The only thing more amazing than Russia or Indonesia not suffering a Y2K collapse, is the large number of computer failures that are officially not related to Y2K since January 1st. The Y2K radar screen is full of computer problems. Reported in the news media computer problems, although we're repeatedly assured that most of them are unrelated to Y2K. Yeah, right. There are numerous and well documented Y2K effects from around the globe. Some of them are even being reported by the mouth of Sauron media, while the rest are kept quiet. For instance, three separate Xerox repairmen have told me that their parts ordering system has had major computer problems. Problems that are officially due to "data entry errors." Problems that have disrupted Xerox's parts ordering ability for the last three weeks, according to these people.

Haven't heard about that one in the press? Who knows what else isn't being reported? Did you hear about the Rhode Island police computer system causing innocent people to be arrested? Or how the police can't run accurate records checks when they pull people over for traffic stops? The official explanation is "data entry errors." Let's see here. If you are upgrading your computer system to make it Y2K compliant; if you are transferring the data from your old system to the new one; you are doing it with a Y2K imposed deadline of 1-1-2000; then, pray tell, why isn't the computer error a Y2K error? How many of these "data entry errors" are there out there anyway? Me thinks they will continue bubbling to the surface over the next few months. By the way, it has now seeped out the defense department intelligence failure was for three days and not two hours. Wonder if this was the 72 hours Kossi was always telling us to prepare for? It seems that whenever I do get paranoid delusions, they turn out to not be so paranoid.

Speaking of the lap dog media, it has also seeped out, there's a whole lot of seeping going on, that the United States government has been dictating prime time television plots for several years now. In the road to hell is paved with good intentions motif we have "anti drug messages" being inserted, complete with tax rebates. The merger of the corporate, media and government is well underway. MBI, for mega blob incorporated, is now an established fact. MBI is global in nature and is for the common good. Really it is. The common good of the banking oligarchy to be sure, but it's still the common good. What's good for the corrupt elite is good for the people. I say, what's good for the corrupt elite is simply good for the corrupt elite. While the irony of the Clinton Administration sponsoring anti drug propaganda is overwhelming, maybe next season the child king will teach ethics and then perhaps sex education?, this merely confirms what many, including myself, have long suspected. There is no mainstream free press left in the United States of America.

Certainly, there are pockets of truth, the Internet, a newspaper here, a radio or television station there; but, there is no dissent in the corporate mainstream press. As the corporate elite continue to concentrate media power, these isolated pockets of freedom will be gradually mopped up. As far as the banking oligarchy is concerned, the media war is over. The AOL/Time Warner perversion is the final phase of media/government/corporate consolidation. Britain once ruled the sea waves, but Babylon now rules the airwaves.

This insight puts the officially smothering "don't worry be happy" Y2K message in perspective. My gut instinct was right. My savage attacks on the media were fully justified. We now see what was hidden under the Y2K box revealed for the propaganda campaign, posing as independent thought, it really was. We now hear shouted from the Internet rooftop what Kossi the propagandist and his media lap dogs whispered and planned in secret Washington D.C. meetings. The reason the official Y2K coverage was sooooo uniform, even down to the words, was because the government told the media what to say. And the lap dog mainstream media, heirs to the First Amendment, heirs to a journalistic tradition dating back centuries; a tradition paid for with the blood of murdered journalists, some 33 last year alone, answered back to the government, "woof woof." Sacred honor said the founding fathers. Sacred honor.

It seems to me the unholy alliance of media, business and government will use Y2K to its advantage. The $100 billion spent on faster computers will now cement centralized command and control ability. The "Y2K partnership" will now grow flesh onto the already existing framework for the new world order's global dictatorship. What a surprise that Kossi the klown's Y2K committee, integrating business, media and government into one blob, won't be disbanded. The only way a government agency gives up power is to run a tent peg through its heart.

With the prospect of highly visible Y2K failures fading daily, and the systems ability to suppress the "back office problems" that do show up, Y2K will fade away. The corporate predators will now move openly, as the AOL/Time Warner and Glaxo mergers show, to implement the defacto corporate/banking oligarchy they desire. There really is a class war going on right now. It's the rich against everyone else.

I don't believe Y2K was a hoax. I simply do not understand why there weren't global failures on a massive scale. I don't know why this Y2K result happened when the evidence clearly showed another one was possible, and indeed probable. I honestly don't know why the Y2K grenade didn't explode when the pin was pulled. 300,000 people in Washington and Oregon lost electricity on Sunday, so maybe self reliance isn't such a bad idea. I wouldn't make a career out of pulling grenade pins, thinking they won't explode, just because one didn't.

There are many Y2K effects going on right now. In my essay "Reality Check" I was concerned about SME's ( small to medium business entities) and their reckless FOF(fix on failure) policy. I got the problem right; I got the result of not fixing the problem right. It was the scale of failures that was unknown in September and is unknown now. Our local paper actually reported a local restaurant had 126 customers overcharged $38,000 due to a Y2K bug. How widespread is the problem? How many haven't been reported? Time will tell.

As for Y2K's back office problems, i.e. Xerox and numerous other data entry, parts ordering type computer errors, time will also tell. During the Battle of Britain, the head of RAF fighter command was questioned by American journalists about shooting down German planes. The journalists informed the commander that the Germans said he was lying about the large number of planes shot down. The RAF commander, with true wisdom replied, "If they're right, they will be in London next week and if I'm right, they won't." The Germans never entered London.

From as far back as I began studying Y2K, I always thought that the economic effects would be paramount. There are widespread antidotal reports of computer problems. There are sporadic mainstream media reports of computer problems. As Jimmy Buffet would say, "Computer sharks to the right and computer sharks to the left, I'm just a cheeseburger in paradise." Did you know that Jimmy Buffet, the tropical troubadour, is related to Warren Buffet the billionaire? We'll just see what the corporate bottom line is over the next two or three quarters. If I were a Pollyanna, I wouldn't be breaking out the lederhosen for a tour of the Tower of London just yet. I do think the embedded chip problem, at least in the core infrastructure, is behind us. My understanding was that the failures would happen within a time window of 1-1-2000. I'm increasingly confident that the electric grid, water and sewage systems will stay up. I'm less confident about the oil industry. In Venezuela an oil refinery shut down for an unspecified "computer problem", not Y2K related of course. This particular refinery is responsible for much of the 87 and 95 octane gasoline used on the United States East coast. I can't rule out a Y2K scenario where you have electricity, drinking water and can flush the toilets, but gas costs $3 a gallon. Not that I mind the SUV owners whining. There are enough reports of "unplanned production shutdowns" to raise some flags in my mind. For instance, the rate in the USA during January 2000 was nearly double, eight versus four, of such refinery incidents than during January 1999. Are we having embedded chip problems? Or is the recent price explosion in fuel prices due to the easily explainable, i.e. cold snaps, scheduled maintenance etc. etc. etc. We'll know by June. There are reports Saudi Arabia has curtailed oil production, but I haven't seen much coverage of it.

There have been reports of explosions and accidents here and there. So I have a simple test. If there are more than say two or three, oil refineries, chemical plants or pipelines blowing up in the next few months, they will be Y2K induced. A pipeline did blow up in Bellingham, Washington. This pipeline did kill three people; it did cause major environmental and economic damage. The explosion was directly linked to computer failures at several levels. So my concern was absolutely reasonable. However, there haven't been any other major disasters that I know of. If embedded chips were that Y2K time sensitive, they would have failed by now.

Originally, I didn't think there would be cash shortages. In response to the objective evidence before my very eyes, I then reversed myself and said there were shortages. I remember going into grocery stores and seeing signs about "regional shortage of quarters" and "no cashing of paychecks" and "fifty dollar limits on debit card transactions." Obviously, something was going on here. What I've now concluded is this. The Fed imposed cash rationing in the last week of 1999. If and when the bank runs happened, the Fed was willing to impose stricter cash limits as needed. The fact remains that the early stages of a cash shortage did exist in the United States during the last week of December 1999. So all those people who socked away $500 were shrewd in my view. NO DOUBT IN MY FEEBLE MIND THE FED WOULD HAVE LIMITED ATM WITHDRAWALS TO $40 IF IT FELT THREATENED. Keep the gold and silver troops. Life is mysterious and unpredictable. Buy a few ounces of gold and keep it in a safe place. And then hope you never need to use it for survival purposes.