Samoa to go Back to the Future, shifting date line

[Viva_La_Revolution]

Source: AP

Samoa plans to leap 24 hours into the future, erasing a day and putting a new kink in the Pacific's jagged international date line so that it can be on the same weekday as Australia, New Zealand and eastern Asia.

It'll be Back to the Future for the island nation, offsetting a decision it made 119 years ago to stay behind a day and align itself with U.S. traders based in California.

That has meant that when it's dawn Sunday in Samoa, it's already dawn Monday in adjacent Tonga and shortly before dawn Monday in nearby New Zealand, Australia and increasingly prominent eastern Asia trade partners such as China.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_SAMOA_DATELINE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-05-09-08-33-54

[LiberalFighter]

1. Now they will lose a day of interest on their bank accounts.

Now their cows will think it is yesterday when it is today.

Now they will always be late because they show up the next day.

Now they will have church on Monday instead of Sunday.

[gratuitous]

2. An elaborate ruse to get ahead of that end-of-the-world thing on May 21

A cunning plan, m'lord.

[KamaAina]

3. Presumably American Samoa will not

so it will actually be possible to take a ferry from one day to the next. :wow:

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Indeed - they're working on that for a tourism angle

Samoa's change will have a cost: The Polynesian nation has long marketed itself as the last place on Earth to see each day's sunset.
...
The prime minister already has a new tourism angle: You can easily celebrate the same day twice, because the next-door U.S. territory of American Samoa will stay on the California side of the date line and remain one day behind.

"You can have two birthdays, two weddings and two wedding anniversaries on the same date - on separate days - in less than an hour's flight across (the ocean), without leaving the Samoan chain," Tuilaepa said.

[christx30]

4. Great Scott! n/t

[Vehl]

6. haha!

I love the headline!

K&R

[rug]

7. Can Kiribati be far behind?