Hey Jim,

> I've been and still am roaming about the net to come up with some
> "authoritative" documentation about leap day in the year 2000.  Some
> time ago there was quite an extensive thread on the list dealing
> with this and other Y2K issues.  I've checked the archives - lot of
> good stuff but nothing that management here considers "authoritative".
>
> What the devil do they want, some admiral from the Naval Observatory
> to come on down for tacos and a chat?  I sort of understand their
> problem, as someone has dumped a bunch of documents from
> several sources on my desk.  Half of them "prove" that the year
> 2000 is a leap year.  The other half "prove" that the year 2000
> is not a leap year.  Who's in charge here?

The rule is (as defined by the "Big 8 Accounting Firms" like Arthur
Anderson, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.)  Since companies like free
advice from the likes of the "Big 8" - here is it from one of them:

Almost everyone knows that a leap year occurs every four years. And a good
number of people can recall something about dividing by 400. But there are
actually three tests that must be performed to determine if a year is a leap
year. Here is the complete set of tests in the order they must be performed.

1.  Years evenly divisible by four are normally leap years, except for...

2.  Years also evenly divisible by 100 are not leap years, except for...

3.  Years also evenly divisible by 400 are leap years.

If you do the math, you will find that in every 400 years there are 97 leap
years which yields an average calender year of 365.2425 days. This is very
close to the actual number of days in a solar year, 365.2422. But it's not
close enough to prevent us from being off by 3 days every 10,000 years!

Since it happens only once in a blue moon, my advice to several people (who
have gone out and done this) has been to get a damned paper calendar and lay
it down in front of the boss, with February 29th highlighted and the message
"LOOK HERE DIPSTICK!!"  (DISCLAIMER:  You may wish to omit the word
"dipstick" in case that might be cause for ones termination - which would
not be nice, and I wouldn't want to be responsible for someone's
insubordination and subsequent termination.)

Since it's so close, they can be had from stationery stores and such.

Cheers,
Joe