Jakub Marian: 5 weird things you didn’t know about time zones

To understand the examples below, note that time zones are defined relative to the UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), which, roughly speaking, corresponds to time measured in London, UK (if we ignore Daylight Saving Time). By the way, the abbreviation UTC is yet another historical oddity: English speakers wanted the abbreviation to be CUT, whereas French speakers wanted TUC (“temps universel coordonné”). UTC emerged as a compromise between the two—so it, in fact, does not stand for anything. [...]

If you look carefully, you will notice that Nepal lies in an even weirder time zone: UTC+5:45. If you cross the border from India to Nepal, you will have to set the time on your watch 15 minutes forward, and if you move just 150 km (93 mi) further north and cross the Chinese border, the time suddenly jumps 2 hours and 15 minutes forward. [...]

China is a huge country, spanning about 5000 km (3100 mi) from east to west, which is more than the continental United States (excluding Alaska). As you can see from the map below, the neighbouring countries of China (most notably Russia) manage to squeeze 7 different time zones (from UTC+5 to UTC+11) into the same geographical span, while China officially uses just one. [...]

If you travel 180 degrees of longitude from London in either of the two possible directions, you will end up in the same spot on the other side of the globe. This means that the UTC+12 and UTC–12 time zones should theoretically cover the same area… but they are 24 hours apart. This is why this time zone is split into two “sub-zones” of equal width (fully applying only in international waters), one being 12 hours ahead of London and the other being 12 hours behind.

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Wendover Productions: The Economics of Airline Class

Salon: Americans are getting more secular all the time — which is one reason why Trump voters are so angry

In fact, the polling data shows there’s really only one group of Americans that rejects a secular society: white evangelical Christians. And this study is just further evidence that a lot of the political polarization in our country is the direct result of white evangelical Christians realizing that they no longer are the dominant majority and lashing out angrily in an effort to regain the levels of influence they used to enjoy.

For instance, the poll found that while a majority of Americans from all walks of life has come to embrace the rights of gay and lesbian Americans, white evangelicals remains stubbornly opposed to the gay rights movement. White evangelicals are the only category of the population to support business owners who want to discriminate against gay and lesbian customers. [...]

“Same-sex marriage now garners majority support among most religious groups,” the study authors wrote. “Roughly two-thirds of white mainline Protestants (66 percent) and Catholics (68 percent), and more than eight in ten (84 percent) religiously unaffiliated Americans and members of non-Christian religious traditions (86 percent) favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally. In stark contrast, only about one-third (34 percent) of white evangelical Protestants and roughly half (47 percent) of black Protestants support same-sex marriage.” [...]

Trump didn’t need to convince conservative Christians that he was one of them to receive their votes for his presidential bid, Cox suggested. All he needed to do was to assure them that he saw that they represented a privileged category and he would treat them as such.  [...]

But, as Cox pointed out, white evangelicals — 83 percent of whom said they disapprove of premarital sex — show considerable distance between their moral aspirations and their actual behavior in other areas of life, too. They disapprove of divorce and gambling in large numbers, he said, but they divorce and hit the casino in the same numbers as everyone else.

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CityLab: Building an Island to Power Northern Europe

The emissions goals across the continent are formidable: Germany alone, for example, must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to 90 percent of what they were in 1990. It also has to increase its renewable energy share to 80 percent of its total energy production. Journeys like Germany’s are made more complicated by the continent’s steady move away from nuclear power, making the pressure to find clean renewable sources even more intense. To put it bluntly, Europe needs something big—and quick—to have any chance at success.

Thankfully, the region is already making some headway, particularly with some interesting projects in the wind-battered waters around Northern Europe. The most ambitious plan yet was unveiled to the public in early March: a new chain of artificial islands dedicated solely to wind power.

Under the plan, the North Sea could gain an archipelago of power-generating islands within a decade. A Danish, Dutch, and German consortium created by the companies TenneT and Energinet is launching plans to create an island 6 kilometers in circumference, roughly equidistant between Denmark, Norway, Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands. [...]

Finally, while it is unlikely that the islands would be permanently inhabited, they would provide an ideal base to service the turbines and power lines, providing a temporary base for staff that would make maintenance cheaper and easier. The video below—still speculative—reveals it as a reasonably spacious place, with a high, rocky breakwater sheltering space for a dock, an airstrip, and service buildings, as well as a freshwater pool with tree-planted edges. Should the initial project be successful, a string of other islands nearby could be in the works.

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Al Jazeera: UN report: Israel has established an 'apartheid regime'

A new United Nations report accuses Israel of having established "an apartheid regime that oppresses and dominates the Palestinian people as a whole".

The publication comes amid renewed debate about whether, through its settlement policy and rejection of Palestinian self-determination, the Israeli government is creating - or even has already created - a de facto "one-state", which critics warn would constitute a form of apartheid. [...]

The report - Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid - was commissioned and published by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) and launched in Beirut. [...]

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, when asked about the report, said it was published without any prior consultations with the UN Secretariat and its views do not reflect those of the secretary-general.

The report was authored by two critics of Israeli state practice: Virginia Tilley, professor of political science at Southern Illinois University, and Richard Falk, former UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, and professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University. [...]

The report also suggests an advisory opinion be sought from the International Court of Justice "as to whether the means used by Israel to maintain control over the Palestinian people amount to the crime of apartheid".

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