[LEAPSECS] move over Greenwich, Mecca calls

[Steve Allen]

The blogosphere is abuzz about the conference in Qatar

Mecca, the Centre of the Earth, Theory and Practice

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7359258.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecca_Time

Disconnecting UTC from GMT, from the sun, may be playing with fire.
The ITU-R is not constructed to handle these sorts of issues.
This could be fun.

I still think it's simplest if the ITU-R simply declares that time
broadcasts would switch to a leapsecond-free, Torino-conference-like
entity named such as TI, leaving UTC with BIPM.  That would solve the
ITU-R's problem -- getting a leap-free time scale.  It makes
everything else "someone else's problem", a strategy that is perfectly
consistent with the historical actions of the CCIR and ITU-R.

--
Steve Allen                 <sla at ucolick.org>                WGS-84 (GPS)
UCO/Lick Observatory        Natural Sciences II, Room 165    Lat  +36.99855
University of California    Voice: +1 831 459 3046           Lng -122.06015
Santa Cruz, CA 95064        http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/     Hgt +250 m