Paul Milne's name keeps coming up in this forum and I have no idea who he is. Why is he famous/infamous? What are his credentials?

-- Donna Mittelstedt (dmittels@csuhayward.edu), October 21, 1998

Answers

I asked the same question a couple of weeks ago. I am sure Paul will introduce himself to you. Paul is convinced the end of life as we know it is near. He put his money where his mouth is and moved from near NYC to Virgina. His views are considered extreme by most. He was interviewed by CNN for a y2k story and shows up here once and awhile.

-- Bill (bill@microsoft.com), October 21, 1998.

Paul's most famous quote to date:

"If you live within 5 miles of a 7-11, you're toast."

The CNN interview quote about LA and NYC was good runner up.

-- Arnie Rimmer (arnie_rimmer@usa.net), October 21, 1998.

For more on Paul, check out the comp.software.year2000 Usenet forum. He's a regular visitor there -- permanent resident, even. Paul does not tolerate fools gladly, and he considers anyone who isn't digging in and stocking up for the end of the world a fool. He isn't in the least shy about telling them that, with "butthead" being one of his milder characterizations. His claims to fame are his extreme views and his extreme vigor in promoting them. C.s.y2k regulars often talk about y2k predictions in plus- or minus-Milne terms. Paul provides both a counter to the Pollyannas and a gauge to measure your own views against.

-- J.D. Clark (yankeejdc@aol.com), October 21, 1998.

Some people need to be explained things with a hammer. I wish Paul lived in Philly and got vocal here. I just posted the entire statement of the city of Philadelphia's readiness on the Y2K issue, which was released yesterday. It consists of an entire...paragraph. The average 12 year old is more aware than the city Controller :( It's under the thread "It's official, Philly is doomed!", last post from me.

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), October 21, 1998.

I have got to see this. What is the address for the other forum?

Rick

-- Rick Tansun (ricktansun@hotmail.com), October 21, 1998.

I did a search for "Milne" at Gary North's site and found about four links, mainly to Cory Hamaski's weather reports. Gary North calls Paul Milne a "Gary North's Gary North." ... Wow... I didn't know there was anybody more extreme than North.

So is Milne a historian like North? or is he a techie?

-- Donna Mittelstedt (dmittels@csuhayward.edu), October 21, 1998.

Paul Milne is an interesting concoction of being right, extreme, verbal, abusive, right, observant, harsh, unfair, right, barbarian, impish, astute, vile, right, forceful. An amazing way to get pseudo-famous. For those interested, I suggest you lurk on the USENET address comp.software.year-2000. For the unaware types (notice I didn't say Buttheads), use your browser to initiate the News server. On Netscape, Click Window, click Netscape News, Click File, Click Add newsgroup, type in comp.software.year-2000, enter

The discussions can get rough and technical and silly so don't get offended. There are also nuggets of good information.

-- R. D..Herring (drherr@erols.com), October 21, 1998.

Milne may be a Gary North's Gary North, but the ultimate doomsayer is a character from c.s.y2k called Infomagic. He is a Paul Milne's Paul Milne. Unfortunately, he has a compellingly accurate grasp of history. Here is a sample of the future he envisions:

On 14 Sep 1998 12:49:15 GMT, kiyoinc@ibm.XOUT.net (cory hamasaki) wrote:

>as much as anyone, which is the problem. This is something that's never >happened before. There has never been a civilization that's been so >dependent on automation, on a single point of failure.

I'm not so sure it hasn't happened before, although on a smaller scale. Many civilizations have come to a sudden end without being conquered by some outside force -- the Anasazi and Mayans in America and, within our own lineage, the Roman Empire.

Indeed I think that the collapse of the Roman Empire displays many similarities to our situation today. Y2K is only _one_ of the factors leading to our destruction, just as it's historical equivalent was only one factor in the fall of the Roman Empire. Back then, that equivalent factor was the inability of the ruling group to maintain administrative control over the empire as it grew beyond the size which could be managed with their available tools. This bears a chilling resemblance to the situation we can expect after the inevitable failure of a large portion of our administrative "tools" in the first month of 2000. The main (and frightening) difference is that our tools will fail much faster and much, much harder.

But this is not the only factor. Economically, the Romans experienced a currency and debt crisis similar to, but smaller and simpler than that we face today. They debased and inflated their "money" just as we have done with our fiat currencies (only ours is worse and more dishonest). They ran up vast public and private debts which grew so large that they could no longer be serviced in the event of a significant economic downturn. Nowhere near as big a debt as ours, of course, because they lacked the mathematical skills to invent derivatives and they had no plastics to stamp into credit cards.

Militarily, the Roman Empire was unbeatable by any other force on earth, just like America and the Western Allies today. But, like us, they ruled over a vast "world" which stretched the limits of their economic and administrative abilities beyond their capacity to maintain control (and they didn't even have to deal with the logistical nightmares of Y2K). They could deal with any single upstart easily, just as we did with Madman Insane. But in the end they had to deal with multiple uprisings throughout their world, until they lost the logistical and manpower capacity to deal with them all at the same time. Like them, after New Year's Evil, we will die the death of a thousand cuts from all of the little brushfire wars already smoldering all over the planet.

Politically, the Romans governed to appease the short term appetites of the increasingly ignorant and idle masses -- instead of taking on the hard work and responsibility of building a real future for their children. Scared of angering the "citizens" who kept them in power, the last emperors bribed them with shallow entertainments like the public baths, spectacular "games" of "sport" to amuse them, and government funded "arts" to convince the "intelligentsia" how big their brains were. Isn't this what _both_ political wings have done for the last 70 years -- bribing and appeasing the increasingly ignorant and idle masses who elect them with short term "benefits" to be paid for by excessive and destructive taxes on the true producers of their wealth? With impossible to deliver promises of easy and comfortable retirement to be paid for by someone else, sometime in the future, with money that doesn't exist?

Spiritually, they lost faith in the gods for whom they had built their empire and they lost the moral foundations (limited though they were) which had given them their strength and greatness. They swung their moral compass instead toward the immediate self and began to worship government itself, even calling their emperors "gods". Today, far too many have lost faith in the one true, living and loving God who has given us everything that we have. How many now believe instead in the Beast of Government, accepting the Mark of Social inSecurity, of the Welfare Drug and of Affirmative Hate? How many women have deserted their duty to their families and husbands, in favor of the "freedom" of servitude to someone else, falsely believing that government will take better care of their children than they or their husbands? How many spineless men have allowed and even encouraged this to happen?

Morally, the last emperors were truly vile and evil men, placing their perverted peccadillos and personal power before the true responsibilities of their office. Nero fiddled while Rome burned without the leadership it needed. Today, Clinton fiddles with himself in a sordid back room while the whole world begins to burn in a global economic and technological meltdown. Instead of providing the leadership we need, he is more interested in being worshipped for his "legacy" and in satisfying his insane lust for power over the lives of others. Like Nero and Caligula, our (mis)leader is a mentally deranged pervert whose personal behavior is so disgusting we cannot even talk of it in front of our children. And like the Romans we have only ourselves to blame. Our leaders reflect ourselves and our own moral values.

Finally, the Romans had this teensy, weensy, little technological problem. If there was one technology without which the Roman Empire could never have existed, it would have to be large scale, public plumbing. Without it, and the attendant water supply and sewage disposal systems, they could never have built and sustained the first city state with a population greater than a million. Without an extensive local irrigation system, they could never have fed such a population, and without such a large population they could never have built such an empire. Their little problem was lead poisoning, which led to brain damage and, eventually, reduced their ability to maintain their civilization. Technically, it would have been _so_ easy to replace the lead with copper, but those pipes, pots and pans were simply _everywhere_ and there just weren't enough plumbers to fix the problem before the year zero zero . . .

>Several people have argued that air traffic control, airplane >maintenance, ticketing, luggage tracking, flight crew scheduling, and >maybe even the glass cockpit will be just fine without computers. > >It won't be... or it will. It really depends on your definition of just >fine. If it all fails, and it won't all fail, a lot of it will fail, >then the air industry can simply return to the pre computer days. That >means, their staff requirements go way up and their efficiency goes way >down. Oh, and someone will die, some safety systems will fail; someone >will die but hey, 40,000 die on U.S. highways each year. > >Same with freight trains, ships, communications, etc. The question is, >what will air travel be like when it's working with one arm tied behind >its back? This is what's hard to quantify.

The result will inevitably be a reduction in carrying capacity. In this case, a reduction in the ability to "carry" goods and people from one place to another. This, of course, will lead to shortages of food and other key items, and to a reduction in economic activity, in direct proportion to the fraction of capacity which is lost.

But in a larger sense, "carrying capacity" is a biological term which refers to the ability of a given habitat to sustain and support a particular population. A few years back, here in Arizona, the greenie meanies managed to impose a ban on the hunting of deer on the Kaibab Plateau (famous for it's trophy Mule deer). For years before, the number of deer had been kept fairly precisely at the carrying capacity of the habitat by means of controlled hunting just before the onset of winter and the lowered availability of food. The very first year of the ban, the Kaibab herd went into winter with a population far greater than the carrying capacity. A few months later, in the very depth of winter, the result was a cruel death by starvation for thousands of these beautiful deer as they competed for an almost non-existent food supply, consumed too early by the larger population. Even the early, stronger survivors were weakened to the point that they could not survive the worst of the winter. More than two-thirds died in that first winter, and next spring the herd was less than one third of the normal carrying capacity. It took _years_ for the herd to recover from this single event.

The human race lives in a habitat which not only includes but is for its greatest part completely dependent on computer based technology. This includes (but is not limited to) our entire social, financial, medical, industrial, transportation, hydro, energy, communications and agricultural base. Take away even a small part of that technology, and the carrying capacity of the global habitat for human beings will be greatly reduced. Go back to pre-computer days, as some have suggested, and the carrying capacity will be decimated. But the number of people who die will not be merely equal to the difference in the present and the post 00 carrying capacities. Like the Kaibab deer, the early survivors will be weakened to the point that they will not able to rebuild the "habitat", and many of them will also die, later, of starvation, disease, conflict and just plain cold.

But we have it even worse than the Kaibab deer. The regrowth of their habitat did not depend on their own actions. Ours does. With a lower population we will be less able to address problems which we cannot handle even now with the present population, a fully functional infrastructure and a vibrant economy. In addition, after the fall, more of our strength and resources will have to be devoted just to the act of staying alive (something we haven't really had to do for a long time). Inevitably, the world's population will continue to drop. It will enter a "deflationary spiral" much like the present Asian economies. Like them, there is no longer _anything_ we can do to prevent this, or to rapidly recover. We've left it too late.

Something similar, but far less drastic, happened to the Roman Empire and it's descendant the Holy Roman Empire of Europe. After the initial collapse, the survivors were even less able to maintain the infrastructure of the old empire. So it deteriorated even further, the carrying capacity was reduced further, and ever fewer survivors had it ever tougher year by year. They entered a deflationary population and technology spiral which continued right up until after the Black Plague, the death of half of Europe and, finally, the Renaissance.

This is why I have consistently predicted the loss of at least half to two-thirds of the world's population and a very, very, long period for recovery. Our problems are far more serious, far more immediate, and our fall will be faster and deeper than that of the Roman Empire. We may not even survive. Any of us.

>cory hamasaki 473 days now.

And a thousand years thereafter.

Five miles from where I spent my early childhood in England are the ruins of an old Roman fort, built two thousand years ago to guard the mouth of the largest local river. It was a long way for a nine year old boy to pedal a bike, but I went there many times to explore and to imagine. In particular, I would go there every Easter when, according to legend, the old Roman town would magically come alive again.

More than one Good Friday evening I spent there, listening for and almost hearing the ancient sounds, looking for and almost seeing two thousand year old ghosts from a long dead civilization. I think about it often now, as I try to prepare my community for long term survival.

Get a sense of history, Pollyanna. It's coming soon to a city near you.

===================================== y 2 0 0 0 @ i n f o m a g i c . c o m ===================================== Eccl 10:2 -- The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. -- (NIV)

-- a (a@a.a), October 21, 1998.

Wow. I see what you mean. Sorta makes Stephen King look like Mister Rogers doesn't he? I don't remember reading too many posts where the basic premise was that Hamaski was being an sunshiney optimist.

Just when I thought I had good grasp on 'worst case scenario', this guy comes along, moves the goalposts, and shoves an icepick into my nightmare. Whew. I don't think I could take too much of that.

He manages to insult just about everyone and makes no apology.

The 'carrying capacity' issue sure struck a raw nerve with me - I've been doing a lot of thinking about about carrying capacity with respect to Y2K the past couple of weeks and Infomagic cuts all the way to the bone here.

This analysis/opinion/scarey story is certainly among the darkest I've read. I abandoned cs.Y2K early on because of all the bickering and Clinton/Starr/Repub./Democ. nonsense going on there.

Quite a doomsayer indeed. I gotta go find a happier thread. Maybe Chase Manhatten will be compliant tonight (or 'ready' or 'continuity' or something). Maybe Utah will have found the money they need. Maybe there's independent evidence the FAA really is 99% complete.

Arnie

-- Arnie Rimmer (arnie_rimmer@usa.net), October 22, 1998.

Truly an amazing post. I wouldn't even know where to begin on that one. I think I will skip the newsgroup though. I think if I read more than one post from Infomagic I might just start thinking of Scary Gary as sane!

Rick

-- Rick Tansun (ricktansun@hotmail.com), October 22, 1998.

He has been immortalised by my limericks. Well at least it might be him.

-- Richard Dale (rdale@figroup.co.uk), October 22, 1998.

One of the most important aspects of both Infomagic and Scary Gary's perspectives is that they look at this event with a historical perspective.

I didn't really get any sense of being insulted.

Homasaki is an optimist. Personally, I think that is really what makes his fears and preparations more legitimate. __________________________________________________________________

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), October 22, 1998.

I've always enjoyed Paul Milne's quote, "If you live within five miles of a 7-11, you're toast." His current sig, "The road to Y2K is paved with good expectations," lacks zip. Mr. Milne (pronounced Miln, I am told) voted more optimisticly than I did in a recent csy2k poll, much to my surprise.

InfoMagic, a much more disciplined and better writer, has been known to end his dark rants with the line, "I may be wrong. It could be worse."

By the way, Cassandra was castigated for her gloomy prophecies. But, remember, she was right.

Hallyx

Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate. (abandon all hope, ye who enter here.) --- Alighieri (Inferno II)

-- Hallyx (Hallyx@aol.com), October 22, 1998.

The story is told about when, during the development of the Bomb, more talent was needed. Some on the project wanted to involve Neils Bohr, since they knew he was bright and visionary, but hesitated because he was also known to be eccentric and difficiult to work with. Finally somone spoke to Dr. Einstein saying, "we'd like to suggest that Neils Bohr join our team, but we feel the need to caution you that he has some VERY weird ideas", to which it is reported that Einstein replied, "the question is not whether his ideas are weird, but rather are his ideas weird ENOUGH."

- the question is not whether Paul Milnes ideas are 'weird', but rather are our minds expansive enough to encompass them?

one might try measuring the "quality of his thinking", rather than concentrating on his method of delivery

he may be closer to the mark than some of us are comfortable accepting...

Perry Arnett pjarnett@pdqnet.net http://www.pdqnet.net/pjarnett

-- Perry Arnett (pjarnett@pdqnet.net), October 22, 1998.

I have thought for a while now that if things get to a 10, we're looking at a new dark ages. I prepare for what I can, hope for a 5 and try NOT to think about worse (it freezes me in my tracks). If course a little humor (even black) always helps. Unc, Richard, you're life savers - really!

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), October 22, 1998.

Infomagic may be completely correct, but his discussion reminds me of the old joke that economists are paid twice -- once to tell you want will happen, and again to explain why it didn't. He has an interesting theory that our economy is being 'carried' by computerization, and that there is some critical mass of failures beyond which collapse must snowball and recovery is impossible. This theory predicts that it is not possible that we will experience a period of economic degradation, delays, inconveniences, and workarounds, followed by a return to an even keel as things are fixed. We either continue nearly exactly as we are, or we collapse. No middle ground of temporary but serious difficulties. Time will tell.

Paul Milne's 'thought process' consists entirely of the fundamentally dishonest tactics of distortion, deliberate misrepresentation, false assumptions, illogical inferences, selective editing, half truths, insults and profanity. His expectations might be accurate, but his approach is more religious than analytical. He begins with certain knowledge, uses this knowledge to filter out everything that might be inconsistent with it, and ends up where he began. If you really want to understand what's happening out there, look elsewhere. As Einstein said, everything should be made as simple as possible, *but no simpler*. Paul Milne has 'simplified' away about 90% of the available material, and misrepresented the rest.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 22, 1998.

Just to set things straight - lead pipe causes few problems in most people unless they reach extreme age. Lead at room temp is fairly stable. Cooking in a lead pot, however, will lead to poisoning in a hurry - with a lot of 'Hatters Syndrome' becoming apparent as brain proteins become denatured due to heavy metal poisoning.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), October 22, 1998.

In the near future those who follow y2k on the net may start using a new scale to indicate the probable near future. Rather than a 1 to 10 or a bump to TEOTWAWKI it would just use 10 names with the last four being hamasaki, North, Milne & Infomagic.

-- ronbanks (phxbanks@webtv.net), October 22, 1998.

Which reminds me: anyone have an explanation of the Edwards and Eastbrook Y2K "scales"? Hallyx, R.D., one of you frequenters of c.s.y2k must have one laying around somewhere. I read with interest a big ol' debate about refinements to these impact and preparation ranges, but have never seen a summary/description of the actual values (e.g. Edwards 4).

And my thanks to a.a (fellow anon type) for posting Infomagic's commentary. I too have felt for quite some time that we're exceeding existing systems' ability to support our way of life. One prepares as best one can...

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.com), October 22, 1998.

Edwards' survey -

1 - it ain't gonna happen 3 - bump in the road, 80-hour weeks for all in 1999-2001 5 - probable collapse of economy, start hoarding now

Eastabrook survey -

5 - We're a Paul Milne, ready, and (appropriately) armed for anything. (Guns for the US, bows for England, and the Skean-dhu Scotland!)

4 - Small town (1,000-5,000), nearest large town 50 miles or more. 3 months food, heat, water, whatever. Some prepared lands, seeds.

3 - Medium town (5,000-100,000), 1 month food and heat. Water access. Fair knowledge of plants, vegetable growing, garden. First-aider.

2 - Larger town (up to 1 or maybe 2 million depending on surrounds). 2 weeks food plus some basics. Computer geek with other skills.

1 - New York, Washington, London. No pantry, takeaways! A private y2k compliant helicopter brings this down a few points.

-- a (a@a.a), October 22, 1998.

Hey Mac,

Thanks for asking that Q...it lead me to the Infomagic post I had been looking for...

On Thu, 24 Sep 1998 11:40:54 -0500, ET wrote:

>Edwards => name, vote, experience; Eastabrook => vote

Edwards => InfoMagic, 8, 30 years; Easterbrook => 6

I have seen _nothing_ to make me more optimistic and much to make me more pessimistic by the day.

I expect a full scale global depression before the end of this year as Japan, South America and the derivatives and stock markets finally tank completely. In January 1999, the first major Y2K failures will cause noticeable actual business failures and will trigger genuine public awareness of the "possibility" of major problems in 2000 itself. Just to be on the safe side, enough people will empty their bank accounts leading to a complete collapse of the banking system around March 1999, further deepening the global depression. The problems will be exacerbated by "government help".

The situation will be so bad that Clinton will declare a state of emergency sometime next summer, quite possibly leading to the beginnings of a civil war. An increase in "brushfire" wars and insurrections can also be expected in many parts of the globe. In this situation, further Y2K remediation will become impossible (not that it could have been achieved anyway). The problems will be exacerbated by "government help".

In January 2000, the peak of the Y2K failure will result in massive and continuing infrastructure failures, widespread business bankruptcies and total collapse of whatever is still left of the global economy. The result will be a huge drop in the "carrying capacity" of the economic "environment" which currently supports the lives of about 4 billion people world wide. In the first year, half of these will die. The problems will be exacerbated by "government help".

Because of the drop in population, the world's ability to recover will be effectively eliminated and more of the infrastructure will continue to fail for a wide variety of reasons (including lack of fuel, spare parts and qualified _people_ to address the problems). Carrying capacity will be further reduced, millions more will die in the next winter, and we will experience a continuing downward spiral for 3 to 7 years. This will stabilize when government is no longer able to "help" (poetic license), but the world population will be only a fraction of the present level. Recovery to a new "civilization" will require several hundred years.

Of course, I could be wrong. It could be worse.

===================================== y 2 0 0 0 @ i n f o m a g i c . c o m ===================================== Eccl 10:2 -- The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. -- (NIV)

-- a (a@a.a), October 22, 1998.

Please note that (as far as I can tell) "infomagic.com" is just some random ISP in Arizona, and the catastrophist in question just happens to have an account with them... I wonder how this company would react if they knew that "Infomagic" was being used on the Internet as synonymous with "ultimate doomsday dude"!

-- BellaVita (red@tablewine.com), October 23, 1998.

Bella,

I was wondering that myself. As far as I can tell this guy has never given any name of any sort. Makes you knind of wonder doesn't it. And if I was that ISP I would be none to pleased.

Rick

-- Rick Tansun (ricktansun@hotmail.com), October 23, 1998.

>>As far as I can tell this guy has never given any name of any sort. Makes you knind of wonder doesn't it. And if I was that ISP I would be none to pleased.

Rick

Answered by Rick Tansun (ricktansun@hotmail.com<<

And what kind of name is "Rick Tansun" anyway. Sounds like a pseudonym to ME. And at a hotmail address to boot. For that matter, what kind of nonsense non de plume is "Hallyx." As for the ISP, I'd be happy for any kind of publicity. I mean, who do you rememeber, Infomagic.com or JoeSmith.org?

Hallyx

"I don't care what you say about me as long as you spell my name right."

-- Hallyx (Hallyx@aol.com), October 23, 1998.

a@a has described the Edwards and the Eastabrook scales used in csy2k to assess the concensus of opinion there. The results are published quarterly and seem to reflect a much more optimistic general opinion that that inferred from the postings. I noticed this and, having been exposed to a 10 point scale in this forum, proposed an extended scale as follows:

>>My problem with this [Edwards scale] is that the discussion recently has been about effects higher than Edwards 5. In fact, in my ballot, I commented on the relative conservatism of Mr Edwards' scale. It's almost as if a 10 point scale had been truncated to its five lowest scenarios.

One might suggest:

6) Severe depression. Minor civil disorder. Grid survives

7) Major economic upheaval. Barely controlled insurrection. Blackouts and brownouts lasting months. Years to recovery.

8)Total economic breakdown. Mass human dieoff. Total grid and transportation failure. But enough personel and skills remaining to reboot civilization. Decades to recovery.

9) Insufficient skills and personel to restart civilisation as we know it. Humanity recovers locally as best it can and wobbles off into an uncertain future.

10)Real EOTW. Radioactive and toxic substances released into the environment destroys a significant percentage of higher life-forms.

It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine --- except for this headache, dizzyness and nagging cough.

Hallyx

"Of course, I could be wrong. It could be worse." --- Infomagic <<

That, in conjuction with Dave Edwards' first 5 points, bore the moniker "Edwards/Hallyx" scale for about two days until the geeks reminded us all that the Edwards scale was initiated in the old days when comp.software.year-2000 was still about comps and softwares, and that back then the focus was on fixing the code. The current body of opinion is that extrapolations as to the societal effects were inappropriate and not apropos the comp.software focus. This was argued with a straight collective face and with no apparent appreciation of the irony.

But I agree with Uncle Deedah, Infomagic and others that, once we reach the "flip" point (or "phase transition" point---see the Chaos Theory thread), things will rapidly change to a new equilibrium state, one I'm not sure we'll particularly like or even recognise. That point for me is somewhere above 7 on the Edwards/Hallyx scale.

And don't smirk at #10 or I'll post my "Real EOTW" scenario where even the surviving bacteria have a hard time.

Hallyx

"Carried away, perhaps by His matchless creation, The Garden of Eden, He forgot to mention that all He was giving us was an interglacial." --- Robert Ardrey

-- Hallyx (Hallyx@aol.com), October 23, 1998.

Uh, Rick... You probably want to avoid criticizing the preference many of us in this forum have for anonymity. It's essentially an ad hominem argument and adds nothing of value to the discussion. Argue the ideas and premises as presented, present your own counter-arguments, and avoid "arguing the opponent." I choose to be anonymous because there are simply too many people out there who consider insults, personal attacks, and even threats to be some sort of valid response in a discussion. I get enough e-mail without providing a target for the electronic equivalent of gang bangers. I'm certainly not saying that you're one of that kind, but, as with Y2K, I'm preparing for the worse and hoping for the best.

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.com), October 23, 1998.

Just realized the irony of asking that we avoid personal insults in a thread re Paul "You're a BUTTHEAD!!!" Milne. LOL! *whew* No doubt about it: "God is an iron."

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.com), October 23, 1998.

Paul is the raging bull of Year 2k.

-- Amy (leoneamy@aol.com), October 23, 1998.

If things turn out the way Milne expects, it's only a matter of time before somebody gets sick of his attitude and kicks his butt. He's got more reason to hope for the best than any of us!

-- Buddy Y. (buddy@bellatlantic.net), October 23, 1998.

Here's a site that goes Infomagic one better--

Troubled Times believes that a world-wide cataclysm, of massive proportions, will strike the Earth in the year 2003. The cause of this natural event will be a monster planet, known to the ancients but as yet undiscovered by modern man, which will pass very near the earth as part of its normal 3,600 year orbit around the sun.

The ancients called this monster the 12th Planet, and as this magnetic giant passes by, it will force our North and South Poles to rotate 90 degrees. The shifting poles will drag the Earth's crust with them, ultimately producing a new global map in a matter of hours in a massive cataclysm affecting all life on earth. These events have occurred before, as ancient legends and Prophecies fortell, creating what man interprets to be ice ages, wandering poles and the flood, and have resulted in the extinction of the Mastodon and the sinking of Atlantis.

Now, that's what I call disaster!

-- Max Dixon (Ogden, UT USA) (Max.Dixon@gte.net), October 23, 1998.

Donna,

Instead of wondering who I am, your time would be better spent preparing.

It is going to be far far worse than EVEN I have let on.

Check out bergen.com the Sunday edition of the Bergen Record for a piece containing 'yours truly'. Nice pictures and eveything. I don't know if the pictures will be carried in the online version.

I hope they use the picture of the hogs. Both of them are named 'Flint'.

-- Paul Milne (fedinfo@halifax.com), October 24, 1998.

Mac - You read Spider!? You're right about the irony, too. 8)

Max - The last I heard, the ancients didn't have 9 planets on their roster, let alone more.

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), October 25, 1998.

My opinion about Milne is he's a pain in the butt. He isn't willing to discuss anything. He's convinced that the end of the world is nigh, and if anyone voices a contrary opinion he simply starts name- calling and repeating himself. He's probably convinced many *not* to prepare, because he's driven many such as myself off the CSY2K forum, so any new arrival there quite justifiably comes to the conclusion that these guys are *nuts*. Contrast Gary North, who collects and presents evidence and does everyone a service by so doing. You may or may not agree with his opinions; you ought to be convinced that some sort of trouble lies ahead.

BTW The fall of the Roman Empire was *not* caused by lead plumbing. Lead plumbing was universal right up to Victorian days; many London houses still contain lots of it. In a hard-water area there's no danger, because there's a layer of "fur" in the pipes blocking out the lead. In an area with soft water, especially if acidic, there is some small danger because significant amounts of lead can leach into the water overnight, but it's worth noting that many of the famous Victorians who started western civilisation going grew up in precisely those cities with soft acidic water coming out of lead pipes.

There's a grain of truth, though. The Roman upper classes DID suffer from lead poisoning. It was self-inflicted through ignorance. They sweetened their wine (more like vinegar in those days) by letting it stand in lead crystal vessels, to dissolve lead. Lead salts taste sweet. The old name for one of them is "Sugar of Lead".

-- Nigel Arnot (nra@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk), October 28, 1998.

My browser can't access comp.software.year-2000 so I'll never read Paul Milne's gems (sniff, sob).

-- Richard Dale (rdale@figroup.co.uk), October 28, 1998.