Virtually Y2K Compliant®
| The JAF Systems Worldwide Web Page is Virtually Y2K Compliant®. Our Content-Independent Architecture® passed Y2K testing in December 1998. Whether it's our first Jeremy Action Figure system, the M. Sheen Upgrade, or the U Got Mail sound file, featuring the Voice of JAF©, you can read the Statement of authenticitE© and believe that your system is Virtually Y2K Compliant®. |
Signs of Impending Y2K Apocalypse
Gov. Jesse "the Body" Ventura's Inauguration on 16 January 1999 (from CNN)
from CNN: MINNESOTANS CELEBRATE GOV. VENTURA AT INAUGURAL Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura arrived at his inaugural ball Saturday night wearing pink wraparound sunglasses, a bandana on his bald head, three earrings and a Jimi Hendrix T-shirt. His wife wore black leather. "The Body's back for tonight. Thank you, everyone," said Gov. Ventura. "Let's party Minnesota!" More than 13,000 of Ventura's supporters showed up for the ball, which was as unconventional as his campaign. The inaugural party was dubbed "The People's Celebration" by organizers. 'Not just the upper echelon' ... http://cnn.com/US/9901/17/ventura.inauguration/
Another sign of Y2K Apocalypse
YOUR BASIC FATAL FLAW
The 6,000 employees of the Muscogee County, Ga., public school system have
more in common besides the organization for which they work. "We are all,"
one middle-school teacher says, "dead." It seems the computer that
generated W-2 earnings statements for their 1998 income-tax returns checked
- not the pension-plan box - but the one marked "deceased." The error,
however, is unlikely to get them very far with the Internal Revenue
Service, which will look for another type of check - payment of the amount
due.
3rd sign of Y2K Apocalypse
Dan Quayle runs for President!
Correction 9/27/99. Dan Quayle drops out. Now Pat Buchanan takes over as third sign of Y2K apocalypse.
Six terror cells feared active in U.S.
U.S. can't verify intelligence, but reports are being taken seriously
MSNBC staff and wire reports
WASHINGTON, Dec. 24 — Concern about terrorism continued to mount, with law enforcement sources telling NBC News that as many as six interrelated terrorist cells may be planning loosely coordinated millennium attacks in the United States. Earlier, the FBI issued a highly unusual public warning about the possibility that mail bombs were being sent to unsuspecting Americans. "WE'RE FOLLOWING leads in virtually every major American city," said one senior federal law enforcement U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The sources said they were attempting to verify intelligence reports that as many as five or six interrelated terrorist cells were operating in the United States, but stressed — as they have since terrorism fears escalated earlier this month — that they have no hard evidence that attacks are planned. But they said unconfirmed intelligence reports led them to believe that attacks are possible. Asked about the terrorist cells being tracked, one senior law enforcement official told NBC News: "The financing, the cars, the materials, the training — all of it leads back to Osama bin Laden's organization." On Wednesday, authorities said unconfirmed intelligence reports had indicated that international terrorists may be plotting to attack millennium celebrations in at least three U.S. cities: New York, Washington and Seattle. Despite tight security at the nation's borders and airports, law enforcement officials were leaving no stone unturned in their efforts to ensure the holidays aren't horrific for Americans. 'THREAT ADVISORY' TO UTILITIES Adding to the tension late Thursday was a "threat advisory" being circulated to the nation's electric utilities, including operators of nuclear power plants, warning them to be on the lookout for a blue 1989 Mitsubishi van with Texas license plates that had earlier been the subject of an FBI alert. "Expect the vehicle to be carrying 'explosives,' " read the electric industry warning, which sources said was being circulated by the North American Electric Reliability Council with the approval of law enforcement officials. The advisory added that the van "was last seen in the Washington, D.C. area with two Middle Eastern males in the vehicle." It was not clear why the utilities believed they were likely targets or why they were focused on the van. The FBI issued an alert Wednesday night urging police and the public to help them locate the van. Sources told NBC News that a gas station attendant had spotted suspicious boxes in the van on Tuesday and was then kept away by its two nervous occupants.
Clockwork Orange or the Apocalypse?
The FBI is preparing for possible Y2K violence under the guise of
political action and religion.
by Reuters
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The U.S. government is preparing for possible violence
from cults, guerrillas, hate groups, and end-of-world-fearing zealots as
2000 approaches.
Law enforcement officials are working on contingency plans to cope with
everything from cyberattacks to bombs at New Year's Eve parties, though
they say they lack knowledge of specific, credible threats.
The FBI "expects to see increased and possibly violent activities among
certain domestic groups related to the millennium," a top FBI official
warned Congress in July.
Michael Vatis, head of a new FBI-led interagency center to protect
critical U.S. infrastructure, cited in particular a fringe view among
white supremacists that the world is on the verge of a final apocalyptic
struggle.
This requires the faithful "to prepare for the Second Coming of Christ by
taking violent action against their enemies," Vatis told a special Senate
panel in July on the Y2K technology glitch.
The panel is looking into pitfalls of the Y2K problem, a coding glitch
that could cause ill-prepared computers to misread 2000 as 1900 and
trigger systemwide shutdowns.
Vatis did not cite possible targets, but FBI Director Louis Freeh has said
they included Jews, nonwhites, and their "establishment allies, i.e. the
federal government."
The FBI counterterrorism section "has been planning for any violent
activity by such groups," says Vatis, who is leading a separate drive to
thwart cyberattacks that could disrupt the economy or government.
At issue is the fear that January 1, 2000, may seem like a watershed date
for fanatics ready to put end-of-world rhetoric into action.
Robert Blitzer, who retired last November as head of the FBI's domestic
counterterrorism arm, cited the case of Buford Furrow Jr., the white
supremacist who pleaded not guilty on Monday to killing a
Filipino-American letter carrier after shooting up a Jewish community
center in the Los Angeles area.
Furrow turned himself in to the FBI after the August 10 attacks. He
allegedly told authorities the shooting was a "wake-up call to America to
kill Jews."
Heaven Can Wait
Groups with similar views, or apocalyptic cults like Heaven's Gate, 30 of
whose members committed mass suicide in 1997, may deem the rollover to
2000 "a good time for them to make their mark on history," says Blitzer.
"I know there are still continuing to be serious threats from abroad,"
adds Blitzer, who now consults on counterterrorism at the Science
Applications International Corp. in McLean, Virginia.
He is unaware of any specific credible threats but says foreign foes had
already shown what they were capable of in the 1993 World Trade Center
bombing in New York.
Freeh has warned Congress that white supremacist extremists may stage
armed robberies to finance what some view as the coming "Battle of
Armageddon" between the forces of good and evil.
Some of these extremists believe that this entails whites fighting
"Satan's heirs," the FBI chief told a Senate Appropriations panel on
February 4. In such a world view, he said, "Satan's heirs" were defined as
Jews, nonwhites and their supposed allies in the federal government,
John Gordon, deputy director of the U.S. intelligence community, says the
CIA and its 12 sibling spy outfits were tightening their drills to monitor
events at the date change.
"We are strengthening the communications processes between centers," he
told a Senate Armed Services panel on February 24. "We are preparing for
the potential that there may be situations erupting worldwide and within
our own systems environment."
In addition to the perceived threat from within, U.S. officials fear
anti-Western guerrilla groups and others may try to take advantage of the
federal stretch to keep tabs on any Y2K-related failures. The White House
is setting up a $40 million information coordination center to help policy
makers with Year 2000 issues and coordinate any emergency responses.
"In some instances, it may not be immediately apparent whether a service
outage is the result of the 'millennium bug' or a computer intrusion,"
Vatis testified. Such uncertainty could make Y2K an inviting date for
malicious strikes, officials say.
Together with a Pentagon task force for computer network defense, Vatis's
National Infrastructure Protection Center will hold a classified, two-day
conference called "Preparing for Cyberwar," including Y2K contingencies,
in early October.
Copyright © 1999 Reuters Limited
August 31, 1999, 5:57 p.m. PT
Patch Adams leads nude Y2K anti-nuclear protest
REUTERS - SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 5 Led by a naked Patch
Adams, a group of anti-nuclear protesters
paraded nude down a San Francisco street to
publicize the potential dangers of a catastrophic
Y2K atomic meltdown.
" Nonviolent people like us really have so
few tools to face the capitalist system," Adams told the
protesters as they stripped for their demonstration Sunday.
"All we really have are ourselves and our ideas. Our ideas
have not done the job."
Adams, an unconventional doctor whose prescription
of activism laced with humor was portrayed by actor Robin
Williams in a recent movie, was one of a group attending a
conference entitled "Creating a Culture of Peace for the
21st Century."
The San Francisco Examiner reported Monday that
frustration over lack of media attention prompted Adams
and prominent anti-nuclear activist Dr. Helen Caldicott to
organize the nude demonstration to publicize the threat that
nuclear accidents could occur on Jan. 1, 2000, if computer
systems around the world crash because they are unable to
handle the date change.
"To be scared of doing something like this, which is a
little thing compared to what’s facing us, is just silly,"
Caldicott said, urging participants to undress. "It just shows
that people are desperate for this cause and will do
whatever it takes."
The naked group paraded briefly down San
Francisco’s Van Ness Avenue, chanting "Disrobe for
disarmament," and "News, not nukes." A few cars slowed
to gawk, the Examiner reported.
"I’m glad to be a part of a community that is as
passionate as I am," protester Carol Brouillet, a
42-year-old mother of three and author of books on nuclear
issues, told the newspaper.
"I’m glad my husband’s not here," Brouillet added.
"He wouldn’t do this, but we have different world views."
DOD: Face Y2K on your own
From Federal Computer Week
AUGUST 23, 1999
BY BOB BREWIN ( [email protected])
The Defense Department, expected to be the federal agency to respond to
potential crises brought about by the Year 2000 problem, this month said
it does not plan to react to all requests for help from state and local
civilian authorities.
DOD adopted the position in an Aug. 12 message sent to all the military
services by the Army's Director of Military Support (DOMS) in the
Pentagon. DOMS has been charged with providing military support to
civilian authorities under the DOD Year 2000 Consequence Management Plan.
The message follows guidance issued by deputy secretary of Defense John
Hamre last month, which emphasized that the first priority for military
units engaged in Year 2000 crises management will be their basic mission
of defending the nation. "As a basic principle, commanders will not
compromise military readiness in providing support to civil authorities,"
Hamre wrote.
The DOMS message goes even further, making it clear that even if civilian
authorities ask for help, they may not receive it. "It should be
anticipated and publicized that not all requests from civil authorities
will be filled," according to the message.
The Pentagon, according to the message, also has tightened disclosure of
its vast supply of resources, which includes food, engineering equipment,
generators and water purification plants, that could help cities and
counties that may be afflicted with Year 2000 snafus. "Any request for
inventory levels of DOD resources from non-DOD activities will be denied,"
the DOMS message said.
Y2K Command Center Bunker under Construction
From the CSM Email News Summary 2 August 1999
The government said it's setting up a special Y2K command center to cope
with any year-end computer glitches. John Koskinen, head of the President's
Council on Year 2000 Conversion, said in a draft statement that an
Information Coordination Center bunker is being built in a former Secret
Service facility not far from the White House.
Another sign of Y2K doom: Scary Spice Gives Birth to Girl - 19 Feb. 1999
LONDON (AP) - Scary Spice Mel Brown has beaten her bandmate Posh Spice Victoria Adams to the maternity ward, giving birth Friday evening to a 5.5-pound daughter. Phoenix Chi was born at 6:42 p.m. (1:42 p.m. EST) at a London hospital three weeks before her due date of March 10. Mother and child were doing well, said her husband, dancer Jimmy Gulzar. ``I am very happy to announce that I have a beautiful daughter,'' said Gulzar. Asked how his wife was, he said, ``She is wicked.'' Alan Edwards, spokesman for Mel B, emerged from the hospital to say that Scary Spice was sitting up in bed sipping champagne. The other Spice Girls - Baby Spice Emma Bunton and Sporty Spice Mel C - were next door during the labor and were calling themselves ``auntie spices,'' he said. He said Phoenix meant fire and Chi meant aura. Before the birth, the star had said the child's name would begin with a P. When they married, Mel and her husband had tattoos on their fingers of each of their initials and the letter P. As the news spread Friday afternoon that 23-year-old Mel B had gone into labor, press photographers and fans gathered outside the hospital in anticipation of the birth. Scary Spice announced her pregnancy in August, within days of the news that Adams was also expecting. Adams is due to give birth soon. Meanwhile, ex-Spice Girl Geri Halliwell said Friday she is writing her autobiography and will publish it later this year. The 26-year-old former pop icon turned U.N. goodwill ambassador is considering publishers' bids but has yet to sign a contract, her publicists' office said. It said she will write about her time with the Spice Girls, but not to expose their secrets or settle any scores.
From CNN: Senate report: Many sectors of economy still at risk from Y2K
February 28, 1999
Web posted at: 10:05 p.m. EST (0305 GMT)
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, February 28) -- A Senate committee report to be released Tuesday concludes that many sectors of the U.S. economy -- including public utilities, health care and telecommunications -- are still at risk from the Year 2000 computer bug.
But the co-chairs of the Senate special committee on the so-called Y2K bug said Sunday that while more work needs to be done, there is no cause for panic.
Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah): 'This will not be the end of the world as we know it'
"We will probably not have a meltdown. This will not be the end of the world as we know it," said Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) on CBS's "Face The Nation." "If we get everybody to continue (to work on Y2K), we will probably get the thing under control."
Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Connecticut) said the social chaos predicted by some doomsayers is highly unlikely, at least in the United States. But he said people might want to take some precautions.
"What you ought to do is prepare for a good storm, a hurricane, a storm where you'd like two or three days of ... water and canned goods and the like," Dodd said, also on "Face The Nation."
Bennett also said that while more needs to be done to eradicate Y2K problems, no one will really know the seriousness of the problem until January 1, 2000, actually arrives.
"Ultimately, when we get to New Year's Eve, everybody, no matter how informed we think we are, is going to be holding his breath," he said
The Senate committee's report concludes that "all sectors of the economy, many of which provide goods and services that are vital to our health and well-being, are at risk, including public utilities, health care, telecommunications, transportation, banking and finance, commerce and small business and national security."
Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Connecticut): 'What you ought to do is prepare for a good storm'
The report points to possible problems in the food supply system because of computer breakdowns. Another area of unease is that 90 percent of the nation's 800,000 doctors' offices have not upgraded their computers, meaning that doctors could temporarily lose access to medical records or that dialysis or heart monitoring equipment could stop working.
Affluent hospitals will be in good shape, Dodd said, but "we are very, very worried about what happens in the rural or urban situations."
'Some brownouts' at worst
Bennett said most power grids will be fine, and "at worst we're going to have some brownouts" in rural areas. He said he would be willing to fly on January 1, 2000 -- on a domestic, not overseas, flight -- but he had heard that some insurance companies are refusing to insure flights without assurances that the computers were going to work.
"That becomes chicken and egg: No insurance, they don't fly; they don't fly, they can't prove," Bennett said. "We'll watch that one carefully."
The report from the Bennett-Dodd committee and CIA testimony to Congress last week pinpointed poorer countries in general -- and Russia in particular -- as areas ill-prepared for the millennium bug.
Bennett said an accidental nuclear launch is "very, very unlikely." A more likely scenario would be that "if somebody were to press the button to cause an intercontinental missile to go off, it wouldn't work."
Bennett's committee sent a team to Russia to evaluate its preparations. He said they returned with the conclusion: "Yes, they are going to have real problems, and no one is going to notice because they said nothing works over there right now."
The Senate report details possible problems with Russia's early warning system for incoming missiles. Dodd and Bennett back a plan where experts from Russia, the United States, and possibly India and Pakistan, gather in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on January 1, 2000, to ensure that no country is in the dark about other countries' intentions in the event of a computer failure.
No mention in the above report whether Ventura or Quayle or Scary Spice will win the next Republican presidential nomination.
Not Necessarily Doom, just wild
BBC Website Friday, March 12, 1999 Published at 22:46 GMT
Hawking predicts 'GM humans'
Professor Stephen Hawking has painted a future of genetically-modified (GM) humans - and the discovery of a mathematical "theory of everything", in a speech at Cambridge University.
He also said that if aliens had visited Earth - which he did not consider likely - it would have been "more like Independence Day than ET".
Professor Hawking, of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge, was speaking at the launch of events marking the sixth National Science Week.
The week coincides with the 10-day Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) '99, designed to bring the public closer to scientific research.
Greater understanding of DNA will lead to genetically-redesigned people
In a typically wide-ranging talk - entitled The Future of Science - the professor said he did not advocate the genetic redesign of human beings, but saw it as inevitable as scientists gained a more complete understanding of DNA.
"Many people will say that genetic engineering on humans should be banned, but I rather doubt if they will be able to prevent it," he said.
"Genetic engineering on plants and animals will be allowed for economic reasons and someone is bound to try it on humans."
He said that it was unlikely to occur in the next 100 years, but GM humans would arrive in the next millennium and they would bear little resemblance to the people of today.
Professor Hawking added that the only way he could see such a situation being prevented was in the event of a "totalitarian world order".
He also said he was "confident" that the so-called theory of everything - something of a mathematical "Holy Grail" - would be discovered within the next 100 years and possibly in the next 20.
Professor Hawking himself is acknowledged as one to the world's greatest living mathematicians.
"To a large extent we will have to rely on mathematical beauty and certainty to discover the theory of everything," he said.
Travel to the stars
Stephen Hawking: Theory of everything "within 20 years"
"I will take a bet on 50/50 odds that it will be within the next 20 years."
Scientists would also develop computers as complex as the human brains, he said.
The professor - author of the best-selling A Brief History of Time - also predicted that human beings would voyage to other planets and stars.
He said that if there was extra-terrestrial life more advanced than that on Earth, it would probably leave us to develop in our own primitive manner.
But it was more likely that aliens would be less advanced than us, he added.
From the BBC
Thursday, March 4, 1999 Published at 22:07 GMT
Entertainment
Posh becomes second Spice mum
Back to Doom
Victoria Adams has become the second Spice Mum after going into labour.
The 23-year-old, also known as Posh Spice, went into the Portland Hospital in London at around 1600GMT on Thursday.
She gave birth to a boy at 1828GMT. The baby, who weighed in at 7lbs, will be called Brooklyn Joseph,
Her fiancé, Manchester United and England footballer David Beckham, was at her side.
After the birth, he said: "It's brilliant. It's something I've always wanted, it's something I've always wanted to do."
Beckham said: "Victoria is very well. She is sitting up drinking champagne and has spoken to the other girls."
David Beckham, pictured after United's match with Inter, is at his fiancée's side
The drama comes 24 hours after Beckham played a key part in United's European Cup quarter-final first leg victory over Inter Milan at Old Trafford.
Miss Adams' fellow Spice Girl, Melanie Brown, gave birth to a daughter two weeks ago.
Mel, also known as Scary Spice, and her husband Jimmy Gulzar named the child Phoenix Chi. She was also born at the Portland.
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