Samoa joins us on the West of the dateline.

Image: Courtesy, The Daily Mail.

Well it’s the New Year here and this time we have Samoa joining us at the start of the day instead of waiting for the world to do nearly a full revolution. Now if we can just talk the Yanks into doing the same, we will have the important part of the world, all on the same day at the same time.

This would improve the election coverage for us so we don’t have to wait until Wednesday afternoon for the US to announce its results on Tuesday night.

There seems to be a little confusion in the press though, with many outlets reporting that the country has moved west over the Date Line. This is understandable though, with reporters being so tied up in statism that it is probably easier for them to visualize an island moving than a line on the map drawn by bureaucrats doing so:

The tiny South Pacific island is moving west over the international dateline …

Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi told Radio New Zealand that the drastic move would lead to major improvements in trade and tourism.

'No longer shall we have people ringing us up from New Zealand and Australia thinking it is Monday when we are closing our eyes and praying at churches,' he said.

'And vice versa on our Fridays when we ring up and already our contacts are holidaying on their Saturdays.' Samoa's population of 180,000 will now be one of the first in the world to welcome in the New Year, rather than the last.

This move has caused them to lose Friday the 30th which was replaced with Saturday the 31st, this in itself causing some consternation among the Seventh Day Adventists, although there are no reports of other Saturday Sabathists having this problem:

Critics say Samoa could lose tourist trade by no longer being the last place on earth to see the sun set - but it will now be one of the first places to see in each new day.

The nation's seventh Day Adventists are also divided over the change, and whether they should now observe the Sabbath on Saturday or Sunday.
Officials are working on creating new maps, charts and atlases for the island, as it moves over the zig-zag dateline.

Since the original setting of the time zone to the US side in 1892, trade has moved from being predominantly with America, to being mainly with New Zealand, Australia, and Asia. Being on the same day makes a lot of sense.