Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is?

The legendary semi-annual changing of the clocks took place last night, and by now all of America should be on standard time. Many people hate doing this little ritual, and have argued that the U.S. is the only country that does it.

That's simply not true.

In fact, most of the industrial world changes their clocks twice a year. One notable exception: Japan. They only did it for a few years immediately after WWII when the evil American occupiers forced them to do so. As soon as we left, the Japanese stopped changing their clocks.

Another noticeable exception is China. Not only do they not change their clocks, they don't even observe time zones. So when it's a bright sunshiny 9 A.M. in Beijing, it's also 9 A.M. and in the middle of the night in western China.

When it comes to being a maverick, John McCain has nothing on Nepal. That tiny country not only remains on standard time year round, but also stays 15 minutes behind everyone else. In other words, if it's noon here in D.C., it's actually 9:45 PM in Kathmandu.

In Russia, Stalin once imposed Daylight Savings Time on the country and apparently forgot to end it. As a result, the entire nation remained on DST for 60 years.

And in Iran, well, it just depends on who's running the place at any given moment.

In the U.S., Arizona and Hawaii remain on standard time year round. Until 2005, Indiana allowed it's individual counties to determine whether they wanted to change their clocks (that practice had a lot to do with the fact that their northern counties are suburbs of Chicago, which is in the central time zone while most of Indiana is in the earstern zone). Then there was the winter of 1975/1976, when the U.S. decided to pass up switching to standard time entirely.

One of the few nations that has never wavered in its support of changing the clocks is Britain. They've been doing it faithfully ever since the whole idea started during WWI.