[BC] 2005 will end with a leap second - and you can hear it!

[Gary Peterson]

"...the last time
a leap second was added was on December 31, 1998...
This is the 23rd leap second to be inserted since 1972, and some
communications engineers have embarked on a campaign to abolish them as
a needless annoyance.
Rachel Ehrenberg "

I plead guilty.  I listened for and heard the leap second on New Year's Eve
in '98.  I was telling a friend about it and my wife said to his wife "See
what I put up with?"  In November '99, while on a cruise, I was listening to
Cuban AM stations on a little walkman.  On the low end of the AM BC band
there were a couple of Spanish speaking time stations.  Both had
top-of-the-minute time hacks that were off by one second.  I imagined that
Castro had told his equivalent of NIST that "we don't need no stinking
capitalist leap seconds."

It would take a very long time, but if we don't insert leap seconds,
astronomical events and our clocks will slowly go out of sync.  If it
weren't for leap years, summer, in the northern hemisphere, would eventually
occur in December.  Or...am I goofy?  Probably.

Gary, K?CX