What time is it really?

In today's Wall Street Journal (7/29/05) see the article "Why the U.S. Wants to End the Link Between Time and Sun"

The U.S. wants to eliminate leap seconds and declare that every day is exactly 24 hours long. Seems as if there are any number of computer and electronic navigation glitches that occur when a leap second (caused by the slowing of the Earth's rotation by the moon) is added to various software systems.

Of course, this "will make sextants and sundials slowly become inaccurate" and will thus cause problems for astromers and telescopes.

So its computers vs. telescopes. The U.S. vs. the world. Reality vs. another simplification of the universe.

A programmer at the National Optical Astronomy Observatories says "we should not so blithely discard the ties between our clocks and the Earth". Another astronomer calles the U.S. proposal "a disaster for classical astronomy" and a "dirty trick".

So, what time is it really? And do we care? ;-n