The Y2K Pentagon Papers - A Clarification

by Peter de Jager

http://www.year2000.com/y2kpentagon.html

-- Y2K Pro (y2kpro1@hotmail.com), August 20, 1999

Answers

My knowledge of the Internet is more than some; not as much as others here, and so I'm a little confused.

It's my understanding that this document was at one time on the Internet, then pulled.

If it was available, why hadn't anyone seen it? I visit several other forums, and it's existence was never mentioned until I caught wind of the story yesterday.

Lots and lots of people do searches on Y2k issues EVERY DAY. Could it be that it *was* available on the web, but one needed to know *exactly* what they were looking FOR in order to find it? Ie., they needed to know exactly where to go to access this report?

Help me out, somebody. I'd really like to understand this better.

-- Wilferd (WilferdW@aol.com), August 20, 1999.

Sayeth the asshole deJager, from his secluded retreat in the Canadian countryside with nearby mountain spring, 5 cords of firewood and a years food supply squirreled away in the pantry.

-- (@ .), August 20, 1999.

See, told ya.

Doomers and Tinfoils go back to gnashing teeth.

Everyone else just keep doing what you were doing.

This Navy report doesnt mean you need to ratchet your 8.5 rating to a 9.0

-- Fat Tony (FatTony@youmammashouse.com), August 20, 1999.

As we've seen. It turns out #1 was the truth. >/i?

Excuse me?

Why, because you say so, de Jager? Because Steve Davis says so? Because, ultimately, Koskinen says so?

This is as of yet an unanswered question.

No proof has been offered that this information was ever actually on the web. Where is the url? Who has an archived copy of the actual site? Why was the site taken down in the first place?

Amazing.

Perhaps Mr. Lord's source was sincere in their desire to have this information out in the public. Especially in light of the fact that it has been admitted that the website where this document was in residence had been taken down.

Suddenly, yesterday, a new and improved document is offered? Yes, I'm skeptical too. My response these days to any claim is simply "prove it". But, you can't, can you? The original site is gone.

So, I don't think anyone should be so quick as to say this "source" let anyone down.

Mike

===========================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), August 20, 1999.

off


-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), August 20, 1999.

I'm sorry, but I would need to see some evidence before I'm convinced that a navy survey about uilities that uses catagories like "partial failure is probable", "partial failure is likely" and "total failure is likely" was freely available on the Internet until August 10th.

I also think de Jager's phrase "sadly out of date" is hyperbole on his part, considering the fact that the survey is from June 1999, and that Y2K remediation and testing typically take more than two years to complete.

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), August 20, 1999.

de Jager is a bloated fool. Period.

-- Zev Barak (zev@msn.com), August 20, 1999.

Why does this all starting to look like the Clinton propaganda machine that we saw so much during the impeachment trials.....?

Why do I feel that someone is going to be destroyed here...?

Why do I have the feeling that soon we will all about Mr.Lord including any affairs he had, traffic tickets and blood type...???

I mean... those spinmeisters get paid for a reason. And this smells to much like that..... What's wrong in this picture that no one can find as much as a "trace" that the document ever existed. But it really does not matter does it. The "truth" does not matter anymore. The general public is going to look at this and say "Gee, Marge... Looks like this idiot made a elephant out of a mole hill... Damnn y2k kooks... want you to buy two weeks worth of grocery's these idiots....."

anyway... maybe I am just getting to testy....

-- STFrancis (STFrancis@heaven.com), August 20, 1999.

Good afternoon Mr. Cut and paste

-- SgtSchultz (SgtHansSchultz@stalag13.com), August 20, 1999.

Talk about condescending! You don't suppose Peter de Jager is Y2K Pro, now, do you? Hhmmm.

-- wouldn't (putit@past.him), August 20, 1999.

I asked Steve Davis yesterday what the URL for this report was. He stated he did not know but the last day it was on the web was Auguat 10, 1999. This was 10 days ago, you'd think he could come up with the URL.

Ko-Skin-Em is on a MASSIVE SPIN campaign!!

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), August 20, 1999.

lol Sarge : )

You know...the worst that can happen to Jim Lord is that he'll be forced to move to some island paradise like Tonga : )

Darn. He has ALL the bad luck.

Mike

who has been friends with a few Tonga women

=================================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), August 20, 1999.

Who would you BELIEVE??

Jim Lord

John Ko_Skin-Em

Peter De Jager

Some retired Dot Mil that didn't sign their name

Here's my selection ..... Jim Lord without a blink !!

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), August 20, 1999.

Y2K Pro

As a Canadian I just have to admire a person in the US that posts a Canadian summary of the situation. We must have quite an influence in the big picture eh?

Old Pete D. jawing it up with John K. and Bill C. expected to smooth the whole situation out. Just to cool. Well Y2K Pro you have won me over. The document is nothing but words on a yellowed piece of parchment, speculations of a third rate official lounging in an office making phone calls. Oh drat, that number is busy, better make that a worst case failure. Now what number is next.

Now if there is a document that discribes what to do during a massive failure in Chicago or any other major city that is heat challanged on a cold January night I will be paying attention. Other wise I will have to call Pete up and get his advice. Is it real or is it memorex?

-- Brian (imager@home.com), August 20, 1999.

Well, Pro, I for one am thankful to Jim Lord for what he did. Otherwise, I don't think this information would have seen the "light of day!" If that is what it took to get a copy, especially an updated copy, I think he did GOOD!

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), August 20, 1999.

STFrancis,

Unfortunately, your questions result from the fact that President Clinton did not possess enough honor to resign after admitting he lied.

This is the fall-out.

We question his every move.

Part of me can't wait until the first Tuesday in November, during the year 2000.

Unfortunately, part of me also understands that sometimes the devil you know is better than the one you don't.

-- i want it over (with@enough.already), August 20, 1999.

Notice that at no point does de Jager claim to have HIMSELF seen or in any used this "freely available" report; apparently he is just parroting the party line put forth by Koskinen. It is no different than any of us making the claim that it was on a web site until Aug 10, based solely on what someone else has told us, not personal observation.

Meanwhile, all the weasel wording (and weasels) will not detract from the reports ultimate conclusion: We are toast.

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

Yikes!... Y2K Pro,

I'm gonna have to snip that article and just provide a pointer to it. Last time you placed one of Peter's articles here, his lawyer had a "tizzy fit" calling Phil Greenspun on his cell phone, and threatening to sue MIT for copyright violation.

In Peter's case... just provide a link please.

Diane
TBY2K Sysop #1


-- Diane J. Squire (y2ktimebomb2000@yahoo.com), August 20, 1999.

[snippet]

Here's another bit of 'secret information' held from the public scrutiny. Every Fortune 500 company has created a similar 'report' which documents the plans of action for 'failures' in each of their mission critical systems. These contingency plans for specific events will each start out with the following basic assumption necessary to begin planning: *** When system 'x' fails.***

This does not mean that the company expects system 'x' to fail, it means that the prudent and competent managers are planning action just in case it happens. Which is, to the best of my knowledge, what we've been demanding of both government and Corporate America. They're taking it seriously. Finally.

Peter, it can equally be said that... prudent and competent individuals are (should be) planning action just in case it happens. (In other words, take the lessons learned at work, home with you).

[snippet]

It is neither reasonable nor logical to fault an organization for not having contingency plans and then also fault them when they create contingency plans.

Peter, ditto for individual citizens.

[snippet]

My personal strategy is to be skeptical of everything I hear. My response these days to any claim is simply 'prove it,' or if that is not always possible, then provide me the argument and reasoning you used to come to your conclusions. That's not fool proof, but it's better than taking whatever you hear at face value. -- Peter de Jager

Uh... Y2K Pro... did you get what he said? ...'prove it,' or if that is not always possible, then provide me the argument and reasoning you used to come to your conclusions.

Good advice. Perhaps youll pay attention. Or not.

What many *not all* regular posters a TimeBomb 2000 attempt to do, is RESEARCH these issues. Its how we learn to sift wheat from chaff.

Useful skillset. Try it some time.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), August 20, 1999.

Thank you Diane, well put. Prudent behavior for an organization is perhaps normally a little bit more cautious than for an individual only because the larger the organization, the more is at stake. But we each need to decide what "prudent" means for our personal situation.

Personally I feel that IF this was an actual Navy document, that the Navy was merely being as cautious as possible in their ratings of cities. Their information on my city was mostly "good" news for me personally, as they didn't show problems in gas, water, electricity. I am *hoping* they were going by hard data they were able to obtain from those suppliers, which I personally as a consumer have been unable to obtain. Since the Navy/Marine Corps Reserve is very close to my home, I am *hoping* we are on the same supply lines and that they are correct not to be worried in those areas.

But, it is just *hope*. Not one of my suppliers will give me the information that would make me comfortable, which would be to say they have already upgraded every element in question, tested everything, and had good results. TXU for example says they are "ready" and then when you look at their web site deeper you see how few plants they have actually tested and how they are creating their numbers. If you do the math it looks much worse than it does on their web site y2k/page one.

The "Navy" document did, however, show problems in the sewage treatment area in my city. This jives with what the local newspaper has said (if you are good at reading between the lines) - their most recent interview two weeks back said that sewage treatment was "ready", but then went on to say they were still waiting to hear from the vendors about the status of the embedded chips in their systems. And a city official emailed me that they planned to have their testing done in plenty of time but "of course couldn't guarantee anything."

So, in as far as I personally have been able to verify anything in that document, it looks good to me, even like "good news" to me. Of course, I don't live in New York City.

To any (and every) one of us, a LOCAL failure is what counts. It isn't going to affect me, not right away anyways, if Idaho for example has a failure, just because of distance. But if my little two block area that is served by the same transformer is out of power (as happened during an ice storm a couple years back), the "local" failure will affect my personal life in a major way.

Local failure is what we all need to be prepared for, and what we all need to try to gauge.

-- mommacarestx (harringtondesignX@earthlink.net), August 20, 1999.

I cannot agree that contingency planning invariably involves the use of the word "when," as de Jager states. The word "when" might be used in a clearly-labeled contingency plan (as in the Naval War College work) but I do not recall seeing the word "contingency" anywhere on the subject document. I remember only the word "assessment." Even Troll Maria oft expounds on how she's been involved in "what if?" scenarios (as opposed to "what when?").

The document in question is clearly an assessment. If it was or is used as part of contingency planning then, like the Naval War College scenarios, there would be sets of low to high risk scenarios for each city, not just the one of three descriptor assigned to each. There would be three contingency plans for each city, covering fail, partial fail and no fail.

And I question the document's removal from the Net, if indeed it was ever there. Why remove a document which, they say, has been updated and now shows a far more reassuring scenario? The Navy now claims no city will fail in its ability to deliver services to the military. Isn't this A Good Thing? Shouldn't it be trumpeted on the Net and in the media? Shouldn't it be highly publicized as part of the "Happy Face" campaign? Why wasn't it?

The Naval War College has no problem letting the public see its work and Dr. Barnett cheerfully answers questions. Perhaps our very positive experience with the Naval War College renders this other imbroglio, by contrast, far more sinister than it needs to be, but I don't think so.

Until there is satisfactory evidence to the contrary, I plan to give credence to the original assessment circulated by Jim Lord. What is "satisfactory?' Well, it's like pornography--I know it when I see it.

-- Skeptical Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), August 20, 1999.

Well it looks like the "traitor" of the Y2K world (otherwise known as Peter De Jager) has risen publicly again. I for one would not give Peter the time of day, let alone even consider "anything" he has to say about Y2K any more. Let's face a key "fact" here. Peter at one time was a purveyor of the alleged Y2K "doomsdayers" messages, and insisted we could not possibly get everything fixed on time (and he was RIGHT). Then all of a sudden, (and only God knows why) he did a 180 degree turn and decided we could lick the problem, and is now actually publishing a page of organizations that have supposedly "kept their promise" to be y2k compliant. However, the page on his site is full of FALSE reports. There is nothing there but hogwash from companies saying they WILL BE ready. Right Peter...the check is in the mail too. Why anybody would listen to anything Peter says now is beyond me. He is not even worth debating with, simply because his is a traitor, which basically means he "cannot be trusted". Besides the fact he is a CANADIAN and belongs up there with the rest of his Socialist friends. He has no business commenting on anything in the U.S. as he obviously knows nothing about our wonderful "untrustworthy" government, that has proven over and over again it is full of hot air and sold the Constitution down the river decades ago, and has been covering up the truth about Y2K since day one. So Peter, please STAY in Canada and keep your nose out of American politics. And PLEASE stop acting like the government can be trusted! We know better. By the way, why did you become a turncoat?

-- Gary Bidlow (garybidlow@hotmail.com), August 20, 1999.

Mine and my family's life and comfort is at stakes. This is y2K; the worse controversy, the worse possible event in my life, something that I've been forwarned of months in advance. So far my life has been free of such anxiety. I know I could get killed crossing the street, or a lightening bolt could hit me, or a natural desaster destroy everything in my life. I live with this knowledge everyday. But y2K is different. I can do something about it in advance to minimise its consequences. If only I have the right information, coming from the right people.

I must trust the people I will get advice from, and learn from. Do I trust DeJager? No. I don't.

Why? Because he hasn't behaved in a consistant, honest manner. He has contradicted himself. He has used hyperbole and then he has downplayed those same hyperbole.

This is not a game of wits. This is Y2K, with real potential concequences to MY and YOUR life.

My unsolicited advice to you people is to research EACH and EVERY "expert"s background; read as much as you can find on them; where he/she is coming from, what he has published and said on this issue.

There is several threads in this forum's archive to give you a starting point.

-- Chris (%$^&^@pond.com), August 21, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr near Monterey, California

My response these days to any claim is simply 'prove it,'

If this is true, then, when you were told that the assessment had been freely available on the web, you responded simply 'prove it.' So, then, you have the URL. So what is it?

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage.neener.autospammers--regrets.greenspun), August 21, 1999.

"The report you now have in your hands is not a 'report' nor is it an 'assessment' reflecting The Navy's expectations of Y2K failures." DeJager

Just got around to read DeJager's "debunk". Condescending and arrogant. How did Mr. DeJager, Canadian Citizen, become so knowledgable about U.S. Navy reports and what they mean, or intended to mean?

Maybe it "just took a phone call" to Koskinen to know what he should say about those papers.

-- Chris (%$^&^@pond.com), August 21, 1999.

I have to say, I'm STILL feeling pretty smug about the non-event that was Y2K. The doomers are still prepping, still worried, still paranoid..fools...

-- Y2K Pro (y2kpro1@hotmail.com), April 10, 2003.