[tz] Moving more zones to 'backzone'

[Robert Elz]

    Date:        Wed, 17 Aug 2022 12:00:09 +0100
    From:        "Clive D.W. Feather" <clive at davros.org>
    Message-ID:  <YvzKOeicNWFrPM/l at davros.org>

  | It's the largest town in Kernow.

As I assume you expected, that doesn't help a lot  (that is, not at all)!

  | So if I can get a group the rest of my street to agree that I have set the
  | time they use (even if it follows the same rules as the rest of the UK),
  | then I can have my own time zone?

If your group has the authority to do that, then yes.   That's why my
version of the guidelines (which would still need more precision) specify
having the authority, or having actually set a timezone.

That's why I gave different results for Glasgow and Cardiff - my assumption
(which might be wrong, certainly) is that the Scottish parliament has the
power to set time, I'm not even sure Wales has an equivalent body, and if
it has, my guess is that it is able to do much less (Wales has been
subservient to England for far longer than Scotland has, I believe).

  | What stops any state in the US legislating that their time is the same as
  | the time set by Congress and then claiming a new zone? Or any county (for
  | those states that have them)?

I don't know enough about the US political situation to judge.   But 45
new zones (or whatever it ends up being) most of which would be identical
to one of the existing 5 or 6 (however many there are) would not be all
that bad.   Not that I would expect that to happen, as from what I can
determine, people in the US consider themselves in Eastern/Central/Mountain/
Pacific timezones (plus whatever applies in Hawaii and Alaska) and
that's what they expect to exist.   In Australia time is ruled by the
states (and territories) and people expect each to be its own timezone.
That the ACT (Canberra) timezone is inconceivable in practice to ever be
different from that of NSW (Sydney) is more or less irrelevant.

If Australia had had 50 states instead of 6, I expect it would have 50 zones.

In Thailand, the thought that anyone can define the time is probably
not something people consider, but certainly only the national govt
would have that ability, not the Changwat (states) or smaller divisions.

kre