On June 14,1999' Clinton signed an Executive Order pretaining to an Emergency Responce to Y2K. In part [c] section [2] The ICC will work with the Council and the Office of Mamagement and Budget to assure that Federal efforts to restore critical systems are coordinated with efforts managed by Federal agencies acting under existing emergence response authorities. Well I guess the spin is over and the cat is out of the bag. "efforts to restore critical systems" I wonder what "restore" means and I'm sure we all would like to know the definition or identification of "critical systems". LOL

-- thinkIcan (thinkIcan@make.it), June 20, 1999

Answers

I wonder how the "POLLIES" are going to handle this bit of Hard Information?

-- thinkIcan (thinkIcan@make.it), June 20, 1999.

Geeeeeeee polly's, why do we have to RESTORE critical systems? I thought y2k was OK !!!!! Thought I saw that on a smileiy face some where. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm??????

-- FLAME AWAY (BLehman202@aol.com), June 20, 1999.

This was posted last week Exec order

-- none (none@none.none), June 20, 1999.

That's right none, and they had nothing to say THEN either. Anita, still playing with your monkey?

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 20, 1999.

None ---- Thanks for the hot link. Yes I know this was posted June 14. I just didn't see any reference to the terms "restore" and they are going to restore "critical systems" Now for me and my family that sounds very threatening to our livelyhood. Clinton knows somethings up, I just wish the rest of America did. How do you think America would react if this Executive Order was published on the front page of every major newspaper in America.

-- thinkIcan (thinkIcan@make.it), June 20, 1999.

So faced with the choice of studiously ignoring y2k, or starting the process of making contingency plans just in case, the administration decided in favor of the contingency plans. This is good.

But please, try to understand that making such plans isn't at all the same thing as claiming that you'll need them, any more than buying fire insurance is an indication that you plan to burn your house down.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), June 20, 1999.

Yes Flint, zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.... zzzzzzzzzzzz.... zzzzzzzzz

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), June 20, 1999.

Flint ---- God bless you. You do more [in my opinion] to take the reality of Y2K away from the masses than anyone else here on this forum. Your so wishy washy its sad. Lets compare y2K to fire insurance. Lets at least have the people get some Y2K insurance, and that is to "Prepare". My God man, you've got everyone thinging that there is no way their home could burn down so they dodn't need fire insurance. Get with it. Put your thinking hat on and try to realize the damage that you could be doing with that smart alik [sp] mind of yours.

-- thinkIcan (thinkIcan@make.it), June 20, 1999.

thinkIcan:

You're a victim of binary thinking. Of *course* you buy fire insurance, make preparations, and create contingency plans. I said this was a good thing, and I meant it. I encourage everyone to prepare to the limit of their ability or to their comfort level, whichever they prefer or can afford. You might need them.

I interpreted your post to mean that you feel the administration, by insuring themselves, is *admitting* there will be problems. That is, regarding them as guaranteed, rather than as likely enough to be ready for. And indeed, the government (and many companies) have plans in place to deal with a very wide variety of possible (but unlikely) disasters, most of which have thankfully never happened. You should realize that just because the ideal Boy Scout is prepared, doesn't mean he'll encounter more than the normal run of problems. Just that if he does, he'll handle them better.

Yes, it is entirely possible that your house will burn down. Houses do burn down occasionally. What I'm trying to do here is assess how *likely* your house is to burn down, not whether it's possible at all. Life is a whole series of bets on the future. The most successful are those who know the odds and bet accordingly. And just because heads *might* come up next coin flip, doesn't make the odds any better than 50-50. Even if you've flipped heads 5 times in a row, the odds on the next flip are *still* 50-50.

Contingency plans aren't made based on the odds. They're based on possibilities. Being prepared for the unlikely is foresightful and wise, but doesn't make it any more likely. The odds don't change.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), June 20, 1999.

Zzzzzzzzz.... zzzzzzzzzzzzz.... zzzzzzz.... zzzzzzz....

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), June 20, 1999.

Anita can play with my monkey anytime. Even spank it when its bad! (Which it is, most of the time.)

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), June 20, 1999.

Flint -- your posts are thoughtful and reasonable. I look for them.

-- Helen (sstaten@fullnet.net), June 20, 1999.

Flint ---- It is very aparent that you think and solve problems at a higher level than the average American. Newspapers and television are geared to a fifth or sixth grade level. I can see how you disect every little bit of information and then put your veiw on it. I don't mean to flame you, but you have been trained to think a certain way, and that is a detriment to some people who are just looking for the simple facts. Of course you are prepared, but from reading your posts on the problems of Y2K the average person would never know it. You posts lead more people not to prepare. You'll have a greater chance at surviving if it gets bad, what about the less intelligent, they might not make it. You have that responsibility. God, what am I doing, I know better than this, you will never change.

-- thinkIcan (thinkIcan@make.it), June 20, 1999.

thinkIcan:

Who was it who said, "For every problem, there's a solution that's simple, obvious and wrong." If it weren't for that third adjective, I'd be delighted to go along with you. But for me, that's a stumbling block, I'm afraid.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), June 20, 1999.

Hi I'm Flint, I live downwind from a nuclear power plant, right across from the waste treament facility, and next to a gunpowder factory which is nighbor to the Bic Lighter wharehouse. I don't buy insurance because the odds of anything actually ever going wrong is non existent. At least in my mind anyway and we all know reality is just perception. If you try really hard and scrunch your forehead up thinking that nothing will ever go wrong then presto, nothing ever goes wrong, except for the 50% of the time when things go wrong. Oh, and none of you guys buy any insurance either because I think it's silly and I'm really smart.

-- (flint@is a dope.com), June 20, 1999.

DEAR-MR. FLINTON, who are you working for??

-- al-d. (catt@zianet.com), June 20, 1999.

thinkIcan:

I see what you mean. There are people here who look at a rainbow and need to flip a coin to decide if the rainbow is black or white. On the other hand, once they've decided, nothing in Heaven or Earth can change their minds. Kind of weird.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), June 20, 1999.

Flint, That last post made me mad.

If there is a possibility of things going bad, people should be prepared. This is agreed.

what these folk are saying is that you have a tendency to look things and say they are NOT that bad. And yet you prepare, without adding that fact to your analysis.

THIS is what folk here are pointing out. You are saying that things don't appear bad. Others are saying that things could/may BE bad, and so one should prepare.

Please add quailifiers to your posts to this effect in the future.

-- J (jart5@bellsouth.net), June 20, 1999.

J:

Good point, and I'll try to do better. Agreed that things *might* be bad, and given the hopelessly incomplete and often contradictory material we have to work with, *any* honest assessment of what's coming can be no better than an educated guess.

However, most of the time what I'm trying to do is point out that many of the *interpretations* of this material are poor. Often people conclude that a list of what might happen is really a list of what will happen. Contingency plans are interpreted as admissions that the failures being prepared for are sure to happen. Reports of successful remediation or testing are dismissed as self-serving hype. Reports of successful tests are held up as proof that nothing else is being tested. Rather than draw conclusions based on the evidence, people are evaluating the reliability of evidence based on a priori conclusions, forcing it to either fit those conclusions or be rejected as worthless.

Please understand that on this forum, such logical and emotional errors are heavily biased toward a pessimistic view. When I point out these errors, naturally I'm viewed as saying nothing will happen -- if I'm not white, I *must* be black. When I point out on the debunking forum that the see-no-evil people are making exactly the same errors, I'm dismissed as a "meme victim." And yet systematic misinterpretations are still incorrect.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), June 20, 1999.

uuummmm "y2k won't be bad, unless it gets bad, then it will really be bad"

remind anybody of anyone?

-- R. Wright (blaklodg@hotmail.com), June 20, 1999.

Well Flint, what does that tell you? It is obvious that like our President, your favorite color is "plaid". I prefer a bit more spine in my fellow man.

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 20, 1999.

Will continue,

Plaid may be the only way to look at things right now.

If you want more spine in your fellow man, you may want to move to another planet.

There is a distinct predilection here on Earth to 'avoid' words like 'if' and 'maybe' and 'possible' and so forth. So, I would say that we as a people need to stop and re-read what we see, and make sure it says what we think. If this were done, we could cut the arguments by at least half.

-- J (jart5@bellsouth.net), June 20, 1999.

Of course everyone misses the point that Flint is making. He isn't saying that Y2K will not be as bad as many think it will. But that the Executive Order signed does not say that all *critical systems* will fail no matter what.

Some people are reading *what* they want to hear and not was is there. And of course snipping the one section that most suits your view really shows what Flint was talking about above. Also it seems funny that this came out on June 14th but its posted that Y2K is out of the bag when the amendment to the Executive Order was released more than a week ago.

SNIP (b) At the direction of the Chair, the ICC will assist in making preparations for information sharing and coordination within the Federal Government and key components of the public and private sectors, coordinating agency assessments of Y2K emergencies that could have an adverse affect on U.S. interests at home and abroad, and, if necessary, assisting Federal agencies and the Chair in reconstitution processes where appropriate.

-- Pat (BAMECW@aol.com), June 20, 1999.

flint- help me understand-please i,m sicere'it seems like your flip-flopping.you say you,ve prep.d why? then you say GI,s are biased, too emotional-over-reacting too' un-substantionated-maybe-reports. will-you be giving your supplies away any time-soon??excuse my spelling-please.but just what side of the fence are you-on? i hope your not like>humpty-dumpty.in the meantime peoples futures are at stake......final question>what is the basis for your ass umptions.

-- al-d. (catt@zianet.com), June 21, 1999.

I have an idea that might help us all to cool down about the supposed narcotic effects from the humble opinions of Mssrs. Flint and Decker.

In a signature line, Flint could write: "Just in case, I'm stock piled for x number of months. How about you?"

Mr. Decker might end: "Dear Reader, being from Montana and one who practices smart living and owns a fine collection of guns, I can handle anything less than an Infomagic 10. And all by my lonesome. Can you, gentle reader, say the same?"

Sincerely, Stan Faryna

"I've almost got three months of food, water, heat, and non-electric light. How about you?"

-- Stan Faryna (info@giglobal.com), June 21, 1999.

Good idea Stan...

"[knock knock!] Go away, I have nothing here for you, I'm dying from Cholera..."

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), June 21, 1999.

Flint-- your posts are enigmatic, your mind is superb but definetly y2k non-compliant, you probably should be a lawyer, at this stage you certainly make me sick.

Flint-- you haven't yet answered any of my questions, you haven't yet told us your hidden agenda and who do you work for.

Flint-- as tragic as y2k may get to be, we all need some instants of humor to cope with the burden of preparing for it. You are slowly but surely becoming that source of humor. We acknowledge your self- assigned role of forum clown. Keep up the hard work.

Flint-- your problem is that the more you expose yourself the harder it is for you to hide your feeble underpinnings. As Abraham Lincoln wisely stated "You can fool some people all the time and all people some of the time. But you can't fool all the people all the time". Sorry Flint. It ain't in the deck(er).

-- George (jvilches@sminter.com.ar), June 21, 1999.

Another nugget of wisdom from Pat (who posted above) --

http://www.InsideTheWeb.com/messageboard/mbs.cgi?acct=mb237006&MyNum=9 29493377&P=Yes&TL=929466261

Debunking Y2k webboard

What would be the D & G ultimate dream?

Tuesday, 15-Jun-1999 20:36:17

205.188.198.189 writes:

Funny thing today was wondering if many D&G's dream would be too have a showdown with the US gov't. Do they have wet dreams when thinking about setting up their own Freeman compound and establishing their own country?

Pat

-- OutingsR (us@here.yar), June 21, 1999.

Basically this just addresses the establishment of the "Information Coordination Center (ICC)" as part of the contingency plan.

Better asked is the question: Why establish a contingency plan if everything is alright? The answer to that question is the same reason you wear the seatbelt in your car - just in case. I have developed contingency planning strategies for a few different companies now and have been part of the planning committees for a good number more than that. Basically what we have addressed in these committees is "Storms, Tornadoes, Floods (misc acts of God), Chemical spills, fire, vandalism/terrorism and critical data loss or corruption" of/within the worksite(s). In all these companies I know of only one that had to activate the Contingency Plan. It didn't go off without a hitch, but the business was functional and we made repairs to the plan on the fly. Much of the same thing can be done "if" there is a bigger bump than expected in the Y2K contingency plans.

Yours in COBOL... Dino!

-- (COBOL_Dinosaur@yahoo.com), June 21, 1999.

For review purposes...

QUESTION: What Does It Mean When A Presidential E.O. Declares A National Emergency?

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 000Wc6

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), June 21, 1999.

Thanks COBOL Dino but I think the doomers aren't listening, as usual. If it doesn't spell TEOTWAWKI, they ignore it. The gov has been doing disaster recovery and contingency planning for every system they have for years now. It just a part of the project planning and Y2K is just one of many. But they view this as some kind of admission of INFOMAGIC scenario. That couldn't be further from the truth. But... no use in trying to explain something to these mindless zoombies chanting the Eddie song.

-- NightmaresRus (thinIcan@probably.cant), June 21, 1999.

Flint and a few other posters seem to have missed the point on this one. Yes----this is part of a contingency plan. Yes-----It does deal with Y2K. Lets just look at these two points. Contingency plans are needed for various unforeseen disasters. Y2K has the possibility to be a world wide unforeseen disaater, its not just some localized wind, flood or ice storm disaster. The results could be --- well we've all be there and we know what they could possibly be. For some reason other governments see fit to let their citizens know of their contingency plans concerning Y2K [eg. Canada and Great Britian]. Why will our government not publish their contingency plans for Y2K? They want us to believe it will be a bump in the road, a 2 or 3 day affair, and yet they have contingency plans for "critical systems" to break. Like I said before, I just wish the leading newspapers in this country would have published these contingency plans on the front page of their newspapers. Do we not have a right to know, we surly pay enough taxes!

-- thinkIcan (thinkIcan@make.it), June 21, 1999.

thinkIcan:

I'm with you on this one. I'm no fan of secrecy. I know how everyone feels about the government hiring a PR agency, but such plans need to be presented carefully, so people can understand what contingency plans are. That these are *not* guarantees that the government expects all manner of catastrophe to befall us, but rather that almost no matter what happens, they're ready for it.

I think you can see the importance of making a proper presentation here. The public doesn't care about the administrative details like which budget is used or who reports to whom, and I don't think headlines like "US Planning To Collapse" are very helpful. Contingency plans are reassuring, and should be presented reassuringly. Not misrepresented, but not kept near-secrets either.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), June 21, 1999.

Everyboby ----- Read Flint's above post. We're discussing contingency plans. Good ol' Flint' God bless him, hits the nail right on the head. He's talking about the general public and he says: "but rather that almost no matter what happens, they're ready for it". No matter what happens, the government spin I,m reading says its going to be a bump in the road, a 2 or 3 day happening. It's OK for the Government to have contingency plans but if the general public does not have the facts, even worse, are fed the "spin" how will they ever be ready for this Y2K problem. No worry, no need for contingency plans of any type problem.

-- thinkIcan (thinkIcan@make.it), June 21, 1999.

thinkIcan:

You may not realize it, but you're opening a nasty can of worms here (and I'm helping, I admit). Certainly our 'leadership' in government is very timid (mild word). Sure, they prefer to pretend y2k presents no problems, knowing the threat is real and preparing congingency plans very much in the background. Their philosophy is "the economy is good, the public is asleep, don't rock the boat, the polls look fine."

But you might go one little step deeper and ask, WHY do they choose to govern this way? (let's not even get into who elected them, though it's hard to avoid). Note that your original post that started this thread had a strong implication that the government expected to *need* their contingency plans. Subsequent posts abandoned implication, and gleefully told us that this was living proof that the government *knows* what's coming, why else would they prepare for it?

Now politicans may be self-serving, interested only in re-election, devious and deceitful, power-hungry and all that. But they definitly aren't stupid, within their area of expertise. And their area of expertise is in gauging public reactions -- it *has* to be, or they'd never have gotten elected. They instinctively understand what little goes on in the mind of an Andy, an Ashton, a Leska, or a Will continue. Better than I ever could even begin to comprehend. Maybe they were born with it.

And they also know that no matter what y2k brings, public panic will make it worse. Politicians understand the failure of the American educational system in very practical terms. The American people can't be trusted with sensitive information, because they haven't been properly trained in the skills to handle it. They know that the circulation of the National Enquirer dwarfs that of the New York Times. And they know the reason why.

If you're trained with guns from childhood, you'll be safe and effective. If you just went out and bought some gun, any gun, for the first time, you're a hazard. Same with contingency plans. We've never been trained to understand them or handle them. We can't comprehend their purpose (just *read* this thread). We can't properly interpret them, but that doesn't prevent us from publishing our misinterpretations for all to see. Just up and plastering contingency plans on the boob tube for a poorly educated, untrained public to misunderstand, will surely do more harm than good.

And the politicians know that maybe it didn't have to *be* this way, and maybe they could have taken steps to do something about it (and still get elected, of course), but the fact remains that it *is* this way. They're playing it where it lies, and forgetting that they drove it there in the first place. But it's too late for that now.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), June 21, 1999.

Flint ---- My implication concerning the original post HAS NOT CHANGED !!. This was an Executive Order! I know better than to get into a post to answer the previous post situation. But I'll ask you a question that I know the whole forum would love to hear your answer on. The Question is: "Don't you think the Government *knows* what is coming down". Not to flame you but "please" don't give us one of your pat Flint answers. Remember there are people reading you answer, and they may make decisions on your answer that for them could have life or death consequences.

-- thinkIcan (thinkIcan@make.it), June 21, 1999.

thinkIcan,

I'm going to jump in here on Flint's "side".

If you read through a bunch of Executive Orders (Clinton's are all online, so it's easy to go through them. Several past presidents' EOs are partially online. Any good Interrnet search engine ought to be able to find one if given "Executive Order" and the number or title.), you'll find that many of them are concerned with "emergencies" and "critical" stuff.

As Flint pointed out, it is a responsibility of the executive branch to prepare plans for foreseeable negative circumstances in which significant federal action could be required. Executive Orders are intended to be a part of the continuity of U.S. government by remaining in effect past the end of term of office of the particular President who issues them. (Not all Presidential orders are EOs. An order which has no particular need to remain in effect past the end of the administration of the current officeholder would not necessarily be issued as an Executive Order.) So it is natural that one finds a concentration of presidential orders for provisions for emergency situations when one reads Executive Orders. That's where they belong, not somewhere else in other types of orders.

>"efforts to restore critical systems"

This phrase is in the context of a potential future emergency situation.

My guess is that sometime in the last 16 months (since the issuance of EO 13073) it was realized that there potentially could be significant conflict or confusion in the lines of administration between (a) the Year 2000 Conversion Council set up by EO 13073 to deal with Y2k problems and (b) "Federal agencies acting under existing emergence response authorities". So the amendment just set out on June 14 adds a means of handling such potential conflicts or confusion.

>How do you think America would react if this Executive Order was published on the front page of every major newspaper in America.

All Executive Orders are, and always have been, published -- in the Federal Register, available in main public libraries. Freely accessible to anyone who cares to look at them. (Few care.) And now they're online on the Internet as well.

Any newspaper that cared to do so could publish Executive Orders on its front page. They're public documents, not copyrighted. Why not call up your paper and ask them to publish EO 13073, including the amendment? (Good luck persuading them to put it on the front page! :-)

>Why will our government not publish their contingency plans for Y2K?

If you're referring to EOs, then as I've already pointed out, they're already published. Call your library and ask whether they have the Federal Register.

>Do we not have a right to know, we surly pay enough taxes!

... and your taxes have already paid for the printing and distribution all over the country of the Federal Register, in which those federal documents are published.

All you have to do is go to the library and look at them. (I think you could subscribe, for home delivery, if you really wanted to.)

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), June 21, 1999.

To: all you folks griping about government coverups and failures to publish important stuff that could affect your lives

Do you remember back in grade school when they taught about how to find information? How to use a library? Boooorrrrriiiiinnnnngggg. But ... that's how you can find a lot of the information you think is hidden.

And ... you don't even have to do it all yourself. If you just go to a library and explain what you're looking for (it might help to use "conventional" terminology rather than NWO or TOETWAWKI terminology -- but YMMV), most librarians will usually be quite pleased to help you find it.

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), June 21, 1999.

Glad this got posted again, becaue the first time I missed the phrase "reconstitution processes." What do you think this means? Shivani

-- Shivani Arjuna (S Arjuna@aol.com), June 22, 1999.

Shivani,

According to my dictionary, "reconstitute" means "to build up again by putting back together the original parts or elements" or "to build up again in a somewhat new or different form". So "reconstitution process" would be a process of rebuilding something.

In the context of EO 13073, expecially where the new Section 5 says (Sec. 5 (c) (1)) "... expertise in important management and technical areas, computer hardware, software or security systems, reconstitution and recovery, ..." [my italics] as well as in the preceding subsection (b), I think that "reconstitution" refers particularly to the rebuilding of computer data bases.

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), June 23, 1999.

WHY ARE WE GOING TO HAVE TO REBUILD THE COMPUTER DATA BASES? It's only going to be a bump in the road, a 2 or 3 day affair.

-- thinkIcan (thinkIcan@make.it), June 23, 1999.

thinkIcan:

You're having a real problem here. This is a *contingency plan* we're talking about. The purpose of such a plan is to be prepared for every possible eventuality, however unlikely.

I thought you had agreed that preparation against the unlikely was a good idea, and didn't imply that the unlikely was sure to happen in any way whatsoever.

And here someone takes a guess as to what 'reconstitution' might mean in this contingency plan, and off you go again, assuming we'll have to rebuild our databases. At first, you reflexively took a contingency plan as a guarantee. Now you're taking a *guess* about a contingency plan as a guarantee.

And you wonder why the government doesn't publicize these plans? Why the government might assume that people will misunderstand? I suggest you check out a mirror soonest.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), June 23, 1999.