From: jock@soccer.com   
      
   On Sun, 22 Jun 2014 18:09:05 +0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"   
    wrote:   
      
   >Nobody  wrote:   
   >>On Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:59:36 +0000 (UTC), John Levine  wrote:   
   >   
   >>>If you want confusing, try Kirimati (Christmas Island) where the time   
   >>>zone is GMT+14.  That is, it's the same time as Hawaii and Tahiti, but   
   >>>a day later. Or (Western) Samoa is GMT+13, while nearby American   
   >>>Samoa is GMT-11, again same time, a day later.   
   >   
   >>The government in Apia decided to 'move' to the western side of the   
   >>dateline several years ago because of the State of Samoa's ties with   
   >>New Zealand and Australia.   
   >   
   >I'd already given the American Somoa versus Somoa example, a day apart.   
   >It's interesting, but one would suspect that American Somoa may have   
   >similar ties to Australia and New Zealand and perhaps the International   
   >Date Line should be further east. I don't really know.   
      
   Well, the State of Samoa (it's an 'a' not 'o' incidentally) was taken   
   over militarily by New Zealand at the start of the First World War,   
   and an NZ civil administration was endorsed in 1920 by the League of   
   Nations, later confirmed as a trusteeship by the United Nations till   
   independence as Western Samoa in '62.   
      
   Germany and the US had partitioned the islands around the turn of the   
   20th century, so the eastern portion has had greater ties with the   
   United States as a result.   
      
   They might share language and ethnicity but have developed into   
   culturally separate societies.  New Zealand has a large number of   
   citizens and residents of Samoan background.  Auckland has the world's   
   largest population of  Polynesians, and Samoans make up about half of   
   the Pacific Islander breakdown, according to Stats NZ.   
      
   >   
   >>As for wackiest alignments, take a look at Russia's time zones; they   
   >>revised them a few years back, but the Russian Far east especially is   
   >>quite weird.   
   >   
   >At one time, Stalin put substantial parts of the country on Moscow   
   >time, which was absolutely outrageous.   
   >   
      
   To bring this discussion sort of on-topic, Russian Railways/RZD run on   
   Moscow time, timetables and station clocks.   
      
   China has just a single time zone... and spreads over enough meridians   
   to 'warrant' four.   
      
   >>Khabarovsk/Vladivostok are UT + 11 year round, while Japan is UT + 9,   
   >>even though the Russian krais could easily be an hour 'behind' Japan.   
   >>I have photos of central KH I took ~9.30 am in late June which look by   
   >>the light to be something akin to ~5.30 am.  Given that KH is   
   >>basically the same latitude as Vancouver (49 degrees), their winter   
   >>daylight hours must be very interesting.   
   >   
   >So, negative double daylight time?   
      
   Negative daylight?  That would suggest the clocks are on a time zone   
   'west' of a location.  The clocks are ahead just as ours so that local   
   sunrise is set later, though what for us would seem to be excessively.   
      
   Looking at the geographical position from a North American perspective   
   for time zones, we would likely place Khabarovsk and Vladivostok as UT   
   + 8, or possibly UT + 9 -- they've been on UT + 11  year-round since   
   the latest revision of Russian time zones in early 2010, which reduced   
   the number across the country to nine from 11.   
      
   Prior to that, KH's zone was UT + 10 in the winter, which in a way was   
   still double daylight.   
      
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