Apocalypse soon - year 2000 problem

Some say the world will end by ice, others say by fire, and still others say by computer glitches. While there has long been the general expectation that something absolutely dreadful would happen in the year 2000 - the Reverend Louis Farrakhan still foresees a plague of earthquakes, hailstorms and floods - until recently doomsayers couldn't agree on just what was going to do us in. But suddenly most doomsayers now agree that the Year 2000 Problem for computers is the menace that will bring about the end of civilization. Sometimes called the "Y2K" or "millennium" bug, it is the result of the shortsighted programming technique of employing only two digits to represent a year, presupposing that the first two digits would always be "19." No one denies that the Y2K problem is very serious, and the computer industry is now spending a lot of money to repair it.

However, according to some it's already too late, and it's time to head for the hills. The Sept. 15, 1998, issue of the Weekly World News proclaims January 1, 2000, as "The Day The Earth Will Stand Still." "All banks will fail! Food supplies will be depicted! Electricity will be cut off! The stock market will crash! Vehicles using computer chips will stop dead! Telephones will cease to function! Domino effect will cause a worldwide depression!" Given that this publication has, over the years, rarely allowed any snippets of nonfiction to intrude upon its wonderfully made-up stories, one might at first assume that their Y2K crash-and-burn scenario is as bogus as their story about soap made with holy water that revives the dead. But a lot of people are taking such cries of an impending Cyber-Armageddon very seriously indeed.

Longtime fire-and-brimstone author Gary North has devoted his entire Web site to the year 2000, which be calls "the year the earth stands still" (see www.garynorth.com). This is the same author who, in None Dare Call it Witchcraft, warned us that UFO and paranormal manifestations are indeed real, but demonic in origin. North is a leading spokesman for an extremist fundamentalist sect, who has written of his hope that our present society will collapse so that it can be reconstructed according to strict Biblical guidelines. The Y2K problem, he warns, "may be the biggest problem that the modern world has ever faced. I think it is. At 12 midnight on January 1, 2000 (a Saturday morning), most of the world's mainframe computers will either shut down or begin spewing out bad data . . . Think of what happens if the following areas go down and stay down for months or even years: banks, railroads, public utilities, telephone lines, military communications, and financial markets. What about Social Security and Medicare?" The result, says North, will be nothing less than catastrophic: "I think the division of labor will collapse in 2000. If the power grid goes completely down, it will stay down. The division of labor will collapse to early nineteenth century levels, except that we have lost early nineteenth century skills."

If this scares you so much that you want to head for the hills, entrepreneurs are getting the hills are ready for you. A development called Heritage Farms warns of "The Millennium. The Y2K Computer Meltdown. Economic Recession/Depression. Doomsayers predict nothing short of total collapse within the next two years. Will any of it happen? We don't know, and we seriously hope not, but the mounting evidence was convincing enough to make us look for a place to ride out the turmoil. We have now found it in Arizona!" Located 180 miles northeast of Phoenix, Arizona Heritage Farms promises that its "capability of total self sufficiency, and independence from outside energy sources" makes it "the model rural village for what may be a whole new way of life in the first part of the next century" (see http://www.heritagefarms2000.com). "500 families of the New Millennium can grow their own food and food for their neighbors to purchase or barter. They will harvest electrical energy from the sun and wind." Their original plan for a Y2K refuge in Sully County, South Dakota, was unanimously voted down by local zoning officials, who feared that a doomsday cult might be forming in their midst. Kevin Poulsen of Ziff-Davis TV says, "As planned, the Y2K village would be one half refuge from millennial madness, and one half Disneyland. Main Street would be clean and neat with an Old West theme." A splendid place, no doubt, to stand by and watch the spectacle of the collapse of civilization.

If you're not quite ready to head for the hills but want to stockpile food for anticipated Y2K chaos, check out www.y2kfood4u.com, one of many "survivalist" Y2K sites. They offer bulk rations of long-storage freeze-dried food to help ensure your survival for however many months or years it may take for your grocery store to get their cash registers back online in the new millennium. There is even a "Year 2000 Problem Site Exclusively Designed for Women" (http://www.y2kwomen.com), explaining "The Year 2000 Computer Problem: The 10 Things Every Woman Must Do Now to Keep Herself and Her Family Safe." Presenting gloom-and-doom survivalism with a gentle feminine touch, it contains advice on how to handle all of the expected privations of the impending millennium, even including an expected interruption in the supply of disposable products for feminine hygiene.