*** For educational purposes only *** What to Do With the Leftover Potato Flakes and Pinto Beans?

Dec. 8, 1999

By David J. Krajicek

Michael S. Hyatt - aka "Mr. Y2K" -- was kind enough to send Crime Beat three or four mass mailings in the past few weeks, lest we find ourselves short of cheese powder and textured vegetable protein as Armageddon draws nigh.

"I am concerned about your welfare," Hyatt wrote earnestly in one of his missives, a 30-page catalog of his various millennium-survival products cleverly disguised as a "magazine."

For the uninitiated, Hyatt was an obscure employee of a specialty publisher in Nashville, Tenn., who struck it rich by writing one of the early alarmist books about the millennium bug. For the past couple of years, he has been adding more and more titles to his personal Y2K catalog -- survival guides, a bad novel, videotapes and all sorts of special products for Christians, who for a time seemed especially susceptible to millennium fever.

Conveniently, Hyatt also introduced his own line of nonperishable foods.

Media critic, media hero

Hyatt now says he is outraged that so many media weaklings have bought into the government spin that Y2K likely will be no big deal.

In his "magazine," he harangues the "traditional" media for its gullibility in parroting the government's Y2K optimism -- in short, that while there may be scattered computer-related problems, the authorities do not expect the sort of catastrophic failures that would prompt bands of marauders to break into storage bunkers and steal powdered milk.

But the same media that Hyatt harangues has been very good for his business.

By his own count, he has done more than 650 media interviews about Y2K, and that hasn't hurt his sales of books and rolled oats.

Despite all this free publicity, Hyatt's sales pitches have grown ever more urgent; some say these dried-food purveyors find themselves with more potato flakes and pinto beans than they can get rid of with just a few weeks before Bug Day arrives.

As a hedge, Hyatt and other millennium Chicken Littles are now trying to milk Y2K even longer by pushing back the dates of predicted mayhem until later in the year.

These developments bring a wry smile to the face of Steve Hewitt, a quiet hero in the Y2K goofiness. Hewitt, editor-in-chief of the Missouri-based Christian Computing Magazine, has led an accountability campaign against media figures like Hyatt and Don McAlvany, a Colorado-based Y2K entrepreneur, who invoke God's name in selling millennium products.

McAlvany, who like Hyatt continues to hype the all-but-passi predictions of martial law and a financial collapse, has diversified into breathless screeds about soon-to-occur mass persecutions of Christians.

"I disagree with their message and question their motives," Hewitt tells Crime Beat. "They are continuing to play tricks by putting off the results of Y2K until the middle or end of next year. They hope we will forget their many predictions of events that are supposed to take place next month, and by seeking to prolong the fictitious events of Y2K in the fall of 2000, they hope they can slip quietly into the night."

A voice of Christian dissent

So far, Hewitt hasn't allowed that to happen. He has called Hyatt to task, for example, after his predictions of computer failures on April 1, 1999, and Sept. 9, 1999, failed to materialize.

And Hewitt deserves some credit for Jerry Falwell's remarkable Y2K turnaround. The television preacher recently pulled his $28 gloom-and-doom videotape off the market and disavowed his earlier comments that Christians should stockpile food, fuel and ammunition.

'See you on the other side'

Hewitt, a former pastor who has edited Christian Computing for 11 years, put himself and his magazine at financial risk last year when he took an editorial stand against the wacky Y2K predictions that had begun to overrun Christian radio programs, often based upon speeches by people -- like Hyatt and McAlvany -- who stood to profit from the panic they helped create.

Hyatt's literature continues to pander to Christians with references to faith. (He writes in his magazine, "May the Lord watch over you and keep you. See you on the other side.") And McAlvany manages to close most of his sales pitches with scriptural quotations.

But Hewitt said most Christians no longer buy the hype, and many are offended by shameless attempts to capitalize upon faith.

"As I have traveled across the nation, pastors of all denominations have been grateful for my message of calm," Hewitt said. "Many of them were between a rock and a hard spot in trying to calm their congregations while their people were listening to the local Christian radio station and hearing a different story of fear and panic.

"Overall, most Christians have calmed down considerably," he added.

Happy New Year!

Hewitt said he would spend New Year's Eve at the magazine office, where he will host a live Internet broadcast.

Crime Beat is weighing options for the big night. One detail is certain: We will be wearing a sandwich board that reads:

Repent, Y2K Hucksters: The End Is Near.

David J. Krajicek is an award-winning journalist, former chief of the New York Daily News' six-person police bureau and an APBnews.com contributing editor. A former professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, he is the author of the 1998 book SCOOPED! Media Miss Real Story on Crime While Chasing Sex, Sleaze and Celebrities (DKrajicek@aol.com).

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), December 10, 1999

Answers

Cherri- Do you have to do this every time you run out of Rocky Road ice cream?

-- Gia (laureltree7@hotmail.com), December 10, 1999.

Cherri,

Thanks for the post. There's already a thread about this article--and the wide variety of opinion in reaction to it. You'll probably want to take a look at that one as well. The thread is...

"The End Is Near for Y2K Hucksters"

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001xuv

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), December 10, 1999.

I'm glad when I decided to pack away some...I just went to WallyWorld and got stuff I'd normally eat anyway....Dehydrated my own stuff and so on...MUCH cheaper than those 'Deals' on survival foods. ;)

-- Satanta (LurkingInTheRe@rPew.com), December 10, 1999.

Being deleted once was not good enough for you. Will we see that reponse to Cory's challenge before Y3K? I didnt think so.....

-- Tom Waits (TomWaits@zensearch.net), December 10, 1999.

"Repent, Y2K hucksters" - does that include the hucksters who Conned the federal government into WASTING 40 million of your tax dollars AND MINE on a Y2K bunker? Talk about rubes being taken, the feds take the cake. They didn't BUY insurance, they bought the insurance COMPANY.

Do you have ANY ire whatsoever directed toward the generator companies who sold our government a bill of goods just to make a sale? Cause if Y2K is NOTHING, as you(Cherri, Hoff, Hewitt) claim, then the government is composed of the biggest fools of all. Maybe you should be e-mailing this "news" item to THEM.

According to Greg Caton, 99.8% of the populace would think WE - the citizen preparers - are NUTS. if that's true, then WHY are you wasting your time - not to mention your Big Brains - on such a tiny group of people???

I suppose Oprah would appreciate you. But trying to grind manure into the faces of the tiny minority on this site seems extremely petty and not even a worthwhile endeavor.

(What are you REALLY here for?)What are you trying to PROVE?

I can't figure this one out.

I can personally promise you that if Y2K fizzles, I will Still never again be without a supply of food and water in my house. And if I had the money to buy Michael's line of foods I would buy it. Unlike the feds, I just don't have money - even other people's! - to throw at this problem.

-- Doorbaby (tomG@h.com), December 10, 1999.

p.s. but Y2K HASN'T fizzled. As others have noted, we're already AT the bump in the road.

-- DB (tomG@h.com), December 10, 1999.

Look if people hadn't spread the alarm some time back we would be in a far worse state that we now find ourselves in. 80%+ of the remediation has been done, i assume you don't work in IT therefore know nothing about the problem.

-- Sir Richard (richard.dale@unum.co.uk), December 10, 1999.

Damn! If the end is near, guess I better hurry up and prepare for it!

I can see why this author is "an award-winning journalist" in New York - he is presenting the stories and the ideas his peers want to present. Doesn't make him right, by the way.

I can see where "APBnews.com" is getting their biases. Now, do you trust Hyatt (who has an open, declared agenda) or Krajicek (who hides behind a facade of journalism while spewing hate-filled prejudicial editorial comments)?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 10, 1999.

Please delete this garbage-spewing troll. She is obsessed with spreading false confidence about the effects of Y2K and she seems totally eaten up with anger, hostility and envy. A very sick lady.

-- dominique francon (dominique@francon.com), December 10, 1999.

No - don't delete. I need to know what the sources say that she (and others) drag up.

I only wish that the "polly" stories weren't so easy to debunk - I wish there really were "good news" out there - but I can't find any.

Maybe the pollies can find it, but in the past two years, every story they've posted turns out to reveal additonal "bad news." Now, I grant that the writer didn't mean to write a gloomy article, but when you know testing, or debugging software, the bad news often comes from what is said in one story, then compared to a second source, the original source, and then what the "computer" really does, and how the programs really operate. The problems, sometimes the outright lies, are rarely in the headline; instead they are in the depth of the story.

Such as when the Social Security Program failed in Washington last week - the government agent tried to claim it was a "printer error" - not a program error.

Or when the FDA and Mr. Koskinain LOUDLY claim that the food processing industry is "compliant" - based on a single self-reporting survey to 500 companies, only 3 of whom replied.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 10, 1999.

Cheri:

Thanks for posting the article.

Always open to other opinions. Perhaps, some year, the author will write a book, "Scoopped II: The Media missed the REAL Y2K story while slavering over press releases" (he is the author of the 1998 book SCOOPED! Media Miss Real Story on Crime While Chasing Sex, Sleaze and Celebrities)

It is a shame that youknowwho so abused his priveleges here that he is now on the "delete on sight" list. Please do keep posting the information he is no longer able to.

Fare the well in the New Year.

-- mushroom (mushroom_bs_too_long@yahoo.com), December 10, 1999.

In case you missed it on the Hoffmeister thread:

"Hewitt, editor-in-chief of the Missouri-based Christian Computing Magazine, has led an accountability campaign against media figures like Hyatt and Don McAlvany, a Colorado-based Y2K entrepreneur, who invoke God's name in selling millennium products."

Oh this is hilarious! I went to Hewitt's site at

http://www.gospelcom.net/ccmag/y2k/

and was confronted by numerous ads to buy Hewitt's Y2K tapes, various magazines, or pay money for his Y2k seminars! He himself invokes God's name in selling millennium products! What a hypocrite!

-- hypocrisy is (as@hypocrisy.does), December 09, 1999.

-- You can (say@that.again), December 10, 1999.

Cherri, The entire Y2K story is the new plot line for next years X-Files. Everything we post will be used in diffferent episodes. So you see there is nothing to worry about because Muldor and Scully are going to save the day.

To make sure you don't miss any of these special episodes you had best start watching the new Y2K channel. And don't forget your meds.

-- Mr. Pinochle (pinochledd@aol.com), December 10, 1999.

---

For Cherri,

This is not a thread to be tossed aside lightly.

It should be thrown with great force.

Inflammatory, without merit and with false intent. ---

-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), December 10, 1999.

---

CHERRI AND FRIENDS:

What really bothers all of you HARD CORE Christian haters is that Michael Hyatt isn't afraid to stand up and be counted on issues he finds relevant. And that irks you because YOUR PITIFUL BROWBEATING TECHNIQUES SIMPLY DON'T WORK.

He continues to write salient articles, expressed in a helpful way. No doubt many read his articles and question your militancy against him, but of course your discrimination based upon religion is thinly veiled.

You should all be ashamed.

And be quiet.

---

-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), December 10, 1999.

SO: the crime of the century - a person trying to sell products! For money, no less.

....and the national press have no bias, no agenda's, no hypocritical attitude to conservative principles? No financial interest in the 5 billion dollars Clinton promised them for a fully paid "anti-drug campaign" that used to be donated time, no financial or power interst in supposed "campaign reform" that would reinforce their ad revenues with government monies, while restricting their opponent's ability to respond? No connections between the national media and the ability to access Washington sources denied to critics of the administration?

...and the Clintons' White House has no financial, political, emotional, or power interest in minimizing the public's perception of the potential for y2k-induced failures?

---...---

---- But, to try to openly and honestly sell a product intended to help people avoid a potentially life-threatening crisis - rather than sell furs, 4-wheelers, or frozen yogurt - is a crime of disasterous proportions? Remember, the fed's spent 50 million of your money so they could be warm and comfortable ..... but they don't want others to do the same. denver, LA, New York, Atlanta, .... why are they spending money on emergency shelters and command centers - if it is evil to openly sell products?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 10, 1999.

No point in trying to use logic or facts on Cheri-droids. They don't get it and never will.

It's embarrassing that they appear to be of the same species. My biggest hope is that there is no one depending on these people for their survival and well being

-- TA (sea_spur@yahoo.com), December 10, 1999.

As for how much experience and knowledge I have, the picture below is of me working on an analog computer in 1973. It is the same computer that is used in air traffic control, the older ones not the new ones that have just been put in place that are having all of those failures.

IT was not even the first computer I worked on. I have worked on dozens of computers over the years as they became more complex, powerful and smaller. In the picture there are large servo's which you can see on the doors, on the bottom of the right door are rows of relays, the logic which has been referred to "ladder" logic. I DO know what I am talking about and have more years of training and experience in the hardware and software of computers than most people on this forum.

Most people have experience in one or the other- hardware or software, I have both.

You can take someone like Bruce Beach who is looney tunes or Paula Gordon, who is a failed politician who appears to live off of grants and reads a bunch of webpages, asks irrelevant questions and twists facts she is incapable of understanding and writes "white pages" about them and make the two of them (Bruce and Paula) and others with just as little experience and knowledge into your little "embedded experts" you idolize.

It does not matter what you choose to do or believe, you cannot change the facts.

Now I have a question for you or anyone here who thinks with your kind of logic.

If you had a multimillion dollar piece of equipment that you needed to have installed and maintained, who would you hire to do it? Paula Gordon or me? If that piece of equipment had a failure, would you want Bruce Beach, who has "discovered" a (previously unknown to the millions of people who have worked on computers) "clock function" to troubleshoot and repair your equipment? Or would you want me, with my 30 plus years experience in troubleshooting and repair and programming computers and "embedded" and hardware systems?

Would you, like so many businesses have done (to their detriment) and hire people because of their "label" or "degree" which they perceive as being all that is needed to do the work, or would you hire someone who has a proven tract record of doing good work?

When a business hires started hiring degree's (IT degree's) instead of experienced workers, they got this Y2K mess.

Experienced computer programmers and tech's understood enough about computers to know there would be a problem with two digit years. "IT's" were never taught enough to know that there would be a problem.

Even after large enterprises were remediating the Y2K problems, the assembly line (college's) were still turning out people who still put out work that was not Y2K able.

So go ahead and rant on about what you think I do not know, (because it does not agree with your view) your ignorance is yours to treasure. If it builds up your weak little ego to attempt to put me down so you can feel bigger about yourself, be my guest. I know what I know, if you know it or not is no skin off of my assessment.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), December 15, 1999.

Well, judging from your picture, I'd go with Paula, she is MUCH better looking........

-- critic (silent@aol.com), December 15, 1999.

If you had a multimillion dollar piece of equipment that you needed to have installed and maintained, who would you hire to do it? Paula Gordon or me? If that piece of equipment had a failure, would you want Bruce Beach, who has "discovered" a (previously unknown to the millions of people who have worked on computers) "clock function" to troubleshoot and repair your equipment? Or would you want me, with my 30 plus years experience in troubleshooting and repair and programming computers and "embedded" and hardware systems?

I don't know about others, but as for me, I wouldn't hire you to sweep the floor in the lab. Your obvious lack of logical ability or understanding of complex systems cannot be swept aside by posting a picture of someone (you CLAIM is yourself) working on an ancient system. If you really have all the experience you claim, I'm even more worried about Y2K re embedded systems (if that is possible), as it indicates that the caliber of workers on those systems was much lower than I had previously thought. But then, there's no way to know if you are telling the truth about your experience, when you won't even post your resume.

-- Steve Heller (stheller@koyote.com), December 15, 1999.

"If it builds up your weak little ego to attempt to put me down so you can feel bigger about yourself, be my guest."

So says Cherri. But isn't that what she did by crossposting the above article? I wonder if she feels bigger about herself now?

-- wait (a@darn.minute!), December 15, 1999.

Of course Cherri is lying. That's how pollies operate. Distort, lie, and SPIN. She's probably never even SEEN the inside of a computer.

-- (brett@miklos.org), December 15, 1999.

Heres another one for you, this one was in the Carswell AirForceBase base newspaper explaining that I was one of the first "women" to get a "mans" job in the USAF. The paper was published in the early spring of 1973, March, I think. HQ 7th Cmbt Spt Gp (SAC)Carswell AFB, TX 76127. My "job number was "342X0". Security Clearance-Secret. I had to one of (if not the most) technically difficult technical schools in the Air Force. I did the same job at Boeing when I got out. You can "doubt" what I am trained to do, but that does not negate the fact I did it.

Can you name the type of AirCraft I am sitting in, in the picture below? And yes I did know how to fly it.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), December 15, 1999.

Cheri,

I don't doubt your credentials or experience, just your opinions. I have thirty-three years of computing experience, some hardware and a lot of software. From Mainframes to single boards to plugboards(the really old stuff). I do not consider myself an expert on anything even though I have been thru the mill trying to make this darn stuff work. I am currently a Lan Admin/Webmaster/E-Mail admin, etc... for a small company. I too, you see, have experience upon which to base my feelings about Y2K.

I don't really fear that the hardware won't work right after the new year. After all WINDOWING is not exactly new technology, it has been used for years so the mainframe's that provided only two digit years would provide correct four digit dates. I really fear the software. Anybody can sit behind the keyboard and crank out "code". I have worked with "code" crankers that could care less about testing to be sure the stuff works reliably. They figure the computer can find the errors faster than they can. Well, they are right! Of course, when I got called at 2 a.m. to fix the problem they created I was not too pleased about it. Hardware tends to work until something wears out (disk drives, tape drives, etc..), but software will work even if the data is incorrect ( as long as it is in the right format (character, binary,etc.)) Computers create wrong answers as quickly as they create correct ones. I am not a "doomer" but I am a "preparer". I am also able to think for myself and to judge risks for myself. I am responsible for my family (in-house and extended) and am doing my best to ensure their safety and well-being thru this year-end.

Most of the people that I know who are preparing are indeed, Christians. None think that Y2k Is the END. Jesus clearly told us that NO ONE KNOWS the day, only the Father. Followers of Jesus have promises to hold onto to carry them thru Lifes problems. I am praying that the new year brings no terrible problems, but I am not going to blindly take your word, or anyone else's, for it.

I do not mind your post's as you are free as any other American to express your opinion. I don't see any need to argue about who is right though. We will all find out soon enough.

Lord's blessing on you and your's

wally

-- wally wallman (wally_yllaw@hotmail.com), December 15, 1999.

mushroom! Way to be a sport :-) Take the opposition and the mudslinging in stride, that's what I always say. (Well, not really, but I'm going to start saying that.)

-- mil (millenium@yahoo.com), December 16, 1999.

Wally,

My purpose is not "to be right". I just wish to explain the reality as apposed to assumptions people have. Having hands on, real life experience in most things computing, I believe I can explain to those who do not what they should worry about or speculation they should ignore.

I started on the old hardware and as I moved on to newer equipment, I got into the software. As computing evolved, the equipment and my training on it did also. Only one of the 11 computers I was working on was for engineering, the rest were tied to different hardware systems which is hard on the on the computer itself. It is true that a computer that just proceesses data has few hardware problems, because if you think about it, there are few moving parts! But computers that I/O to mechanical, hydraulic,pneumatic etc systems have a lot of failures due to the ambiguity of the intup back to the computer. It also a greater chance of power surges which can fry the chips and circuits. So, "internet" communication equipment would not be subjected to too many chips going "bad" and there would not be the experience needed to learn to troubleshoot and trace down the problems.

It is generally thought that computers are used for data and not subjected to movements or inputs from diverse I/O devices.The devises I worked on had many different kinds of interfaces such as Syncro to Analog which then goes through Analog to Digital for input to be used in calculations in the program which is then used in an output to another peice of hardware. Should there be a power surge somewhere in the stream from, say a syncro, then the equipment that converts the information to digital can short out which can "blow" the chips in the computer. Also a lot of non "data processing" computing equipment is not sitting in a big box on the computer room floor, it is all throughout the hardware that is using it and is moving along with the equipment. I guess what I am trying to say is that beyound PC's and mainframes used to process information, there are a lot of computing situations where the hardware is subjected to any number of outside stresses. Those can cause chips to fail where the average person would never expect them to.

Most people do not UNDERSTAND computers, even though they can use them. When you get people reading web pages of speculation from other people, you do not get correct information, you get speculation squared. It does not matter how many people say false information how many times, the physical facts cannot be changed because physics does not listen to rumors or surveys, it is what it is. A is A

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), December 16, 1999.

heh.

There have been three deleted posts to the bottom of this thread now.

You gotta luv this place.

I LUV the fact that we didn't go down the *hitter in one fast gush, not out of the woods yet....

-- Why Shouldn't (the@pollys.crowalittle?), January 12, 2000.

Cherri..wow, girl is that really you! LOL, you got more guts then I do. Of course though, posting a picture from '73 of myself wouldn't be as painful as one from the present.

For what it is worth, and aside from debating the topic presented here, I have talked to Cherri in chat and she is a very nice person.

Ok...you all go back to flamin' and fightin' now. :-)

-- Lilly (homesteader145@yahoo.com), January 12, 2000.