How about something like this:

#!/usr/bin/perl -wT
use strict;
use POSIX qw(strftime);

my $date = '10/16/2001 3:26PM; ET';
my $newdate = dateconvert($date);
print "'$date' => '$newdate'\n";

sub dateconvert {
  my $date = shift;

  #parse the date
  my ($mon,$day,$year,$hour,$min,$ampm,$tz) = 
    $date =~ m|(\d+)/(\d+)/(\d+)\s+(\d+):(\d+)\s*(\w+)\s*;\s*(\w+)|;

  # munge some vars to get them into 'unix standard form' 
  $mon--;            #ala, months from -0-11 instead of 1-12
  $year-=1900;       #and years being offshifted by 1900
  $hour+=12 if $ampm =~ /pm/i;
  my $sec = 0;

  # format our new date
  my $newdate = 
    strftime("%a %b %d %I:%M%p ;$tz",$sec,$min,$hour,$day,$mon,$year);
  $newdate =~ s/0(\d:)/$1/;   # convert 03:26 into 3:26... ugly, sorry
+.
  return $newdate;
}

=OUTPUT
'10/16/2001 3:26PM; ET' => 'Tue Oct 16 3:26PM ;ET'
[download]

-Blake