system stuck in UTC time despite manual conf. changes

This *seems* to be a duplicate of an older bug (#23963, Oct 15th 2005) that seemed to resolve itself after the user re-installed his OS, however it is not as I've followed his/her exact steps for solving it with no luck.

I have the exact same problem (which you can track in this discussion: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2312649#post2312649).

I was using Kubuntu Dapper when I first noticed that, no matter what I did, my system was stuck on UTC (even though I could make the taskbar clock display EST, where I live). I then upgraded to Kubuntu Dapper 64-bit and had the same issue - tried the same solutions and no luck. I've since switched to Kubuntu Edgy (x386) since October and have the exact same problem. In other words, re-installing has not succeeded in resolving this.

One thing that's fair to mention (in case it helps) is that I keep /home on a separate partition which I have not formatted throughout these re-installations of Kubuntu. I don't see how this can be an issue - particularly when many of the fixes I've attempted are as root - but I'm putting this out there.

I'm reporting this because if/when I install Feisty and find the same problem, it will be the last day I use this or any Ubuntu derivative. Having all of my business emails forward-dated by 5 hours is a pain in the rear and I want to do everything I can to help solve this. What's ironic is that even my Launchpad profile lists my timecode as UTC (!).

Thanks.

[steps I have taken:

- BIOS (check)
- tzselect (check)
- localtime symlink (check)
- rcS edit (check)]