The Reno Gazette-Journal this morning has a front page story in which the reporter makes the following statements:

"Today, most of the world's 2 billion Christians celebrate the 1,999th birthday of Jesus Christ."

"The system of numbering years A.D. - for anno Domini, or "in the year of our Lord" in Latin - was instituted about the year A.D. 527 by the Roman abbot Dionysius Exiguus. He reckoned that the birth of Jesus occurred in the Roman year 754. He designated that year A.D. 1."

"Today's birthday celebration for Christ is the last one of this century. One week later the four digits of the calendar will all change at once, an event that happens once every thousand years."

That reporter is obviously as clueless as you are, Gene. He knows how to count birthdays. He knows the first year was year 1. He doesn't know what "this century" means. His last sentence is correct. The next to the last one is not. I don't know which birthday Christ would really be celebrating, or what time of year it should really be. I do know how to count to 2000. Apparently you are satisfied to count to 1999, and call that two millenniums, two thousands. Go for it, Gene. Teach it to our children.