Date: 1999/01/19
Forum: comp.software.year-2000
In article <36A46C38.47131337@nospam_allowed.ix.netcom.com>,
egan263@nospam_allowed.ix.netcom.com wrote:
> According to the Director of Task force 2000, more than one in ten major
> firms are behind schedule.
>
> http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/99/01/17/stibusnws01010.html?1733620
>
Now, Lets take apart this EGREGIOUS LIE bit by bit. JUST WHAT IS IN THE REPORT ITSELF.
Here is the very first line of the page that the LIAR Egan quotes:
"ALMOST half of Britain's top 1,000 companies look set to fail in their attempts to prepare for the millennium computer bug. "
Now, does that even REMOTELY square with the title Egan posted here?
"Re: England: Nearly 90% of large firms are ON or AHEAD of schedule...."
Does it. Does half look ready to fail look like 90% are on schedule? Does it. Egan is a bald faced LIAR caught once again.
Then, does the article stop there? No. Now it reports that 45% of companies have not even finished an assessment of embedded systems.
"Taskforce 2000, an independent adviser on the problem, and Dibb Lupton Alsop, the law firm, are expected to reveal on Tuesday that about 45% of the companies have failed to complete an inventory of embedded computer chips in their organisations, which means they are a long way behind schedule in solving the problem. "
The it has more bad news....
"The largest survey into business and the bug, conducted by Business Strategies, a forecasting consultancy, is also expected to reveal that just 44% of companies have spent more than 60% of their millennium time bomb budgets and that 10% of companies did not even start tackling the problem until last year. Robin Guenier, Taskforce 2000's director, has long said almost the entire budget should have been spent by now to allow time for testing and further remedial work before the clock strikes midnight on December 31. "
The budgets that have been spent indicate a grievous lack of enough work being done.
But Egan has rendered the impression that 90% of British firms are in good shape. Nothing could be further from the truth.
So where does Egan get this from?
"Guenier said: "I have always been sceptical of the government's view that this is not a problem for big business. More than 1 in 10 businesses in our survey are behind schedule. "
Does *MORE* than 1 in 10 mean that 90% are on schedule ? NO. It does not. The survey indicates what the companies are saying. They say that they are on schedule. THE FACTS SHOW OTHERWISE.
Egan has lied again. Not made an error. Has LIED.
This report makes ABUNDANTLY clear that an EMERGENCY situation exists and Egan represents it as 90% are doing well.
Here is Guinier from another article:
"But on Tuesday - seven months later - Robin Guenier of Taskforce 2000 said British companies were not doing, or spending, enough."
"The Government has been saying for over a year that big business is on course," he said.
"This survey shows that this is not so. Therefore, as most observers agree that small business and the public sector are in trouble, the British economy is facing an emergency."
http://www.itn.co.uk/Business/bus19990119/011902bu.htm
This is TEXTBOOK Pollyanna revisionism. Egan is a LIAR. No mincing words. He is a calculating bald faced LIAR. He has ripped asunder one part of this article and represented it as the overall shape of England in the remdiation.
Here is the Title of the article as the AUTHOR wrote it:
"Top firms neglect planning to fight 2000 bug"
Here is Egan's VOMITOUS SPIN:
"Re: England: Nearly 90% of large firms are ON or AHEAD of schedule...."
The objective truth and message that was conveyed was that England is way behind. Egan represents it as EXACTLY the opposite.
There are no two ways about it. Egan is a LIAR. He had his FULL CHOICE of lines to rip out of that article. Did he take out the ones that said they were terribly behind? No. He took out the part of the survey based upon self-reporting.
This is why there is so much mis-information out there. Because people like Egan refuse to listen to the whole truth and distort and twist articles to suit their pernicious purposes.
There is no way that any honest person could read that article and walk awya with the conclusion that most of England was on track. And only a LIAR like Egan would represent it that way.
> Regards
> Robert Egan
> --
> To reply by email: remove nospam_allowed.
>
Paul Milne
If you live within five miles of a 7-11, you're toast.
If you can walk away from reading that article and say to yourself,"Self, 90% of England's firms are on or ahead of schedule,"
then you are a mental cripple. And if you can not see how people like Egan INTENTIONALLY distort the articles, you are still a mental cripple. This is not about who's 'view' is correct or not. It is about taking an article that tells us how badly England is doing and distorting it to say that 90% or better are on track. It is deceitful and it is a manifest lie.
-- Paul Milne (fedinfo@halifax.com), January 19, 1999