Think about it - if we don't even know where on earth the clock first ticks past midnight how are we going to agree on code and date parity a la ISO9000 standards.

The answer is we can't agree - there are NO STANDARDS! - as they say in Scotland - the whole thing is a total STRAMASH!

Millennium Time Wars! Fiji Vs Tonga: Billions At Stake

from The Mirror (UK)www.mirror.co.uk 1-1-99

"On January 1, 2000 Tony Blair fervently hopes the eyes of the world will turn towards Greenwich.

Adrian Rodenburg, meanwhile, is hoping equally fervently that they will turn towards a grassy spot on a promontory of a tiny island off Fiji.

Meanwhile, Taufa'ahau Tupou IV, King of Tonga, wants everyone watching his homeland.

But because of the peculiarities of the International Dateline he'll have to fight it out with both Teburoru Tito, president of Kiribati, and Ken and Eva Lanauze. They are determined their homestead on Pitt Island, 600 miles off New Zealand, will be the first spot to welcome the new Millennium.

Exactly where the year 2000 will first dawn has pitted one side of the globe against the other - and one tiny Pacific island against the next.

It's all about money, of course.

The vast #758 million Millennium Dome on the Meridian Line running through South East London is supposed to attract 30,000 paying visitors a day.

Meanwhile South Pacific leaders reckon revenue from Millennium-mad tourists could bring them #2.2 billion.

Which is why Adrian Rodenburg plans to build a Time Museum on the tip of a tiny Fijian island where you will be able to buy time capsules for $5 each.

Adrian says the position is exact, having been plotted with the help of seven satellites.

The snag is that neighbouring Tonga has sneakily set its clocks an hour ahead and is planning the mother of all parties.

"The Millennium starts here," says the King.

The first rays of the Millennium sun, he says, should strike Tonga on the crest of a volcano on the island of Tofua.

For around #500 pilot Larry Simon will fly you to watch the dawn from the lip of this active volcano to sip champagne. But there is a snag for Tonga too. The neighbouring archipelago of Kiribati has set its clocks 14 HOURS ahead of GMT - a full hour ahead of Tonga. And shifted the International Dateline into the bargain.

Formerly the British colony of the Gilbert Islands, Kiribati used to straddle the dateline - until its president decided to wrap the dateline around all the islands and put the whole lot ahead of GMT.

Sitiveni Rabuka, the Prime Minister of Fiji, is fuming. "You can't be 181 degrees east of Greenwich and you can't be 14 hours ahead of GMT," he says.

In fact, none of the islands will see the first rays of the new Millennium sun.

Because of the way the earth travels round the sun, the first people to witness the dawn of 2000 will be the 50 inhabitants of Pitt Island, one of an island group belonging to New Zealand.

But even that's become fraught.

The first rays should strike Mount Hakepa, most of which is owned by farmers Ken and Eve Lanauze.

However, the northern slope is owned by another farmer, James Moffat - and for the first time in their history, the neighbours have fallen out.

Now, as the clock ticks away, they've called surveyors in to prove which patch of the tiny island will first see in the Millennium. IT'S A RIGHT CLOCK UP...

Squabbles over time arise because there is no authority governing the international dateline.

When it is midnight on January 31, 1999, in Greenwich, it has already been January 1, 2000, in every time zone eastwards, up to the 180 degree line of longitude.

Until Kiribati cheekily decided it was an impossible 181 degrees longitude.

In fact, astronomers say the first rays would fall on the Dibble glacier in the Antarctic - with Pitt Island being the first inhabited place to see the dawn."

LOL LOL LOL

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 02, 1999

Answers

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/aa/faq/docs/first_sunrise.html

"First Sunrise of the New Millennium"

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), January 02, 1999.

Dibble glacier...somehow that seems appropriate under the circumstances...

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), January 02, 1999.

Never thought of that, thought you meant Officer Dibble from Top Cat :)

Main Entry: dib7ble

Pronunciation: 'di-b&l

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English debylle

Date: 15th century

: a small hand implement used to make holes in the ground for plants, seeds, or bulbs

Shades of things to come???

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 02, 1999.

"LOL LOL LOL"

Hey Butthead, are you any relation to Milne? Sure sounds like it...

-- BUTTHEAD (LOL@LOL.com), January 03, 1999.

No. But thanks for asking.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 03, 1999.

"Exactly where the year 2000 will first dawn has pitted one side of the globe against the other -...

Why go anywhere for the event? You might not be able to get home again.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), January 04, 1999.

If your from downtown LA, this might be a good thing Tom :)

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 04, 1999.