And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/wr/story.html?s=v/nm/19981204/wr/outage s_1.html Senator Warns of Y2K "Panic" Factor (Declan McCullagh, Reuters/Wired News) The first summit organized by President Clinton's Y2K council was held yesterday. Here is the report, which is extremely sobering. -- The luncheon address was given by Sen. Robert Bennett, the head of the special Senate Y2K committee. Bennett said, "Even if the Y2K problem is solved, the panic side of it can end up hurting us as badly." Thus he gave clear expression to what "government officials have said publicly and privately": "Increased jitters about computer failures in financial institutions could spark bank runs in 1999." On the issue of the safety of electric power, "A representative of the North American Electric Reliability Council, or NERC, did his best to assuage the concerns of the audience." A Federal Reserve Board official, Stephen Malphrus, "said he lost sleep at night over 'these incredible interdependencies in the infrastructure.'" NERC's Y2K project manager, Gerry Cauley, thinks there's not such great cause for worry: "A properly tested and repaired unit at the component level does not have a problem that would prevent it from operating." Nonetheless, a sixth of power distribution companies have not joined NERC's industry-wide Y2K project. "And of those that signed on, 35 percent still have no written Y2K project plan." On the other hand, 45% of systems operated by those who have signed on have been "fixed and tested." "In North America, power generation and distribution is handled through three electrical interconnections, or grids, that include the United States, Canada, and a tiny portion of Mexico. The grids are split up into 10 regions and run by 136 control centers." John Koskinen, the chair of the president's Y2K council, said the government would be moving from contingency planning to a crisis-management phase. Apparently, capitalism is not part of their idea of crisis management: "In a crisis and emergency situation, the free market may not be the best way to distribute resources.... If there's a point in time where we have to take resources and make a judgement on an emergency basis, we will be prepared to do that." Bennett said that, with corporations like GM stockpiling supplies (to say nothing of ordinary citizens), Y2K preparation alone has "set us up for a classic inventory recession." Bennett also said he was "sweating" over the status of many other countries that "need major emergency support to survive." &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment ...http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ `"` `"` `"` `"` `"` `"`
