And the real problem is...
That date parsing is awful. Yes, I can just try strptime() with different formats until one works, but look at this:
from time import * strptime(strftime('%Z',localtime()),'%Z') Traceback (most recent call last): File "stdin", line 1, in ? ValueError: unconverted data remains: 'ART'
Now, what that is supposed to do, as far as I understand, is print my timezone (that is the strftime call, it prints ART), and then parse it back (that is the strptime call, and it fails).
Maybe %Z is new... no, it isnt. It is in the reference guide for 2.2.2 (what I use).