Hello gentle readers~

I've been reading, posting, and reviewing the past several days now. Our communication problem has not gotten better, but worse. The extremist pollies want to gloat (hardly productive and possibly in error as not enough time has elapsed), the moderate pollies want apologies (from whom?), the extremist doomers (those believing in TEOTWAWKI) want to kill the messengers (the choice to prepare to that level was always theirs)...most of these doomers have now become super pollies and are now attacking forum moderates... and the moderate doomers are ecstatic that things worked out as well as it did.

As I see it, the last group is the healthiest. They took out insurance to the level that they could live with and are happy with the results.

Remember that when we were all prepping that we ALWAYS said you should be able to live with the answer if you are wrong.. Those wishing to kill Hyatt should especially bear that in mind as he said it over and over again.

Some of you sound like my daughter who recently insisted I tell her whether there was a Santa Claus or not. I made sure that she really wanted to know and then I told her the truth. She was VERY upset. I reminded her that she had insisted on the truth and she said that the truth didn't match up with what she KNEW was the truth. She wanted me to confirm her belief in Santa Claus....I think the extremist doomers think and felt the same way. They could have been right. But they weren't and they are unable to face that fact.

Many of us moderates chose to keep our mouths shut after constant flaming. We prepared. I certainly did and I am hanging onto my preps thank you very much! But I was prepared to be wrong about the level. I am thrilled that it is working out so well. I am surprised as well. But I made a decision about what level to prepare at and I did. I am happy with that level. I still believe that prepping is the answer. I have always wanted to be more self sufficient and this was a wonderful impetus to do so. I was part of the "back to nature" movement a few years ago as well...I still want that cabin in the woods and to live off the grid. Funny, how folks didn't laugh at us then....same level of preps and wow! Now, I am a fanatic. Very strange.

Pollies lump us all together. We lump all of them together. It is time to see our differences and embrace them. If you are a polly and you didn't prep at all, you should be ashamed. Y2K, earthquakes, hurricanes, power outages, doesn't matter, EVERYBODY SHOULD BE PREPARED FOR EMERGENCIES. To tell others not to prepare for these is foolish. If you really feel this way, run over to the Mormon boards and start trashing them. They have always believed in a one year's food supply...more than I have by the way, yet I am the fanatic... yeah, right...I grew up in Florida and we ALWAYS had food, water, batteries, etc. on hand......it is the smart thing to do.

Doomers who desired the end of the world as we know it should be ashamed too. The changes wrought by such a scenario would NOT have brought about the beatific and utopian world that you envision. It would have lead to the starvation and death of many.

If you fell somewhere in between (and I believe that most of us did) then congratulations! We won! Happy New Year and may it continue in a workable manner. But I still say, BE PREPARED! Not just for this year, but for every year. Disasters happen unexpectedly....that's why they call them disasters...

Show a little humanity here...some patience with other ideas. That is what has made this forum a great place to visit. I may not have agreed with the extremists on both sides, but I LISTENED...I still will...then I will make my best reasoned decision based on what I have heard...and I won't be blaming the messenger either. Use your head, watch you language and be patient and we will all get along so much better.

May God bless you all and I am glad that all of us made it through rollover unscathed....let's not start scathing each other now.

-- Ynott (Ynott@incorruptible.com), January 03, 2000

Answers

Well put, Ynott!

-- Think It (Through@Pollies.Duh), January 03, 2000.

Good Post!!!!!!!!

-- shockwave (vission441@aol.com), January 03, 2000.

Ynott - Happy New Year!

-- Risteard Mac Thomais (uachtaran@ireland.com), January 03, 2000.

What's all this about Santa Claus? What exactly are you insinuating Ynott? I think he's dooing a bloody good job every year, no whingeing from him and his elves, gets stuck in, never any problems. Leave him out of this say I...

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 03, 2000.

Ynott, you have done a great dis-service to your daughter.

Andy, Keep right on believing in Santa Claus.

When I was young, my parents always told me that if I stopped believing in Santa Claus, then he would stop bringing me presents at Christmas. Well I stopped believing, and Santa stopped bringing.

A belated Merry Christmas anyway. :-)

-- Malcolm Taylor (taylorm@es.co.nz), January 03, 2000.

I must admit that I wondered whether Santa had much problem with Y2k remediation work.Then I realised that the Elves didn't have an embedded chip problem so toy production was unaffected.A spokesman for the propulsion units on Santa's sleigh just snorted & stamped his feet (all four of them) when questioned.

Mrs Claus said that Santa had seen it all before as he was there for Y1K.A high ranking officer in NORAD, who had spent Christmas Eve tracking Santa's progress round the world, was of the opinion that Santa did not operate anyway in real time.The curent Norad theory is that SANTA had always operated in RT (Reindeer Time*)- this being the only way he could deliver presents to millions of children around the world in the space of a single night.

*Reindeer Time.This differs from GMT by not following a linear sequential progression.Time spent eating cookies & mince pies is deducted from travelling time.

-- Chris (griffen@globalnet.co.uk), January 03, 2000.

Oh Dear, I am so SORRY ANDY and Malcolm! But my daughter had the best Christmas ever. Santa is the SPIRIT of Christmas....So sorry that your parents let you down though Malcolm...Send Santa a Letter and I am sure that you will be remembered next time...make sure to forward a copy to your parents while you are at it along with this post.

I appreciate all of the civility. Had I posted this 6 months or even 3 months ago, I would have been flamed alive. See how much we have changed already? I am very proud of all of us. Now if we could just get rid of the troublemakers in the posts above who are once again baiting the forum...tsk tsk.....

-- Ynott (Ynott@incorruptible.com), January 03, 2000.

I think I'll come stand over here with you, Ynott. I am one of those moderates who never saw the profit in engaging in the flaming wars, who never cared what anyone else thought before I made a decision to make preps, who never chose to prepare beyond my means. Okay the results are - I'm in better shape today than ever before. My motto, from the beginning, was - get out of debt, get some supplies and get out of the way. If anyone else saw merit in that philosophy ( which I posted a number of times) and prepared accordingly, they are also in good shape. Unfortunately, the pervasive societal thinking pattern is to find and assign blame. We cry out "JUSTICE" and then expend untold energy seeking ways to get someone else to shoulder the responsibility that was, in truth, ours alone. It is for this reason and a myriad of others that I will continue to quietly rotate my preps and cultivate a refined system of independence. Frankly, I don't much like the way the world is going. I don't care for the way we have abandoned the golden rule and replaced it with what I call "Kudzu Rules". Defined this is when you climb over and smother everything to get to your place in the sun.

-- April (Alwzapril@home.com), January 03, 2000.

Mr. Malcolm, sir,

You are not right. There IS a Santa Claus. 'Cuz, uh, I got presents from him this year...even though I found out that there isn't a Santa Claus....In fact, I got ALOT of presents! My parents are the greatest!

And Yes, She wanted to write back to you. I dictated her words exactly. Bless her sweet little 8 year old heart!

-- Ynott (Ynott's daughter@incorruptible.com), January 03, 2000.

I will Ynott argue with your assessment.

-- JB (noway@jose.com), January 03, 2000.

All heroic epics have the heros staring at almost "certain" failure, just before they are gloriously vindicated. The hardcore doomers that have turned "SuperPolly" would probably have turned out to be cannables anyway. True hardcore doomers are not flinching just because a bunch of "polly" gnats are swarming around the yard. I'm with infomagic - get ready for melt down ...

-- Hardcore (Hardcore@doomer.com), January 03, 2000.

Ynott, you are right on! I could not have said it better. You speak as I feel. Would you E-mail me?

-- Tommy Rogers (trbsgb@msinets.com), January 03, 2000.

Ynott, April:

ditto.

-- Lewis (aslanshow@yahoo.com), January 03, 2000.

Ynott,

Like you, I prepped, as I thought things would truly get bad. I was ecstatic when I saw that power was staying on thorughout the world.

This has been the best New Year's in my life. I expected the worst, and was pleasantly surprised.

Regardless of what happens now (we should know for certain after the 1st quarter), we have power and water. All is (almost) good in the world.

-- Phread (lurking@y2k.com), January 03, 2000.