Sunday, March 8, 2009

Daylight Savings Time 2

I missed it.... again. This time only be a few hours after I got up. Spent the whole day trying to think of a practical joke I could play on my kids as they were oblivious as well. Should have changed all the clocks while they were in a room without one ... or something. DAMMIT!!! Ah well. Finally just fessed up and said, guess what, the day's over an hour early. heh heh. oops.


This post
by XO is brilliant (as per usual) and I'm resposting it here. Because it's funny, true, and a great read. Copying the pictures and uploading them was a real bitch, but worth it.

And now I give you Xavier Onassis Guest Blogger Extraordinaire.
~~~~~~~
Daylight Savings Time They Have
It Exactly Ass Backwards



This illogical, poorly reasoned pustule of a subject has been festering within me for a long time (you're already scared to read anymore, aitcha?).

The final straw came when my friend Satyavati incredulously pasted a post from some Arkansas chucklehead who said the following:


Daylight exacerbates warning (sic)

You may have noticed that March of this year was particularly hot. As a matter of fact, I understand that it was the hottest March since the beginning of the last century. All of the trees were fully leafed out and legions of bugs and snakes were crawling around during a time in Arkansas when, on a normal year, we might see a snowflake or two. This should come as no surprise to any reasonable person. As you know, Daylight Saving Time started almost a month early this year. You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. Or did they ? Perhaps this is another plot by a liberal Congress to make us believe that global warming is a real threat. Perhaps next time there should be serious studies performed before Congress passes laws with such far-reaching effects.

~ CONNIE M. MESKIMEN / Hot Springs


I was as stunned by the sheer idiocy of these comments as Satyavati was.

Ms. Meskimen's "reasoning" is ridiculous.

We all know the number of daylight hours vs. nighttime hours doesn't change because of the way we set our clocks. It is governed by earth's orbit around the sun and the tilt of earth's axis.




No legislation can change that.

However.

I have long contended that the economic justifications for daylight savings time are completely bogus and the result is exactly the opposite of what was intended.

Stick with me here.

The original justification for "extending" the daylight hours by moving the clock forward an hour was to save energy costs.


"In general, energy use and the demand for electricity for lighting our homes is directly connected to when we go to bed and when we get up. Bedtime for most of us is late evening through the year. When we go to bed, we turn off the lights and TV.

In the average home, 25 percent of all the electricity we use is for lighting and small appliances, such as TVs, VCRs and stereos. A good percentage of energy consumed by lighting and appliances occurs in the evening when families are home. By moving the clock ahead one hour, we can cut the amount of electricity we consume each day.

Studies done in the 1970s by the U.S. Department of Transportation show that we trim the entire country's electricity usage by about one percent EACH DAY with Daylight Saving Time.

Daylight Saving Time "makes" the sun "set" one hour later and therefore reduces the period between sunset and bedtime by one hour. This means that less electricity would be used for lighting and appliances late in the day. We may use a bit more electricity in the morning because it is darker when we rise, but that is usually offset by the energy savings in the evening.

We also use less electricity because we are home fewer hours during the "longer" days of spring and summer. Most people plan outdoor activities in the extra daylight hours. When we are not at home, we don't turn on the appliances and lights. A poll done by the U.S. Department of Transportation indicated that Americans liked Daylight Saving Time because "there is more light in the evenings / can do more in the evenings."


Bull. Fucking. Shit.

This line of reasoning assumes that the majority of Americans think "OH, I'm off work and it's as bright as a fucking laser shining directly in my eyes! It's hotter than a goddamned white dwarf star! It's as humid as Satan's crotch in a pair of leather pants! I don't want to go home and relax after a torturous day of taking un-lubed dick up the ass for some else's enrichment! I'm not anxious to brush and gargle the taste of corporate cock out of my mouth, have a couple of drinks and watch some mindless HDTV. Let me get out there and engage in activities with large crowds of closely packed, smelly, sweaty people I don't know and DO STUFF! It's summer! Yippee!"

That's ridiculous.

That's just stupid!

For people like me, that means that I am hunkered down at home with the AC cranked to the max, lights on, watching TV all evening until it cools down enough to go outside and do something without sweating like a whore in church! Under the fascist daylight savings time regime, that's around 9:30pm!

If it started getting dark and cooling off an hour earlier, at 8:30 like a hypothetical, non-existent, god intended, I would be shutting that stuff off and getting out of the house an hour earlier.

So instead of sheltering from the heat at maximum AC for 4 hours after work, I'd only be doing it for 3 hours.

THAT would save energy and money!

I think they have it exactly backwards.





In the winter, on regular time, it's getting dark by 5:30pm. You are barely home from work and it's night time. That's depressing.

They should move the clocks forward in the winter! That would help equalize the drastic difference between summer and winter.

Instead of a four hour differential (5:30/9:30) between the onset of darkness between the seasons, there would only be a two hour differential (6:30/8:30).

Doesn't that make more sense than adding emphasis to the cold, dark depression of winter and the endless, blazing heat and humidity of summer?

Seriously, people.

Isn't reducing holiday season suicides in the dead of winter more important than giving pop-collared douche bags more time to ogle tits-gone-wild at the party cove during the summer?







Christ, I just re-read that last sentence. Of course it isn't! Duh! What the fuck was I thinking?

Never mind.

Who wants beads? WOO HOO! FREE BIRD! FREE BIRD!



~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thank you XO!!

And now back to our regularly scheduled blogging.

10 comments:

Xavier Onassis said...

Thanks for the re-post!

LUMI!

There's a thaw a comin'! :)

Green-Eyed Momster said...

We don't participate here in Arizona but the time clock at work is on corporate time so I clocked in and out and hour late today.
Crazy huh?
At least the new South Park episodes will be on at a decent hour now!!

Hugs!!

Fiery said...

Lum2 XO!!!! Check out the severe weather alert for my area...

...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 7 PM CDT THIS
EVENING...
...BLIZZARD WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM TUESDAY MORNING THROUGH
WEDNESDAY MORNING...

A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW REMAINS IN
EFFECT UNTIL 7 PM CDT THIS EVENING. A BLIZZARD WATCH REMAINS IN
EFFECT FROM TUESDAY MORNING THROUGH WEDNESDAY MORNING.

SNOW WILL OCCUR ALONG AND AROUND 30 MILES EITHER SIDE OF A LINE
FROM VALLEY CITY TO BAUDETTE TODAY. A BRIEF PERIOD OF FREEZING
RAIN IS POSSIBLE DURING THE EARLY MORNING HOURS BEFORE CHANGING
OVER TO SNOW. 3 TO 5 INCHES ARE EXPECTED ACROSS THIS AREA BY THE
EVENING HOURS. WINDS WILL INCREASE FROM THE NORTH...CAUSING SOME
BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW IN OPEN COUNTRY.

A MAJOR WINTER STORM WILL BRING A SECOND ROUND OF SNOW TUESDAY
THROUGH TUESDAY NIGHT. 6 TO 12 INCHES OF SNOW ARE POSSIBLE WITH
THIS SECOND SYSTEM. NORTH WINDS ARE ALSO EXPECTED TO INCREASE TO
25 TO 35 MPH WITH GUSTS TO 50 MPH FROM TUESDAY THROUGH TUESDAY
NIGHT. THE COMBINATION OF WIND AND SNOW SHOULD RESULT IN BLIZZARD
CONDITIONS FROM TUESDAY THROUGH TUESDAY NIGHT. WIND CHILLS
TUESDAY INTO TUESDAY NIGHT ARE EXPECTED TO FALL TO DANGEROUS
LEVELS OF 30 TO 40 BELOW ZERO.

A BLIZZARD WATCH MEANS THERE IS A POTENTIAL FOR FALLING AND/OR
BLOWING SNOW WITH STRONG WINDS AND EXTREMELY POOR VISIBILITIES.
THIS CAN LEAD TO WHITEOUT CONDITIONS AND MAKE TRAVEL VERY
DANGEROUS.

A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW MEANS THAT
VISIBILITIES WILL BE LIMITED DUE TO A COMBINATION OF FALLING AND
BLOWING SNOW. USE CAUTION WHEN TRAVELING...ESPECIALLY IN OPEN
AREAS.

Not shouting folks, that's the National Weather Advisory boardy commissiony people with the beep beep on tv.

Tracey- YAY for South Park! :D My brother's in AZ. Wonder what he thinks of the lack of DST?

Green-Eyed Momster said...

Yikes! Hope the blizzard misses you!

Hugs!!

Anonymous said...

Yikes, sounds like a nasty blizzard, better "batten down the hatches".

we've had extended daylight saving this year, I think it finishes last weekend this month?

Sean Wright said...

Fiery,

your thoughts are required here http://www.atheistrev.com/2009/03/atheist-homeschooling.html

Fiery said...

Sean and Pompotous (who also sent me an invite and the link). Thanks for the heads up guys! I read Vjack's blog post and I don't think my thoughts on it are what he is looking for. Appreciate you thinking of me though! :D

Harry Nads said...

That letter to the editor from Connie is a sarcastic letter to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He (yes, Connie is a he) is a lawyer in Hot Springs who frequently writes sarcastic leeters to the editor. Quite funny, really.
Here is a snopes link about the letter: http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/daylight.asp

Fiery said...

Hey Harry!!! Was wondering if you still popped in on the odd occassion. The scary thing about "pretending to be a whack-job" is it is very difficult to tell the difference between the posers and losers. There are people out there genuinely that stupid.. The tip off should have been that they probably are not smart enough to write a letter to the editor.

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