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Pastimes : Laughter is the Best Medicine - Tell us a joke
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To: Phil(bullrider) who wrote (9161)4/1/1999 1:17:00 AM
From: Bargain Hunter  Read Replies (1) of 62549
 
Washington D.C. Mar 31 1999. For immediate release.

Companies hurrying to fix the Y2K computer problem in their software are bracing for the expected passage tomorrow by the House and Senate of the Y2K Relief Act which they claim will make the problem much worse. Industry leaders say that the Act, intended to provide an extra year for Y2K efforts, will instead throw their entire efforts into chaos.

The Act started life innocently enough as a House Resolution intended to defuse the arguments over when the new millenium starts, by declaring that the Twentieth Century would comprise only the 99 years from 1901 to 1999. During the initial debate on this Resolution several Representatives backed an alternative under which the year 0, absent from the original Christian calendar, will be inserted between the years 1999 and 2000. This alternative gained support among Representatives because it delays the arrival of the year 2000 by twelve months.

Computer industry leaders say that this change is actually much harder to make than for the original Y2K problem because now all the programs need to understand that the year 0 will appear out of sequence. That change will still need to be made by the end of 1999. But one previously unforeseen effect of the Act is that Congressional elections will be postponed for one year. Speaking off the record a Representative from California, whose district is home to many computer companies, said "Privately, most Representatives agree that this Act is a bad idea. But so many of them are facing tough elections in 2000 that an extra year in which to raise campaign funds is too attractive to refuse." So, largely unnoticed because of the bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, the Act is being rushed through both Houses of Congress to give the maximum amount of time before the advent of what is now being called Y0K.
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