[LEAPSECS] Straw men

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

Rob,

To say that your unconvincing statement of conjecture as fact is getting
a bit tiresome may be to understate the situation somewhat.

If you start with the name, the word that sets UTC apart from all
the other UTs is the word "coordinated".

That word refers to the coordination between the nation states as
organized under the United Nations.

Therefore UTC is not a mathematical timescale.

Neither is it is a scientific timescale.

Nor an astronomical timescale,

It is the just, and only, the timescale nation states can agree and
coordinate to use for transactions across borders.

What they can agree on is up to the duly appointed representatives
of these nation states.

If the can agree to use rubberseconds, leapseconds, decimal hours
or for that matter octal notation, then that is how they will
agree to define UTC and that's the end of that:  They own this
timescale.

What is very important to note is this:

Nowhere does it say that any nation states notion or implementation
of civil or military time must have any specific numeric relationship
to UTC.

If some country wants to run local time as determined by the kings
wobly grandfather clock, then there is absolutely nothing to prevent
them from doing so:  They are a sovereign nation state.

For instance the USA has a law that says "this or that secretary
(commerce ?) decides what is legal time." and if that secretary
does not like UTC, he can define US legal time to be based on
the cherry blossom at the Tidal Pool, and there is nothing UN
or ITU-R can do about it.

All your interminable harping about civil time and its cultural
roots and ramifications are issues you can and should take up with
your local government, through whatever procedures and means your
political system offers you.

It has nothing to do with the definition of UTC:  UTC is a timescale
for coordination between nation states, and it must first and foremost
serve that purpose.

If the duly appointed nation state representatives in ITU-R decides
that UTC does its job better without leap-seconds, then they can
define UTC without leapseconds, if they can agree and coordinate to
do so.

Now, please stop the whining.

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.