I still haven't recovered from Y2K

When the whole Y2K nonsense was going on, I was in a good place to experience it. Married to my first wife.

What a wonderful family she had. Lets see;

Her father A) did not believe in the Holocaust and B) had certain borderline white supremacist tendencies which caused him to decide native Americans were, in fact, white to justify his having married one.

Two or three of her brothers got their first felony randomly deciding to hold up a place one night. No plan, just a "hey, this seems like a good idea right now" type thing.

A few other things, but I think you have a feeling for the family.

Well, with the dangers of Y2K approaching, one of her brothers really, really, really bought into the hype.

This, of course, was one of those people who thought he did not have to pay income taxes because it was unconstitutional (which, to a point, it is...but good luck winning that in court. It is fun being forced, on pain of prosecution, to pay a "voluntary tax", but that is a rant for another post).

He also was convinced a way to get free money was to deposit an empty envelope, making a claim for a larger amount, and instantly withdraw from the ATM based on that amount. This worked best done Friday after hours. Since the bank accepted the deposit, they could not say you did not have the money.

This is the genius who wanted to use our yard.

Not to camp in when computers crashed, society melted and the sky fell upon us as pundits predicted.

No, he wanted to use it to bury hundreds of cans of food so he would have food to eat as the world descended into a Twelve Monkeys apocalypse.

I want to point out this was an individual who, when he chose, actually had some bright things to say, he occasionally had gainful employment and usually achieved certain levels of promotion based on his capabilities.

Then he would remember who he was and go all ****** on them and off he would go to his next big adventure.

The irrational, delusional fears people had about the whole Y2K thing were not just limited to people on the fringe of society.

Reputable commentators knowledgeably spoke about potential doomsday scenarios as computers flipped from 99 to 00.

Have not heard a lot of apologies from them. Weird, you would think we would have.

But it speaks loudly to how much credibility most pundits, commentators, talking heads, political figures, etc. have when they present the various "the world is ending because of people" nonsense, most of which predictions, purely by chance I am sure, put millions of dollars in the pockets of those predicting disaster.

Well, 2011 is finally here. We are over a decade into the new millennium.

And, much to my (lack of) shock, people are still stupid and still fall for the charlatans, quacks, illusionists and outright liars trying to scare us into submission.

What scares me most...is the number of otherwise bright, intelligent people listening.