In the March newsletter of the American Astronomical Society is a letter from McCarthy, Fliegel, and Nelson promoting UTC without leap seconds.
In the March issue of The Compendium, the quarterly journal of the North American Sundial Society, is a note about leap seconds. Dare any inferences be drawn from the letter in the AAS newsletter? McCarthy works at the USNO branch of the IERS which produces the near-real-time bulletin A. Leap seconds are announced (currently by Daniel Gambis) by l'Observatoire de Paris branch of the IERS in the semi-annual bulletin C. Dare this be taken as an indication that, for those who care about earth rotation, the USNO believes the contribution of l'OBSPM as seen in Bulletin C could just as well be replaced by a suitably damped filtering of the Bulletin A data? And that, for those who do not care about earth rotation (presumably the majority of the population of the planet), the USNO believes the role of l'OBSPM for controlling civil time is irrelevant? -- Steve Allen UCO/Lick Observatory Santa Cruz, CA 95064 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Voice: +1 831 459 3046 http://www.ucolick.org/~sla PGP: 1024/E46978C5 F6 78 D1 10 62 94 8F 2E 49 89 0E FE 26 B4 14 93