What is you opinion of Paul Milne?

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It seems that what is considered Doom and Gloom changes with time. Many radical opinions Gary North was pushing nine months ago are considered somewhat mainstream today.

I have read many references to to Paul Milne. Does he have an internet site? Could someone tell me his URL? If anyone has an opinion of his conclusions I would like to hear them.

-- Tomcat (tomcat@tampabay.rr.com/), January 07, 1999

Answers

Please see the previous thread ("Who is Paul Milne? Why is He Famous"):

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000C sc



-- Arnie Rimmer (arnie_rimmer@usa.net), January 07, 1999.


No site I'm aware of. He posts on comp.software.year-2000. He gives good urls. He is abrasive on DGI's and idiots in general. He brought intl economics into y2k discussions. I think he has one of the best overviews of y2k around, and gives good recommendations on personally dealing with y2k fx.

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), January 07, 1999.

Also, you can use the Deja-News web interface to read the newsgroup. Paul post under the address "fedinfo@halifax.com". For a complete list of his posts in comp.software.year-2000, click below:

http://www.dejanews.com/dnquery.xp?QRY=&DBS=1&ST=PS &defaultOp=AND&LNG=ALL&format=terse&showsort=date&maxhits=100&subjects =&groups=comp.software.year-2000&authors=fedinfo@halifax.com&fromdate= 1%2F1%2F85&todate=12%2F31%2F99



-- Arnie Rimmer (arnie_rimmer@usa.net), January 07, 1999.


Here's Milne's modus operandi:

-----

In the next 3 months, Americans must fill out over 100 million tax returns. Each one takes an average of over 4 hours to fill out. That comes to more than 400 ZILLION HOURS. There are only a FEW THOUSAND hours between now and the deadline. And most people HAVEN'T EVEN STARTED!

Get it, you stupid pollyannas? IT CAN'T BE DONE!! Not even close. Anyone with any sense at all would recognize the futility of even trying.

But go ahead, you poor little simpletons. Keep flapping your lips about how we'll manage it. If you want to be an idiot, that's not MY problem.

Face the FACTS! If you really are dumb enough to believe this will actually happen, why can't you show me PROOF?! YOU CAN'T!!!

'If you live within shooting distance of a neighbor, he'll eat you'

------

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to form a pretty accurate opinion if you read enough of this drivel.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 07, 1999.


Paul Milne is coming out with a
Toast Your Neighbor cookbook next week ...

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), January 07, 1999.



Arnie,

Is that thing right? *15,000 Messages*?????

Rick

-- Rick Tansun (ricktansun@hotmail.com), January 07, 1999.


15,000! Hey, he's been at it for a long time. And, as you know, a real Net junky can easily post a few dozen or a hundred msgs a day...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), January 07, 1999.

...so I guess that by using Milne arithmatic, 15,000 messages, at an average of 100 per day, would mean he's been posting on the subject for 1500 days or almost 30 years!

; )

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), January 07, 1999.


For a supposed Christian, Paul Milne uses too much invective.

whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council:

but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

-- Blue Himalayan (bh@k2.y), January 07, 1999.


pshannon: or uh, well uh, at least 4.107 years (1500/365.25)

-- Arnie Rimmer (arnie_rimmer@usa.net), January 07, 1999.


Aw, c'mon, Arnie! You were the one who spotted Milne's poor arithmatic...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), January 07, 1999.

Flint, I have to protest about your scrurrilous parody of Milne. It is completely unrepresentative, unfair, and grotesquely inaccurate. It SHOULD have read as follows:

Get it, you stupid butthead pollyannas?

-- Blue Himalayan (bh@k2.y), January 07, 1999.


Flint - Priceless!!! I needed that one badly! Best laugh in a long time! Ol' Paul is a trip to say the least. Too bad he flaked out and quit coaching Little League. Our kids need all the help they can get. But then again someone who quits when the going gets tough may not be the best example for our children. Sad story I think.........

Deano

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), January 07, 1999.


Reading Milne makes me wish I could fast-forward to the end of this thing, to see how it all turns out -- for everyone generally, but for him specifically, because he's so-o-o-o vocal about making it. DOES he actually survive TEOTWAWKI & thrive in his Virginia hidey-hole? Or do his relatives get fed up & kill him? Or does fate have something far stranger in store?

Too bad, in real life you can't flip to the end of the book...

-- toasted 7-11 (not@aol.com), January 07, 1999.


Dear Toasted, but you can . See:

A Stash, A Bible, A Rifle & A Bagga Doughnuts - Episode II: The Milne Factor Strikes Back

The previous two threads in the Chronicle are also instructive.



-- Scholar (examining@Milne's.fate), January 07, 1999.



Paul Milne is valuable for two reasons:

first off he tends to motivate people to look into the y2k issue more deeply - even if, in many cases, it's due to the fact that he offends them to some degree. To the extent that he contributes to overall awareness, I'd say he's making a positive contribution.

secondly, while I personally do not believe that everyone who lives within 5 miles (or 7 kilometers) of a 7/11 "is toast", it does seem that there is ample evidence to suggest that there may well be some places where this will be literally true...although all things considered I'd change 'toast' to 'frozen pizza' - y2k being a January thing, after all. In other words, it sure looks like there are going to be some casualties, and at least this way no one can say nobody told them it could get that bad.

just my 2 cents' worth, Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), January 07, 1999.


Flint, that was fun. I even felt my blood pressure rising!

Hmmm. Anti-Milne credo?: When the going gets tough, the tough stay put.

-- Lewis (aslanshow@yahoo.com), January 07, 1999.


Flint: real poor analogy. Like filling out a 1040EZ is as complicated as remediating a nuke plant. But you pollyannas wouldn't understand.

I wish I could tell you about the meeting I attended today. If I didn't think I'd lose my job over it, I would. It might help you see the error in your ways.

-- a (a@a.a), January 07, 1999.


My wife and I visited Paul Milne and his family during our Christmas vacation. Paul came across to me the way most ex-military think of their Drill Sargeant, specifically those who ever met that Drill Sergeant later or ended up serving as one themselves. It's then they realize that the DI isn't an ogre, just someone using an intense motivational method while training them.

Paul is very intense on getting his Y2K message across. I equate it to some of the "Why is strict military discipline required? To get you to react without delay in critical situations." lessons I learned during boot camp. I do wonder if he didn't serve a tour as a DI during his time in the military.

As far as the Milne family "fortress", my wife and I were both impressed at how much it reminded us of various aunts and uncles' family farms in the early sixties. Nothing like what you expect if you believe the talk about him. Just an old farmhouse, a few cow, hogs, a bunch of chickens, some dogs and the Milne family. No bunkers, no barricades, minefields or machine gun pits. I honestly think that Paul has fewer firearms than anyone in my family who live near him and is a hunter.

For all the flames and bluster involved Paul Milne is, simply put, very blunt-spoken about Y2K. If you politely e-mail him, he'll respond. That's how I got in touch with him about getting some pointers on his view of Y2K preparations.

Our visit made a serious difference in how my wife views what I'm doing and it also convinced me to actually scale-back in some areas. And to concentrate more on being ready to go back to farming the way my dad's family did. Plus to be ready to do that the way it was done when dad was a kid in pre-electrified, rural North Carolina, just across the state line from Paul's place.

WW

-- wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), January 07, 1999.


An eyewitness! Thank you, WildWeasel. Knew there was discipline behind Paul Milne's message. Nobody can make their points that well without a certain concentrated force behind them.

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), January 07, 1999.


Spoof, OK? Humor. Illustration of Milne's logical (sic) processes and mode of presentation.

You don't need to be a fruitcake to see what's coming. You aren't a pollyanna if you see the fruit along with the gathering clouds.

During wartime, the government depicts the enemy is the essence of evil, devoid of redeeming qualities. Perhaps some people fight better if they're fighting the Devil himself, rather than participating in the regrettable ultimate act of diplomacy.

It's possible to be right withing having to be simpleminded.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 07, 1999.


Opinions are like a**holes, everyone has one and they all stink.

We know Paul cares enough to try and convince the DGIs that lurk on the net. I don't care what he is like, but I am interested in what he has to say, good and bad. Thank you Paul for sharing your thoughts with us. The same is true for everyone else on this forum. I even read the post about what "Busta Rhyme" had to say.

-- Bill (bill@microsoft.com), January 07, 1999.


I like what Paul Milne has to say. I agree with his approach to Y2K survival and his opinion of the DGIs. So what if he's abrasive, sometimes you have to be that way to get people's attention.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), January 07, 1999.

Paul's a hard ass and doesn't suffer fools lightly. I've talked to him a little and he's like a cat trying to cover up shit on a tin roof. He's just too damn busy tying up loose ends to put a happy face on the problem.So, he's blunt, and honest. Two qualities which are not appreciated by the PC/Sockermom set.

nine

-- nine (nine_fingers@hotmail.com), January 08, 1999.


"first off he tends to motivate people to look into the y2k issue more deeply - even if, in many cases, it's due to the fact that he offends them to some degree." --Arlin

That I agree with. Even though I'm not a fan of Milne, I don't need his abrasive annoying ways to make me understand, I've observed that his in-your-face ways forces many polyannas to dig up harder just to try to debunk him, and in the process absorb a lot more info from other sources than they probably would otherwise.

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), January 08, 1999.


The same is true for Gary North et al by the way.

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), January 08, 1999.

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