"Lex Spoon" <lex at cc.gatech.edu> writes:
> I don't suppose there is a time zone that ignores leap seconds?  So that
> it would actually be 86400 times the number of days, plus the number of
> elapsed seconds today?

There are several time systems without leap seconds. Best known is
International Atomic Time, abbreviated TAI. UTC is based on TAI; the
only difference between the two is an integer number of seconds,
adjusted as necessary by addition or removal of a leap
second. Unfortunately, TAI wouldn't simplify our method comments; most
users have never heard of it, so if we referred to it, we would then
need to explain what TAI is, and how it is related to UTC.

A brief summary of time systems is available at
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/astronomy/faq/part3/section-5.html

-- 
Stan