Can't wait for Flint's spin on this one...

Subject:	California Dreamin'
Date:	1999/06/18
Author:	Paul Milne <fedinfo@halifax.com>
	Posting History

Legislators upbraided Gov. Gray Davis' task force this week, accusing it of being too complacent with laggard agencies, exceeding its authority, spending money unnecessarily and issuing incomplete or misleading status reports.   "We are 195 days away, and it sounds like it did a year ago," state Sen. John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara) complained to the governor's team in a public hearing Monday evening. "We are still waiting for things to happen." . . . .     The state has spent more than $400 million to test and repair computers to handle the chronological transition. But in one sign of the confusion, officials cannot tell whether the ultimate price for repair will approach $500 million or perhaps double that amount. . . .   "I'm not certain this is going to get done," Assemblyman John Dutra (D-Fremont) said after hearing the administration's report. "It's alarming. . . . I'd like significantly more assurance." . . . .   Cortez also said in an interview that it will take at least one more month before his staff has even identified all of the critical computer systems in the state--let alone fixed them. .   =========     The State of California still does not even know which systems or how many of them are 'mission critical'. Then, the idiot Dutra. Notice that he does not say that he needs more specific  facts. He says he wants more assurances. I'm quite sure that he will get plenty more assurances. The problem is that the assurances do not square with reality.   California is going to go down in flames, big time.  If you do not understand by reading this article that California is wildly out of control, then you are brain dead.  If there was ONE time when things should be CONCLUSIVELY under control, this is it.   Remaining in LA or San Fran or any major Californian city  or population center is nothing more than suicidal. No hedging, no hemming and hawing. Staying in  a populated area in California is no more than a death wish.   The other terrific problem with California's imminent demise is that California, in very significant part, FEEDS the rest of the country. The food pours out of California on trucks and rail cars.   The following is information that is printed on a sign in a rest stop In California...   "You are travelling through one of the world's most productive agricultural regions. California's farmers produce more than 200 agricultural commodities and provide almost 25 percent of the nation's food supply.   "California leads the nation in the production of many commodities including lettuce, grapes, tomatoes, sugar beets, peaches, asparagus, artichokes, avocados and melons. Many crops such as almonds, walnuts, apricots, prunes, broccoli, pistachios, kiwifruit, dates, figs, olives and nectarines are grown almost exclusively in the Golden State.   "The San Joaquin Valley is the state's major farm area. Principal crops grown in the San Joaquin Valley are cotton, grapes, hay, almonds, walnuts, oranges, wheat, melons, sugar beets, peaches, plums and beans.   "The state's extensive water and transportation systems have made this all possible. California is served by almost 3,400 miles of major canals and waterways and a vast farm water distribution network. Using California's extensive road, rail, air and water transportation systems, the agricultural products grown in the Golden State are consumed throughout the World."     What is it that happens when those  trains and trucks stop rolling for any reason? Do you want to tell me what truck driver, KNOWING that panic is breaking out all over will endeavor to drive a truckload of fresh produce from California to New York City?   Page 743, Atlas Shrugged...   "...And the same will be happening every day in every other industry, wherever machines are used--the machines which they thought could replace our minds. Plane crashes, oil tank explosions, blast-furnace break-outs, high-tension wire electrocutions, subway cave-ins and trestle collapses--they'll see them all. The very machines that had made their life so safe, will now make it a continuous peril. ... When the rails are cut, the city of New York will starve in two days. That's all the supply of food it's got. It's fed by a continent three thousand miles long. How will they carry food to New York? By directive and oxcart? But first, before it happens, they'll go through the whole of the agony--through the shrinking, the shortages, the hunger riots, the stampeding violence in the midst of growing stillness."     My  sincerest apologies to my friend, Tom Ambrose.     http://www.latimes.com/CNS_DAYS/990616/t000054018.html     Paul M ilne

-- a (a@a.a), June 18, 1999

Answers

"Alarming" just doesn't begin to touch it, Assemblyman Dutra. As a matter of fact...I can't quite think of any word that does do the job! I'll bet my bottom dollar we won't be hearing any spin on this. We all made fun of California, growing up in Hawaii. Nothing funny about this.

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 18, 1999.

The answer is NOT to leave California - for that is where all of the food is located.

Best to find a "small" community within a short distance of all of that food.

-- Greg (balzerg@ix.netcom.com), June 18, 1999.

And as far away from high population areas as you can? In California? Plywood and ammo.

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 19, 1999.

We're junk out here, no way around it. Twelve million in the LA basin plus a couple of million more in San Diego county with nothing east but the desert and nothing west but the water. We should be fun to watch.

-- Carlos (riffraff1@cybertime.net), June 19, 1999.

Much as I love San Francisco I got out when I could a few months ago. At least they have plenty of rainwater and nearby vineyards (hey, calories are calories) but stuck on that peninsula with 1m other hungry people - no thanks. And LA will be the worst. I have brothers and relatives in both cities and they won't budge - nothing more I can do other than a few heart to heart talks over the next few months. But I know they still won't budge.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), June 19, 1999.

Much as the idea "makes me nervous" on average daze, I suspect I'll stay in Silicon Valley and learn to cope. Why? Because I have an elder parent who refuses to move.

So, it's a "challenge." Been there, done that... can do it again.

*Sigh*

Being prepared.. where ever you choose to remain... is just good advice. And don't forget to have several mobile back-up plans.

Got hiking boots 'n survival skills?

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), June 19, 1999.

Concur with Diane, et al. My primary responsibility is to family and some of them (e.g., 88-year-old grandma) can't be relocated now. Will "prepare the horse for battle" (as the Proverb says). Can only hope that most of those folks working on CA's critical systems work some serious magic in remediation, 'cause that's what it will take now.

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), June 19, 1999.

Milne is right, but he overlooked something. True, most truck drivers wouldn't go into the Valley on a bet when things get dicey, but why does anybody believe that the agri-businesses would have any products to haul away to market?

The agri-businesses depend on three things to produce their crops: water (from the Colorado River out of state), much fertilizer (from out of state...and it ain't cow dung, either), and hybrid seeds, made for larger yields, and other specially engineered characteristics.

The fertilizer must be trucked in from the manufacturing plants (y2k compliant?). The water goes through a pipeline from Lake Mead and the California Aqueduct (vampire ditch). Hundreds of miles of pipeline and open aqueduct, that will need to be guarded.

Where does the ditch get it's water from? The Pacific Northwest and Northern Callfornia, which has been trying to shut down the ditch for years. Think they'll succeed next year? Anybody want to start a pool?

Even if you could find some truck drivers brave or foolish enough to go into the Valley at harvestime, the chances that they'll have anything to haul out of there will be downright slim.

Expect to see lots of troops around Fresno and Merced soon. Not that it'll do much good.

Did you really think that food production in this country was any less vulnerable to the smallest disruption than any other segment of today's infrastructure? People, in a very short time, you're going to have to start thinking for yourselves. You may not have the infrastructure for a safety net. If this is any indication of your thinking abilities, you'd better turn the TV off, and get started. You've a lot of work ahead of you.

-- LP (soldog@nohotmail.com), June 20, 1999.