My Message to Congress

I agree with you Andrews. Pick one time or the other. I am sick of changing.

"The amount of daylight and darkness is a physical constant . . . " True ON AVERAGE for the planet. Not true for any locale, though that doesn't speak to arguments about "daylight savings".

I like the current system because it changes the ratio of daylight hours before versus after work. In the winter it's dark going in and coming out. In the summer, I get to read on the deck before and play in daylight for longer after.

My body clock adjusts in about 3.5 minutes . . . at the longest.

You obviously don't work with computers. Though numerous hacks exist to work around this, things like log files become a mess if don't record in UTC, and most developers are too shortsighted to do so. (Or end users are too unfamiliar with UTC and insist on local time.) And when they changed the time daylight savings starts it was a huge mess, I had to update thousands of programs and operating systems, it was a chaotic mess.

Not to mention that I have now had two days of a 4 year old who is waking up at 5 AM wondering why school doesn't start for hours (well, this morning, anyway). And whoever let it start the day after Halloween clearly has never experienced chocolate crazed youth waking up well before 6 AM...

My thought is this: If you want to have more hours before or after work, then petition your employer to allow flex working times, or to alter your hours base don season. That way the rest of us can have consistent, reliable times.

And, as to your first point, the amount is still a physical constant, it is not changed by legislative fiat. It may vary by local slightly, but it is still constant for that locale despite legislative enactment.

Glad I got one supportive vote. Usually when I start on this topic the responses are either "I like it" or "who cares?' But it drives me mad. What is the point? We do not rise with the sun any longer, nor do we sleep with it. The entire nation is electrified (or almost entirely, close enough to make little difference), so what is the benefit of shifting around when darkness and light occurs relative to our work hours?

It seems a pointless activity which does little but confuse us for several days twice a year. Oh, and make IT workers, school teachers and parents unhappy. But as I see I already got one vote in support, I expect we are still the minority.

I don't get it.

The funny thing is if the government were to propose this today, had it never been in place before, conservatives would be up in arms, arguing that it is an abuse of the government's power, a clear sign of their arrogance and their attempts to over-reach. But since it has existed for decades, no one cares. I suppose it supports my belief that conservatives accept big government so long as it is old enough, but that is little comfort.

The funniest thing has to be that this is even more of a conservative bogeyman, as it was enacted "for the farmers", making it an abusive extension of the government's powers admittedly enacted for the benefit of a special interest... As I said, were it proposed today it would be roundly condemned. But as it has "always been that way" most people ignore it. Just like public education, public utilities, medical licensing, pharmaceutical regulation, all the ills of modern society that raise howls of indignation (even form conservatives) when challenged. (Even if you disagree with me on any specific issue, I find it bizarre that people have a hard time even considering eliminating licensing of doctors or ending public education, or, worst of all, eliminating public funding of roads... Oh, a handful agree with me when I write, but most people just reject any proposal to change out of hand. It is a bizarre aspect of human nature, this inertia once things are sufficiently old and familiar.)

(On the road thing, even when I propose half steps, such as simply letting the states decide, people get upset about the end of the "interstate highway system", as if no one could travel cross country before Ike ok'ed the funds... Bizarre.)

But I am getting off topic. Maybe I will write a rambling rant about how persistent old ideas are, and how in one way it is good (by avoiding too rapid a change) and in some bad (as in preventing all change). Hope I find time to write all the ideas I have formed in comments the past few days.

In my reply to Dr. Pete, that should be "vary by locale", not "vary by local". The E was accidentally dropped, not intentionally omitted.

At least I make enough typos that claiming any error is a typo is likely to be believed.