Why Not 2K ? ...

MILLENNIAPHOBIC HYSTERIA

By William Westmiller
01/12/99

And in those End Times, the World will darken. Mighty Craft will Plummet from the Skies. All the Tools of mankind will give up their Ghosts. Starvation and Death will be upon the Land. Time will Stop. Unless you get this nifty Windows-compatible utility program that will guide you smoothly into the next millennium! Only $49.95 at your local store!

Don't get me wrong. There are serious problems. On Saturday, the first day of 2000, that old VCR in the basement may start taping an "I Love Lucy" rerun, rather than "Star Trek, Voyager". The IRS may assess you a huge negative interest all the way back to 1897 on that 1996 return that showed $1.29 still due. Post Office efficiency ratings will plummet from 6 days to 363,905 days for delivery of the average first-class letter. AARP will send your newborn daughter a letter of congratulations for reaching the age of 1,001 and would she like information on exciting new senior opportunities?

No. Seriously. Any wall clock manufactured by Sunbeam will start running backwards at the stroke of midnight, 2000. After 1999, the odometer on your Impala Deluxe will freeze and the wheels will lock solid forever, no matter what speed you're traveling. The world's smartest dumb animals, pigs, will be so confused by the 000 on the barn calendar that they'll start losing weight. The stock market will crash when Allan Greenspan accidentally pronounces the coming year as "twenty oh-oh".

Believe it or not, the calendar for 1972 is exactly the same as the calendar for 2000. Forward to the past. Not that you could buy a 1972 calendar, but guess what? That VCR manufactured in Lower Slobovia will work just fine in 2000, if you set the date to 1972. Of course, all channels will be the History Channel.

If you're planning to start a cult that will be swept into a euphoric deliverance by some silly comet on the verge of the new millennia, sorry. You missed the millennia. January 1, 2000 is the first day of the last year of the twentieth century, not the first day of the twenty-first century. Remember, we're talking about the anniversary of Christ's birth. Even God had to wait a year for his first birthday. Anyway, the virgin birth didn't occur in the year 0000. Any savvyhistorian will agree that Jesus was born in minus 0004. Which means that the second millennium ended on January 1, 1995. And where were the four horsemen of the apocalypse when we really needed them?

Hey! What ever happened to that glorious "Bridge to the New Millennium" that our beloved President has been promising? Got a little distracted, huh? Go build a bridge, Bill.

Are we all astounded that private businesses will have no problem with the Y2K bug, but every government program will be scrambling at the last minute under "emergency appropriations" to get their act together? Every plane built since the Wright Brothers will fly just fine in any year, but the air traffic control system built by the Federal Aviation Administration will crash into oblivion because zero-zero means nothing in government speak. The only reason the Social Security Administration is YNOT2K compliant is that they dusted off the old Enigma Computer from World War II and explained to it why people are better off with government bonds than Microsoft stock. You will get your encoded check. You'll just have to go to Tokyo to get it cashed.

You could have been a millionaire if you'd gotten into the YNOT2K computer bug a few years ago. Explain to CEOs how you're going to stuff a 9-bit number into a 16-bit space. Heavy duty computing. However, there's still hope. In another 240 years you can help Israel make it into the year 6,000, Jewish calendar. Before that, there's the real challenge in China, when they go from the year of the zebra to the year of the aardvark. Program that on your laptop!

I'm going to take the advice of all those computer consultants. On December 31st, 1999, I'm going to turn off my computer, unplug my VCR, grab my acoustic guitar and go to the beach for two days. By then, all the stupid millennium parties in Times Square and Zimbabwe will be history. By the time I get back, CNN Financial News will be headlining a new stock offering for the William Jefferson Clinton Bridge Building Corporation. Time flies when you're having fun.

©1999, William Westmiller
California Coordinator of the Republican Liberty Caucus
Past Candidate for the Republican Nomination for (24CA) Congress
Former National Secretary, California Chairman, Libertarian Party
whynot2k.c25 ~750 Words
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