I'm kind of shotgunning this - some of you can pass it on, some of you can read it for the first time. Either way, it's important info - use it wisely.
cya!! <<Michael>> [email protected] http://members.tripod.com/~Outlands homesteading/survival/self-reliant living (and some fun hobbies, too!) --------- Begin forwarded message ---------- Gary North's REALITY CHECK Issue 26 July 23, 1998 OUR CIVILIZATION IS TIED TO THE TRACKS On Wednesday, July 15, U.S. Senator Robert Bennett gave an amazing speech to the National Press Club in Washington. It dovetailed with President Clinton's speech on Y2K to the National Academy of Sciences. Senator Bennett is Chairman of the special Senate committee on the Year 2000 Problem. In his speech, he made an extraordinary admission: I believe we're going to win; that is I think that civilization as we know it is not going to come to an end. It's a possibility. Possibility, if Y2K were this weekend instead of 76 weekends from now, it would. But we have 76 weeks in which to try to get this under control. I have never read anything like this in any peacetime speech by any politician. In wartime, politicians speak this way. In peacetime, we never hear such rhetoric. Why now? Because Sen. Bennett is not using stand- alone rhetoric. He is drawing a legitimate conclusion from the factual record. In the question and answer session, this exchange took place: Sir, a final question today from a veteran journalist. Why don't we just forget about all this computer nonsense and go back to using typewriters? Life was simpler in the old days. Your comment, please? SEN. BENNETT: Well, first you're going to have to find one! (Laughter.) But I go back to my statement when I gave you that somewhat convoluted description of how the economy has changed in the information age, we can't go back to typewriters. We can't go back to 25 years ago. We can't just forget about this problem because 25 years ago doesn't exist. Somebody asked it in a different context, but the same question: "Why are we worried about the fact that the switches that control the rail traffic in this country are all computerized? Let's go back to somebody standing there and throwing the switch in advance of the train." There are no switches to throw. All of the manual switches have been replaced. . . . We cannot go back because the infrastructure that undergirded our entire society 25 years ago has been dismantled. It is gone. The skills are gone, the people are gone, the equipment is gone. Like or not, we have no choice in this situation but to plow forward and, one way or the other, make it work. This goes to the heart of the matter: the train switches. They are all computerized. They are all vulnerable to the Millennium Bug. Without trains, there will be no grain deliveries to the cities. There will be no bread. Without trains, there will be no coal shipments to the power generation plants. A large city needs at least three mile-long trains loaded with coal every day. The power will shut off. Without trains, the chemical industry ceases to operate. That means the modern economy will cease. Western civilization is tied to the tracks. It's like the old melodramas, the old "Perils of Pauline" weekly serial. We can hear the train coming. Yet it's all a big hoot for most people who do hear it -- and very few do. It isn't real. It's as if people were on an amusement park thrill ride. "Hey, this is really exciting!" It sure is. We have 76 weeks. There is no plan to untie us all from the tracks. The train cannot be stopped. It's on schedule, and it will stay on schedule. There is no way to switch it so that it goes down another track, the way the hero would do it at the beginning of Chapter 9 of the serial. Mr. Bennett says he thinks we can win. I ask: Why? What evidence does he have that indicates that the problem of embedded chips is being solved, that the data interconnection problem has a solution, or that most companies around the world have even begun their y2k repairs, let alone are close to compliance? He has no such evidence. There is none. What can happen in the next 76 weeks that will get our civilization off those tracks? No one has an answer. That's because there is no technical, institutional answer. He went on. The embedded chip problem must be acknowledged, he said. It's bigger than most people imagine. Recall that something in the range of 25 billion chips have been installed, worldwide. By 2000, this may approach 50 billion. Bennett said: And the estimates we get on our committee are that between 2 (percent) and possibly 5 percent of those chips will fail. And you don't know which 2 (percent) to 5 percent they are, and you don't know where they are. Consider how many defective chips he is talking about. If it's as high as a 5% defect rate, and there will be 50 billion chips in place in 2000, that's 2.5 billion defective chips. If there were a hundred thousand highly skilled technical workers who had the tools and training to identify defective chips and replace them by hand -- assuming that this can be done, that there are compliant replacement chips, and that they will fit the old motherboards -- each worker would have to replace 25,000 chips by 2000. That means 500 a day. It is not possible. It will not be attempted. This raises a scary prospect, as Bennett sees: But if all of a sudden the pipeline that is bringing natural gas to the generating plant that is creating the electricity that's lighting these lights shuts down because an embedded chip in one of the valves fails, it isn't just a valve in a pipeline that has failed, the whole power grid is now at risk. And if enough of them fail in enough key places, you don't have any power. Read it again: "you don't have any power." You. YOU!!!! Do you understand what he is saying? Intellectually, maybe. Emotionally? Probably not. I have been saying the same thing for a year and a half. The power grid is the Big One. On it hangs the fate of this civilization. Yet my readers sit there, read this, nod their agreement, and go on to something else -- some other project that they regard as more pressing. The fifth day in a row that the power is off and the water system is off, they will recognize what pressing issues really are. But it will be too late. Critics have attacked me as a scaremonger, an alarmist, and a fraud -- at best, an amusing diversion. But a U.S. Senator has now put his reputation on the line in front of the reporters' guild. None of them indicated that they think he is some kind of fool, some money- grubbing charlatan. (As the former CEO of the gigantic Franklin-Covey time management organization, Mr. Bennett isn't in politics for the money.) Yet reporters sat there, listened, reported what they heard, and do not allow the information to affect their decisions. They are like sleepwalkers heading for a cliff. So are their readers. I am not sufficiently gifted rhetorically to penetrate the denial of more than 20% of my readers. It's probably more like 10%. A few do see. The rest sit there, paralyzed by denial, or paralyzed by their fear of spouses who will not listen, who choose not to listen. 75 weeks. 74 weeks. 60 weeks. 50 weeks. Which week will you tell yourself, "There is no escape. I've got to get off these tracks"? The train is coming. It cannot be stopped. You must get out of the way. If you wait until your next door neighbor sees the train's headlight, neither of you will be have time to wiggle free and run. Most of my readers, despite months of warning, will panic when only their neighbors do. They will have squandered their advantage. What about you? What is the single most important decision you can make right now? Buy some land with its own water well that can be pumped without being hooked up to the local power company. This can be as little as half an acre. You must have water. Everything else you can buy is secondary. Next, locate a local food cooperative and buy 500 pounds of wheat, 500 pounds of corn, and 250 pounds of soybeans for each adult member of your family. That's a two-year supply. It's cheap. Get it while you can. Bread made with a 40-40-20 mixture has the basic amino acids. Don't tell the co-op person why you're doing this. Finally, buy a grain grinder, preferably one that can be operated by hand and electricity. A few solar panels, some 12-volt golf cart batteries, and an inverter to convert 12-volt d/c to 110 a/c are also good ideas. --------- End forwarded message ---------- -- The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver. 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