Those of you in Atlanta are well aware of who Clark Howard is. For those not, he is basically a consumer advocate God. For the most part he is quite informative. On y2k, he is lost. On his show today he stated that the banks were just fine, no need to get money out, and if you did you were not too bright. I agree that banks for the most part are ahead of the curve, but, its the transmission of data that could be the problem (he did not mention that). He's next statement was about stockpiling food. No reason to do that he states, the food chains keep upwards of six weeks stock at the CENTRAL LOCATIONS. I guess transport issues or possible gas shortages aren't an issue to Clark either. Lastly, he commented on the probability of local news doing y2k reports to fill dead air time in the next few weeks should be treated as "comedy tv".

Here is someone who really could have banged the drum and made a difference in awareness, but, instead has bit the bait of the positive spin. He doesn't even go with the BITR. A great disappointment to those of us in Atlanta.

-- theletterz (theletterz@yahoo.com), December 07, 1999

Answers

How do we send the 39 questions to Clark? My middle name is Howard which means "chief officer, entrusted by law with the care of the people" Evidently Clark doesn't know that meaning.

-- gl0ria (watkins@dtc.net), December 07, 1999.

He has denied reality for a long while - surprisingly, since he regularly deals with fraud, dececit, lies, incompetence (government and utility and service industries) and theft all the time.

Clark is a liberal democrat - who has chosen not to look at any other informtion.

He absolutely refuses to look at any secondary - much third or fourth level - effects of even a single failure: if satellites are out, or a business's cash registers or check reader/credit card scanner are out ot telephones or the central receiver or any of tens of thousands of other interfaces are lost between the store (in its town) and your bank, (in a separate town) the central bank (in another town) where the transaction is recorded, the store's bank (in another town) and finally back to the store's account locally - even temporaily - the only way to buy something - for those who refused to prepare - is with cash.

- Also, if the city or state centers are out - the tremendous mass of those using the state welfare cards are simply left helpless, as are any services depending on Atlanta goverment or downtown busineeses....

- I cannot explain his refusal to acknowledge the impacts - but he is blinded by something and refuses to think past the sthree things that the Democrats tell us are fixed:

- the banks (which are fixed, but our access to the accounts are trajectly vunerable to other disrupts ions between the bank the merchant);

the federal government - which has offered no proof of any compliance except their statements "we are 100% ready"....despite not knowing how systems they even have....and leaving the states, counties, and local governments totally ignored: but less than half are fixed.

the local water and services -including emergency preparedness - again, less than 1/3 have completed and have plans in place and tested.

the economy - IF the basic utilities survive/AFTER they recover stability - there will then likely be discovered millions of individual problems in industrial and automated processes (from oil refineries to carpet making to shipping and distribution) that will likely wreak havoc in every other distributed systems .... including impacts from overseas.

BUT - the Clintons' administration ignores each of these effects - and only desperately wants you to leave your money in the bank.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 07, 1999.

I posted and open letter to Clark Howard on the Clark Howard Show msg boards:

http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/clarkhoward/msg_boards/general_d iscussion.html

Pleas, as many people as possible respond to the msg asking Clark for an answer. If it gets activity, maybe he will. The letter uses the Y2Knewswire template, including the 39 questions.

Also, if anyone knows his direct e-mail address, let me know, so I can send directly.

I also sent a version of the letter to the AJC.

-- Duke 1983 (Duke1983@AOL.com), December 07, 1999.

Done theletterz.

-- Hokie (nn@va.com), December 07, 1999.

Here's that Message Board link.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), December 07, 1999.

Tom, Thanks A BUNCH for providing that link. You think you could tell me how to insert links? And formatting, too. : ) E-mail me if you want....

-- Duke1983 (Duke 1983@aol.com), December 08, 1999.

duke, thanks for the open letter to clark. as of 9am no response (from clark anyway). a few polly responses of course, but, no one seems to answer the 39 questions. go figure. did any of you see the local news report of the official y2k problem at the federal courthouse? quite a few folks got jury summons to report in 1900. of course they reported it as an employee used a non-compliant system to send the letters, but, they still insisted they were y2k compliant. is it just me or is that contradictory? "sorry the power is out, but, we ARE y2k compliant! see the memo, says it right there!"

-- theletterz (theletterz@yahoo.com), December 08, 1999.

I'm going to be able to get hold of his executive producer tommorrow (12/09) morning; will try to wrangle an invite on his show for 1/2 - 1 hour to discuss issues.

Anybody who can call/fax/write/email his show to "encourage them to present a different point of view" is asked to do so......obviously, I can't promise their response, nor give anybody a date-time; but perhaps we can at least expose his listeners to a more prudent viewpoint.

I hope we don't have to say "We told you so" or "We tried to warn you" - let's all hope this problem blows over with as little trouble as the federal government hopes/wants/wishes it has predicted.

And, if not, at least we'll know we tried; and it was he who refused to listen.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 08, 1999.

Duke1983, Here's a thread that addresses HTML questions. ? Help for HTML impaired? Sysop or others..

-- David L (bumpkin@dnet.net), December 08, 1999.