Argentina DST blues

[Petr Machata]

Mariano Absatz - El Baby wrote:
> Here's a patch (against 2008h) which does what I say...

> diff -ur tzdata2008h/southamerica tzdata2008h-proposed_baby/southamerica
> --- tzdata2008h/southamerica	2008-10-08 09:46:17.000000000 -0300
> +++ tzdata2008h-proposed_baby/southamerica	2008-10-16 18:48:52.000000000 -0300
> @@ -388,7 +388,8 @@
>  			-4:00	Arg	AR%sT	2000 Mar  3
>  			-3:00	-	ART	2004 Jun  1
>  			-4:00	-	WART	2004 Jun 20
> -			-3:00	Arg	AR%sT
> +			-3:00	Arg	AR%sT	2008 Oct 19
> +			-3:00	Arg	ART

This still schedules La Rioja for DST, it just drops "S" from timezone 
abbreviation.  The same mistake is with San Juan and Catamarca.

>  #
>  # Jujuy (JY)
>  Zone America/Argentina/Jujuy -4:21:12 -	LMT	1894 Oct 31
> @@ -415,9 +417,10 @@
>  			-3:00	1:00	ARST	1992
>  			-3:00	Arg	AR%sT	1999 Oct  3
>  			-4:00	Arg	AR%sT	2000 Mar  3
> -			-3:00	Arg	AR%sT
> +			-3:00	Arg	AR%sT	2008 Oct 19
> +			-3:00	Arg	ART

I thought Jujuy was expected to introduce DST, so why this change?

>  #
>  # Mendoza (MZ)
>  Zone America/Argentina/Mendoza -4:35:16 - LMT	1894 Oct 31
> @@ -445,7 +449,8 @@
>  			-4:00	Arg	AR%sT	2000 Mar  3
>  			-3:00	-	ART	2004 May 23
>  			-4:00	-	WART	2004 Sep 26
> -			-3:00	Arg	AR%sT
> +			-3:00	Arg	AR%sT	2008 Oct 17
> +			-4:00	1:00	WARST

I guess this hunk is related to this:

> It says that Mendoza will use UTC-03:00 and UTC-04:00... and that the
> Provincial Executive Branch (the Governor) has the power to establish
> which one will be in effect and when... (along the same lines as the
> National Law, but with different time zones)...

> So, it's reasonable to think that at least until March 2009, Mendoza
> will keep using UTC-03:00, however, I think we should say that
> Mendoza is actually observing DST from its now standard WART (that
> is, it is at WARST, which is the same as ART)... am I right? Or is it
> just to messy?

So are they actually in WART zone?  Seems to me that the bylaw just 
allows the governor to pick more suitable zone, so I'm inclined to leave 
them in -3 and just wait for a magazine article to show up with 
definitive answer.  (But honestly I have no idea if the -4:00/1:00 is 
some kind of idiom, maybe it suits exactly this kind of situation.)

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