You are missing the point. My point is that that particular datetime is parsed as 2013-02-03 19:54:00 +0000 PST on some machines, and 2013-02-03 19:54:00 -08

You are missing the point. My point is that that particular datetime is parsed as 2013-02-03 19:54:00 +0000 PST on some machines, and 2013-02-03 19:54:00 -0800 PST on others. This is means that the timezone offset IS different and the absolute time IS different. One is 8 hours ahead of another even though the original string is the same.