted was that of the Department of Defense, the largest computer operator on earth. For bigger-bang-for-the-buck reasons, it was unshakable on the subject of year dates: no 19s. "They wouldn't listen to anything else," says Harry White, a D.O.D. computer-code specialist and Bemer ally. "They were more occupied with ... Vietnam."

After years of losing fights, White transferred to the Standards Bureau. Hardly had he arrived when the bureau succumbed to Pentagon pressure and announced that two digit years would become the preferred option for federal agencies, starting January 1, 1970. Hoping for presidential intervention, White and Bemer rounded up 86 technical societies and asked Richard Nixon to declare 1970 "The National Computer Year." When D.O.D. lobbying kept that appeal from reaching the Oval Office, Bemer recruited the presidential science advisor, Edward E. David, to plead the case in person. Nixon listened, then asked for help fixing his TV set. Frantic, Bemer and White beseeched private organizations to call for a voluntary four- digit-year option. But once more the Pentagon's position prevailed. Mindful of government contracts, big business went along."

WHY did the DOD do this???

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), February 12, 1999.

Cherchez la femme.

From Connected (The weekly technology and science download from Electronic Telegraph), Text-only version, 14 January 1999

The search for 'Amazing Grace'

Grace Hopper is the woman who in 1952 devised the programming language that enabled the computer revolution to begin. Her legacy, though, included the Millennium bug that could bring much of modern life to a standstill in one year's time. Robert Matthews reports

WHEN Angela and Jeremy Perron told their friends about their plans to move up to the far north of Scotland, they spoke of wanting to leave behind noisy, over-crowded England and about giving their children a chance to live a different sort of life.

Now, six months after setting up home in a remote part of the Moray Firth, they are becoming more open about what really drove them so far from the rest of civilisation.

This time next year, they believe, the rest of civilisation is going to be in a terrible mess: electricity supplies down, lighting and heating gone, phones dead. Food and water will be scarce, and law and order pushed to the brink of collapse.

It sounds like the standard, off-the-shelf, apocalyptic vision of some barmy religious cult. The thing is, the Perrons are perfectly normal, well-educated people. Angela runs a publishing business and Jeremy is a computer programmer. Their fears are based on something once dismissed as a scare story that now looks set to be the dominant issue of this year.

[Explanation of Y2K problem's possible effects.]

Precisely what will happen, not even the experts can say. What is clear is that the action of people such as the Perrons is no longer looking so rash. Portrayed chiefly as a boringly technical glitch for bean-counters to fret about, the Millennium bug problem is now prompting experts to reveal their own personal contingency plans for coping with the likely chaos. And in their survivalist overtones, they are strikingly similar to those of the Perrons.

Dr Ross Anderson, a leading Millennium bug expert at Cambridge University's Computer Security Research Centre, said: "Personally, I plan to have three months' food, a working well, three tons of propane gas and 400 litres of diesel."

In America, Senator Robert Bennett from Utah, widely seen as the most authoritative voice on the Millennium bug on Capitol Hill, is now advising others to start building up supplies of food and water. The Federal Reserve Board is planning to inject an extra $50 billion into the US economy to avoid a liquidity crisis caused by massive withdrawals of cash towards the end of the year.

In Britain, the Government has given the task of alerting and advising industry on the Millennium bug to a body called Action 2000. On a television programme tonight, Apocalypse When? (Channel 4, 6.30), Gwynneth Flower, director of Action 2000, voices her concern about panic buying as the date approaches. She is worried that there could be a rush on essential supplies and consequent shortages next December.

Such pronouncements reflect the growing acceptance that the Y2K problem cannot be cured - just mitigated. Despite the huge sums spent by government and commercial agencies - British Telecom's Y2K effort has cost #300 million so far, and Action 2000 is spending #10 million on a publicity campaign for smaller businesses - there are just too many programs and too many microchips to be fixed: according to one estimate, 12,000 billion lines of computer code, and 30 billion microchips.

How did we ever get in such a mess? The answer lies in a headlong race that began 50 years ago, and now looks set to fly right off the rails: the race to exploit the power of the computer.

Until the late 1940s, even adding up a shopping bill with a computer required PhD mathematicians and a small army of engineers. Programming the earliest computers was, according to computing historian Stan Augarten: "A one-way ticket to the madhouse." Hundreds of wires had to be plugged in to the correct sockets, and thousands of switches set. It took technicians days just to set up the machines correctly.

And then along came Grace Murray Hopper, a computer specialist with the US Navy and one of the most colourful of the many eccentric characters in the history of computing. Born in 1906, Hopper was a native New Yorker with a PhD in mathematics and a wit and intellect to match. She worked into her eighties and well-earned the sobriquet "Amazing Grace". She claimed she always preferred to work with women because "they finish up things and men don't".

Her office featured a skull and crossbones flag and a wall-clock that ran backwards, because she thought people needed to be reminded to think flexibly. She also had an egalitarian's desire to make the power of the computer accessible to others.

In 1952, Hopper came up with a crucial invention: the "compiler", a set of instructions allowing computers to be given orders written in standard language, which were then automatically translated into the computer's own esoteric code.

Hopper's compiler was the bridge that opened up the power of the computer beyond the small society of mathematically gifted specialists. Known as Flow-matic, her compiler opened the way for the development of Cobol - "Common business-oriented language" - which allowed companies to use computers to handle routine tasks such as pay-roll and accounts. Her work also signalled the start of the scramble to exploit that power - a scramble in which the limitations of early computer hardware had to be overcome by all and any means.

And chief of these limitations was memory. Despite the giant size of the early computers, the primitive machines could not store much data in their electronic "brains", compelling the programmers to come up with clever ways of cramming quarts of data into pint pots of memory. Constantly searching for memory-saving tricks, programmers could find little scope for paring down dates: an absolute minimum of six digits - two each for the day, month and year - were needed to specify any day in the 20th century. Ideally, two more were needed to specify the century - 19 for the current one, 20 for the next. But back in the 1950s, it seemed senseless wasting valuable memory space on a theoretical problem 40 years down the line.

Simply storing all the data used by these early behemoths gave rise to similar problems: whole warehouses were taken up with vast heaps of punch-cards carrying the information needed by a company's computer. With so much physical space taken up with data storage, it made sense 40 years ago to keep the date code in the most compact form possible.

The memory problems did indeed ease as the years passed. Crucially, however, the omission of the century digits from dates gradually hardened into an industry convention.

Warnings about the existence of this subtle time-bomb within the millions of computers throughout the world started to emerge in the late 1970s. Bob Bemer, widely acknowledged as one of the fathers of modern computing, was among the first to sound the alarm bell. "I first recognised the Year 2000 problem in 1979," he recalls. "I warned the industry that a two-digit approach would have dire consequences in the future. My efforts at advocating a four-digit approach fell on deaf ears."

Peter de Jager, a US computer consultant, recalls facing similar complacency. "In 1977 I started as an operator with IBM, and on my first day on the job I noticed the systems were using two-digit years," he recalls. "When I brought it up with management, they said don't worry about it, nothing's going to happen for another 23 years, so relax. I did."

Then de Jager heard of how millions of Americans had been plunged into darkness when a single switch failed at a power station. "It made me realise that, in 2000, these dates would have a similar impact." Once disregarded as a doomsayer, de Jager is now advising the British and American governments on how to tackle Y2K.

The biggest obstacle is not the technical difficulty of dealing with the Y2K problem, but its sheer size. The task has been likened to changing every bolt and rivet in all the world's bridges. In the face of such a mind-boggling task, many of those likely to fall foul of Y2K are acting like rabbits caught in the headlights of a juggernaut. Research by Action 2000 shows that most companies and local authorities have done nothing to deal with Y2K.

Even those who are taking action acknowledge that fixing even 99.99 per cent of the problem may not be good enough. This is because of the "weakest link effect", in which a vast network of interconnected systems can break down through the failure of one small, yet critical, component.

In February last year, the failure of a few cables caused weeks of power cuts and disruption in Auckland, New Zealand's largest city. In May, more than 80 per cent of America's pagers, as well as broadcast, information and credit-card processing services, were knocked out by the malfunction of a single computer aboard one communications satellite. And last month, 330,000 people in the San Francisco region were left without power following the failure of a single sub-station.

While few experts foresee what is being called TEOTWAWKI - The End Of The World As We Know It, the impossibility of catching every single significant Y2K problem is prompting many to predict at least several weeks of disruption.

One American estimate predicts that between five and 75 per cent of the population will be left without power for a significant amount of time during the early part of next year. A year ago, the strategy of the Perrons in their Moray Firth refuge would have seemed ludicrously alarmist. A year from now, it may prove to have been remarkably perspicacious.

Cut and pasted by

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), February 12, 1999.

I have read on this forum, and especially this thread, until I'm almost blind. But, DO NOT LAUGH AT ME, I have printed great piles of posts on paper so that I will have this information if, or when, the SHTF. I'm probably much older than most of you. I was a teenager during the 50's Happy Days, which weren't. My parents were constantly puncturing my bubble of "everything is wonderful," by telling me the bitter truth about history; not some of the spin I was told in school, such as; American Indians were evil, dirty, Godlless heathens, spreading disease and deserved to be killed. People sneer at revisionist history, but much of it is the truth revealed.

I'm saving all these papers by programmers, economists, writers, historians, ordinary people, Y2K GI's and DGI's, and spin meisters, so my only grandchild will have a record of what was really occurirng. I've saved Y2K magazines, (Vanity Fair, Time) and anything that portrays both points of view.

I have some old books and reports on dealing with the American Indian problem by scholarly universities, government officials and do gooders. I also have books and records of the other side of the genocide of the Indians and the destruction of their food supply. My mother collected all of these so I would have a true picture.

I have many old, books about WWII, unfortunately some in German which I cannot read. I've also printed out copies of the l929 headlines, that Kevin I believe, created for us. Thank you so much.

Now how am I going to save these? Here's how. After reading A Gift Upon the Shore, by M. K. Wren, perhaps one of the best fiction books I've read about the breakdown of society, I found how to preserve my books and papers. It's almost as simple as making jelly. They will be safe, and my grandchild, will have an inheirantance as precious as water. But they will not be as openly hidden as in the book.

Having said all that, I have never, ever believed for one minuute that the people in charge, the people in the know, would let a two digit glitch bring the world to its knees; nobody is that stupid. And having said that, if they were that stupid, and we were stupid enough to not know, or find out what was going on, then we deserve whatever we get. After reading They Will Be Done, The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil by Colby and Dennett, I am no longer surprised at anything that our government or individuals do. I never saw this book on a best seller list either. Like Y2K, it was remaindered out to a discount store where nutty things are sent. But a recent book about Rockefeller's life was hailed as a wonder of wonders. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Thanks to all of you for your writings on this forum, which I've saved as carefully as a mother would her child's first drawing from Kindergarten..

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), February 12, 1999.

Sorry about the typo on the book title; here is the corrected title. Thy Will Be Done. I was in a hurry as my computer turns into a pumpkin at 8:00 A.M. CST. Again, thanks for the thought provoking thread, and the links and sources.

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), February 12, 1999.

I think the simplest explanation is usually the most accurate.........The Department of Defense may have insisted on using 2 digits for the year rather than 4, however it is a bit of a leap to then assume that they did it for conspirational reasons. It was simply more practical and cost effective for them to use 2 digits rather than 4. I've worked with Assembler Language and Hollerith Cards and saving 2 digits was a big thing.

One other point. It wasn't like today where virtually everybody has a pc on their desk. Processing time was also a valuable commodity not to be wasted. We would do our coding, punch the cards and then hand them in to be run on the mainframe. It wasn't until the next morning that we would get our printout to see if our program had run okay. One little typo, and the program generally crashed.

As far as trying to take advantage of Y2K once they realized it was a problem, certainly there is some potential there. However, the first question has to be "WHY"? What's the big advantage in having 'electronic money' only? From a practical point of view, we would be decades away from it at least. Much of the world is so far behind technologically that the scenario is not even plausible for them. Also, the oldest form of 'currency' will always be used, likely even moreso should governments try to eliminate the use of cash. The name of this currency: Barter.

Nah, this big conspiracy theory thing is a bit too far in left field for me anyway. The rich are getting richer already. What advantage would there be to destroy a man's desire to work and advance his station in life?

Then there's always the limiting factor. People only take so much. There comes a point where enslaving the masses always backfires on the masters. Ever hear of the French Revolution?

-- Craig (craig@ccinet.ab.ca), February 12, 1999.

Gotta add my 27 cents to the bit about 'butter mountains' and 'wine lakes'.

Didn't get them in the USA. Closest thing this side of the Atlantic was in the late 50's when we had........drum roll.......

Blueberry Hill

-- Craig (craig@ccinet.ab.ca), February 12, 1999.

Gilda,

>I'm saving all these papers by programmers, economists, writers, historians, ordinary people, Y2K GI's and DGI's, and spin meisters, so my only grandchild will have a record of what was really occurirng. I've saved Y2K magazines, (Vanity Fair, Time) and anything that portrays both points of view.

I think what you're doing is GREAT!! (And future researchers will thank you.)

>But, DO NOT LAUGH AT ME, I have printed great piles of posts on paper so that I will have this information if, or when, the SHTF.

No laughing at you. Low-acid paper properly preserved can last a long time. A few years ago at the library I perused some 400-year-old books in fine condition.

Magnetic media are not that durable, not to mention the necessity to remember to preserve apparatus for reading the media. I've read that some NASA data tapes from early space explorations (like Mariner voyages to Venus and Mars) are no longer readable by any tape reader NASA currently has. Either it didn't occur to anyone to copy all the old data to new tape formats before the old tape drives were discarded, or else there was no budget for that. This oversight is not confined to NASA.

>I'm saving all these papers by programmers, economists, writers, historians, ordinary people, Y2K GI's and DGI's, and spin meisters, so my only grandchild will have a record of what was really occurirng. I've saved Y2K magazines, (Vanity Fair, Time) and anything that portrays both points of view.

Great! Great! Great! Three cheers for Gilda the Great! It's wonderful that your mother collected those earlier works. Good for her and others who've done and are doing the same!

-- No Spam Please (anon@ymous.com), February 12, 1999.

Lobo, my apologies for taking your "fine print" comment as though directed at me in particular, last night when I was tired. Upon rereading I see that your posting was addressed to the readership in general.

-- No Spam Please (anon@ymous.com), February 12, 1999.

Gilda - superb, wish there were more people like you!!!

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), February 12, 1999.

Lot of good stuff here, especially Andy's.

Couple of points:
Conspiracy didn't start in 1933. It started at least as early as the 1780s. I now think that, along with a very few others, that the Constitution and the creation of the Federal Government was a sell-out of the revolution. In any event, from the "get-go" the supposed protections of the Constitution were violated. E.g., Washington's put-down of the "Whiskey Rebellion". Later, the traitor Lincoln's establishment of the supremacy of the Federal Government, by force, over the State Governments. That once a State joined, it was "stuck" into the Union unless the Federal Government gave permission to leave (fat chance). [No, I'm not a southerner.]

Hamilton and others throughout the history of the U.S. have tried and succeeded for short times to have a national central banking system. The last attempt, establishing the Federal Reserve System, (in 1916, whatever) has stuck. It was Jefferson, I think, who said to the effect that if central banking is established, the descendants of the founders will find themselves living in the streets.

Out of gas. Later.

-- A (A@AisA.com), February 12, 1999.

No Spam. Apology gracefully accepted. This b---- thing I'm using will not alow me to hotlink. New one's coming. No, I did not mean to aim that at you--you obviously are one to read the fine print. I was hoping to maybe wake some of the surfers up and maybe start their brain. I'm damned tired of trying to make it easy for the 'common folk'. I'll leave that to the Democrats. Speaking of which, how does our Pres's aquittal fit into this scenario? Do you suppose they will build a McD under the Greenbriar for him?

-- Lobo (Hiding@woods.com), February 12, 1999.

No Spam. Apology gracefully accepted. This b---- thing I'm using will not alow me to hotlink. New one's coming. No, I did not mean to aim that at you--you obviously are one to read the fine print. I was hoping to maybe wake some of the surfers up and maybe start their brain. I'm damned tired of trying to make it easy for the 'common folk'. I'll leave that to the Democrats. Speaking of which, how does our Pres's aquittal fit into this scenario? Do you suppose they will build a McD under the Greenbriar for him? Some of us are old enough to have been the victim of a Presidential Directive--not the same as a Executive Order. The one in mind kept me overseas for an additional 14 months in 1965

-- Lobo (Hiding@woods.com), February 12, 1999.

I have a 4 foot stack of printed Y2K materials right next to me, and the rest of the house is littered with more. I wondered what I was going to do with them all, and Gilda gave me inspiration. I planned to re-read them all (if not shove them into my DWGI friends and family's face) after Y2K, but after reading Gilda's post, I feel a new purpose in my life. Now my question is, how should I preserve them and where should I hide/secure them? What are you doing with yours Gilda?

Should I burry them? What if I lose my house(s) and everything?

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), February 13, 1999.

Chris it is a problem. You simply must read M. K. Wren's book, A Gift Upon the Shore. In the book, there has been a nuclear blast, and only pockets of people survive. Two of the survivors, the main characters, feel they must preserve what great books are left. They gather and sort, and seal them in parafin wrappings to stop deterioration of the paper, and finally they put them in a bunker/root cellar affair that doesn't leak. Of course there are very few people around to disturb them.

But one reason the book is so good is because it isn't the typical blood and guts scenario, although there is some of that. It's more about how people cope with a devastated country, and what they find is important to them. I feel it's important to me to preserve things from the net, that may not survive; simply the writing of ordinary people, as well as the specialists. Thank you for your interest.

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), February 14, 1999.

Thanks Gilda, the book sounds interesting, I'll look it up.

I periodically print the new posts on the Asylum and Fruitcake threads, also. They'll make heart warming memories for me to read again, on especially sad days.

I don't think I have the mental strength to worry or prepare for nukes. Thinking of the possibility freezes my brain, like a bad program freezes your screen. So I don't think about it. That's where I draw the line at being a GI.

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), February 14, 1999.