NY Times has the IDENTICAL article on their web site, with two different headlines:
Former Navy Officer Delivers 'Pentagon Papers of Y2K'
search.nytimes.com
Doomsayer Pushes Year 2000 Panic Button With Old Data
search.nytimes.com
Identical copy. Just different headlines.
The newest version of the document, not yet posted on the Navy site ...
Actually it had been put on the Navy site the day before this article was published. I read and downloaded it. Here it is: nfesc.navy.mil
It turned out that Lord had indeed received Government information, but that it was outdated ...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
The report that Jim Lord published was dated June 1999. It was updated July 1, and then pulled from the Navy web site.
HOW DID KOSKINEN HEAR ABOUT THE NAVY DOCUMENT? I told him.
By Lewis (aslanshow@yahoo.com)
greenspun.com
Interesting reading. Koskinen had been unaware that the Navy had put this report together, and that the general public had access to it. On August 5, Lewis wrote to Koskinen, Bennett and Dodd to make them aware of the reports existence. In a matter of days, the report was pulled off the Naval site.
ALARMISTS, MIS-INFORMATION SAID RESPONSIBLE FOR SCARE
.. Szafran said the Navy report's contents have been exaggerated by a "right-wing" conspiracy theorist who gained access to a Navy Web site thought to be restricted to government officials and the military. "It was accessed by a couple of extremists who are using it to their advantage to tell people to buy guns and go to the hills," Szafran said. One extremist, Jim Lord, posted the report ...
theadvocate.com
PORTRAIT OF AN "EXTREMIST":
y2ktimebomb.com
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In light of the of the new spin of "everything's OK" , and Jim Lord being labeled a "right-wing" extremist and "doomsayer", I thought it was worthwhile to reprint this article from last month.
BIG U.S. CITIES SLOW ON Y2K READINESS
Friday July 16 1:31 AM ET - By Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Many big U.S. cities -- including Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington -- are leaving themselves scant time to complete preparations for possible year 2000 related computer glitches, the audit arm of Congress said Thursday.
In addition, nine states are ``behind' in efforts to ensure their most critical systems do not fail when the year 2000 dawns, said the head of a Senate panel monitoring the issue.
The nine -- which reported having completed work on less than 70 percent of their most important systems -- are New Hampshire, Ohio, Alabama, Louisiana, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, California and Hawaii.
On a local level, only 55 percent of the smallest counties surveyed -- those with a population below 10,000 -- say they have countywide emergency plans to cope with possible 2000-related disruptions to vital services, the National Association of Counties reported.
At issue are fears that some computers may crash or scramble data by misreading 2000 as 1900, the result of old space constraints that pared the date field to two digits.
Any such glitches, known as Y2K problems, could disrupt the provision of water and waste treatment, emergency services, transportation systems, city government services and the operation of public buildings among other services.
The problem could also boggle systems that hinge on date-sensitive microchips, such as traffic signals, radio communications and 911 emergency services that rely on global positioning systems.
Dallas and Boston were alone among the 21 biggest U.S. cities to report completion of efforts to deal with the so-called Y2K problem, the General Accounting Office said. The GAO is the audit and investigative arm of Congress.
Nine cities -- New York; Houston; Philadelphia; San Diego; San Jose, California; Indianapolis, Indiana; Jacksonville, Florida; Memphis, Tennessee; and Milwaukee -- said they expected to complete preparations by Sept. 30.
The remaining 10 -- Los Angeles; Chicago; Phoenix; San Antonio, Texas; Detroit; San Francisco; Baltimore; Columbus, Ohio; El Paso, Texas; and Washington -- said they expected to be ready by Dec. 31.
Joel Willemssen, head of a GAO arm that tracks information systems, voiced concern about the laggards. He made his comments in a letter released at a hearing of the Special Committee on Y2K issues.
``Completing Y2K activities in the last months of the year increases the risk that key services will not be Y2K-ready in time for 2000 because there will not be enough time to deal with unanticipated complications,'
Willemssen said.
``Given the amount of Y2K work remaining to be done in the last months of the year, contingency plans are critical to ensure that cities will continue to provide key services through the year 2000 date change,' he added.
The Senate panel displayed a chart showing that 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.
The GAO carried out the study by interviewing city officials by telephone from June 28 to July 9.
Sen. Robert Bennett, a Utah Republican who heads the special Y2K committee, said he feared that many state and local governments were ``leaving little room for testing, contingency planning and unexpected problems.'
``I hope these statistics aren't as bad as they appear,' he said in a written statement.
``Only very efficient executive-level management and contingency planning can sustain us through the upcoming historic date change,' added panel Vice Chairman Sen. Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat. |
