Congress considering extended daylight savings.

[Deep13]

I just saw a story in Yahoo that says that Congress is considering extending daylight savings time by two months in order to save energy. This is an idiotic idea. DST time screws with people twice a year requiring people to get up an hour early in the summer. It has no purpose. Also, it is well known that longer daylight hours means more driving around.

DST has no purpose. If people want to get up an hour earlier, who is stopping them? There is no reason to force the whole country to do it. In the summer it does not get dark until 10pm and twighlight does not end until 11pm. That is just plain nuts. How do you get children to fall asleep when it is still light out? Why do we have to get up when it is still dark? It's unnatural. Why don't we just scrap the whole system instead of doing it more.

As a side note, as an amatuer astronomer, I find DST particularly maddening. In winter on the rare occasion it is clear, I can put the telescope out when I get home, observe for three hours and be done before 9 pm. In August, I can't even start until 11:30. AZ skips DST and a few other states might too. They have not fallen into chaos.

[cheezus]

1. best idea ever

we should be on dst the entire year. I don't understand why we need light at 5am in the winter, but not at 5pm

[Bluebear]

2. I wish they would keep dst all year!

I hate the sun setting at 4pm in the winter!

[andyhappy]

9. coming home from work in the dark...

SUCKS!

[rkc3]

3. This is their idea of creating an energy policy.

Some of the other things that were not shared with reporters included:

Slowing the earth's rotation during daylight hours in the US.
Bottling human methane expulsions to use for home heating and cooking.
Burning children on welfare to heat public buildings.

[boneygrey]

4. I love DST

I remember in the 70's we stayed on DST for about 15 months.

[swimmernsecretsea]

7. I remember that too!

I recall my mom trying to get me up and I just looked out the window and the sky was black. I looked at her like she was crazy and said it's not time yet. Now, if you all know how hard it is to get a child ready for school, trying to make them get up at the crack of dark is impossible. All of us four children wailing like we were going to get spanked because of the oil embargo. Sheesh.

[boneygrey]

12. I was around 11-12 yrs.old and

it was hard getting up in the dark, but I loved the extra hour to play outside. Gee, remember when kids played outside and not video games.

[LSparkle]

8. Me, too

People forget that DST saves electrical energy (not as many lights required, etc.) - and I don't think people drive around any more when it's light; if they're close enough to stores and other places they need to go, they can walk or ride bikes instead of having to drive.

[Salviati]

5. Heck, I'd be all in favor of inverting it...

shift those daylight hours into the evening during the winter when we need them!

[AngryAmish]

6. More DST= more golf

best idea ever!!!

[scarlett1]

27. DST - suggested originally by a Golfer

In Scotland or somewhere in the UK. He just thought that it was too bad that more people weren't enjoying the early sunshine in the mornings and had their windows shutters closed.
I Saw that on Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood

[muriel_volestrangler]

35. It was originally an energy saving measure

suggested (just by people getting up earlier) by Ben Franklin; suggetsed as an alteration to clocks in 1907; actually taken up by Germany, then Britain, during World War I - to save energy.

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/W/Wi/William_Willett.htm

[etherealtruth]

10. I don't care---daylight savings / standard time...

Pick one and stick to it. For whatever reason I have a tough time adjusting to the changes.

[Coastie for Truth]

11. 5% reduction in energy consumption

Rule of thumb - for each additional day of daylight savings time - that day's energy consumption is reduced 5%.

[BigBearJohn]

13. I LOVE daylight savings time. Cheers me right up.

I love the sun.

[ArkDem]

14. Another vote for year round DST!!!!!

[Warpy]

15. I'd like to see it year round

The problem has always been suburban parents who cry that their bay bees have to go to school in the dark. Well, why not have the damn schools open LATER? Think of the kiddies having an hour in the morning to sit and do homework before the bus comes. Why, their grades might come up enough to make them future Democrats!

Some people piss and moan about the time change, and I did enough of it in the winter, when it meant a 13 hour night shift instead of a 12 hour night shift. However, an hour really isn't that big a deal for your body to get used to. Really. You can survive it.

As for summertime telescope gazing, a true afficionado would get up before dawn to do it, or nap in the evening so as to be awake and enthusiastic for a late evening session.

[Deep13]

26. "bay bees have to go to school in the dark"

The babies don't like to get up at night because they are smarter than the rest of us. They have not been brainwashed by our commercial culture. What you are suggesting about schools opening later is essentially an exemption for daylight savings for the school. Instead of exempting those who don't like it, why don't we stick to standard time and let those who want to get up early do so. Besides, if they did that, all the schools would need to open later because there is only one bus fleet for the district.

"...a true afficionado would get up before dawn to do it..."

I guess I direct this comment to those who want the whole country to switch so they can get a few more holes of golf. Those of us who work for a living prefer to observe in the evening when we are awake anyway. I can't justify being unproductive all day because of a hobby. On the weekends when it is clear and moonless (almost never) I do stay out until 4 a.m. (actually 3 a.m., but we lie about the time in the summer). As a general comment a few hours of nap does not make up for the lack of eight straight hours of shut eye. The human body and mind especially is hard-wired to require several hours of uninterrupted deep sleep. A cat nap simply will not do. Sleep deprevation is a crisis in this country because culture and technology demand what people are not equipped to give.

"an hour really isn't that big a deal for your body to get used to."

Speak for yourself. I don't sleep or shit right for a month after advancing the clock. Anyway, mere survival should not be our benchmark.

[scarlett1]

31. Bay Bee going to school in the dark. Of Course my radical idea

Go to school closer to year round. Rather than 188 days a year how about 220 to 230. I know the kids need a break in the summer but 2-3 weeks near July 4, or Memorial Day and other areas in August before Labor day. A longer Winter break and Spring and fall Break. There is no reason for kids to be home for three months in the summer. The parents need to get sitters to watch the kids.

[Fleshdancer]

29. I'm sold on that idea

I want DST year round and I like the idea of school starting later. My bay bee starts kindergarden next fall and I just found out that her school will start at 7:45. She's only 5. I think that's weird.

[Mutley]

16. they should pick one or the other

i just can never get used to the changing time....

[eek]

23. Pick and stick

I second ya, Mutley R U !

Every clock in my household (3 alarm clocks, microwave, oven, car,computer,cell phone) ALL have a different time shown .
I've totally lost the plot.

[crispini]

17. I'm in the "I like DST" camp too.

I really like having the extra time in the evening. Just my two cents.

[Deep13]

18. Goddammmit!

No one is stopping anyone from getting up and hour earlier or going to sleep when it gets dark.

At night it is supposed to be dark. The body's natural clock assumes that. It is bad enough that we think we have to artificially illuminate the night. Get rid of that and your energy problem is solved. Of course, the evening doesn't seem so short to people who actually live near the office and don't drive an hour to the office from the suburbs every day.

I heard that farmers hate this DST shit. Roosters crow when they see the sun. They don't care what the clock says. Human physiology is the same way. I fucking hate getting up in the dark. I am half asleep on the ride to the office and I refuse to drug myself with coffee to stay awake. When I worked overnight, it was never normal even after doing it a year.

There is also something fundamentally dishonest about it. The standard clock is roughly based on solar time. Noon, midday, is the time when the sun is highest in the sky. Midnight is when the locality is directly opposite the sun. Except, that isn't so. In the summer, midnight is only three hours into the night near the western edge of the time zone. With DST, it is two. In Toledo, it is only 90 minutes into the night. (That's another thing. DST is worse the further west you go in the time zone.)

I'd like to strangle the guy who invented the electric clock. Why are we always in such a goddamn hurry, anyway. It is only because clocks allow us to be and those in charge require it. Electric lights are another one. The only reason people have to work at night is because of artificial lighting.

[Joe the Revelator]

22. Why do people who live near their jobs have such a superiority complex?

<<Of course, the evening doesn't seem so short to people who actually live near the office and don't drive an hour to the office from the suburbs every day.>>


This is just not feasible for everyone. I'd rather raise my kids away from a major city.

[cheezus]

30. if noon is true midday

and one sleeps 8 hours, doesn't that have us going to bed at 8pm and waking up at 4am?


that would suck

[bikebloke]

19. One pitfall from the 70's

Back during the 70's gas crunch, they extended daylight savings time. But kids walking to school in the dark were hit by cars. Thus came pressure for returning to the old schedule.

[LittleWoman]

20. It is easier to pass extended Daylight Savings time

than it is to pass some real energy savings measures especially with the strong energy lobby and Dick Cheney in charge. For myself, I hate DST. I get up and go to work early and I don't like waiting at the bus stop in and dark and I do not like getting off the bus downtown in the dark either. I don't have a choice as to when I go to work so going later is out of the question. Please note: I do ride the bus to work and if I were to drive because I don't like taking the bus in the dark morning it would defeat the whole energy saving purpose of DST. I am committed to public transportation so I will continue to ride the bus and I will turn deaf ears to those who live where they could take and bus and do not and complain about the high price of gas. I am sorry for those who have to drive to work because they have no choice, but some of them are in a problem of their own making. For those of you who complain that is not convenient to take the bus I would suggest that you all start riding the bus and then you will be in a position to demand better service. If there were large numbers of people riding the bus and demanding better service overall I expect it would be more likely to happen. All things considered, public transportation is not going to improve much without a large demand for service.

[Joe the Revelator]

21. I Think This is a Great Idea

I hope they make it happen. Its an idea that doesn't involve drilling off the coastline, drilling in a wildlife preserve, going to war ect. Thumbs up from me.

[yurbud]

24. I'd prefer DST year round

Most of us work around the 9-5 schedule, and I'd like to have those extra hours of light after work--in the morning I'm too bleary-eyed to enjoy them.

[Heddi]

28. Completely

Who gives a crap if it's light out earlier in the morning---what on earth can you do that's 'fun' or 'enjoyable' at 6am?

I, too, would rather have the extra light in the afternoon---if nothing more than the psychological reason that when you get off work, you don't want to feel like 'gee, it's dark...time to go to bed', which is EXACTLY how I feel in the wintertime, living in Seattle. As I posted below, it's already dark enough in Seattle b/c we're so far north that our winter daylight hours are short to begin with. Add to that the 'fall back' bullshit AND the constant cloudy skies, and you REALLY don't ever see daylight in the wintertime (well, sometimes, but not often).

I hated the wintertime (still do, but I live in a less-cloudy part of WA now). I'd get up to go to work and it's dark. I'd come home and it's dark. At noon, it would look like it was 4pm. When I'd get home--even if it was 5:30, it had already been dark for an hour and a half. Psychologically, it FEELS later than it is.

In the wintertime, my motivation to do even simple things like shopping or running errands in the evening is just ZAPPED. It feels like, in the wintertime at least, that all you do is go to work, come home, go to sleep, wake up, go to work---all the while it's dark and gloomy and dreary and (best of all) rainy or drizzly. It's as if 6 months of the year if you're not in darkness outside, you're trapped inside unable to see the sun.

Me love summer. The first night hubby and I were in Seattle was about a month after DST--we were AMAZED that at 9:30, it was just getting 'dusky' outside, and it didn't get totally dark until around 10. It was great. We spent so much more time outside of the house, doing things, running errands, going to the park---much more IMPORTANT things, you know...it's a good feeling psychologically

[Heddi]

25. I love DST

Living in the Pacific Northwest, the summer 'days' are incredibly long, but the winter 'days' are incredibly short. Not only are we having to go by the time-change thing, but we're so far north that the sun just naturally sets earlier in the winter and later in the summer.

In October (or whenever you "fall" back), I'd get up to go to work at 7am and it would still be dark. I'd get home at 5pm and it would be dark. Add to that the lack of sunlight from the cloudy Seattle days, and you have MANY months where you never see the sun at all, or only for scant minutes throughout the week.

However, I LOVE when you 'spring' the clock forward---it stays light longer, it makes the days and afternoons more enjoyable--who CARES if, in November, you get an extra hour of sunshine in the morning---who the fugg gets up at 5am anyways? I'd much rather have the extra sunlight in the evening when it can be ENJOYED and SAVOURED.

It's depressing enough in the wintertime if you have seasonal affective disorder. I couldn't imagine having the gloom of a 6-pm sunset throughout the year...ugh.

[konominut]

32. I in Deep13's camp

I say use the one that most closely represent nature. Noon is when the sun is the high on average. It really makes absolutely no sense in the 21st century to have to manually change clocks every 6 months. While we're at lets do away with the whole am / pm thing and switch to metric. Then everyone will moan.

:crazy:

[nonconformist]

33. I'd prefer DST all year long

I would eliminate the weirdness of springing forward and falling back. When I worked, I would go days without seeing daylight in the winter. I would get to work when it was still dark and it'd already be dark when I left. We had no windows in the building where my cube was. It was horrible. DST all year would have at least given me a smidgen of sun.

[Spider Jerusalem]

34. I fucking HATE daylight saving time.

This is a moronic idea. People are STILL going to be awake in non-daylight hours, still going to be using energy...extending daylight saving time to cut energy consumption is stupid and pointless, and does nothing except make ignorant people think "hey, they're trying to DO something about our energy problem".

[Tactical Progressive]

36. I'd go beyond even year-round DST !!!

I think they should SHIFT THE CLOCKS AHEAD BY ONE HOUR YEAR ROUND, including Daylight Savings Time.

That means that we'd have what would be today's DST in the winter.
Then still jump the clocks forward by an hour in the springtime to a new DST that would be an hour ahead of today's. It wouldn't get dark until 10 pm in the middle of summer.

WhoTF needs to get up to light at 5 am. Almost nobody, that's who. And for those few who have to feed the pigs at five in the morning, well, those pigs don't go by a clock, they go by the sun, so they'll be waking up at six like normal pigs always have and they'll be very happy about that.

Seriously, keep the two-tiered Standard/DaylightSavings time system and just push the entire year-round clock ahead one hour.

[Blue_In_AK]

37. Try living in Alaska.

You can put a telescope out at 2:00 in the morning here in the summer and not see any stars. This state, at least, would do better without ANY daylight savings, as far as I'm concerned. If they extended it into the winter, the sun wouldn't come up until 11:30 a.m.

[Tactical Progressive]

38. DST marks the end of winter & the beginning of spring for me

The March 21 equinox is just the two-minute (two-week) warning.

Standard Time is such a mismatch to normal human activity in this day and age.

Give me Daylight Savings Time, and then some (see above).