OK, so it took until Sunday Morning for the NYTimes to say anything about this. That is not unusual for them with Y2K news. They might be a little touchy about anything called "Pentagon Papers", though I'm sure that has nothing to do with it. Actually, I'm surprised they used that headline.

(Remember gang, the NYTimes was taken to court by the government over their publishing the original Pentagon Papers in 1971. The case went to the Supreme Court, and the NYTimes won.)

My, how times change. This story came up under two different headlines. I don't know yet where in the paper this is, after I go down to the corner and get it, I'll post that if someone else doesn't. I'm sure that it's printed under the second headline. The first is VERY uncharacteristic for the NYTimes, I'm surprised it even got onto the site.

Doomsayer Pushes Year 2000 Panic Button With Old Data

http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+iib-site+66+1+wAAA+y2k

Former Navy Officer Delivers 'Pentagon Papers of Y2K'

http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+iib-site+112+0+wAAA+y2k

By BARNABY J. FEDER

For months, Government officials have worried that zealous pessimists about the world's preparations for Year 2000 computer problems could stir panic.

Thanks to a prominent doomsayer named Jim Lord, they have a fresh example of what they fear.

Early this month, Lord passed the word that he was about to break an "explosive" Year 2000 computer story. And on Thursday Lord, a former Navy officer turned Year 2000 author and lecturer, appeared to deliver with an Internet posting he called the "Pentagon Papers of Y2K."

Lord put the headline "Secret Government Study Reveals Massive Y2K Problems in American Cities" on his report, which he said was based on a Navy Department study slipped to him confidentially. His account claimed that the Navy and the Marine Corps expected more than 26 million Americans in 125 cities near their installations to be without water, power, gas or sewer service next January, not to mention millions of foreign citizens near Navy bases overseas facing similar plights.

Many of the nation's largest cities, including New York, were on the list.

It turned out that Lord had indeed received Government information, but that it was outdated.

The document, posted until recently on a public but rarely visited Navy Internet site, reflected assessments made this spring by officials on the vulnerability of military installations to disruptions in basic utilities.

The officials had been instructed to assume the worst -- a ranking of likely failure -- where they had not received assurances that Year 2000 problems, the coding glitches that threaten to make some computers and equipment malfunction, had been addressed.

The newest version of the document, not yet posted on the Navy site but widely circulated on the Internet in response to Lord's charges, identifies the status of information-gathering efforts for the first time as well as the military assessment of the likelihood of problems. In no case where the military has actually heard from the utilities are disruptions considered likely.

"There are no indications of likely widespread failures" of water, electric, gas or sewer systems, the Navy Department said on Friday.

By then, however, John Koskinen, chairman of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, was scrambling to shoot down rumors that Lord's document reflected a truer version of official views.

"There are a whole set of people out there who would like their predictions of the end of the world borne out," Koskinen said.

He said that as the Year 2000 approached, the risk of public panic from exaggerated alarms about the computer glitch would grow.

Several utilities listed by Lord as having problems were swamped with inquiries following Lord's posting, which was reported by The Associated Press. Florida Power & Light was "astonished" to find itself listed as likely to crash in Fort Lauderdale and other areas it serves, said Bill Swank, a company spokesman. In fact, the power plant in Fort Lauderdale had already had its computers rolled over to Year 2000 dates and is performing flawlessly, Swank said.

For his part, Lord said he was not reassured.

"The Navy study raises many questions not yet addressed," Lord said in an E-mail on Friday evening, including whether there were similar Army and Air Force documents and what criteria were used to make the assessments.

--------------

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), August 22, 1999

Answers

Note that not a single "investigative" type question was raised, it was simply a statement of the Government's side of the story. Likewise, the article did not seem to provide any Internet links to where readers could look for themselves, though that may be in "side-bar", can't tell from here. And certainly, CERTAINLY, the article would not bring up the annoying point that there are at this late date STILL a lot of unknowns running around the SELF-REPORTED, UNVERIFIED, UN-TESTED utilities that ARE STILL WORKING ON THE Y2K PROBLEM AT THIS LATE DATE.

I especially liked the reference to "Spring" rather than the more precise "June 1999" date for the old data. Now, is that clever or what?

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), August 22, 1999.

Response to NYTimes coverage of "Pentagon Papers of Y2K"

Yes, King, very observant. The Times goes into this mode when it prints refurbished government propaganda. Imagine an editor telling the writer to "go see if Koskinen is lying about this"...the mere thought is funny. I think it safe to gauge the depth of government fear on this issue by the speed and completeness with which they've responded. As always, nothing is confirmed until officially denied.

-- Spidey (in@jam.commie), August 22, 1999.

Reporting is dead. Pab regurgitation is the norm.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), August 22, 1999.

Doesn't the government and their media shills know how utterly idiotic they sound when the only attributed quote in a story like this reads:

"There are a whole set of people out there who would like their predictions of the end of the world borne out," Koskinen said.

What the hell is wrong with these people?

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), August 22, 1999.

Having grown up around Washington, D.C., I can still remember the way The Washington Post covered Watergate, methodically checking each detail, cross-checking, etc. And that infamous eighteen-and-a-half minute gap in one of the Nixon tapes (or was it 18.5 seconds? -- can't remember now!), for which the explanation offered by Nixon's private secretary so ludicrous (rivals the one about Monica's gifts under the bed), the Post had a field day with it. As did virtually other major newspaper of the day.

Times change.

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), August 22, 1999.

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch- msg.tcl?msg_id=001HKd

OK, let's go ahead and assume for the sake of argument that the survey catagory "total failure is likely" only means that cities like New York may or may not have failures in its water and sewage treatment (because the Navy survey dated June didn't have enough information to make an assessment). The survey dated June did have enough information, for example, that it assessed Houston as an area where partial failure in water and sewage treatment is probable.

I would call a partial failure in water and sewage treatment a signficant Y2K disruption, and a situation for which some family contingency planning could turn out to be vital.

Is it actually possible that Houston might not have water and sewer service on January 1st? Well, according to this chart from the Senate Y2K committee's hearing on cities, the late June/early July report by the GAO on the 21 largest cities found that Houston had still not made its water/waste treatment systems Y2K ready yet:

http://www.senate.gov/~y2k/hearings/990715/chart4_tbl.gif

If my city's water/waste treatment facilities had problems for, let's say, one to two weeks, I know my life would be significantly impacted. And I would be glad that I had done some prepping.

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), August 22, 1999.

Oh, so now you want actually look at the data, huh Link? You'll never get a job for a major newspaper.

Something I found interesting, and haven't seen brought up here on the forum: On the August spreadsheet, there is data for other countries. It looks positively rosy! It looks like there are fewer holes in assesment in other countries than in this one. The point is, from the spreadsheet, it's almost as if the "Other countries will have problems, but not here" line is reversed. It's inconsistent with what they've been saying all along. Has anyone dug into the August version a little deeper?

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), August 22, 1999.

There's a quote from a news article in July that's worth noting again:

The Senate panel displayed a chart showing only 43 percent of the 21 cities' key systems were said by the cities themselves to be ready as of July for the date change.

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0017kE

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), August 22, 1999.

This is from the newspaper of record, huh? A totally uninvestigated story and unanalyzed. The reporter seems to be rewriting a federal press release. At the very least, one must ask, "Why was the Navy analyzing electric, gas, seware, and water delivery to all these cities. Had Navy administration some doubt as to the reliability of these systems on rollover? If so, why has the public not be notified that there is even some slight risk of failure?"

To me, that is more the point then how old the data is or how accurate.

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWayne@aol.com), August 22, 1999.

Got the paper. The story is on page A-31, which is the 8th page of the National Report section. At least it's in the main news section of the paper, and not tucked away somewhere.

Also, it was under the "Doomsayer Pushes Year 2000 Panic Button With Old Data" headline. Idiots.

Only other things on the page are a story called "New Faces At the Table for the Title in Top Chess" about a chess tournament in Las Vegas, and a 3/4 page ad for some internet company giving away computers when you pay for internet access. (gobi.com) They probably pulled in $20 grand for that ad...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), August 22, 1999.

Now wait a minute. The ONLY support for Lord's material that I've seen from anyone, is the assertion that material that contradicts his is either not trustworthy or not available. There doesn't seem to be any *direct* corroboration of ANY of it. It's just a matter of, well, Lord's revelations are right because we haven't seen anything that PROVES him wrong that meets our satisfaction. And of course, nobody has seen anything AT ALL that supports any of his dire contentions, but let's ignore that.

The NY Times has actually checked with some of the "probable failure" utilities, and finds them actually running with 2000 dates.

And you will notice that the best Lord can do to defend himself is to (1) Explain that he has NO IDEA how his data were derived (so therefore it must be accurate, right? Hehehe); and (2) That we don't know if any other service has done anything similar (so what? This is totally irrelevant). In other words, Lord himself can't find any corroboration for his material. And oh yes, Lord is author of Yet Another Y2K Book.

Sorry, pshannon. You can stand there with your smoking cap pistol yelling "Bang! Your're Dead!" until you're hoarse. But the grownups have better things to do than to humor you.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), August 22, 1999.

Cap pistol... Cute!

Personally, I am perfectly willing to completely ignore Jim Lord's version of the spreadsheet, and focus only on the August version (which I have open in front of me). It looks as though the default position is "likelihood of partial failure" and "1 = Occurrence is improb." Not "0 = Not likely to occur." Almost across the board. There are quite a few "2 = Occurrence is probable" in the partial failure category, and even a number of 3's, which isn't listed in the Legend on my version. (nabbed from DavisLogic - what does a 3 mean? And, what's the difference between "not likely" and "improbable"?)

In some places, particularly the Mid Atlantic, and Northeast (where it gets cold in January) there are "1 = Occurrence is improb" in the "likelihood of total failure" category, almost across the board.

There's a hell of a lot of "I = Interim response received" and IC listed. What's an interim response?

My Oxford dictionary defines improbable as "unlikely, difficult to believe: doubtful, dubious, questionable."

What do we as individuals do with difficult to believe, dubious information like this? Considering the STAKES involved, what does someone who lives near the Kearny NJ PSE&G natural gas facility do, with a "Total failure is improbable" and "Partial failure is probable"??? It gets pretty damn cold in northern NJ in January. If houses aren't heated, pipes may burst. Then they'll be without Gas AND water and sewage.

The article does NOT say that the NYTimes checked anything with anybody. It alludes to what the AP reported, utilities being swamped with inquiries. Don't get sucked into that bullshit, Flint.

I say IGNORE Jim Lord's data. What the hell, IGNORE Jim Lord! Pay attention only to the August spreadsheet, and what and how this is being responded to. That's enough for me to want to be prepared. And the whole point of this exercise was to point out that the public isn't getting any information.

You're not humoring me, Flint. Look at the data. Look at what the Navy and Koskinen are saying. Look at the unprecedented speed and ferocity with which they reponded to this. Make your decisions.

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), August 22, 1999.

but does the August spreadsheet tell you how the information was gathered?

-- doubting (both@sides.com), August 22, 1999.

No, it doesn't. I still haven't seen an answer to that question. There are enough 0's in the "partial failure" category to make one think that 1 is not the default, based on no information, but very few 0's.

For the Jim Lord version, Koskinen said that 3 was the default. For contingency planning purposes. IF this was the case, why aren't there more 3's on the August version? It's not explained what the default is. Also, as I said, 3 is not listed in the legend, but there are enough of them to make one assume that it is not a mistake. There's also a lot of "Pending, awaiting response," particularly in the Southeast. All of the pendings are listed as either 2 or 3. There's also a U , mostly in the Northeast, that is not defined in the legend.

What about all those compliant and interim/compliant listings that are given a 1 or 2? If a utility is compliant, why is not a 0?

Shaking head in wonder!!

Flint?

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), August 22, 1999.

Like anything else about the internals of computer code, public knowledge is (and has always been) a vast unknown. People write code and build devices and systems, and test them, and use them. There has never been a verification industry beyond the ordinary market mechanisms -- if your stuff doesn't work, it doesn't sell. If your IT staff isn't sufficiently competent, you are less profitable.

So at any time in the last 3 or 4 decades, if anyone had decided that we were facing meltdown and collapse unless every owner of computer code on Earth could provide ironclad proof otherwise, then we'd have been facing such a meltdown. Because such proof could never have been created then any more than now.

What makes y2k special is that truncating the first two digits of the year was a widespread practice, which will lead to unknown errors, of unknown scope and severity, if not remediated somehow. Efforts at remediation have been pretty damn strenuous. Whether these efforts have been sufficient (and just how important they ever were) remains just as unknown. The mechanisms have never been in place to assess the problem or the progress. Software is still the Wild West, sadly.

I'll certainly grant you there is all kinds of spin. But understand that this is utterly unavoidable. We have extremely important questions to which we MUST have answers, and those answers simply don't exist. And as Dick Mills explained so well, when you are given NO CHOICE but to provide an answer you don't have, what can you do? You must make a SWAG that suits your mission and hope you came close. If your mission is defense, your SWAG must assume problems. If your mission is to quell panic, your SWAG must assume no problems. And if you're really unhappy with your life, you want things to collapse so desperately (because your problems are never YOUR fault, of course) that NO amount of evidence will be sufficient.

No, I have no better data than you do. I believe y2k will be nearly (but not for everyone) a dud, because that matches me evaluation of how just about all such Big Problems eventually work out. But my guess and my preparations are different things. I'm insured for a low probability event. But I carry a lot of insurance. And I'm still guessing.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), August 22, 1999.

Sorry, I misspoke. Koskinen did not say that 3 was the default. He said that:

"The way they worked was, until you have information for contingency planning purposes, you ought to assume there was a problem..."

(From Thursday's AP story.)

The Pending categories, with 2's and 3's (in the likely category) make it look as thought this is also the case with the August version. Still, what's a 3?

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), August 22, 1999.

Thank you, Flint, for the explanation of the Y2K problem, and how the world works.

"...And if you're really unhappy with your life, you want things to collapse so desperately (because your problems are never YOUR fault, of course) that NO amount of evidence will be sufficient..."

You're an a**hole, Flint.

Didn't Jim Lord say:

"I'm fed up with being told that institutions must be protected even if it means we have to be sacrificed. We are more important than the banks. We have a higher priority than the stock market. We're grown-ups and we have a right to the truth. We the People of this great nation have faced every challenge thrown at us in the past. It's time to take this one on."

Tell me, do you think that Citibank more important than your mother? Or mine?

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), August 22, 1999.

pshannon:

Wrong question. The question ought to be, what could Citibank do to convince Gary North or Andy that banking is in good shape, assuming (for the sake of argument) that they really ARE in good shape?

Your quote assumes that things are NOT in good shape. Therefore, anyone who says otherwise, no matter who they are or what their information is based on or where it came from, is keeping us from the truth. We DESERVE the truth, dammit, we can take it, we're adults here, so PLEASE tell us everything is totally hosed. Because anything else is a LIE! We KNOW this.

And this again is Dick Mills saying that lies are ALL we will accept, because this is how we have defined the only thing acceptable to us, and we've called that the TRUTH.

So tell me, IF the banking system were perfect, HOW could Andy be convinced? WHAT could ANY bank possibly say that would satisfy him that he's wrong? And if there's no way to change Andy's mind, then just who is the asshole anyway?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), August 22, 1999.

My quote does NOT assume that things are not in good shape. The quote assumes that WE don't know what kind of shape things are in. All we get are platitudes. In order to convince Gary or Andy that things are in good shape, banks could release the results of independent verification efforts. Not that difficult. The SEC could make it so that it is not ILLEGAL to do so. This is why people assume the worst. It appears as though something is being hidden. Isn't it possible that there is something behind that appearence?

Personally, I think the banks probably ARE in good shape, maybe great shape. I'm willing to accept that banking is in better shape than any other sector. Maybe the bank of Small Third World Nation isn't, non- compliant data corrupting compliant data, yadda, yadda, yadda...

That has little to do with whether or not you can heat your house in January in northern NJ. If Mom doesn't know that there may be a problem, Mom will not do anything to protect herself. That's what this is ALL about. It's not that difficult to understand. "Mom, you need some firewood for the fireplace, some bottled water, and canned food in case the gas goes off. Might want to think about a chemical toilet."

The spin is doing everything possible from getting Mom to take those steps by equating Mom with some kind of terrorist whacko who's going to leave a suitcase nuke on the doorstep at the World Trade Center, if she buys a 50 pound bag of rice. That's because the spin is more concerned about Citibank than about Mom.

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), August 22, 1999.

pshannon:

Well, I've already seen pre-emptive claims that if FDIC released their results, it wouldn't matter anyway because FDIC isn't evaluating any actual code. Of course, other IV&V outfits ARE checking the code, but look at FAA and SAIC -- the validation people are themselves dismissed as useless. And even if IV&V outfits find a very low percentage of errors, ANY errors are held up as proof the job isn't being done right. There IS NO WAY to convince the Andys of this world.

There was someone selling gold on csy2k who sounded much like Andy, and I challenged him there to name ANY source of information that could change his mind about the banking system. And he admitted that there could not be such a source even in theory, his mind was made UP! But that didn't really matter in practice, since he's right!

Also, I'm not sure whether you're implying that the smoothness and reliability of our systems has slowly lulled people into being unprepared for anything unusual at all? And this despite known hurricanes, floods, ice storms and blizzards, etc? So Mom is saying, well, the government says y2k won't hurt me, so therefore trees will never again fall on power lines? That's a bit extreme for my tastes.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), August 22, 1999.

Flint, what about all the people who jam the store aisles the DAY the hurricane is about to land? 7-Eleven knows all about this, and is willing to market accordingly. RE: Y2K, the gov is saying there is no hurricane, maybe a light sprinkle. That may be the case. Other people are saying a category 4. Whaddya do with this? Leave the lawn chairs out? Or board up the windows?

"There IS NO WAY to convince the Andys of this world."

Maybe we should ask Andy.

Andy?

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), August 22, 1999.

pshannon:

About hurricanes, you're absolutely correct. I've lived in hurricane territory, and most people have these plastic maps and grease pencils, and track the storm hour by hour. And that's all your see on every TV station or hear on every radio station. So it's being followed carefully, in real time, and has been for the last three days!

And STILL people wait until it's obviously going to hit RIGHT HERE before they take action. And many of them have been through one or more hurricanes before, too. NOW, how in the hell is anyone going to get people to go out and prepare against something that isn't visible, and may not happen, about which experts don't agree in any way and the vast majority don't see much of anything to worry about? I'm sure you could broadcast Milne's FACTS (which are of course bogus conclusions based on wanting real real hard) nonstop, and still almost nobody would take action. Just like a hurricane only much more subtle. People are like that.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), August 22, 1999.

Yes, you are absolutely right. The other night on Art Bell, Gary said something like 1% of the 8 million people listening that night will do something, the rest won't. But giving people the opportunity to do something based on the best information available (which doesn't APPEAR to be forthcoming - because they're more worried about stock prices than Mom's safety?) is the best that I, or Jim Lord, or Gary or Andy can hope for. If they do nothing, that's their decision. I don't want to makes anyone's decisions for them, but I do want them to understand that they have to decide something...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), August 22, 1999.

You've put your finger on the heart of the problem. You want people to have the best information available, and it doesn't appear to be forthcoming. But what IS the best informatiion available? Yes, I know from your many posts that you disagree strongly with most of what the mainstream media reports, and you disagree strongly with what Koskinen and other government spokesmen say, and you like to point to obscure but rather frightening warnings, and you make a visible effort to interpret what information you find in ways that tend to match your conclusions (hey, who doesn't?)

I'm willing to bet that, in hindsight, most of what Koskinen and the mass media and the CEO's have said, will turn out to have been the best information available. I'll bet, then, that the best information IS forthcoming. Remember Duggan, director of y2k research at Gartner Group, said that doing nothing was probably a safe bet.

I'm not saying that you should go without insurance just because your chance of needing it is low. I think you know that. But if NOBODY carried fire insurance, only a tiny minority would ever regret it. And y2k will be much the same.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), August 22, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr near Monterey, California

The New York Times article of Sunday, August 22nd, entitled Doomsayer Pushes Year 2000 Panic Button With Old Data states that: In no case where the military has actually heard from the utilities are disruptions considered likely.

Jim Davis, who presents himself as joined at the hip with Koskinen on this issue, states in his The Navy Utility Assessment: ...the instructions were to put a "3" (risk of failure) as the default if information was not available.

This means that all of the 1's and 2's should be cases in which information is available. These categorizations were defined as probable and likely failures.

The Times article quotes the Navy Department as saying that: There are no indications of likely widespread failures. Presumably, by this he means that their report indicates the likelihood of only "local" failures, such as New York City, Baltimore, Dallas, San Jose, etc.

On Sunday, August 22nd, flintc@mindspring.com characterizes wrong-thinking people as saying that: Lord's revelations are right because we haven't seen anything that PROVES him wrong... flintc complains that: ...the best Lord can do to defend himself is to (1) Explain that he has NO IDEA how his [sic] data were derived. Let's not lose sight of the fact that this information is not "Lord's revelations" but rather Navy Assessment. No amount of spin will alter the fact that this was in fact what the Navy was thinking in June.

Speaking of methodology, though, personally, I'd like to see a statement from the Navy as to how their data was derived. If the method is to see if a utility has a webpage, and if so, take their PR fluff for gospel, that I'd like to know.

flintc apparently hopes to cause readers to question Jim Lord's motivations in sharing the report, when he says: And oh yes, Lord is author of Yet Another Y2K Book. Since it's been over four days since the White House has acknowledged that the Navy Assessment is a genuine Navy document, the question of motivation is not relevant. But, for those who care about such things, Mr. Lord makes his book available to be read free online.

The Navy could well have been wrong about the likelihood's of failures in major metropolitan areas. I, for one, am real disappointed to learn that they don't seem to have any better access to the truth than I have had in my own conversations with my pharmacist and water service. Can't these guys take their brightest Naval Post Graduate computer science guru's with some additional experience under their belts, and park in these companies for a few months to audit the work that is being done (or not done, as the case may be)?

The article quotes Y2K Czar John Koskinen as saying: There are [sic] a whole set of people out there who would like their predictions of the end of the world borne out. Whose predictions are we talking about, here? Let's focus on the issue at hand; the Navy's prudent risk assessments.

It may be true that the Navy has genuinely produced a rosier report since June, but even their post-spin reports are pretty scary. Neither assessment is hinted at in White House PR to this day. The public needs to demand greater accountability. For practical purposes, such vague summary quantifiers as "increasingly unlikely problems" are useless. This is why many of us are driven to personal preparations for "the worst."

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage.neener.autospammers--regrets.greenspun), August 22, 1999.

pshannon,

You were wondering about the Navy spreadsheet numbers. I suggest you contact our new forum friend Navy Dot Mil, weighing in down on this thread...

Subj: An Open Letter to Jim Lord (Sent By E-Mail From A Navy Dot Mil)

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 001H8i

... and ASK him... Ron Hei (RonHei@bellsouth.net).

(Ron. Should I give out your Navy e-mail addy too? Re: the one I snipped out of the original post? CONT DLPC [snip@xxxx.navy.mil])

Diane

(BTW, Flint. I consider my Mom and all the Moms and their families, across the globe, more important than CitiBank, et. al. Just my personal worldview on whats Y2K important.)

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), August 22, 1999.

Dancr:

I don't know how to make myself any clearer. We do not know where the Navy's information came from. We do not know how they drew their conclusions. We do not know what assumptions they are making in the absence of information. We don't have any clear indication of what these ratings mean. We can only guess at the difference between "unlikely" and "improbable". We don't even know who inside the Navy is responsible for this spreadsheet.

I mention Lord's book only to highlight that Lord is hardly an unbiased observer revealing pure truth solely from a sense of civic duty. Yes, I'm sure Lord sincerely believes we're facing Big Problems, otherwise he'd not have written a book in the first place. But as has been demonstrated throughout 1999 with stunning regularity, Sincere Belief in Big Problems has NOT brought about Big Problems. And Yourdon really *does* have pigs flying by now.

So let's face it -- these papers aren't any more gospel than the PR the Navy is now spinning out to us, and probably less. Where hard data really exist, those data contradict Lord's revelations in EVERY case.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), August 22, 1999.

pshannon, nice try, but you wasted your time. Flint it seems is transfering his mental age ability on you with that "pop gun" remark.

He said; "No, I have no better data than you do. I believe y2k will be nearly (but not for everyone) a dud, because that matches me evaluation of how just about all such Big Problems eventually work out."

What Flint in effect is saying with that statement is that, like a kid, he is confident that the grown-ups will fix this Big Bad Problem as they always have, and you too shouldn't worry. Flint still doesn't know yet that we never had this kind of "such Big Problems".

Flint, you probably are a very nice and fun guy to be around. You probably smell the roses and wish upon stars. I hate to have to point out your shortcomings.

-- Chris (%$^&^@pond.com), August 22, 1999.

Chris:

Check back with me in a year. And already, I'll tell you that it won't have been sheer luck that I "guessed" that we'd have only manageable problems. Try reading ALL the evidence, not just the worst you can find or fabricate, and you'll understand. Until then, we'll just have to wait and see.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), August 22, 1999.

The right questions to ask are these:

Lord's report came out Thursday (to the public), based on data as late as June 1999. When was this "August-revised" speadsheet last changed? IF IT WAS CHANGED OR RE-ISSUED between Wed and Tonight, then it was subject to political influence from the White House.

Who changed it? (That is, what was changed between June and August, and who changed it based on what data?)

One newspaper says one city (Ft Lauderdale) claims that FPL has been compliant and has set its dates ahead. But that's not what FPL had claimed prior to this press release from Washington. (Proof? Show me FPL's latest compliance schedule. Last one I saw had late Sept and late Oct dates......)

What are the status of the other utilities? How many have declared themselves compliant (in public) PRIOR to Wednesday?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), August 22, 1999.

I live in hurricane territory too and its amazing to me how many people don't prepare prior to hurricane season.I think Y2K may be like a hurricane that is heading your way,there is a lot of debate about its mildness or severity but one thing you know for sure,KNOWBODY knows how bad its going to be by the time it gets to you.Therefore,insurance is only prudent and I don't mean for 2-3 days either.

-- Stanley Lucas (StanleyLucas@WebTv.net), August 22, 1999.

Ya wanna know what I think? This is what I think...

"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."

Sufi Prophet Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan's prophecy (Complete Works, 1922 I, p. 158-9)

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), August 22, 1999.

And flint you gigantic ass, suck on THIS

"As a net is made up of a series of ties, so everything in this world is connected by a series of ties. If anyone thinks that the mesh of a net is an independent, isolated thing, he is mistaken......."

Buddha

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), August 22, 1999.

And finally, with regard to Go-SKIN-em's reprehensible fascist propaganda...

"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered!"

- No. 6

The Prisoner, in The Village

Screw off Kosky-baby!

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), August 22, 1999.

The July 15th Senate hearing on state and local government preparedness:

http://www.senate.gov/~y2k/hearings/990715/

Here's the GAO report about a survey it did in late June/early July on Y2K "readiness" in 21 large American cities:

http://www.gao.gov/corresp/AI99246R.PDF

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), August 22, 1999.

I will bookmark this thread. Flint has made it clear that he thinks people will not prepare anyway, so warning them is immaterial. Then he's off to chop, load and stack 2 more cords of wood to add to his 5 cord pile. So much for altruism in this day and age...

-- a (a@a.a), August 22, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr near Monterey, California

IF IT WAS CHANGED OR RE-ISSUED between Wed and Tonight, then it was subject to political influence from the White House.

Actually, it's been subject to influence since at least as far back as "the end of July," when Lewis (aslanshow@yahoo.com) says he pulled the July copy of the report. The alert could have gone up even before Lewis contacted Koskinen, since the Navy server may have recognized an unknown IP.

It could be that that report reflects the approximate true state of affairs today, and that the "June" report which was later slipped to Jim Lord was a cooked one. This could have been done to color the July report, out of fear that it would not be kept secret. If a "prior" report showing lots more 3's came out, the July report might appear more reasonable. This scenario doesn't fit too well, though, with Jim Lord's implicit trust of his source.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage.neener.autospammers--regrets.greenspun), August 23, 1999.

Not sure why everyone was bringing up Citibank during this discussion. Was it the fact that its Y2K budget is now nearly (*gulp*) $1,000,000,000? Sagans and Sagans of dollars...

In any event, I thought y'all might find this interesting:

InfoW eek: IT Confidential

Interested observers were scratching their heads over Mary Alice Taylor's abrupt departure last week as head of technology at Citibank. "Either she left or she was forced out-and the signs point to that," says Jonathan Sack, an executive employment lawyer in New York. "I know how Citibank works. If they want to let you go, historically they do so without any warning or notice."

If Taylor didn't threaten any kind of claim or suit, she probably wound up with a fair package, Sack says. Citibank isn't as generous as others, but it plays fair; she'll get vesting, salary, and outplacement services, Sack says. Citibank wouldn't comment, and Taylor couldn't be reached.

One too many budget revisions, perhaps. Should have said, "A Billion" when the project kicked off, just to be safe.

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), August 23, 1999.

Mac, that was me. I didn't intend to pick on Citibank in particular, I was just using them to represent "the banking system" because they are so big. I know that they have spent almost a billion bucks on all of this, and I certainly hope that it's worth all that money.

I also used Mom as a representation. My Mom knows what's going on...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), August 23, 1999.