Accessing pg_timezone_names system view

I was wondering if there is any reason that accessing the system view
pg_timezone_names is extremely slow relative to other queries. The
following query:

    SELECT * FROM pg_timezone_names;

Executes in between 29ms and 32ms on my server. It takes about the same
when I put a

    WHERE name = 'some/timezone'

clause in it. To put this into perspective, on the pages that execute
this, it accounts for something like 3/4 of my DB execution time.

Here's a screenshot to show you what I'm talking about:

    http://www.mrnaz.com/dbetime.gif

As you can see, the execution of that single fetch dwarfs all other
processing loads. I've run this a few times, and the timings are always
roughly the same. Is there a way for me to speed this up? Would I be
better off loading these into a static table and executing from there?
It seems kinda purpose defeating to do that though. Perhaps this has
been addressed in 8.3 ? I eagerly await.

Regards,
- Naz