Re 60M, What is ChickenLittle Clucking about?

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

In another thread, ChickenLittle clucked, "Sen. Bennett was interviewed a couple of months back for the piece, and since has revised his stance more towards the 'lesser problem' area. Fact."

I've posted two transcripts/nearscripts of Senator Bennett's talk at the May WDC Y2K meeting. These were a huge effort to produce and are accessable so that everyone can get a sense of Bennett's thoughts, unfiltered to the degree possible.

Bennett is not softening his position. He's changing his focus as information becomes available and seems to be gradually falling into line with the WRPs.

For example, my personal assessment is that the "embedded" problem, like the "Bemer Solution" are side issues, interesting, fun to yak about but not society killers, savers. When Bennett minimizes the impact of the "embeddeds", he's not saying that there isn't a problem, he's saying that it is not as large as he thought it was... or more accurately, not as large as the people testifying before congress thought it was.

And there's no doubt that the party-line is still, "We have nothing to fear except fear itself." This is unfortunate because that was a bunch of bull when it was first slung by Roosevelt. Years after his speech, the economy was still in a pickle and there was still a little matter called WWII to contend with. There was lots to fear.

In Y2K, the worse news is yet to come. But don't worry. I'm working with an author on Pollyanna 2, a brief, optimistic break from the unrelenting bad news.

By the by, I hope everyone noted that 60 minutes, while they didn't mention Jo Anne by name, detailed several lookahead failures. Please denialists, don't argue with me. Refute the factual statements in 60 minutes. Tell them that the December payroll problem (the one that took 2 months to fix) wasn't real. Tell them that 100% remediated Monkey County didn't have a construction permits system crash doing a one year look-ahead.

I'll have more in the next WRPs. (I'm not pecking on Chicken, his/her post seemed to be a good lead for these comments.)

-- cory (Kiyoinc@ibm.XOUT.net), May 24, 1999

Answers

Well Goodness Gracious Gory Cory,

Seems as though you haven't yet posted what you say you've posted. Just went and checked. Number 119 from May 18 is there. But nothing about Bob Bennett there.

Number 120 gives a 404 error, i.e. Not there. (As of 6:10 EDT Monday, May 24, 1999)

But no problem. You will, certainly. We'll just have to deal with this a bit later.

I'm working on getting Sen. Bennett's quotes from the "60 Minutes" piece, as opposed to his more recent, more optimistic quotes.

We'll see.

Cluck cluck.

-- Chicken Little (panic@forthebirds.net), May 24, 1999.


Scroll down just OOOOOOOOOONE MORE, I know it's hard but DO IT. WRP-118 is Sen. B.B.

-- FLAME AWAY (BLehman202@aol.com), May 24, 1999.

Cory,

For example, my personal assessment is that the "embedded" problem, like the "Bemer Solution" are side issues, interesting, fun to yak about but not society killers, savers.

May I assume from this that your "personal assessment" includes the fact that the electricity probably WON'T go off next year? :)

-- Stephen M. Poole, CET (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), May 24, 1999.


To CET,

About power, well I donno, but here's the problem. Nobody knows.

When you get past a certain level of complexity, you cannot predict the future. This is an old philosophical question and I certainly don't have the answer.

If you take a magnifying glass and examine one teeny-tiny issue, such as embeddeds, it doesn't look like a civilization killer. Again, for embeddeds, I'd defer to people like Flint.

Embeddeds are the bug-a-boo, the rustling at midnight of Y2K. Maybe a problem but very likely not as big as some fear. Here's a touchstone. The more knowledge and expertise a person has on the embedded front, the less fearful they are.

Contrary-wise, the more knowledge and expertise that a person has in the large systems/complex systems area, the more fearful they are.

This doesn't guarentee that the power will stay on and that water will pump. In fact, the Y2K management interviewed on 60M stated "stock 4 weeks of water." and they said it matter of factly. Implying to me, well, doesn't everyone have a 500 gallon bag of water in their living room?

But we shall see. Good luck to you all. No matter how this plays out, I'm looking forward to lots of tuna dishes next year, especially tuna w/mayo on white bread. I love it.

Hope to see some of you at the Y2K chat and at some of the local Y2K meetings, area visitors please avoid the dangerous parts of the city.

-- cory (kiyoinc@ibm.XOUT.net), May 24, 1999.


"Contrary-wise, the more knowledge and expertise that a person has in the large systems/complex systems area, the more fearful they are."

Understatement of the century Cory :)

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), May 24, 1999.



Ahem.... if I may have a moment?

Senator Bennett CLEARLY stated that "all the worst-case events WILL occur, but in VARIOUS 'localized' areas. But if you're in one of those areas, you won't be happy..." (or something quite close to that)

Personally, living in western WI, *I* can't live with (LITERALLY) no power or heat for a "few days". January up here ROUTINELY reaches 20 deg BELOW ZERO, with wind chill of 60 below.... C'mon up here; *I'll* show you "no problem".

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), May 24, 1999.


When one examines the STAKES INVOLVED when it comes to the power issues, the mere fact that "nobody knows" says it all. (Of course, pollys never consider this....)

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), May 24, 1999.

Gory Cory said,

"Bennett is not softening his position". He already HAS, several times. Just finding the hard copy is the task.

Here's one example:

"An 'economic consequence' from Y2K is all but assured, according to the chair of the Senate Y2K panel. But actual physical disruptions in the United States should be a manageable "bump in the road," especially relative to other countries around the world.

"How high that bump will be, how radical it will be, I don't know," said Senator Robert Bennett (R-Utah), chair of the Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem. Bennett made his remarks to the Washington DC Year 2000 Group on Thursday night. Bennett said his information indicates that the threat from noncompliant embedded systems is less severe than earlier believed, and that the awareness and action on the Y2K problem had greatly improved over the last year. "I'm somewhat more optimistic than I was a year ago," Bennett said.

from Y2k Today, Link

-- Chicken Little (panic@forthebirds.net), May 24, 1999.


BTW, that Y2K Today snip is from April 24, about 3= weeks ago...so as I said originally, on the other thread Gory Cory quoted, "Sen. Bennett was interviewed a couple of months back for the [60 Minutes] piece, and since has revised his stance more towards the 'lesser problem' area. Fact."

Cluck cluck cluck.

-- Chicken Little (panic@forthebirds.net), May 24, 1999.


I was sitting in the third row and I could have sworn he said,"...how rattled we will be." not "how radical it will be."

My visualization included a car on a bump, bottoming out and losing the rear axel.

-- sally strackbein (sally@y2kkitchen.com), May 24, 1999.



If a lot is to be made of Senator Bennett's assertion that he's somewhat more optimistic than he was a year ago it'd be good to recall what he was saying a year ago. Here are clips from comments he made mid-1998:

The Y2K Crisis: A Global Ticking Time Bomb?, by Senator Bob Bennett, June 2, 1998. "What's going to happen in your organization when you cannot transfer money into any of those branch offices or get any money out of any of the operations that are going on there because the banking systems in those countries will not be working? ... What's going to happen in your internal organization when many of your customers suddenly lose their jobs or lose their income because their organizations are not Y2K compliant, and they're facing serious layoffs?"

National Press Club Luncheon Address: Paul Revere Not Chicken Little, by Sen. Bob Bennett, July15, 1998. "I think the president's statement yesterday was a stirring call to arms. ... it's a little like announcing that we are at war. ... I believe we're going to win; that is I think that civilization as we know it is not going to come to an end. It's a possibility. Possibility, if Y2K were this weekend instead of 76 weekends from now, it would. But we have 76 weeks in which to try to get this under control. But we are, in a sense, at war against this problem."

Will the Health Care Industry Be Prepared for the Year 2000?, by Senator Bob Bennett, July 23, 1998. "Clearly, the health care industry is not yet ready for the Year 2000. If tonight when the clock struck midnight the calendar flipped to December 31, 1999, large portions of the health care system would fail. There are some six thousand American hospitals, 800,000 doctors, and 50,000 nursing homes, as well as hundreds of biomedical equipment manufacturers and suppliers of blood, pharmaceuticals, linens, bandages, etc., insurance payers, and others that are not yet prepared."

Opening Statement of Hearing: Communicating the Challenge of the Year 2000, by Sen. Bob Bennett, July 31, 1998. "... the sheer number of players illustrates the problem. Today in the United States, there are five long distance carriers ... , five major national television broadcasters, six Regional Bell Operating Companies, more than one thousand small phone companies, 16 communications satellite providers, more than 4500 Internet Service Providers and hundreds of cellular phone companies, thousands of broadcast radio stations and over eleven thousand cable services companies. And this just captures the infrastructure of the United States and does not include the thousands of large and small communications equipment manufacturers. ... this infrastructure relies on hundreds of millions of lines of computer code. It is too great a leap of faith to believe that all the elements of an endeavor this complex will be ready at the stroke of midnight just 17 months from today, especially in the light of the limited readiness the industry has shown to this committee."

Bunker Mentality Taking Hold in Fear of Y2K Glitch, by Karen Brandon, Chicago Tribune, August 3, 1998. "[Senator Bob Bennett] said he is worried about the prospect of riots, some ground-level weapons problems and payment for government programs such as Medicaid, Medicare and welfare. When asked if the cyber-survivalists should be considered wacky, Mary Jane Collipriest, Bennett's communications director, said no. When asked whether everyone else should begin taking similar steps, she replied, 'Not yet.'"

Somehow I can't get excited that he's 'somewhat' more optimistic than what he was saying back then.



-- Ron Rodgers (RonRodgers@Resilience2000.com), May 24, 1999.

Oh my goodness gracious,

I was so busy pecking around the barnyard that I missed what Mr. Flame Away said about the WRP 118, where Sen. Bennett's statements are "quoted".

Link

Two main points here:

(1) Who's "Critter"?

(2) Why should I (or anyone else, for that matter) believe that "Critter" has rendered a faithful recounting of exactly what Sen. Bennett said at the said event? Since Gory Cory is a confirmed Doomer, with an Agenda, if ever there was one? No 3rd party verification or peer editorial review whatsoever. Haven't you guys learned any journalism at all? They taught us better form than that in 10th grade English.

If I were to come forth with a 'transcript' of Senator Bennett comments, which a friend of mine (oh, let's call him "Buzzard") wrote up, would you be inclined to take Buzzard's writings as gospel? With no 3rd party verification?

Didn't think so.

Credibility gap here? Only large enough to drive a herd of Sherman tanks through, that's all.

Puck puck cluck cluck ba GACK.

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

"Don't piss down my neck and tell me it's raining."

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

-- Chicken Little (panic@forthebirds.net), May 24, 1999.


THE END TIMES -- YOUR STEPPING STONE TO PROSPERITY Foolish doomsayers claim that the sky is falling. It's not, of course; however, THE EARTH IS CAVING IN. The pesticides Grandpa used are leaving their brands on the new babies' genes. The kids get better drugs in grade school now than you did in college. There are cities of 30 million each all over the world, full of people who are starting to want back what they think YOU TOOK, and yet you have to work like a dog just to keep what you think you have. On top of all that, the Russians have a cocked and loaded gun pointed at your head right now -- but don't feel bad, you've got one at somebody's head over there, too!

THERE IS A HELL, alright -- and YOU'RE ALREADY IN IT! Of course, this is merely the TOP FLOOR of Hell, the easy part... the Hell where you don't even know you're in Hell. The part where you think you're in "Real Life." HA!

Now, it doesn't always feel like Hell. Some of the time you have Slack -- sort of -- and other times it's drawn up tight. But it keeps getting tighter and TIGHTER , no matter how much partying you do, no matter how much "fun" you buy, no matter how much money you SPEND. So now there's this internal perpetual motion machine of slight disquiet...like something's missing,like something was amputated but you don't know what...OH YEAH, you realize... THAT Slack!

Right -- that Slack. The Conspiracy's got YOUR SLACK, and you're in HELL NOW, and you don't even KNOW it, becauselife on Earth is Hell, without "Bob."

But it could be worse. You could suddenly be crawling out from underneath radioactive rubble with your fingers falling off! You could, suddenly, be attacked and tortured by a mad slasher! You could be head-on-ed by a drunk driver tomorrow on the freeway -- but not be completely killed. So you should console yourself, through everything that befalls you, with the thought that things could always be MUCH, MUCH WORSE than they are now. Don't kill yourself yet; wait and see what worse fate awaits you!

Besides, in the meantime, They'll make sure you have plenty of Their FALSE Slack -- false work, false money, false sex, false love, false TRUTH! (THESE -- are Slack Abuse !! -- and should be handled ONLY by Church Hierarchy. They are POISON for you -- POISON!!)

Most Slack Abuse comes from the system buckling under the weight of its own normalcy, and taking you with it. Something's got to give -- and YOU are that something! You'll HAVE to go crazy, to stay sane! You'll be forced to stop being normal. But, in return for saving the world, the world OWES YOU A LIVING. YES -- IT'S TRUE!

The True SubGenii, the Chosen Ones, the High Unpredictables, shall be rewarded in the great Rupture of 1998, X-DAY, when the Men from Planet X will come; and we shall be LIFTED UP, in Power and Glory, to the Escape Vessels of the Sex Goddesses, fleeing the cataclysms on Earth while being TRANSFORMED into OverMen and UberFemmes, SUPERIOR MUTANTS who will lead a NEW RACE (the MASTER RACE, because it comes in ALL COLORS) to the PROMISED LAND, the Pleasure Dimension of ETERNAL SLACK AND CYTORSPASMIC OOZQUIRT.

Of course, the more timid of the Saved may choose to stay and weather the destruction of civilization as we knew it -- for who can truly guess what other fates may lie in store, once "back aboard" that "wondrous craft?" AIEEEE we must KNOW! We MUST KNOW our Destiny!!

In the meantime, never forget: compared to those PINKS, you're already an OverMan or an

Wait. Wait. They're watching. Act like you aren't reading this, like you just found this tract... get ready to throw it away like you aren't interested... ah, whew, it's okay. They're gone for now.

Where might it END? Dobbs' Prescriptures tell us that The Angelic Host from Planet X -- the "Xists" -- are themselves merely "tweezers" used by higher beings who might as well be observing us through a microscope. Beyond our pitiful earthly vale of illusion are vast, bodiless POWERS of Dark and Light, locked in a constant struggle -- and WE are THEIR WEAPONS AGAINST ONE ANOTHER in the APOCALYPTIC SHIT- STORMS OF THE NEXT 400 YEARS!!

Will you let yourself be manipulated like a puppet by the vile, demonic ELDER GODS into freeing them from their aeons-old banishment, to RULE this planet in their SIZELESS GRIP, or will you CLEAVE to "BOB" and be manipulated like a puppet by his Master, JEHOVAH-1 (aka WOTAN and RA, Destroyer of the Unclean), and His galactic "sidekicks,"the REBEL GODS: They Whom men call ERIS DISCORDIA (ISIS, Kali -- the mad pagan goddess of giggling CHAOS), the inutterably ancient SEX GODDESSES, NUNU and NARNINI, or G'BROAGFRAN , the Unpronounceable, or BANONO, the vindictive goddemoness who delights in cruelly dashing the plans of fools??? And what of NHEE GHEE???

What of NHEE GHEE???

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------

Will you join the Conspiracy's mindless atheistic unknowing servitude to the "Elder Bankers of the Universe" and their MINIONS in some hideous One-World Government, or will you GET SLACK and FIGHT FOR FREEDOM as a zeal-crazed Priest-Warrior for ODIN and the TRUE ORIGINAL FERTILITY CULTS that will someday instigate an eye- wateringly orgasmic One-World RELIGION of endless, delerious pleasures?? EH?? EH??

What you decide may not matter. If you are a true SubGenius, if through your veins courses the blood of the Yeti, then IT -- JEHOVAH- 1 -- The Stark Fist of Removal -- will get you SOONER OR LATER no matter how GODLESS you try to be!!

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------

WILL YOU BE READY??

WILL YOU HAVE AN "OUT" WHEN THE WHOLE THING BLOWS??

Join the Church and DISCOVER YOUR DESTINY. "Turn yourself in" to the the Throne Office of DOBBS for metapsychic emaculatory trance processing, computerized Blemish Reading analysis, and divinely inspired psycholiterary interpretation of your tridigital Anality Trait Answerraire read-out. Journey to our glamorous "New Jerusalem," DOBBSTOWN, in the jungles of Malaysia, for your "Initiation." There, the Doctors for "Bob" and their Tibetan advisors will 'whiffread' your Psy-Stench AuraAmbience with secret devices invented by the Child "Bob" at age 6. With the Bionebulizer you can "loop" into your Code-Self, as well as those of others! Ever wanted to triple your sales ability by watching the collective unconscious like a TV show? Sure you have. NOW IT CAN BE DONE. And once properly "tagged," your various souls will actually shine off into outer space like a beacon, making a better target for the "All Seeing Eye" above to zero in on! Just sign the coupon at the back of this booklet. You don't even have to mail it in. Just hold it near a mailbox, touch your genitals and think Dallas -- and "Bob" will answer your prayer.

YOU'LL BE WAVING TO THOSE PINKS FROM THE X-SHIP, ON YOUR WAY TO PARADISE WHILE THEY COOK BELOW IN A HELL OF THEIR OWN MAKING!!

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- WHY NORMALS DON'T CARE "None are so blind as those who have no eyes." -- Dr. Philo Drummond,0 1^o What's really "abnormal" and "unnatural" is NORMALITY. The terrifying thing is that whereas the Normals cannot become like us, we can all too easily become like them. It is literally the next easiest thing in the world to become Normal... partly because it pays better, and partly because the SubGenius race is being further mongrelized with each generation by mating with Pinks and other "beasts of the field." DON'T MARRY A HUMAN!! Use the Normals, yes -- even be friends with some of them, in order to learn their weaknesses -- but do not cross- fertilize with them!

"Bob" is breeding new "humans"; that are more like the oldest breed -- humans with instincts. The flattening of the personality that comes with the average Conspiracy "life"style has suppressed instincts down through the centuries, which is exactly why so many people injure or kill their own children, or customers, or constituents; it's why marriages don't work half the time and "the family" has gotten a bad name. It's why you do stupid things to yourself! 'Civilization,' for all its fancy trimmings, is still just a rickety shack made by stooges without a blueprint,a shack that could collapse at any minute. The foundation was okay, but there has been very sloppy workmanship.

Of course, to a certain extent it's natural for our society always to be "fucked up;" after all, we're Earth creatures. "If WOTAN didn't have a sense of humor, there wouldn't be people." (Slackmasterclevians 6:14). But... not this fucked up.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------

The Pavement of Hell Road Most people are "good," or would be, and try to do noble things every day -- but because the fabric of their reality is built on ignorance and mangled instincts, the sum total of all their actions, taken together, just perpetuates the vicious circle of "dog- indirectly- eat -dog."

In "Bob's" Promised Kingdom, all will come to recognize and value their own stupidity and eccentricity, and to respect that of others for its alien hilariousness. Hideous, exciting games like WAR and CONQUEST will be just that: GAMES, played with even MORE fervor and bloodlust, but enacted on imaginary battlefields of richly textured but entirely fraudulent construction. Humiliation at not being as original as the next guy will the the cost of losing, not death. SubGenii, shattered idealists that they are, are ready for that now, but we'll be lucky if the humans figure it out within the next 10,000 years.

This may sound like KOOK TALK, but 30 years from now your KIDS' MINDS will be OURS. You'd better hope it's still "US" by then!! Conspiracy agents are even now infiltrating the Church Itself. As the years go by The Con will be able to operate more and more openly, and once it's already too late, it'll finally become obvious that "1984" already HAPPENED way back in 1953!! ONE HAND has been jerking MANY PUPPETS; America, in some ways, is becoming hardly any different from Russia. In Russia, you have to do what They want. In America, as long as you're white and not poor, you can do whatever you want -- you just have to want what They want.

But you really want what "Bob" wants. And "Bob's" logic, like his Pils, is irrefutable... because of "Bob."

But...

WHAT IF...? WHAT IF one day you got this weird pamphlet that you started reading for lack of anything better to do and suddenly you couldn't stop because it was insane yet... absorbing...about a religion that let you believe whatever the hell you wanted to believe, and the next thing you knew it had you all wrapped up in it like IT, the pamphlet, was some kind of 'power object' that could somehow implant a kind of hypnotic command in you that would lure you into this little secret fringe society, an "underground world," an unspoken "rebel alliance" of people who were really decent citizens but at the same time were in a vague, unsaid agreement as to just how MUCH shit The Conspiracy could foist over on us before we'd... well...

...people who were relatively, oh, "normal" on the surface but still had this anti-establishment "thing" of theirs, on stand-by, just in CASE... just in CASE our continent got to be one of those places where you couldn't SPEAK and ACT the way you FELT just because some unseen "presence," or some force of sheeplike behavior patterning, was making you TOW THE LINE and ACT STRAIGHT and WEAR THAT SMILE and MAKE THAT SALE and WATCH THAT SHOW and eventually THINK THAT THOUGHT and so on... just in CASE there were people in charge who really didn't care what might be left of the planet after they got through with it. Not that things have GOTTEN like that or anything, you understand, but just in CASE... and this pamphlet you were reading, it didn't exactly tell you where to go for secret meetings, because these mysterious characters were too slacked out and/or harried by the Conspiracy to be even that organized; it simply let you know that there WERE WEIRDOS LIKE YOU that you could maybe even TRUST. Because if the AWFUL CRAP DOES COME DOWN, the ASSHOLES will gang up to ferret out the 'abnormals,' who tend to want to just fend for themselves. We still have major 'witch hunts' in this country every 20 years or so...

But WHAT IF this little secret society, that was secret because it didn't want to become a society, was REAL-- even if, most of the time, it only existed as an endless spew of propaganda and odd public behavior that always popped up in the strangest places? WOULDN'T IT HAVE TO DISGUISE ITSELF AS A JOKE?? Because it isn't that you want to JOIN something, the last thing you need is another damn political fringe group, and besides, it isn't politics but thinking styles, a whole new mind set... Wouldn't it have to be pretty ambiguous, and never quite let you get a grip on whether they were, like, a sick joke, or if they were serious, or WHAT? (The very fact that THEY raised the question first could itself be interpreted as "part of the act" or as an indication of their sincerity!)

YOU WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO TELL -- SO NEITHER WOULD THE CONSPIRACY.

You'd get to thinking, "Could this thing be for real? Is there REALLY something like this going on that I just didn't know about? Or maybe I've heard about this "Bob" crap somewhere but it sounded like just a "take off" on cults and totalitarian societies and Sales Gurus with mysterious powers of LUCK, that had something to do with this SLACK shit? With getting enough SLACK? The Slack I FORGOT ABOUT because of the CONSPIRACY? The Conspiracy that didn't even KNOW it was a Conspiracy, because it was mainly composed of people who thought they were doing the right thing, the Conspiracy that's a self-perpetuating ROBOT with an ENGINE fueled by HUMAN DOCILITY, and there's plenty enough of THAT to go around; the Conspiracy that just KEEPS GOING, KEEPS POUNDING ALONG, FLATTENING EVERYTHING IN ITS PATH, because it IS NORMAL, because it's composed of NORMALITY ITSELF, a Conspiracy that couldn't possibly know what it was about to DO TO ITSELF...

... but that could somehow be HALTED, or SCREWED UP, KNOCKED WOBBLY by some "bug " in it, some little unruly ball of abnormality that could gum up the motor just before the damn thing rolled over the edge of the cliff -- SAVED by a monkey wrench in the works!

Now...

"Bob" is dead. That's right -- J. R. "Bob" Dobbs was shot and killed by The Conspiracy on January 21, 1984. That little bug isn't in that Conspiracy machine anymore... and it'll roll over YOU unless YOU TAKE UP WHERE "BOB" LEFT OFF.

WILL YOU BE THE LAST "BOB"? WAIT -- just act normal. They're coming, again. Hide this pamphlet. If they find it on you, tell them you just found it and haven't read it yet and maybe they'll let you go...

Ahh, whew, They're gone... for a minute, anyway. (Hell, for all we know that could have been one of US in disguise!) But it won't be long before the next one comes along.

You may have to look normal... even act normal. But don't be normal! Don't backslide! "Bob" Dobbs could be back at any moment! On that day of reckoning, you don't want to find out you drifted over to the wrong side of the battle line without even knowing it!!!

Who Killed Gerry Reith? BIZARRE TRADE IN HUMAN BEINGS! You may be suffering under many potentially dangerous misconceptions about The Church of the SubGenius. This isn't some small-time mail- order comedy publisher working on a miniscule budget out of an anonymous garret, but a powerful conglomerate of talented, wealthy professional abnormals with state-of-the-art equipment, living it up in a downtown Dallas skyscraper.

And that's only The SubGenius Foundation, Inc. Our publications are merely the TIP of a ROGUE ICEBERG of real-world activism by thousands of uncontrollable "Zombies for "Bob". It's way too late for us to stop them now... The World SubGenius Church relentlessly replicates itself in loathsome tenements, in basements and attics, in mansions and igloos, everywhere, but grows like a cancer best right in the wholesome breadbasket of America. Packs of untamed SubGenii run amok in sick "Gut Blowout" party/rituals; "Bob" rises leering over a lurid post-1984 landscape like a transcendent, mutated Alfred E. Newman, the "New Man," his Face stencilled on overpasses, the nameless cry of the rebel forces -- "SLACK!" -- scrawled across abandoned 7-11s...

Finally the masses will learn what they need. At this writing there are many thousands of $30 ordained, subscribing ministers of the church, and easily ten times that many less affluent but still valiant Warrior-Brainwashers for "Bob." Weekly SubGenius radio ministries infect many cities, and the Media Barrage Tapes are heard on hundreds of independent and pirate stations around the world.

There are stupid; and Conspiracy manufacturers illegally selling bootlegged "Bob" T-shirts and buttons. We've held successful (and lucrative!) revivals at the hepper nightclubs, "dives," junkyards and art museums around the country, some of which have erupted into near- riots of hilarioreligious ecstacy; Church-affiliated bands carry the message to the lost souls of the younger generation -- someday, "DRS. FOR 'BOB'" will be bigger than the Beatles. Many yearly conventions and secret Conclaves of The Elect have been perpetrated (and documented by numberless uncomprehending media parasites); McGraw- Hill published (then suppressed!) our huge "HORROR BIBLE," THE BOOK OF THE SUBGENIUS; we have been investigated by The Secret Service, the Dept. of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the FBI and the CIA, and probably the Men In Black (FUCK YOU, ALIEN SHIT-MONKEYS!).

There are many specialty Clenches and offshoots: gay, Black, even feminist and Christian! The Clergy includes many famous rock stars, artists, outlaws, freaks of nature, plus untold thousands of obscure burn-outs , old folks, street bums, prisoners, nobodies, and "NICE FAMILIES".

This is the World's First Industrial Church: NOT TAX EMEMPT -- because "Bob" is a patriot, and doesn't believe that taxpayers should have to subsidize religions they might not happen to believe in.

There are ENTIRE BUSINESSES devoted to Dobbs, bars and children named after him, jobs quit for him; his face is tatooed on the butts of hookers and the puds of bikers; tiny ads for the Church are stuck to bar restroom mirrors and bus station phone booths everywhere... hints of Dobbs have shown up airburshed into album covers, on MTV, on Saturday Night Live (though not on David Letterman, who seems to fear "Bob"). Members have formed great business and 'adult' networks, and are privileged to unusual and suppressed information and products listed in the Church Journal, THE STARK FIST OF REMOVAL. The mail that the Church recieves is indescribable. Countless are the witnessings for Dobbs' supernatural Slack Magic; "Bob" does indeed SAVE the MUTANTS!

To some minds afraid to accept the truth, the Church is merely the biggest collective art project, or put-on, since the Pyramids. Others hate us, fear us, call us the "Mockers that shall come in the End Times." If we are those Mockers, then they should THANK US for helping to FULFILL BIBLICAL PROPHECY. The Church has given a lot of jerks an excuse to be even more obnoxious; but it has also given many CRUCIAL INDIVIDUALS the excuse to KEEP LIVING.

If the Church is just a big game, it's a game that has crossed over the border of imagination and become, perhaps, all too real... HELL, FOR ALL WE KNOW, THIS MAY BE THE MONSTROUS ONE-WORLD RELIGION PROPHESIED IN THE BIBLE!!! And, in fact, if The Conspiracy were ever to take it over, it COULD HAPPEN! The time will come when the TRUE Church will once again have to disappear and change disguises, because it must always crop up where they least expect it...

Like YOU, the Church is a chameleon -- it will disguise itself as ANYTHING in order to survive, fuck, and propagate more little Churches. Yes, of course that means this Church is built on a great sandy beach of hypocrisy, changing with each wave that comes in... but where would any religion be, without its fair measure of hypocrisy??

The Conspiracy calls it "humor" because no one can take the full truth. If this Church is a joke, it is the JOKE you can BELIEVE IN. And if it is merely a FAD, merely the "latest thing," then it is the ONLY "latest thing" that lasts FOREVER.

The Church IS a MYSTERY -- here to remind some that the mysteries still exist, and to remind others that they are wrong to think they can understand the mysteries. BE DAMNED GLAD YOU CAN'T!!

Laughter and pain are two sides of the same big stick. Some people can be saved from pure paralyzing horror by being gradually lured, through propaganda disguised as entertainment, to the realization that it isn't their fault: that there really is a Conspiracy. Everyone is intrigued by SCARY SHIT, and those feelings, those yearnings/repulsions are tied to religious feelings of Something Bigger running or not running things, depending on how bad your mood is... we honestly don't want you jumping for the most obvious Something Bigger that comes along because there ARE some Things Bigger, and some of them are BAD NEWS FOR MORTALS.

Why do we do this? Not for 'art'... certainly not out of any sense of duty to mankind... we do it for the money! ...and for THE SLACK, OF COURSE! And so, whatever it takes to bear "Bob's" word of Slack to the Slackless, let us do it. No matter how much money must be lost or blood spilled in our noble quest for greatness, no matter how stupid we must look, or even be, WE MUST CONTINUE. For our holy war, our jihad, is for the glory, not of ourselves, NAY, but of That Man "Bob:" that great Fingerhead of Knowledge who leads us, beckoning, winking, grinning, ever onward... to a future we cannot know. Ahhh, YES!! SMELL THAT CHURCH AIR!! This is a wonderful life we've been born into, an action-packed century! We'll live to see The End of the World! -- and then some.

So -- send in that $20 -- get your ordainment papers and big stack of STARK FIST magazines ... smoke a Fropstick, jack up your footgland, lean back and ENJOY! Because even as you read this now, atoms in your mind are being rearranged... for better or for worse, for good or evil, these we cannot say; these are value judgements peculiar only to this pathetic race of bipeds. There ARE others, however. The Dobbsdrome signal, even on these very pages, IS LOCKED NOW ONTO YOUR IMMORTAL SOUL -- AND YOU ARE HENCEFORTH UNDER THE PROTECTION/ SUPERVISION OF THE DOBBS. This may be why you suddenly feel 'different.' You have taken your first step towards your Destiny.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------

-- ! (!@!.!), May 24, 1999.


Mr. Hamansaki:

I propose to you that embedded systems is the Y2k "issue", if for no other reason than their ubiquity. Many who have been attracted to this issue that share the level of concern that I do place alot of emphasis on whether power can be produced and distributed, whether oil tankers will be able to navigate correctly, or whether water systems might break down because of these pesky hidden systems.

But when you dwell on Y2k and it's possible affects long enough, you should come to the conclusion that it's not really a matter of the frequency or the magnitude of the failures, it's about our capacity to recover from them that is the concern. I postulate there are fewer big iron issues than embedded issues that will hinder our ability to recover. In that regard, I offer the following statement, made by David Eddy of Westergaard Year 2000:

"Humankind's will to survive, to pull their chestnuts out of the fire at the last possible moment is just too strong. There are too many workarounds available.

"Computer system 'crashes' don't obliterate physical goods like 500 pound bombs do a ball-bearing factory. Most of the computer systems exposed to Y2k problems are backoffice, administivia, management reporting and control systems, which, under duress, can and will be fudged for varying periods of time."

I understand your afinity for the big iorn, but Mr. Eddy is oft quoted on this site and commands a measure of respect. Some may dispute his commentary or the suppositions I have drawn from it and that is welcomed. Still, his viewpoint is not without merit, and push coming to shove, his more critical concerns ly elsewhere.

With that, and the realization that people like Rick Cowles have been dealing extensively with embedded controls concerns for the past three years, and that Dick Mills is less sanguine about power than in the early months of this year, Y2k embedded systems problems simply cannot be viewed as a side issue.

-- Hiway (Hiway441@aol.com), May 24, 1999.


What in the name of goodness gracious was all that about?

-- Richard Dymond (rjdymond@x-stream.co.uk), May 24, 1999.


P.S. I was referring to !'s post, not the one just before mine.

-- Richard Dymond (rjdymond@x-stream.co.uk), May 24, 1999.

Too much lysergic acid, not enough citric? Shrooms soaked with cow pee? Raw jimson weed with not enough garlic?

Goodness gracious. Ain't never seen a pink elephant talked like that one did.

No license plate neither.

-- Chicken Little (panic@forthebirds.net), May 24, 1999.


"By the by, I hope everyone noted that 60 minutes, while they didn't mention Jo Anne by name, detailed several lookahead failures. Please denialists, don't argue with me. Refute the factual statements in 60 minutes. Tell them that the December payroll problem (the one that took 2 months to fix) wasn't real. Tell them that 100% remediated Monkey County didn't have a construction permits system crash doing a one year look-ahead. "

Fraid I do have to ardue with you Cory. Go back and listen to that part again. My reading of it was that the payroll system failed in a test, not in production. It also failed for a specific day, December 18 (2 week look ahead?, but none the less, this is what testing is for. I do not argue that building permit part at all, that was a real look ahead problem, but the payroll, seeing as it was a test, does not count in my book.

-- None Of Your Business (noneof@yourbuisiness.com), May 24, 1999.


I am a true believer when it comes to Y2K generated problems and the terrible impact this will have on our 'way of life'. However, to proclaim that this forum will not accept an opposing viewpoint is more than arrogant and could be seen as ignorant. I enjoy the back and forth input that is the hallmark of any energized discussion forum and to suggest that this forum should expell the views of one side or the other just won't fly. Let the Chicken's cluck and hopefully your mind will allow for the function of choice.

-- Boomer at the Beach (bchbear@earthlink.net), May 24, 1999.

My goodness. Just came back from lunch and checked out the weird post by "!". What is that guy smokin'? As for me and mine, we believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

-- Sharon L (sharonl@volcano.net), May 24, 1999.

The "exclamation guy" has deliberately polluted several threads with that same drivel. Seems to dump it in the middle of the conversation.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), May 25, 1999.

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