The world's increasingly becoming a global village, but I still never know what time it is anywhere else. Recently I found myself puzzling over what time it is in Mississippi. Is it eastern, central, deep-south time?
The answer, I discovered at time.gov, is central time. You can find anything out on the Internet--even what time it is.
Even the Navy pitches in, which is considerate when you think about how much they must have on their plates these days. However, this page offers a baffling caveat, or an example of Americans taking things way too seriously:
Unfortunately, no U.S. Web page can provide official information on world time zones because nations are sovereign powers that can and do change their timekeeping systems as they see fit.
In other words: don't quote us on that.
It's nice to know that nations can change their timekeeping systems "as they see fit" although I don't recall ever hearing an example of this. It seems like something you'd want to keep on top of, for example when calling Cousin Joe in the People's Republic of Loosechangia:
You: Hey, Joe! What's up?
Joe: Can you call me back? It's dinner time.
You: ?? But it's 10:30 a.m.!
Joe: Dude, we changed our timekeeping system. As we saw fit. Hey, pass the potatoes!
*click*
evildoers, no doubt.
Posted by: mike on December 5, 2002 12:41 AMIf you look at a map of Canada sometime, you may notice that Newfoundland and Labrador have their own special time zone -- it's 30 minutes ahead of "atlantic time," prevalent in Nova Scotia (one hour ahead of eastern standard time). I've never really understood it, but perhaps it explains something about "The Shipping News."
By the way, don't you claim some heritage in the state that selects its time zones county-by-county? I never know what time it is when driving east until I reach Ohio.
Sean, I think that's part of Indiana's plot to take over the world.
Posted by: brian on December 5, 2002 04:17 PMDon't laugh: I used to live where they had none of this clock-changing nonsense they force on us up here in Chicago. That was one thing that was mighty fine about Bloomington. They had NO TRUCK with it.
Posted by: Anne on December 5, 2002 07:12 PM