Oral Remarks Posted for May 25 Senate Y2K hearing

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I've posted a text version of my oral remarks before the Senate Y2K committee this morning. Unfortunately, I had to cut a couple paragraphs out of even this limited amount of material, as the "you're just about outa time" light went on in front of Senator Bennett's desk.

It was hard to tell what impact, if any, the remarks had. Unfortunately, it was predicated on my having something to say to each of the members of the committee ... but the only ones there were Senator Bennett, Senator Dodd (who arrived late), and (for the first 10 minutes) ex-officio member Senator Stevens. Senators Collins, Edwards, Moynihan, Kyl, and Smith did not attend the hearing. C'est la vie, I guess.

Ed

-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), May 25, 1999

Answers

Diane et al,

Sorry about the link problem. I fixed it.

You can find the oral remarks on my web site, or here

Ed

-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), May 26, 1999.


Still. You did a gret job teeing up the rest of the panel. GOOD JOB!

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), May 25, 1999.


And it isn't gret it's GREAT(!!). C

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), May 25, 1999.

Ed:

You were great! I think you all made a wonderful ensemble. I was moved. I hope the senators were. You made perfect sense.

sally

-- Sally Strackbein (sally@y2kkitchen.com), May 25, 1999.


Mr. Yourdon,

My congratulations on a solid "first time" performance. I hope the many recommendations (my own included) were helpful. How was the coffee?

One comment did strike a off note. You suggested being on the "wrong" side of Y2K will hurt come election time (Gore). In my experience, elected officials like to reach their own conclusions about what will or won't fly with the voters. To talk "out loud" about elections is a dangerous tack... particularly for a subject area expert giving testimony on a technical issue.

I hope you take this in the spirit intended. You may find yourself sitting in front of the Senators again.

Regards,

-- Mr. Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), May 25, 1999.



Thanks for doing this.

-- Reporter (reporter_atlarge@hotmail.com), May 25, 1999.

Ed,

Good job!

Diane

Your Patrick Henry quote was already picked up by the media... the beginning salvo of the news media reactions...

Newsbytes coverage of today's Senate hearing

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 000s4u



-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), May 25, 1999.


Your Oral Testimony link's not working Ed... here or at your web-site!

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), May 25, 1999.

In the words of Billy Crystal playing some character in an on-going Saturday Night Live bit --

Ed, "you looked mmmah-velous!"

While the issue is a drag, I hope you at least got a little bit of a thrill being there. Nothing wrong with having a little fun...

-- pshannon (pshannon@sangersreview.com), May 25, 1999.


I and my family can never thank you enough, Ed.

You know, its funny, on NBC and CBS the COX report (nuclear war, anyone?) didn't even make the top story. And by far most of the time was spent on things like gun control and "Will Hillary Run?" (Kosovo was # 7 story I think).

It is all just amazing. Its more and more apparent that however "bad" Y2K is, the relative amount of panic caused by being unprepared (mentally) will meet or surpass the worst predictions.

But it still comes down to "C'est la vie".

Thanks for being a true friend.

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), May 25, 1999.



Ed, Your comments were wonderful, however you were upstaged by the ladies. Between accusations of "skewed rhetoric" from one side and "fear-mongering" from the other, it got a little hot. One thing is clear - the people who are panicking are the retailers, and one can assume, the banks. Isn't it funny how everything is the opposite of what it claims to be?

-- Sorry I'm at work (abcdef@aol.com), May 26, 1999.

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