On Fri Jan-07-2011 14:42, Fred Burgess (1:226/0) wrote to Roger Nelson:   
      
    RN> So we will get a message from you next year on December 22 just to be   
    RN> sure we will all be just as safe from the end of the Mayan calendar as   
    RN> we were from the Y2K and Mars hoax?  (-:   
      
    FB> Mars hoax?  I don't remember that one, unless you are talking about   
    FB> Orsen Wells.     
      
   Orson Welles? --- NOT!  Don't you get email every once in awhile about Mars   
   being very close?  Here is a snippet I posted in the BAMA echo:   
      
   ===CUT===   
   The Mars Hoax got its start in 2003 when Earth and Mars really did have a close   
   encounter. On Aug. 27th of that year, Mars was only 56 million km away, a   
   60,000-year record for martian close approaches to Earth. Someone sent an   
   email alerting friends to the event. The message contained some    
   isunderstandings and omissions-but what email doesn't? A piece of advanced   
   technology called the "forward button" did the rest.   
   ===CUT===   
      
   The above has appeared regularly for years, claiming that Mars would be   
   brighter than the Moon.   
      
    FB> The Y2K one was funny as heck,  Considering I had checked my    
    FB> computer out in 1988 to see if it would take the year 2000 and up.   
      
   There were programs I used regularly, but displayed the date/time function in   
   a funny and strange way.  Other than that, they still worked.   
      
    FB> Not knowing that the hackers back then were doing their job very    
    FB> well and had us protected. The polecats in Washington and Billy    
    FB> Gates just wanted people to buy new computers and get away from    
    FB> Win95 and DOS based systems.   
      
   (-:   
      
    FB> It's like all of these new "flu's" that we get every year.  I    
    FB> don't get the flu shot and I don't get sick, take the shot, and I    
    FB> am sick for over a month.  What gives there?   
      
   I don't know.  I have the same reaction.  What I've been doing to keep it away   
   is wash my hands a lot and that seems to be working.   
      
    FB>> I wonder if they will let me slide the next year so I don't have to   
    FB>> spend out the extra $$ since the world is going to end anyway?  ;)   
      
    RN> Dream on.  Bureaucracies don't operate that way.  You'd be endangering   
    RN> their jobs and their ability to prevent you from harming yourself (I   
    RN> read that somewhere).   
      
    FB>  Heh!  Probably true about that.  It's their job to harm us :(    
      
   Don't you remember what Ronald Reagan said?  "The most terrifying words in the   
   English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."   
      
      
   Regards,   
      
   Roger    
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+   
    * Origin: NCS BBS - Houma, LA - (1:3828/7)