Well put, Jim,

You have put it very well indeed. However, I'm afraid it's still going to be a little deep for this group to grasp. Let's just analyze the methods of simple counting needed to make Gene and his followers "look correct". We will follow Gene's counting instruction precisely:

Gene, lets just suppose Jim owes you $10.00. He will now count you out $1.00 chips, starting with zero, as needed for a year 2000 millennium, per your instruction, as follows: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. Low and behold, I've paid you back your $10.00, but only counted up to nine. If that method of counting ever caught on, we would need Einstein to be resurrected, just to get the mess
straightened out.

Let me see if I have this right, now, 9 is really 10, and naturally that means 9+9 is really 20, O.K., I think I have it now. <VBG>

Roger